4 ms·

Your understanding of the word objective differs markedly from my own. I don’t disagree with the general spirit of what you mean. But I would love to see news

Your understanding of the word objective differs markedly from my own. I don’t disagree with the general spirit of what you mean. But I would love to see news outlets, and so called watch dogs, pursue the unobtainable dream of objectivity and neutrality over all others. Calling people toadies and democratically elected administrations “fascists” falls far, far short of that dream.

slg 1y ago
Some people are of the opinion that the world is flat, I would say it's objectively round. That is the context in which I'm using that word. I'm not using it to describe 100% consensus, because there will always be someone who disagrees with something. News without opinion is objectively impossible because the act of reporting the news is inherently governed by an opinion on what is worthy to report. Pretending otherwise is just pulling the wool over your own eyes.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Yeah, yeah, true objectivity is objectively impossible. We know. The thing is, this isn't binary. There's a sliding scale between "totally objective" and "totally biased". When you eliminate the (unattainable) standard of "total objectivity", then reporters and news organizations move more toward biased. And the difference matters. You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on.
  - slg 1y ago
    >You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on. Part of the problem with this line of thought it that a lot of bias is not intentional. There was never a moment in history in which you could pick up a newspaper with nothing but completely unbiased facts inside. Even today, most news sources aren't intentionally misleading even if they might be biased. Recognizing these inherent and subtle biases are required in order to know "what was actually going on".
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      There was this thing called "yellow journalism". It was very much not trying to be unbiased. Most US 20th century journalism tried to be better than that. And, by trying, they were better than yellow journalism. Yes, there was still bias. But the difference between, say, 20% bias and 80% bias made a real difference. So maybe today we're at 40% bias instead of 80% bias. It's still worse than it was, and the difference still matters. (And, by the way, one of the ways it matters is in peoples' trust of the media. We don't need people who are obviously trying to manipulate us; we already have enough of those.)
mrguyorama 1y ago
Except, the news calling, for example, Bush Jr a "War criminal" is exactly objective. His Casus Belli was false, and he knew that. We invaded sovereign countries illegally. Would you read news that openly called him a war criminal? Reality gets extreme all the time. If you police the language more than the reality, you are just making the problem worse. You are forcing people to pretend reality isn't so bad just so you do not have to fix reality. Guess what? Reality is bad right now. We are bombing boats off the coast of south America and posturing like we are going to war with them and bailing out Argentina because of political rhetoric and affiliations and corruption, and we wasted over $150 billion harassing brown people and sending American citizens to foreign prisons and maybe catching a few people who overstayed their visas or walked over our border. And yet you tone police the people trying to inform you of that.
- bpt3 1y ago
  Was GW Bush convicted of any war crimes? If not, then he isn't a war criminal. You can argue that he should be, and I probably would agree with you, but an organization supposedly dedicated to unearthing biases in the media should not inject their opinions into their own reporting.
  - slg 1y ago
    That is a silly standard. Hitler was never convicted of war crimes, would you object to someone calling him a war criminal?
    - bpt3 1y ago
      I would say that an organization that needs to be highly objective should not call him one. They can certainly point out that he was the leader of a group that was systematically killing millions of people with physical or cultural attributes he deemed undesirable and people will reach the same obvious conclusion about him.
      - slg 1y ago

slg 1y ago

Some people are of the opinion that the world is flat, I would say it's objectively round. That is the context in which I'm using that word. I'm not using it to describe 100% consensus, because there will always be someone who disagrees with something. News without opinion is objectively impossible because the act of reporting the news is inherently governed by an opinion on what is worthy to report. Pretending otherwise is just pulling the wool over your own eyes.

AnimalMuppet 1y ago
Yeah, yeah, true objectivity is objectively impossible. We know. The thing is, this isn't binary. There's a sliding scale between "totally objective" and "totally biased". When you eliminate the (unattainable) standard of "total objectivity", then reporters and news organizations move more toward biased. And the difference matters. You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on.
- slg 1y ago
  >You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on. Part of the problem with this line of thought it that a lot of bias is not intentional. There was never a moment in history in which you could pick up a newspaper with nothing but completely unbiased facts inside. Even today, most news sources aren't intentionally misleading even if they might be biased. Recognizing these inherent and subtle biases are required in order to know "what was actually going on".
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    There was this thing called "yellow journalism". It was very much not trying to be unbiased. Most US 20th century journalism tried to be better than that. And, by trying, they were better than yellow journalism. Yes, there was still bias. But the difference between, say, 20% bias and 80% bias made a real difference. So maybe today we're at 40% bias instead of 80% bias. It's still worse than it was, and the difference still matters. (And, by the way, one of the ways it matters is in peoples' trust of the media. We don't need people who are obviously trying to manipulate us; we already have enough of those.)

mrguyorama 1y ago

Except, the news calling, for example, Bush Jr a "War criminal" is exactly objective. His Casus Belli was false, and he knew that. We invaded sovereign countries illegally. Would you read news that openly called him a war criminal? Reality gets extreme all the time. If you police the language more than the reality, you are just making the problem worse. You are forcing people to pretend reality isn't so bad just so you do not have to fix reality. Guess what? Reality is bad right now. We are bombing boats off the coast of south America and posturing like we are going to war with them and bailing out Argentina because of political rhetoric and affiliations and corruption, and we wasted over $150 billion harassing brown people and sending American citizens to foreign prisons and maybe catching a few people who overstayed their visas or walked over our border. And yet you tone police the people trying to inform you of that.

bpt3 1y ago
Was GW Bush convicted of any war crimes? If not, then he isn't a war criminal. You can argue that he should be, and I probably would agree with you, but an organization supposedly dedicated to unearthing biases in the media should not inject their opinions into their own reporting.
- slg 1y ago
  That is a silly standard. Hitler was never convicted of war crimes, would you object to someone calling him a war criminal?
  - bpt3 1y ago
    I would say that an organization that needs to be highly objective should not call him one. They can certainly point out that he was the leader of a group that was systematically killing millions of people with physical or cultural attributes he deemed undesirable and people will reach the same obvious conclusion about him.
    - slg 1y ago