5 ms·
It seems like it would be less polarizing if it was the default state for news and information outlets to not endorse any candidate ever and just remain as neut
by ahnick 2y ago
It seems like it would be less polarizing if it was the default state for news and information outlets to not endorse any candidate ever and just remain as neutral as possible.
- good8675309 2y ago[flagged]
- nobodyandproud 2y agoI definitely remember the 1990s differently. They still had endorsements, but it just wasn’t spelled out that way. Instead, just prominent opinions, hit pieces, etc.
- iwontberude 2y agoI do remember the 1990s where it was typically local newspapers doing explicit endorsements and it was almost always limited to local candidates and issues.
- bydo 2y agoThe Washington Post has endorsed a candidate every election cycle since 1976, with the exception of 1988. The New York Times has endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since its founding in 1851.
- goostavos 2y agoJust because it has always been done doesn't make it good. It's surprising to me that a news organization not publishing an opinion piece is itself giant front page news
- newswasboring 2y agoWhat's so bad about large institutions in the opinion shaping space endorsing?
- goostavos 2y agoNothing, I suppose. I honestly didn't realize it's so contentious. I guess it just seemed kind of weird for "the news" to have an opinion at all. Why do people want an organization to tell them who they think should be president?
- smeeger 2y agoyes. its always been done and therefore is good! …?
- arp242 2y agoWhat was said was: "In the 90s newspapers made an effort to not endorse candidates to appear unbiased". This was countered with "endorsements have been a thing since long before the 90s". Previous poster didn't say anything about what's "good" or "bad". They pointed out a claim was incorrect.
- neves 2y agoFirst, they are never neutral. Second: this is what happens in Brazil. Everybody gets angry because each news outlet defends its own conservative candidate.
- coreload 2y agoThese are opinion editors. They're expected to have opinions.
- 93po 2y agomaybe biased opinions should be entirely separate from journalistic enterprises if those journalists want a single shred of credibility. people are mad at trump supporters and anti covid and anti vax stuff, and while i agree that's all stupid, i don't blame them at all for falling for it because main stream corporate journalism has destroyed any and all trust with absolutely everyone. maybe if we weren't constantly being lied to and sold something, more people would believe them when they say important things like "trump is taking away reproductive rights" and "covid exists and people are dying"
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ajross 2y agoThat's a fair point. But in this case it wasn't a principled stand against the idea of opinion journalism[1]. It was an act to kill an in-progress editorial piece days before publication, for quite clearly partisan reasons (though most people believe Bezos did it out of fear and not affinity, he'd presumably prefer Trump loses, but doesn't want to be in the line of fire if he doesn't). [1] Which, let's be honest, is pervasive and popular. You aren't simultaneously arguing to kick Hannity off the air, right?
- nkrisc 2y agoPretending there exists “unbiased” journalism is silly. All journalism is biased to some degree. The worthwhile categorization is to what degree the bias exists.
- EasyMark 2y agoAnd how well they use facts to back their bias(es)
- 2y ago
- nektro 2y agono endorsement is an endorsement for the oppressor
- oivey 2y agoWhy would they want to appear neutral? All news reporting, no matter what, is inherently biased in some way. There isn’t some “ideal” where that isn’t the case. There can’t be some magical font of unbiased information because just selecting what stories to put on the front page introduces bias. News can’t be unbiased and being unbiased was never a goal. News is meant to inform, which includes facts as well as analysis. That seemingly the average American doesn’t understand that is a failure of the education system.
- roenxi 2y ago[flagged]
- oivey 2y agoThat’s fair enough, but you should consider that a news source might be biased toward facts and empathy and still might endorse a candidate.
- FactKnower69 2y ago>But the newspaper could be biased towards facts, moderate speech and empathy to all parties. literally zero semantic meaning to be found in this word salad
- user3939382 2y agoYou’re suggesting there’s no difference between journalism that attempts objectivity and outright political advocacy which is clearly false. Perfect neutrality doesn’t exist, we can even get into a discussion of what knowledge is, that doesn’t mean news outlets don’t have an obligation to try. They did in decades past which is evident from a review of older journalism.
- oivey 2y agoWhat older journalism are you talking about? Cold War era Cronkite? The era of endless red scares and other very obviously biased behavior? WaPo has been giving out endorsements since the 70s. The era you’re pining for never existed.
- Eumenes 2y ago100%. People upset about this are just upset cause they didn't endorse their candidate. Trust in media/journalism is at an all time low. This is simply a smart move to not alienate 50% of the population. If individual editors/writers/journalists want to endorse someone, take it to your blog or website or twitter.
- CamperBob2 2y agoBeing neutral in the face of a candidate who has promised to do what Trump has promised to do may not be the virtue you think it is.
- lucb1e 2y agoI would read "neutral" here to mean "factual" rather than endorsing trump as part of being neutral or something. If one party proposes e.g. impossible things or financially stupid things or whatever it may be (general examples from politics anywhere), that can and should be reported on and would not break neutrality
- ribosometronome 2y agoBut it is not. They regularly make endorsements and call outs. They recently called for Biden to step down from the ticket, just months ago. It seems like we should not examine situations based on idealistic, non-existent scenarios but the world we actually live in.
- mschuster91 2y agoNews outlets by definition can not be neutral. Just look at the insane amount of stuff that the global news agencies like Reuters or AFP push out every minute, and on top of that comes all the state, county and local news. The very act of filtering what to report to the audience is political in itself. Say, floods or other natural disasters caused or (like wildfires) made worse by climate change. Most of them tend to be ignored outside of the nation they happen, but not reporting on it also means that people don't grasp just how bad climate change already is, and thus the people may not vote for parties or individuals campaigning on climate change.
- megous 2y agoYou learn this by science, and scientific reporting. Not by reporting events usually selected by severity of harm to humans and clickbait factor to enrich the media companies.
- metabagel 2y agoI feel like you missed the point, which is that reporting or not reporting, or how you report something can all be examples of bias. The conclusions you draw. The quotes you use or don’t use. The ordering in which you report things. The job of the journalist is to try to present a version of the story which is as close to the truth as possible, and without leaving out any relevant information. But, also the story is in context of the values which most of us hold dear, because we are human beings. We might have thought that an unbiased news story would have to be written by a robot, but as we know now, LLMs are biased too.
- w0de0 2y agoWhile we’re at it, let’s do away with voting. Much less polarizing if we stop asking the demos to endorse a government.