6 ms·

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, mor

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/
- tenpies 4y ago
  Indeed, the relative numbers are a complete misrepresentation of the image. You need to see nominal viewers to understand just how absolutely crushing Fox News' dominance has been, not just of CNN, but of all the Leftist media. The second most viewed news source (and most viewed Leftist one) isn't even CNN any more, it's been MSNBC for a while now: https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-network-viewership-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-networ... And it has continued to get worst for the Leftist mainstream media.
  - ziddoap 4y ago
    If there's something important in that link, can you write it out? I cannot view "premium" statistics. >You need to see nominal viewers to understand just how absolutely crushing Fox News' dominance has been Nominal viewers does seem really important to determine dominance. I'm not sure it's as important in the context of the project here, though. The numbers I quoted only seem to matter with respect to how the news sources were initially selected, not the actual analysis being done. I guess that stat does suggest they should compare Fox to MSNBC rather than CNN.
- timbit42 4y ago
  It's interesting that CNN's website has more than double the website visits as FoxNews's website does. * CNN.com: 524 million * NYtimes.com: 449.9m * FoxNews.com: 263m * WashingtonPost.com: 156.9m * CNBC.com: 144.5m * NYPost.com: 119.6m * Forbes.com: 85.7m * USAToday.com: 85.5m * BusinessInsider.com: 80.7m * NPR.org: 76.6m Source: SimilarWeb.com
  - chrismeller 4y ago
    Well CNN has quite a viewership internationally - Fox not so much.
  - raydev 4y ago
    I'll make a wild guess and say that Fox News's audience trends much older. And as sibling comment says, CNN is well known internationally.
  - wdr1 4y ago
    On the other hand, more people watch Fox News than CNN & MSNBC combined. https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-june-27-basic-cable-ranker-fox-news-is-no-1-in-total-viewers-and-among-adults-25-54/510429/ https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-june-27-basic-cable-...
Spellman 4y ago
Because they're the two biggest news sources?
- egberts1 4y ago
  Combined? Nope. CNN is chronically last. FoxNews is invariably first.
  - blowski 4y ago
    On websites, CNN is 4th (43%), Fox is 8th (40%). https://today.yougov.com/ratings/media/popularity/news-websites/all https://today.yougov.com/ratings/media/popularity/news-websi... On TV (amongst the big three news channels), Fox is first, then NBC, then CNN. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/124-cable-channels-ranked-average-193000903.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/124-cable-channels-ranke... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(American_television) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(American_television...
    - timbit42 4y ago
      MSNBC and CNN together are almost as big as FoxNews.
    - egberts1 4y ago
      YouGov is an opt-in opinion taker. Furthermore, opt-in is not a conservative trait hence its inherent bias in favor of those who participate actively to the YouGov data farm.
      - blowski 4y ago
        What data are you relying on instead?
        egberts1 4y ago
        What YouGov About is describing about their collection methods.
kenjackson 4y ago
What are good news sources? I guarantee you that for any news source you pick, there are people who will argue that it is crappy and/or biased.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  > What are good news sources? I wish I had an answer. Good news sources are usually a case of: I know it when I see it. Once you read enough you can tell good shit from bad shit. Shows depth of knowledge, rigor, both sides (if there is an actual legitimate other side), a slant toward neutral verbiage, according to <reputable source>..., <reputable source> reports ..., etc. I wish this could be passed on to others. Good news sources have "it" I think there is such an massive sea of information that you can tell any story you want with cherry-picking and aggressive call to action flame-bait verbiage.
  - Enk1du 4y ago
    My news-savy neighbour's strategy was to combine several sources, Channel 4[0], Al Jazeera, <can't remember> and sheepishly, RT (this was mid-2000's). He rationalised the last one as not being a reliable source, but as a way of seeing what others weren't covering. Al Jazeera is great for anything outside Qatar's interest and their early days included actually talking to real Israelis which was something not seen in most of the Middle East at that time. It's much better if you can get an outside perspective. The right wing papers in the UK were selling Brexit as the sunlit uplands. The leading right wing paper in Canada, the Globe & Mail, called Brexit the height of stupidity. Judge for yourself which sources were better. Double down on external sources with that second language that you've been meaning to learn. Lazy propaganda doesn't cross language barriers very well, so it stands out - almost as much as promoted content in English on a non-English Reddit sub. (but first, learn the words for "wounded" and "killed" as they are in half the headlines) Sources change, too. The BBC used to strive for impartiality. Now, their national news spouts the government line, but the regional news hasn't got the memo and regularly runs critical pieces. I think the World Service is still it's own unit. [0] https://www.channel4.com/news/ https://www.channel4.com/news/
  - 4y ago
cato_the_elder 4y ago
The point is that they are both very popular [1] (and hence influential), no matter our opinion about them. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-network-viewership-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-networ...
jollybean 4y ago
CNN is not a crappy news source. It's mostly above board, if biased. The non-opinion parts of Fox are not that bad but it's more rare. My bet is they are looking at headline coverage both news and opinion. I think this is a really worthy excercise so that we can see a bit more methodologically what kind of bias happens with selective coverage. The tone and content of the coverage matters a lot. Almost all of the editorial is bad on all sides. They have some insight, but it's so biased you have to hear other people talk in order to contextualize it.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  In my past experience, CNN has not been very transparent in terms of admitting its bias, which is very much apparent to the average news viewer. I am not sure that anyone in the US other than a few highly sheltered democrats, who get their news only from left-leaning sources, still believes that it is "the most trusted name in news." Incidentally, I actually think MSNBC, which admits to being a left-leaning news source, produces better (and less biased) news content than CNN. I have actually seen them cover important stories that are unfavorable to their point of view, when CNN has radio silence.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > It's mostly above board, if biased. Above board does not equate with quality. CNN is pretty crap compared to most big print newspapers.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    Above Board definitely correlates with quality, because it implies truthiness, which is obviously a key consideration. CNN is a broadcast news channel that covers things as they happen, not a newspaper where they write articles as long as they like. So you'd compare it to MSNBC and Fox and possibly Network News, not news papers.
    - BeetleB 4y ago
      > Above Board definitely correlates with quality, because it implies truthiness, which is obviously a key consideration. It is one of many factors. You can have a news source that is 100% accurate and virtually useless. > CNN is a broadcast news channel that covers things as they happen, not a newspaper where they write articles as long as they like. > So you'd compare it to MSNBC and Fox and possibly Network News, not news papers. Depends on your goals. If you want relevant and accurate, then print is better. If you want breaking news as soon as it happens and can't wait a day - sure, TV news is better (still worse than radio). In my experience, less than 1% of TV news content is needed by 99% of Americans on the same day it occurs. They're not worse off if they find out the next day. On top of that, a lot of "breaking news" is riddled with errors and speculation. If you want to know what happened, as opposed to what may have happened, it's simpler to wait. When I was a news addict, I was drowning with too much content. I put limits on myself: Once a month I would catch up with the news feeds (could take over a week to do so), and it quickly became obvious how relatively worthless "early" news was. I'd get all the relevant information by reading a fifth of the articles.

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/
tenpies 4y ago
Indeed, the relative numbers are a complete misrepresentation of the image. You need to see nominal viewers to understand just how absolutely crushing Fox News' dominance has been, not just of CNN, but of all the Leftist media. The second most viewed news source (and most viewed Leftist one) isn't even CNN any more, it's been MSNBC for a while now: https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-network-viewership-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-networ... And it has continued to get worst for the Leftist mainstream media.
- ziddoap 4y ago
  If there's something important in that link, can you write it out? I cannot view "premium" statistics. >You need to see nominal viewers to understand just how absolutely crushing Fox News' dominance has been Nominal viewers does seem really important to determine dominance. I'm not sure it's as important in the context of the project here, though. The numbers I quoted only seem to matter with respect to how the news sources were initially selected, not the actual analysis being done. I guess that stat does suggest they should compare Fox to MSNBC rather than CNN.
timbit42 4y ago
It's interesting that CNN's website has more than double the website visits as FoxNews's website does. * CNN.com: 524 million * NYtimes.com: 449.9m * FoxNews.com: 263m * WashingtonPost.com: 156.9m * CNBC.com: 144.5m * NYPost.com: 119.6m * Forbes.com: 85.7m * USAToday.com: 85.5m * BusinessInsider.com: 80.7m * NPR.org: 76.6m Source: SimilarWeb.com
- chrismeller 4y ago
  Well CNN has quite a viewership internationally - Fox not so much.
- raydev 4y ago
  I'll make a wild guess and say that Fox News's audience trends much older. And as sibling comment says, CNN is well known internationally.
- wdr1 4y ago
  On the other hand, more people watch Fox News than CNN & MSNBC combined. https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-june-27-basic-cable-ranker-fox-news-is-no-1-in-total-viewers-and-among-adults-25-54/510429/ https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-june-27-basic-cable-...

Spellman 4y ago

Because they're the two biggest news sources?

egberts1 4y ago
Combined? Nope. CNN is chronically last. FoxNews is invariably first.
- blowski 4y ago
  On websites, CNN is 4th (43%), Fox is 8th (40%). https://today.yougov.com/ratings/media/popularity/news-websites/all https://today.yougov.com/ratings/media/popularity/news-websi... On TV (amongst the big three news channels), Fox is first, then NBC, then CNN. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/124-cable-channels-ranked-average-193000903.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/124-cable-channels-ranke... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(American_television) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(American_television...
  - timbit42 4y ago
    MSNBC and CNN together are almost as big as FoxNews.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    YouGov is an opt-in opinion taker. Furthermore, opt-in is not a conservative trait hence its inherent bias in favor of those who participate actively to the YouGov data farm.
    - blowski 4y ago
      What data are you relying on instead?
      - egberts1 4y ago
        What YouGov About is describing about their collection methods.

kenjackson 4y ago

What are good news sources? I guarantee you that for any news source you pick, there are people who will argue that it is crappy and/or biased.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
> What are good news sources? I wish I had an answer. Good news sources are usually a case of: I know it when I see it. Once you read enough you can tell good shit from bad shit. Shows depth of knowledge, rigor, both sides (if there is an actual legitimate other side), a slant toward neutral verbiage, according to <reputable source>..., <reputable source> reports ..., etc. I wish this could be passed on to others. Good news sources have "it" I think there is such an massive sea of information that you can tell any story you want with cherry-picking and aggressive call to action flame-bait verbiage.
- Enk1du 4y ago
  My news-savy neighbour's strategy was to combine several sources, Channel 4[0], Al Jazeera, <can't remember> and sheepishly, RT (this was mid-2000's). He rationalised the last one as not being a reliable source, but as a way of seeing what others weren't covering. Al Jazeera is great for anything outside Qatar's interest and their early days included actually talking to real Israelis which was something not seen in most of the Middle East at that time. It's much better if you can get an outside perspective. The right wing papers in the UK were selling Brexit as the sunlit uplands. The leading right wing paper in Canada, the Globe & Mail, called Brexit the height of stupidity. Judge for yourself which sources were better. Double down on external sources with that second language that you've been meaning to learn. Lazy propaganda doesn't cross language barriers very well, so it stands out - almost as much as promoted content in English on a non-English Reddit sub. (but first, learn the words for "wounded" and "killed" as they are in half the headlines) Sources change, too. The BBC used to strive for impartiality. Now, their national news spouts the government line, but the regional news hasn't got the memo and regularly runs critical pieces. I think the World Service is still it's own unit. [0] https://www.channel4.com/news/ https://www.channel4.com/news/
- 4y ago

cato_the_elder 4y ago

The point is that they are both very popular [1] (and hence influential), no matter our opinion about them. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-network-viewership-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-networ...

jollybean 4y ago

CNN is not a crappy news source. It's mostly above board, if biased. The non-opinion parts of Fox are not that bad but it's more rare. My bet is they are looking at headline coverage both news and opinion. I think this is a really worthy excercise so that we can see a bit more methodologically what kind of bias happens with selective coverage. The tone and content of the coverage matters a lot. Almost all of the editorial is bad on all sides. They have some insight, but it's so biased you have to hear other people talk in order to contextualize it.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
In my past experience, CNN has not been very transparent in terms of admitting its bias, which is very much apparent to the average news viewer. I am not sure that anyone in the US other than a few highly sheltered democrats, who get their news only from left-leaning sources, still believes that it is "the most trusted name in news." Incidentally, I actually think MSNBC, which admits to being a left-leaning news source, produces better (and less biased) news content than CNN. I have actually seen them cover important stories that are unfavorable to their point of view, when CNN has radio silence.
BeetleB 4y ago
> It's mostly above board, if biased. Above board does not equate with quality. CNN is pretty crap compared to most big print newspapers.
- jollybean 4y ago
  Above Board definitely correlates with quality, because it implies truthiness, which is obviously a key consideration. CNN is a broadcast news channel that covers things as they happen, not a newspaper where they write articles as long as they like. So you'd compare it to MSNBC and Fox and possibly Network News, not news papers.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    > Above Board definitely correlates with quality, because it implies truthiness, which is obviously a key consideration. It is one of many factors. You can have a news source that is 100% accurate and virtually useless. > CNN is a broadcast news channel that covers things as they happen, not a newspaper where they write articles as long as they like. > So you'd compare it to MSNBC and Fox and possibly Network News, not news papers. Depends on your goals. If you want relevant and accurate, then print is better. If you want breaking news as soon as it happens and can't wait a day - sure, TV news is better (still worse than radio). In my experience, less than 1% of TV news content is needed by 99% of Americans on the same day it occurs. They're not worse off if they find out the next day. On top of that, a lot of "breaking news" is riddled with errors and speculation. If you want to know what happened, as opposed to what may have happened, it's simpler to wait. When I was a news addict, I was drowning with too much content. I put limits on myself: Once a month I would catch up with the news feeds (could take over a week to do so), and it quickly became obvious how relatively worthless "early" news was. I'd get all the relevant information by reading a fifth of the articles.