4 ms·

This is the natural result of cable news becoming increasingly biased and even outright and completely false and/or misleading. There is almost no tolerance for

by vlucas 3y ago

This is the natural result of cable news becoming increasingly biased and even outright and completely false and/or misleading. There is almost no tolerance for asking even the most basic critical questions of the prevailing narrative or having an honest conversation with dissenters of mainstream views. Watching mainstream news feels increasingly like watching propaganda instead of "news". There is not even an attempt to be fair anymore to all sides of any given issue, and the editorial contempt for the average viewer/reader leaks through much more often than it used to. The natural response from many people is simply to stop watching, and to get their news elsewhere. Thus far, mainstream news networks have not seemed to care or do any introspection at all as to why they are losing so much viewership and credibility.

ethbr1 3y ago
We need to go back to the regulated news model. I.e. when independent news organizations were mandated for broadcast channels. Dry facts. Balanced commentary. They're doing it wrong if it's not boring, because it shouldn't be playing your emotions. If the for-profit sector wants to continue to air partisan-pro-wrestling-masquerading-as-news... fine. But the average viewer/reader needs to have an easily accessible and comprehensive alternative. Most countries have some form of this, but it needs to be recognized as a critical democratic institution in a post-gen-AI world, and funded as such.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Even if this were mandated/accomplished, it still wouldn't solve the coverage bias issue, which is a large part of the problem.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Absolutely, but not-for-profit and for-profit have substantially different starting levels of bias. That not-for-profit still needs to guard against it isn't a reason that we can't immediately improve on the low bar that is for-profit news.
- parineum 3y ago
  > Balanced commentary. This perception of a dichotomy in news is a brain worm that needs to be excised from everyone's mind. What's the "balanced" commentary for something like the JFK assassination, for example? LHO was the lone gunman who shot the president because LHO was a communist. LHO was the lone gunman who shot the president because LHO was crazy. LHO was the lone gunman who shot the president because the CIA paid him to (and then killed him). LHO was a patsie and the president was shot by a second gunman from the grassy knoll because the CIA wanted to invade Cuba. Off the top of my head those are the stories that would need "balanced commentary". News organization don't need to be unbiased and they don't need to be balanced. What they need is a to stop catering to rabid political fanbases who've got involved in the team sport of politics not out of some sense of civic duty to their fellow man but out of loneliness and a need to belong[1]. News organizations are the mirror reflecting us, not the other way around. [1] https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2020/03/20/the_lonely_political_crowd_487105.html https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2020/03/20/the_lone...
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Balanced means making the strongest argument in favor of a position. Or, as the HN guidelines put it: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Balance critically does not mean making disingenuous straw man or strong man arguments to advance a specific agenda. Which is the guise it usually appears in today. E.g. 'parineum is against balance in news because they believe there is one truth and other ideas shouldn't be given merit' vs 'parineum is concerned about the de facto realization of balance as a covering for expressedly partisan viewpoints, themselves stemming from and catering to the polarization of a poorly informed audience' One of those presupposes the answer. The other makes me curious and has multiple answers. Making a bad argument on behalf of a group you dislike isn't balance. Making the strongest argument and debating it is.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- nradov 3y ago
  There was never a regulated news model in the USA. For a while we did have the "Fairness Doctrine" under which the FCC required some radio and TV broadcasters to present balanced viewpoints as a condition of spectrum licenses. But that never applied to print media, cable channels, or online services. If you want non-profit, government funded news then NPR and VOA exist. The quality is generally pretty good, although they're not free of bias either.
marpstar 3y ago
You check CNN, you check Fox News... same story, different spin. Who's correct? Probably neither.
- wharvle 3y ago
  A bigger source of effective (at driving division and getting Your Side riled up) slant isn't when the same story is covered differently, but when an outlet or set of related outlets cover a "story" that evaporates entirely if you fill in basic, deliberately-omitted context. There's not another side to cover, because it's not even a story. Example: I see "[Administration] transporting migrants from the border to cities around the country, in secretive nighttime flights" receiving heavy coverage on a certain news channel (you can probably fill in the gaps here, but I'll leave the specifics out because that's not important for the illustration). Like, it's most of what they're talking about, for the entire hour or so I happen to be in a room with them on the TV, and not during an opinion segment. Quick google: 1) Not secret, 2) Some are at night, but that's just because of, like... flight scheduling, same way some commercial flights are after sundown and others aren't, plenty are during the day, and it's not as if nighttime flights are somehow significantly harder to track than daytime ones or like it's weird for passenger planes to fly at night, so that whole bit was silly to begin with, worst evil plan ever if that was a deliberate part of it (as was implied), and 3) It's part of longstanding, ordinary operation of immigration control, isn't a new thing, and is happening for non-crazy (and certainly not secret) reasons—though one could disagree with them and say something else should be done instead, sure, but that's not how it's being covered, it's being covered as (implicitly) a new program (not new) being carried out for mysterious reasons (not mysterious) in secret (not secret). Is this "story" receiving similar heavy coverage with a different slant on perceived-as-opposing channels? No, the info on it's mostly to be found on simple factual sites that published info on these activities from before it was "a story", and sites dedicated to debunking "fwd: fwd: fwd:" crap, because it's, emphatically, not even news, so how would an ordinary news program cover it? It's simply absent. The less-brazen version of this is to not cover or downplay something that is news but that you'd rather bury but this stuff is... on another level. The "other side" can't provide a different slant, or uncover a story you're hiding, because it's not even a story. (the evolved version of this tactic, of course, is that your opinion-focused programs accuse the "other side" of burying the story and use it as Yet More Evidence that they can't be trusted, which story they can't even responsibly cover because it's made-up, unless their story is to report that you're inventing news) Bonus points that this gives you stuff to talk about if you're the ones trying to avoid a real story that's inconvenient. It's brilliant, really.
breckenedge 3y ago
I think this is a natural consequence when you optimize for eyeballs. It leads to spammy crap that give you whatever it thinks you want to consume. News is now entertainment.
parineum 3y ago
> Thus far, mainstream news networks have not seemed to care or do any introspection at all as to why they are losing so much viewership and credibility. Fox News still tops the basic cable charts. It saw less viewers in 2023 but so did all of cable together. It's unclear to me at all that they are "losing so much viewership" vs. people just leaving cable and getting their news/entertainment elsewhere. I'm sure Fox News's marketing department sees what their cable numbers, streaming numbers and online reader numbers all look like together and I really doubt their style of reporting that got them to where they are today suddenly became irrelevant when everyone else in the industry seems to have followed suit, rather than find success with another strategy. The idea that they've lost viewership and credibility is, imo, wishful thinking on your part.
beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
> The natural response from many people is simply to stop watching, and to get their news elsewhere. I'm sympathetic to your description of mainstream news (which is a bit of a nebulous term, I must admit; "legacy" might be a better description), but, in my experience, the news you get from "elsewhere" is often unabashedly biased. So, is the fall in popularity of mainstream news a result of the lack of neutrality, or because it's not partisan enough? After all, wildly biased news is wildly popular online and mainstream news has to compete. There's a network effect to that. Social media has made the ability to curate one's newsfeed to a degree of ideological specificity that is pretty incredible. Bias sells. Personally, I don't think it's "neutrality" or even "bias" that is the issue with most news these days. A lot of news orgs have simply abdicated themselves from the vital role of journalism in a functioning liberal democracy: accountability. Most people follow the news incessantly but actually know next to nothing about what is actually happening in government or politics. All they get in the news is a slice of a soap-opera instead of insight into governance or politicking, backstage where the sausage is actually made and where crime, graft, negligence, corruption, stupidity, and brazen cruelty in the pursuit of power, is endemic by both parties. Journalism has also become a "status" job that is often only attainable and maintainable as a career by people from elite education or with connections to the industry. You end up with a particular class of people as journalists interacting with politicians or executives or other people from the same class. This leads an effect whenever they try to cover lower class people that is similar to that famous image of Hilary Clinton walking into that small apartment.
- rayiner 3y ago
  > So, is the fall in popularity of mainstream news a result of the lack of neutrality, or because it's not partisan enough? I don’t think those two explanations are at odds with each other. People may prefer listening to a news source that tries to be neutral. But if the reporters can’t hide their personal leanings, they would rather go with a news source where the reporters’ personal leanings agree with their own. Part of this is driven by the increasing polarization of journalists. In 1971, democrats somewhat outnumbered republicans among journalists. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tiny-percentage-american-journalists-republicans-study-finds https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tiny-percentage-american-jo.... By 2022, that ratio is now 10:1 https://ustimesmirror.com/a-tiny-shrinking-percentage-of-american-journalists-are-republicans-study-finds https://ustimesmirror.com/a-tiny-shrinking-percentage-of-ame.... People aren’t stupid. They can tell the difference between someone who is trying to overcome their personal leaning and be neutral, and someone who is so affected by their personal leaning that they can’t even conceal it. People can trust the former person even if they disagree. People can’t trust the latter person.
rayiner 3y ago
Even my dad, who is a blue dog democrat—one of the few people who thought Carter was a great president—has characterized CNN as propaganda” these days. He doesn’t understand why they’re giving Trump so much free airtime, and why they’re trying to convince people the economy is great under Biden. It’s mind blowing to go back and watch CNN from the 1980s: https://youtu.be/T3S6cDpr3j4?si=7Fp-wfR9403_6jw_ https://youtu.be/T3S6cDpr3j4?si=7Fp-wfR9403_6jw_. It was just news, without all these talking heads offering opinion.

by vlucas 3y ago

ethbr1 3y ago

We need to go back to the regulated news model. I.e. when independent news organizations were mandated for broadcast channels. Dry facts. Balanced commentary. They're doing it wrong if it's not boring, because it shouldn't be playing your emotions. If the for-profit sector wants to continue to air partisan-pro-wrestling-masquerading-as-news... fine. But the average viewer/reader needs to have an easily accessible and comprehensive alternative. Most countries have some form of this, but it needs to be recognized as a critical democratic institution in a post-gen-AI world, and funded as such.

gnicholas 3y ago
Even if this were mandated/accomplished, it still wouldn't solve the coverage bias issue, which is a large part of the problem.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Absolutely, but not-for-profit and for-profit have substantially different starting levels of bias. That not-for-profit still needs to guard against it isn't a reason that we can't immediately improve on the low bar that is for-profit news.
parineum 3y ago
> Balanced commentary. This perception of a dichotomy in news is a brain worm that needs to be excised from everyone's mind. What's the "balanced" commentary for something like the JFK assassination, for example? LHO was the lone gunman who shot the president because LHO was a communist. LHO was the lone gunman who shot the president because LHO was crazy. LHO was the lone gunman who shot the president because the CIA paid him to (and then killed him). LHO was a patsie and the president was shot by a second gunman from the grassy knoll because the CIA wanted to invade Cuba. Off the top of my head those are the stories that would need "balanced commentary". News organization don't need to be unbiased and they don't need to be balanced. What they need is a to stop catering to rabid political fanbases who've got involved in the team sport of politics not out of some sense of civic duty to their fellow man but out of loneliness and a need to belong[1]. News organizations are the mirror reflecting us, not the other way around. [1] https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2020/03/20/the_lonely_political_crowd_487105.html https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2020/03/20/the_lone...
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Balanced means making the strongest argument in favor of a position. Or, as the HN guidelines put it: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Balance critically does not mean making disingenuous straw man or strong man arguments to advance a specific agenda. Which is the guise it usually appears in today. E.g. 'parineum is against balance in news because they believe there is one truth and other ideas shouldn't be given merit' vs 'parineum is concerned about the de facto realization of balance as a covering for expressedly partisan viewpoints, themselves stemming from and catering to the polarization of a poorly informed audience' One of those presupposes the answer. The other makes me curious and has multiple answers. Making a bad argument on behalf of a group you dislike isn't balance. Making the strongest argument and debating it is.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
nradov 3y ago
There was never a regulated news model in the USA. For a while we did have the "Fairness Doctrine" under which the FCC required some radio and TV broadcasters to present balanced viewpoints as a condition of spectrum licenses. But that never applied to print media, cable channels, or online services. If you want non-profit, government funded news then NPR and VOA exist. The quality is generally pretty good, although they're not free of bias either.

marpstar 3y ago

You check CNN, you check Fox News... same story, different spin. Who's correct? Probably neither.

wharvle 3y ago
A bigger source of effective (at driving division and getting Your Side riled up) slant isn't when the same story is covered differently, but when an outlet or set of related outlets cover a "story" that evaporates entirely if you fill in basic, deliberately-omitted context. There's not another side to cover, because it's not even a story. Example: I see "[Administration] transporting migrants from the border to cities around the country, in secretive nighttime flights" receiving heavy coverage on a certain news channel (you can probably fill in the gaps here, but I'll leave the specifics out because that's not important for the illustration). Like, it's most of what they're talking about, for the entire hour or so I happen to be in a room with them on the TV, and not during an opinion segment. Quick google: 1) Not secret, 2) Some are at night, but that's just because of, like... flight scheduling, same way some commercial flights are after sundown and others aren't, plenty are during the day, and it's not as if nighttime flights are somehow significantly harder to track than daytime ones or like it's weird for passenger planes to fly at night, so that whole bit was silly to begin with, worst evil plan ever if that was a deliberate part of it (as was implied), and 3) It's part of longstanding, ordinary operation of immigration control, isn't a new thing, and is happening for non-crazy (and certainly not secret) reasons—though one could disagree with them and say something else should be done instead, sure, but that's not how it's being covered, it's being covered as (implicitly) a new program (not new) being carried out for mysterious reasons (not mysterious) in secret (not secret). Is this "story" receiving similar heavy coverage with a different slant on perceived-as-opposing channels? No, the info on it's mostly to be found on simple factual sites that published info on these activities from before it was "a story", and sites dedicated to debunking "fwd: fwd: fwd:" crap, because it's, emphatically, not even news, so how would an ordinary news program cover it? It's simply absent. The less-brazen version of this is to not cover or downplay something that is news but that you'd rather bury but this stuff is... on another level. The "other side" can't provide a different slant, or uncover a story you're hiding, because it's not even a story. (the evolved version of this tactic, of course, is that your opinion-focused programs accuse the "other side" of burying the story and use it as Yet More Evidence that they can't be trusted, which story they can't even responsibly cover because it's made-up, unless their story is to report that you're inventing news) Bonus points that this gives you stuff to talk about if you're the ones trying to avoid a real story that's inconvenient. It's brilliant, really.

breckenedge 3y ago

I think this is a natural consequence when you optimize for eyeballs. It leads to spammy crap that give you whatever it thinks you want to consume. News is now entertainment.

parineum 3y ago

> Thus far, mainstream news networks have not seemed to care or do any introspection at all as to why they are losing so much viewership and credibility. Fox News still tops the basic cable charts. It saw less viewers in 2023 but so did all of cable together. It's unclear to me at all that they are "losing so much viewership" vs. people just leaving cable and getting their news/entertainment elsewhere. I'm sure Fox News's marketing department sees what their cable numbers, streaming numbers and online reader numbers all look like together and I really doubt their style of reporting that got them to where they are today suddenly became irrelevant when everyone else in the industry seems to have followed suit, rather than find success with another strategy. The idea that they've lost viewership and credibility is, imo, wishful thinking on your part.

beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago

> The natural response from many people is simply to stop watching, and to get their news elsewhere. I'm sympathetic to your description of mainstream news (which is a bit of a nebulous term, I must admit; "legacy" might be a better description), but, in my experience, the news you get from "elsewhere" is often unabashedly biased. So, is the fall in popularity of mainstream news a result of the lack of neutrality, or because it's not partisan enough? After all, wildly biased news is wildly popular online and mainstream news has to compete. There's a network effect to that. Social media has made the ability to curate one's newsfeed to a degree of ideological specificity that is pretty incredible. Bias sells. Personally, I don't think it's "neutrality" or even "bias" that is the issue with most news these days. A lot of news orgs have simply abdicated themselves from the vital role of journalism in a functioning liberal democracy: accountability. Most people follow the news incessantly but actually know next to nothing about what is actually happening in government or politics. All they get in the news is a slice of a soap-opera instead of insight into governance or politicking, backstage where the sausage is actually made and where crime, graft, negligence, corruption, stupidity, and brazen cruelty in the pursuit of power, is endemic by both parties. Journalism has also become a "status" job that is often only attainable and maintainable as a career by people from elite education or with connections to the industry. You end up with a particular class of people as journalists interacting with politicians or executives or other people from the same class. This leads an effect whenever they try to cover lower class people that is similar to that famous image of Hilary Clinton walking into that small apartment.

rayiner 3y ago
> So, is the fall in popularity of mainstream news a result of the lack of neutrality, or because it's not partisan enough? I don’t think those two explanations are at odds with each other. People may prefer listening to a news source that tries to be neutral. But if the reporters can’t hide their personal leanings, they would rather go with a news source where the reporters’ personal leanings agree with their own. Part of this is driven by the increasing polarization of journalists. In 1971, democrats somewhat outnumbered republicans among journalists. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tiny-percentage-american-journalists-republicans-study-finds https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tiny-percentage-american-jo.... By 2022, that ratio is now 10:1 https://ustimesmirror.com/a-tiny-shrinking-percentage-of-american-journalists-are-republicans-study-finds https://ustimesmirror.com/a-tiny-shrinking-percentage-of-ame.... People aren’t stupid. They can tell the difference between someone who is trying to overcome their personal leaning and be neutral, and someone who is so affected by their personal leaning that they can’t even conceal it. People can trust the former person even if they disagree. People can’t trust the latter person.

rayiner 3y ago

Even my dad, who is a blue dog democrat—one of the few people who thought Carter was a great president—has characterized CNN as propaganda” these days. He doesn’t understand why they’re giving Trump so much free airtime, and why they’re trying to convince people the economy is great under Biden. It’s mind blowing to go back and watch CNN from the 1980s: https://youtu.be/T3S6cDpr3j4?si=7Fp-wfR9403_6jw_ https://youtu.be/T3S6cDpr3j4?si=7Fp-wfR9403_6jw_. It was just news, without all these talking heads offering opinion.