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>I wonder when the golden age of unbiased news reporting was. I'm 55 and my whole life everyone complained about the biased media. Agreed; people naturally exa

>I wonder when the golden age of unbiased news reporting was. I'm 55 and my whole life everyone complained about the biased media. Agreed; people naturally exaggerate the good old days and forget how advertisers and other interests often owned [EDIT: figuratively and literally] many media outlets. Maybe it's better that those powers publish their own stories; at least they generally own up to it rather than hiding behind journalists for legitimacy. But I also disagree strongly: It's a matter of degree, of course. No journalism ever was written, edited and published by wise saints, but some is much better than others. There is Fox News and there is the Financial Times; neither is purely bad or good, but one is far better than the other. The problems discussed in the article make journalism significantly less valuable and reliable, and there is no good substitute for it. The public simply will lack good information and will believe more false information.

WalterBright 12y ago
I still doubt anything has changed. I remember the hatchet jobs "60 Minutes" was infamous for 40 years ago. "If it bleeds it leads" is a very old saying. So is "history is written by the victors". And it's normal for news to run hysterical stories, because those sell. But there's a more general problem. There are some fields I know a great deal about. Whenever I see a news story about one of those fields, they're almost always pathetically wrong. This is because the journalists are reporting on something they have no understanding of. I've also seen them report on events I have personal knowledge of, again, they get it all wrong, usually because they're in a hurry to get the story "in the can" and simply don't care to fact check. My father was a historian, and in our discussions we'd often wonder how much of conventionally accepted historical truth is utterly wrong.
- pixl97 12y ago
  >There are some fields I know a great deal about. Whenever I see a news story about one of those fields, they're almost always pathetically wrong. I have come to accept that the general media cannot talk about any subject that requires domain knowledge coherently.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > I have come to accept that the general media cannot talk about any subject that requires domain knowledge coherently. Not that you're wrong, but every subject requires domain knowledge; the depth required and specific domain differ, of course.
phaemon 12y ago
> There is Fox News and there is the Financial Times; neither is purely bad or good, but one is far better than the other. I used to believe so too. And I also believed that the BBC was far better than either, because they may have failed to be unbiased, but they definitely made a goodwill effort towards it. That's what I used to believe until the recent Scottish referendum, when I started observing the actual behaviour of the media closely. And then you start to see that there is no difference. The BBC were just as nasty, ignorant, lying amoral shits as Fox news generally are. I would look at the Google News feed and watch as the Daily Mail and the BBC and the Financial Times would compete to update the same lying crap to basically spam the newsfeed so that they would always be the top story. Truth be damned. I love the world, and I love most people because people are generally great and mostly do the right thing, but you are not cynical enough.
- teh_klev 12y ago
  I agree, the BBC's coverage of the Scottish Referendum has been appallingly biased. Even after the referendum, the reporting of attacks (by a large contingent of pro-union thugs) on peaceful Yes supporters who gathered in Glasgow's George Square last Friday was heavily skewed and managed: http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9773-bbc-george-square-reports-challenged-by-images-and-eye-witness-accounts http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9773-... The selective editing by the BBC's Nick Robinson, who didn't get the answer he wanted from the First Minister, during his international press conference on the 11th of September was another example: http://wingsoverscotland.com/out-in-the-open/ http://wingsoverscotland.com/out-in-the-open/ I used to be proud of the BBC and thought the license fee was good value for money. But since 2006 they haven't had a single penny from me. It's a morally corrupt organisation.
- duckmysick 12y ago
  Your post is no better than the reports from the flawed media; it's full of name calling and presents zero facts backed by any evidence. It's not like we can approach the Scottish independence as a physics experiment: run it in a controlled environment, adjust for different variables, and expect the results to be replicated in another laboratory. So in this case I'm going to be skeptical of anyone who claims there's a "truth" that I can choose and sleep soundly at night knowing I made the right choice. It's too complex of an issue - socially, politically, and economically. I'm cynical enough to suspect you're not unbiased either and that you have a self-interest in one side of the Scottish independence discussion. Too bad for both of us that cynicism have never solved any problem.

WalterBright 12y ago

I still doubt anything has changed. I remember the hatchet jobs "60 Minutes" was infamous for 40 years ago. "If it bleeds it leads" is a very old saying. So is "history is written by the victors". And it's normal for news to run hysterical stories, because those sell. But there's a more general problem. There are some fields I know a great deal about. Whenever I see a news story about one of those fields, they're almost always pathetically wrong. This is because the journalists are reporting on something they have no understanding of. I've also seen them report on events I have personal knowledge of, again, they get it all wrong, usually because they're in a hurry to get the story "in the can" and simply don't care to fact check. My father was a historian, and in our discussions we'd often wonder how much of conventionally accepted historical truth is utterly wrong.

pixl97 12y ago
>There are some fields I know a great deal about. Whenever I see a news story about one of those fields, they're almost always pathetically wrong. I have come to accept that the general media cannot talk about any subject that requires domain knowledge coherently.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I have come to accept that the general media cannot talk about any subject that requires domain knowledge coherently. Not that you're wrong, but every subject requires domain knowledge; the depth required and specific domain differ, of course.

phaemon 12y ago

> There is Fox News and there is the Financial Times; neither is purely bad or good, but one is far better than the other. I used to believe so too. And I also believed that the BBC was far better than either, because they may have failed to be unbiased, but they definitely made a goodwill effort towards it. That's what I used to believe until the recent Scottish referendum, when I started observing the actual behaviour of the media closely. And then you start to see that there is no difference. The BBC were just as nasty, ignorant, lying amoral shits as Fox news generally are. I would look at the Google News feed and watch as the Daily Mail and the BBC and the Financial Times would compete to update the same lying crap to basically spam the newsfeed so that they would always be the top story. Truth be damned. I love the world, and I love most people because people are generally great and mostly do the right thing, but you are not cynical enough.

teh_klev 12y ago
I agree, the BBC's coverage of the Scottish Referendum has been appallingly biased. Even after the referendum, the reporting of attacks (by a large contingent of pro-union thugs) on peaceful Yes supporters who gathered in Glasgow's George Square last Friday was heavily skewed and managed: http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9773-bbc-george-square-reports-challenged-by-images-and-eye-witness-accounts http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9773-... The selective editing by the BBC's Nick Robinson, who didn't get the answer he wanted from the First Minister, during his international press conference on the 11th of September was another example: http://wingsoverscotland.com/out-in-the-open/ http://wingsoverscotland.com/out-in-the-open/ I used to be proud of the BBC and thought the license fee was good value for money. But since 2006 they haven't had a single penny from me. It's a morally corrupt organisation.
duckmysick 12y ago
Your post is no better than the reports from the flawed media; it's full of name calling and presents zero facts backed by any evidence. It's not like we can approach the Scottish independence as a physics experiment: run it in a controlled environment, adjust for different variables, and expect the results to be replicated in another laboratory. So in this case I'm going to be skeptical of anyone who claims there's a "truth" that I can choose and sleep soundly at night knowing I made the right choice. It's too complex of an issue - socially, politically, and economically. I'm cynical enough to suspect you're not unbiased either and that you have a self-interest in one side of the Scottish independence discussion. Too bad for both of us that cynicism have never solved any problem.