10 ms·

How does Fox vs. CNN compare in topic/event coverage over the last week?

34 points by rohankshir 4y ago

HPsquared 4y ago
Not to accuse the author of bias, but surely are there must have been some topics covered by CNN that Fox didn't?
- ajross 4y ago
  The point is more that Fox will routinely elevate issues that aren't really "news" in a traditional sense to major "stories", either to fill time[1] or to make a partisan argument. The IRS funding is a great example here. The IRA bill indeed increases funding for the Internal Revenue Service by something like 30%. This would be reasonable content to include in a print article, say, of the kind of bureaucratic funding decision that happens thousands of times every year. But Fox went almost wall-to-wall on it, with partisan guest after partisan guest claiming absurd things about "87000 armed agents coming after your money". That's not news. It's just not. Edit to add: and CNN, really, just doesn't do that. If there's a breaking story that's embarassing to democrats, they run it. They're journalists, it's what they're trained to do. Surely the jouranlists and editors have opinions and perspectives about what's important, but it doesn't rise to the level of "newsworthiness" decisions. They cover what breaks, for the most part. [1] i.e. "Avoid covering other stuff". That ridiculous Elvis story they were running was, essentially, counterprogramming the revelations about the FBI raid for which there was still no consensus republican response. They couldn't put a talking head on the screen to "explain" it, so they ran some irrelevant nonsense instead of covering breaking news.
  - blowski 4y ago
    Your own bias is showing. Fox watchers would say something like "it's just a witchhunt, and it found nothing" or "climate change is a big fat nothingburger". (I personally don't believe that!)
    - timeon 4y ago
      Can you be more specific?
      - blowski 4y ago
        More specific about...?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - amscanne 4y ago
    Increasing funding for enforcement for the IRS is something that I personally feel is a good thing, but I think it’s fair to cover it in light of the fact that it seems to be colored by politics, like so much else. Why on earth would the Democrats pronounce that it won’t be used to audit anywhere earning less than $400k? As an extension of the anti-rich rhetoric, it’s no longer a simple “bureaucratic funding decision” and should be covered/discussed. (Not that I fully agree with the tone or manner of coverage, but you can’t claim that it’s not news.)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ajross 4y ago
      I keep bouncing around on how to respond to this. But really you have this exactly backwards: you think we should pay more attention to a subject (i.e. dedicate our limited "news" bandwidth to understanding it) because political actors want us to think it's important. And, no, I think that's exactly backwards. The fact that one side is predicting tax armageddon and the other is explaining that it only soaks the rich is an easy cue that this is not a subject with any real truth to it, because if there were then there would be simple answers and not spin. And there is a simple answer, and it's that "The IRS got a moderate funding bump in this bill". And that simple answer is all I need. And it's all you should need too. The only people who want more coverage of the subject are the ones trying to change your mind about it (or reinforce your priors). And those are the people you should be listening to the least.
      - amscanne 4y ago
        Nothing in my comment prescribes who or what you should pay attention to. First you’re bothered by what networks are covering. Then I explain why these topics may be interesting. So then you say I’m backwards because I shouldn’t pay attention to what they are covering. Good grief: why are you bothering to complain about what they’re covering in the first place? Isn’t your first comment backwards for the exact same reason?
  - 18amxn18 4y ago
- s3r3nity 4y ago
  I think I’m more intrigued by topics that are suspiciously absent from BOTH sources. E.g. it is surprisingly difficult to find any TV news coverage of the wild macroeconomic trends going on with China’s banking and real-estate sector at the moment. Also: Epstein trial follow-ups; Ghislaine Maxwell living it up after a guilty verdict. Remember when Bill Gates and many other leaders/ politicians were found to have a _paper trail_ of their involvement with Epstein??
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    I don't think people give a care about China at this point because things are so bad at home. There's really no obvious way that this affects Americans, so why bother talking about it? Plus, the crisis in China has been going on for so long at this point that it's turned into olds. Same with the other stuff you mentioned: there's nothing really new or interesting with that.
    - BeetleB 4y ago
      > There's really no obvious way that this affects Americans, so why bother talking about it? Looking at cnn.com right now, I see stuff like: > Finnish PM says videos of her 'boisterous' partying shouldn't have been made public > Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s 2016 plane incident: FBI report reveals new details I know nothing about the Chinese real estate market, but somehow I feel confident that it will affect more Americans than these two stories combined will. > Plus, the crisis in China has been going on for so long at this point that it's turned into olds. So has the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, yet it still makes big news.
  - drewcoo 4y ago
    Or omissions from both in what they covered. IIRC, the unfortunately-named IRA won't kick in for four years, only helps people on Medicaid, and makes drug prices worse for other programs. It was clearly written in a way to help big pharma and not the little people. And that ought to piss off any CNN or Fox viewer. Instead, they show versions of the story to trigger their bases.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  1. They only covered a week. 2. I think the notion of "X didn't cover something" is heavily biased, maybe not in this case where they're looking at data, but I have a very news-angry friend who sends me stuff like that all the time like 15 minutes after I read about it on the NYTimes. Maybe it's not on the front page, maybe it's not "what people are talking about" but it's often there, but people want other people not just to cover it but for it to have an impact and for people to be mad about it. Lab leak is a great example I think of something everyone is made that "never got covered" but of course it got covered. At different times, to different degrees, with different angles and emphasis, but just search google for "lab leak NYTimes" and it's there all over the place. Is it as in-depth as people want it to be? Probably not, and that's where you get into conspiracy realm, because there's no actual data to follow as to why, just speculation.
rdxm 4y ago
BeetleB 4y ago
I know this will come across as a bit of flame-bait, but: What is the point in comparing two crappy news sources? Neither is worth spending time on. Also, more on-point: Are they looking only at news, or are they including opinion?
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  Because they are among the most popular sources thus it’s useful to see how they differ. Similarly, knowing how different sources cover things presumably is part of the criteria one would use to qualify/disqualify them for personal consumption.
- ziddoap 4y ago
  >60% of Republicans turn to Fox News for political news and 53% of Democrats turn to CNN It'd be nice to see comparisons of all the news networks, but if you're going to start somewhere it seems like the two which have the majority of viewers seems appropriate.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    It doesn't provide much useful info. That one item is much crappier than another crappy item is not very helpful information.
    - ziddoap 4y ago
      >That one item is much crappier than another crappy item is not very helpful information. How is it not? If my options are crap, crappy, super crap and super-extra-duper crap... It seems helpful to know which one is the least crappy. As an aside, are you willing to share which news station you don't put in the crap bucket?
      - BeetleB 4y ago
        > How is it not? If my options are crap, crappy, super crap and super-extra-duper crap... It seems helpful to know which one is the least crappy. It's also helpful to know that they are all crappy, which this didn't show. This is a relative study. If instead they set up some reasonable objective criteria and ranked each news sources according to it, that would be useful. I may see that CNN scores only 20%, and Fox News scores only 10%. Yes, CNN would be better, but it would also tell me not to waste time on either. > As an aside, are you willing to share which news station you don't put in the crap bucket? I was a news junkie a decade ago, and weaned myself off of it. Things have likely changed since those years so it would be hard to suggest some now - I've heard sources like The Guardian have gone downhill, for example. In general, print sources are way better. Even a mediocre print source tends to be better than almost all video/TV news. Radio is somewhere in between. McClatchy DC[1] was one resource I would recommend in those days. It's a "general purpose" news organization and one of the few mainstream publications that often covered items neglected by the rest. Most hadn't heard of it, but the parent organization owns several well known print newspapers. I see they filed for bankruptcy in 2020. I don't know if they've been able to maintain the quality. As much as I dislike the NY Times, it's still way ahead of CNN/Fox/MSNBC. [1] https://www.mcclatchydc.com/ https://www.mcclatchydc.com/
kenjackson 4y ago
It's disappointing, but just a fact of life now, that people will see the world so differently. People have always had differing politics, but there was a semblance of a baseline. I feel like we need a generation that strikes out against the notion of identity altogether (as I think identity is a core part of the issue), but that already feels like an identity in itself.
- Razengan 4y ago
  How else will I set myself apart from other people while also showing that any people are on my side?
- wbsss4412 4y ago
  Do you have particular examples of identity being a core part of the issue? I see people complain about identity politics all the time, but when it comes down to it, the individual issues that fall under that umbrella are things that people deeply care about and can’t just be dismissed.
  - Swizec 4y ago
    People voting D or R because that’s their tribe rather than because they want those policies is an example. I know a lot of people who vote without even really reading what’s on the ballot. They just go with whatever option has D next to it. Others do the same but for R. Personally I can’t vote so it’s mostly an interesting phenomenon to observe
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      I feel like calling that “identity” muddles the term, as identity politics generally refers to categories like race and gender, and maps to feelings on issues such as abortion and the Black Lives Matter movement. To attempt to be helpful, I’d suggest that what you’re referring to is more of an issue of uber partisanship than identity per se.
      - deleted 4y ago
mywittyname 4y ago
I "really hate" how some "news" sites like to, "quote excessively" in headlines. If you want to call some nonsense, or a bold face lie, have the damn courage to just call it that. Don't air-quoting some nebulous entity to make it sound more official.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  Journalists have done this for centuries. They're making it clear that they're reporting that someone else said that, and it's not the journalist's words.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  It's to deflect liability? If you are quoting someone, you aren't the one who could be sued.
  - Victerius 4y ago
    Politician calls bill "horrible" Vs. Politician calls bill horrible
    - blowski 4y ago
      "Politican" calls bill horrible.
    - secondcoming 4y ago
      In the first, the politician actually uses the word ‘horrible’ and so it’s quoted. In the second, the headline writer is giving their opinion/spin.
- secondcoming 4y ago
  Oh no. Is that really why you think people use quotes, or are you trolling? I hope you are.
  - mywittyname 4y ago
LesZedCB 4y ago
i'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent You only need to read the first chapter, which is about 30 pages, to see the arguments. the rest of the book is example and analysis.
- cmroanirgo 4y ago
  I wish everyone knew about Edward Bernays, nephew of Freud, and father of modern propaganda, aka public relations, aka marketing.¹² It's a real eye opener to be able to notice when you're being manipulated (often emotionally) by the others, including family and friends. The media and ad industries have been playing us for years. It lets you reevaluate where you stand as opposed to where you think you stand. I went through a period of outrage, violation & hate while learning this, but came out with a lot more calm & acceptance as a result. I haven't had a TV in 10 years & find it really irritating to watch bc of the way you're unnaturally enticed to resonate for or against whatever is being presented (note, I still do watch some movies). I think it's in everyone's best interests to learn to be in control ones own mind, free of manipulation. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays ² https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393 https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- john-tells-all 4y ago
  video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
- bm3719 4y ago
  I had a long-untouched copy laying around and read this chapter on your suggestion. There's definitely some good info in here if you haven't been exposed to these ideas. However, I'd probably review Ch. 1 as a mixed bag overall. A good chunk of it is out of date info-dumps about the state of the industry 30-40 years ago. That said, its central thesis of media we consume being largely propaganda (and necessarily so, given the reasons provided) is certainly still true. I think one could filter and update these points, however, to make them more accurate to the current state of affairs and thus make more compelling of an argument.
mjmsmith 4y ago
From the first post, https://topdown.substack.com/i/47912680/bias https://topdown.substack.com/i/47912680/bias Let’s take a recent that has skewed coverage and is likely to be a split topic, such as Disney and the Florida “Parental Rights in Education” Bill. Here are some of the headlines from different outlets (Emphasis is mine). CNN article is a short news piece with no external links, not much to see there. Fox article is longer, original headline used the phrase "woke corporations", includes "Disney is bad" external links in case it's not clear enough from the article. NYT article is a clearly labeled op-ed piece, obviously not comparable with the other two. Aligning all of these hot-takes together Not sure if it's the author or his "AI" that thinks comparing all of these as "hot-takes" is a useful activity.
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
The scariest thing about biased news sources is not how they cover something but whether they cover something at all. People who don't tune into multiple will simply have no idea that something even happened. They'll have completely different realities based on their perceptions. Just looking at the graph you can see four whole stories that CNN completely omitted, yet there was nothing that CNN covered that Fox ignored. I'm sure there are weeks where fox ignored something too, but in this data the omissions are one sided. This is why one of my daily bookmarks is https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news If any outlet on either side covers it, I'll see it.
- jedberg 4y ago
  It should be noted that the four stories that CNN didn't cover aren't actually real stories, but are bordering on conspiracy theories.
  - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Given that the wages offered for jobs normally performed by illegal immigrants like transient farm labor are up substantially, the number of illegal immigrants is likely down by quite a bit.
    - jedberg 4y ago
      > The Fentanyl crisis is absolutely a story It's the same story for the last few years. There is no new information. > 2.1 million illegal immigrants projected this year (hundreds of thousands already) is a hell of a story You do realize that's encounters? Meaning enforcement is up. The number of people coming over isn't changing, just how many are getting caught.
      - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
briantakita 4y ago
Both networks require large amounts of capital. Different sides of same dialectics that are important to those who influence large amounts of capital. A better comparison would be independent news sources of individuals against large corporate media.
pupppet 4y ago

34 points by rohankshir 4y ago

HPsquared 4y ago

Not to accuse the author of bias, but surely are there must have been some topics covered by CNN that Fox didn't?

ajross 4y ago
The point is more that Fox will routinely elevate issues that aren't really "news" in a traditional sense to major "stories", either to fill time[1] or to make a partisan argument. The IRS funding is a great example here. The IRA bill indeed increases funding for the Internal Revenue Service by something like 30%. This would be reasonable content to include in a print article, say, of the kind of bureaucratic funding decision that happens thousands of times every year. But Fox went almost wall-to-wall on it, with partisan guest after partisan guest claiming absurd things about "87000 armed agents coming after your money". That's not news. It's just not. Edit to add: and CNN, really, just doesn't do that. If there's a breaking story that's embarassing to democrats, they run it. They're journalists, it's what they're trained to do. Surely the jouranlists and editors have opinions and perspectives about what's important, but it doesn't rise to the level of "newsworthiness" decisions. They cover what breaks, for the most part. [1] i.e. "Avoid covering other stuff". That ridiculous Elvis story they were running was, essentially, counterprogramming the revelations about the FBI raid for which there was still no consensus republican response. They couldn't put a talking head on the screen to "explain" it, so they ran some irrelevant nonsense instead of covering breaking news.
- blowski 4y ago
  Your own bias is showing. Fox watchers would say something like "it's just a witchhunt, and it found nothing" or "climate change is a big fat nothingburger". (I personally don't believe that!)
  - timeon 4y ago
    Can you be more specific?
    - blowski 4y ago
      More specific about...?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- amscanne 4y ago
  Increasing funding for enforcement for the IRS is something that I personally feel is a good thing, but I think it’s fair to cover it in light of the fact that it seems to be colored by politics, like so much else. Why on earth would the Democrats pronounce that it won’t be used to audit anywhere earning less than $400k? As an extension of the anti-rich rhetoric, it’s no longer a simple “bureaucratic funding decision” and should be covered/discussed. (Not that I fully agree with the tone or manner of coverage, but you can’t claim that it’s not news.)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ajross 4y ago
    I keep bouncing around on how to respond to this. But really you have this exactly backwards: you think we should pay more attention to a subject (i.e. dedicate our limited "news" bandwidth to understanding it) because political actors want us to think it's important. And, no, I think that's exactly backwards. The fact that one side is predicting tax armageddon and the other is explaining that it only soaks the rich is an easy cue that this is not a subject with any real truth to it, because if there were then there would be simple answers and not spin. And there is a simple answer, and it's that "The IRS got a moderate funding bump in this bill". And that simple answer is all I need. And it's all you should need too. The only people who want more coverage of the subject are the ones trying to change your mind about it (or reinforce your priors). And those are the people you should be listening to the least.
    - amscanne 4y ago
      Nothing in my comment prescribes who or what you should pay attention to. First you’re bothered by what networks are covering. Then I explain why these topics may be interesting. So then you say I’m backwards because I shouldn’t pay attention to what they are covering. Good grief: why are you bothering to complain about what they’re covering in the first place? Isn’t your first comment backwards for the exact same reason?
- 18amxn18 4y ago
s3r3nity 4y ago
I think I’m more intrigued by topics that are suspiciously absent from BOTH sources. E.g. it is surprisingly difficult to find any TV news coverage of the wild macroeconomic trends going on with China’s banking and real-estate sector at the moment. Also: Epstein trial follow-ups; Ghislaine Maxwell living it up after a guilty verdict. Remember when Bill Gates and many other leaders/ politicians were found to have a _paper trail_ of their involvement with Epstein??
- mywittyname 4y ago
  I don't think people give a care about China at this point because things are so bad at home. There's really no obvious way that this affects Americans, so why bother talking about it? Plus, the crisis in China has been going on for so long at this point that it's turned into olds. Same with the other stuff you mentioned: there's nothing really new or interesting with that.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    > There's really no obvious way that this affects Americans, so why bother talking about it? Looking at cnn.com right now, I see stuff like: > Finnish PM says videos of her 'boisterous' partying shouldn't have been made public > Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s 2016 plane incident: FBI report reveals new details I know nothing about the Chinese real estate market, but somehow I feel confident that it will affect more Americans than these two stories combined will. > Plus, the crisis in China has been going on for so long at this point that it's turned into olds. So has the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, yet it still makes big news.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  Or omissions from both in what they covered. IIRC, the unfortunately-named IRA won't kick in for four years, only helps people on Medicaid, and makes drug prices worse for other programs. It was clearly written in a way to help big pharma and not the little people. And that ought to piss off any CNN or Fox viewer. Instead, they show versions of the story to trigger their bases.
mikkergp 4y ago
1. They only covered a week. 2. I think the notion of "X didn't cover something" is heavily biased, maybe not in this case where they're looking at data, but I have a very news-angry friend who sends me stuff like that all the time like 15 minutes after I read about it on the NYTimes. Maybe it's not on the front page, maybe it's not "what people are talking about" but it's often there, but people want other people not just to cover it but for it to have an impact and for people to be mad about it. Lab leak is a great example I think of something everyone is made that "never got covered" but of course it got covered. At different times, to different degrees, with different angles and emphasis, but just search google for "lab leak NYTimes" and it's there all over the place. Is it as in-depth as people want it to be? Probably not, and that's where you get into conspiracy realm, because there's no actual data to follow as to why, just speculation.

rdxm 4y ago

BeetleB 4y ago

I know this will come across as a bit of flame-bait, but: What is the point in comparing two crappy news sources? Neither is worth spending time on. Also, more on-point: Are they looking only at news, or are they including opinion?

hombre_fatal 4y ago
Because they are among the most popular sources thus it’s useful to see how they differ. Similarly, knowing how different sources cover things presumably is part of the criteria one would use to qualify/disqualify them for personal consumption.
ziddoap 4y ago
>60% of Republicans turn to Fox News for political news and 53% of Democrats turn to CNN It'd be nice to see comparisons of all the news networks, but if you're going to start somewhere it seems like the two which have the majority of viewers seems appropriate.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  It doesn't provide much useful info. That one item is much crappier than another crappy item is not very helpful information.
  - ziddoap 4y ago
    >That one item is much crappier than another crappy item is not very helpful information. How is it not? If my options are crap, crappy, super crap and super-extra-duper crap... It seems helpful to know which one is the least crappy. As an aside, are you willing to share which news station you don't put in the crap bucket?
    - BeetleB 4y ago
      > How is it not? If my options are crap, crappy, super crap and super-extra-duper crap... It seems helpful to know which one is the least crappy. It's also helpful to know that they are all crappy, which this didn't show. This is a relative study. If instead they set up some reasonable objective criteria and ranked each news sources according to it, that would be useful. I may see that CNN scores only 20%, and Fox News scores only 10%. Yes, CNN would be better, but it would also tell me not to waste time on either. > As an aside, are you willing to share which news station you don't put in the crap bucket? I was a news junkie a decade ago, and weaned myself off of it. Things have likely changed since those years so it would be hard to suggest some now - I've heard sources like The Guardian have gone downhill, for example. In general, print sources are way better. Even a mediocre print source tends to be better than almost all video/TV news. Radio is somewhere in between. McClatchy DC[1] was one resource I would recommend in those days. It's a "general purpose" news organization and one of the few mainstream publications that often covered items neglected by the rest. Most hadn't heard of it, but the parent organization owns several well known print newspapers. I see they filed for bankruptcy in 2020. I don't know if they've been able to maintain the quality. As much as I dislike the NY Times, it's still way ahead of CNN/Fox/MSNBC. [1] https://www.mcclatchydc.com/ https://www.mcclatchydc.com/

kenjackson 4y ago

It's disappointing, but just a fact of life now, that people will see the world so differently. People have always had differing politics, but there was a semblance of a baseline. I feel like we need a generation that strikes out against the notion of identity altogether (as I think identity is a core part of the issue), but that already feels like an identity in itself.

Razengan 4y ago
How else will I set myself apart from other people while also showing that any people are on my side?
wbsss4412 4y ago
Do you have particular examples of identity being a core part of the issue? I see people complain about identity politics all the time, but when it comes down to it, the individual issues that fall under that umbrella are things that people deeply care about and can’t just be dismissed.
- Swizec 4y ago
  People voting D or R because that’s their tribe rather than because they want those policies is an example. I know a lot of people who vote without even really reading what’s on the ballot. They just go with whatever option has D next to it. Others do the same but for R. Personally I can’t vote so it’s mostly an interesting phenomenon to observe
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    I feel like calling that “identity” muddles the term, as identity politics generally refers to categories like race and gender, and maps to feelings on issues such as abortion and the Black Lives Matter movement. To attempt to be helpful, I’d suggest that what you’re referring to is more of an issue of uber partisanship than identity per se.
    - deleted 4y ago

mywittyname 4y ago

I "really hate" how some "news" sites like to, "quote excessively" in headlines. If you want to call some nonsense, or a bold face lie, have the damn courage to just call it that. Don't air-quoting some nebulous entity to make it sound more official.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
Journalists have done this for centuries. They're making it clear that they're reporting that someone else said that, and it's not the journalist's words.
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
It's to deflect liability? If you are quoting someone, you aren't the one who could be sued.
- Victerius 4y ago
  Politician calls bill "horrible" Vs. Politician calls bill horrible
  - blowski 4y ago
    "Politican" calls bill horrible.
  - secondcoming 4y ago
    In the first, the politician actually uses the word ‘horrible’ and so it’s quoted. In the second, the headline writer is giving their opinion/spin.
secondcoming 4y ago
Oh no. Is that really why you think people use quotes, or are you trolling? I hope you are.
- mywittyname 4y ago

LesZedCB 4y ago

i'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent You only need to read the first chapter, which is about 30 pages, to see the arguments. the rest of the book is example and analysis.

cmroanirgo 4y ago
I wish everyone knew about Edward Bernays, nephew of Freud, and father of modern propaganda, aka public relations, aka marketing.¹² It's a real eye opener to be able to notice when you're being manipulated (often emotionally) by the others, including family and friends. The media and ad industries have been playing us for years. It lets you reevaluate where you stand as opposed to where you think you stand. I went through a period of outrage, violation & hate while learning this, but came out with a lot more calm & acceptance as a result. I haven't had a TV in 10 years & find it really irritating to watch bc of the way you're unnaturally enticed to resonate for or against whatever is being presented (note, I still do watch some movies). I think it's in everyone's best interests to learn to be in control ones own mind, free of manipulation. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays ² https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393 https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
john-tells-all 4y ago
video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
bm3719 4y ago
I had a long-untouched copy laying around and read this chapter on your suggestion. There's definitely some good info in here if you haven't been exposed to these ideas. However, I'd probably review Ch. 1 as a mixed bag overall. A good chunk of it is out of date info-dumps about the state of the industry 30-40 years ago. That said, its central thesis of media we consume being largely propaganda (and necessarily so, given the reasons provided) is certainly still true. I think one could filter and update these points, however, to make them more accurate to the current state of affairs and thus make more compelling of an argument.

mjmsmith 4y ago

From the first post, https://topdown.substack.com/i/47912680/bias https://topdown.substack.com/i/47912680/bias Let’s take a recent that has skewed coverage and is likely to be a split topic, such as Disney and the Florida “Parental Rights in Education” Bill. Here are some of the headlines from different outlets (Emphasis is mine). CNN article is a short news piece with no external links, not much to see there. Fox article is longer, original headline used the phrase "woke corporations", includes "Disney is bad" external links in case it's not clear enough from the article. NYT article is a clearly labeled op-ed piece, obviously not comparable with the other two. Aligning all of these hot-takes together Not sure if it's the author or his "AI" that thinks comparing all of these as "hot-takes" is a useful activity.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

The scariest thing about biased news sources is not how they cover something but whether they cover something at all. People who don't tune into multiple will simply have no idea that something even happened. They'll have completely different realities based on their perceptions. Just looking at the graph you can see four whole stories that CNN completely omitted, yet there was nothing that CNN covered that Fox ignored. I'm sure there are weeks where fox ignored something too, but in this data the omissions are one sided. This is why one of my daily bookmarks is https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news If any outlet on either side covers it, I'll see it.

jedberg 4y ago
It should be noted that the four stories that CNN didn't cover aren't actually real stories, but are bordering on conspiracy theories.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Given that the wages offered for jobs normally performed by illegal immigrants like transient farm labor are up substantially, the number of illegal immigrants is likely down by quite a bit.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    > The Fentanyl crisis is absolutely a story It's the same story for the last few years. There is no new information. > 2.1 million illegal immigrants projected this year (hundreds of thousands already) is a hell of a story You do realize that's encounters? Meaning enforcement is up. The number of people coming over isn't changing, just how many are getting caught.
    - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

briantakita 4y ago

Both networks require large amounts of capital. Different sides of same dialectics that are important to those who influence large amounts of capital. A better comparison would be independent news sources of individuals against large corporate media.

pupppet 4y ago