You are not suppose to trust the media. We only think we should because they tell us to.
Logically why do we think they have our best interest at heart. Why do we think they are neutral and what they say is a fact? Why do we divide them into news and fake news (the labels change based on the view as to who is who)?
There is very much a difference between news organisations that attempt to present the facts e.g. NPR, PBS, DV, BBC, ABC AU and those that seek to divide and target specific demographics for profit e.g. Fox News, The Sun.
There are facts in this world. And our collective belief in them is what holds the world together. Reckless and intellectually lazy comments like yours are what is responsible for so many of the problems in politics in the last decade or so.
Seek out facts instead of pretending they don't exist.
> Seek out facts instead of pretending they don't exist.
Yes, what a given news organization chooses to cover is often as important as how they cover what they do.
We saw it in 2016 when Rand Paul and Bernie were repeatedly left out of discussion of the polls - despite ranking higher than others that were covered - and we're seeing it again with Bernie and Yang this time around.
If you think media organizations, any media organization, don’t have an agenda and a biased point of view, it’s likely that you only read media that agrees with your worldview.
Of course media organisations will have a biased point of view. It is comprised of humans who by our nature will have biases. But there is a world of difference between news organisations who seek to present facts and those that seek to intentionally deceive.
And it has been taught to many kids for years how to deal with bias in media. You simply consume many different types. The problem is most people don't do this.
This was a huge scandal which led not only to a public inquiry into the BBC’s conduct, but also a national inquiry into child sexual abuse. It doesn’t undermine the grandparent’s point that the BBC is a different kind of organisation to Fox News.
> It doesn’t undermine the grandparent’s point that the BBC is a different kind of organisation to Fox News.
I guess that depends on if you think making one of the worst pedophiles in history a network star for decades is "better" than FOX. I don't think it is, both networks are not trustworthy.
News is reported by humans and humans have bias, nobody doubts that. A responsible consumer of the news should know that, and take it into account, but it's not in and of itself an excuse for throwing out the fact-finding that journalists do.
One of the publications I trust the most (WSJ) is one that is editorially least aligned with my own biases. It doesn't make me doubt their factual reporting.
The thing is - reporting “the facts” means different things to different people. It’s very possible to write two contradictory articles that each contains only facts.
The trick is to only select certain facts that support your point of view and omit facts that don’t. Lying by omission isn’t really a detectable or punishable offense. It gets even more complex when “the facts” are based on a previous narrative which itself isn’t investigated for truthfulness.
This phenomenon is easy to see if you compare two ideologically opposite media websites, like Vox and Fox. I’m not sure if there is any solution other than to read multiple news sources, which unfortunately just feeds the media machine even more.
I mostly get my news from paywalled sites, which I find less pushy on their own biases than Vox and Fox and other free sites. The bias is never completely gone, but it seems that sites that don't have to compete for social media shares are better incentivized to find the truth instead of creating it.
That is probably true. WSJ does have its biases of course, but I have also found them to be reasonably fair with most things, probably because there are legitimate business interests and real money relying on their information, rather than just clicks and “influence.”
I think what's most telling is the twin study of WSJ and Fox. They both feed up into News Corp, so the top-down institutional biases are the same, and yet one is respected and the other is not.
If you think media organizations, any media organization, don’t have an agenda and a biased point of view, it’s likely that you only read media that agrees with your worldview.
If you believe that every media organization has an agenda and a biased point of view, you may be listening to people on the internet who wear tinfoil hats and agree with your worldview.
I've worked in over a dozen newsrooms from coast to coast, in big markets and small. I know how they operate.
A big part of the problem is that the people consuming the product don't know the difference between news and opinion. Many newspaper readers don't know the Opinion section is not the same as the National section. And I've heard more than once people who don't know the difference between Wendy Williams and their local news.
There are problems on the production side of the media, but the problem is just as big on the consumer side.
Insinuating that people who don’t agree with you are conspiracy theorists really isn’t any way to make an argument.
It is media theory and philosophy 101 that people, and by extension organizations, are not some kind of objective entities that exist outside of the real world. The media is not a mirror that accurately reflects reality. Everyone has a viewpoint and a worldview. This is not some controversial tin-foil hat opinion, it’s a basic description of human psychology.
> There is very much a difference between news organisations that attempt to present the facts e.g. NPR, PBS, DV, BBC, ABC AU and those that seek to divide and target specific demographics for profit e.g. Fox News, The Sun.
You believe this because of your bias. There are a significant amount of people with another set of biases who think Fox News, The Sun, etc are presenting facts. Both you of guys are wrong.
> There are facts in this world.
Yes. And the job of the news industry is to spin facts for their employers'/elites' interests. If you think the news industry is in the business of facts and truth then you really have fallen prey to their marketing. Every major newspaper was created to push a political agenda - including the oldest newspaper ( The NY Post ) which was founded by alexander hamilton to push his federalist agenda.
> Reckless and intellectually lazy comments like yours are what is responsible for so many of the problems in politics in the last decade or so.
You need to expand your view. The news industry has been lying forever. Problems of politics has existed forever.
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day."
-- Thomas Jefferson ( one of the people who gave us free press )
If you think this period is new, then go check out some george carlin clips where he talks about censorship, disinformation, etc. This issue is something we've had since the founding of the nations and has existed in our parents' time and will exist in the future.
> Seek out facts instead of pretending they don't exist.
Agreed. But I'll add an addendum. Stop pretending the news is about facts and not politics/opinion/agenda/etc. I'll add a second addendum - "fact" checking organizations are even more biased.
Try this. Ask a fox news fan why they like fox news and what will they say? They'll say that it is because fox news is factual and accurate. I know because I've asked. But we aren't idiots, we know that's bullshit and they like fox news because they like fox news' opinions.
Now ask a "NPR, PBS, DV, BBC, ABC AU" fan why they like "NPR, PBS, DV, BBC, ABC AU". You know what they will say? The exact same thing as fox news watchers. I know because I've asked.
On the one hand, it's definitely possible for news media of any ideological bent to be biased and terrible.
On the other hand if you listen to them, there are large quality differences between average reporting quality of different news sources, and painting them with a broad brush and treating them like they are all equivalent I don't think is helpful.
While the GP post picked left-leaning/right-leaning examples, it's still probably not an accident that they left out MSNBC/CNN from their "good" examples and the WSJ from their "bad" ones.
I find the better reporting, like a good documentary, tends to focus on getting access to highly knowledgeable original sources from a variety of perspectives (ideally including people directly involved), letting them speak to the audience directly without filtering much (except to condense down the length and provide background), and is comfortable with presenting conflicting narratives.
Low quality reporting, which seems to be most of it, is often a non-expert providing their own interpretation of the facts (with their chosen emphasis) in a way that matches their target audience's desired ideological bias (and maybe with some extra sensationalism to get clicks).
I think low quality is more common because that's what most people want (at least, as determined by their purchasing behavior). It's also probably much quicker and easier to produce. But IMO there is definitely a quality axis in addition to a right/left bias axis, and I'd rather read high quality stuff that leans away from my own ideological viewpoint than low quality stuff (which I don't think is helpful much for being informed, although maybe it is delivering entertainment value).
Basic psychological manipulation, if it works, works because of human nature. I try not to lose sleep over aspects of HN that are true of humans in general.
> There are facts in this world. And our collective belief in them is what holds the world together.
You say this like there's someone in charge. As if the chaotic nature of evolution isn't the sole reason for our tribal monkey brains. Instead of acknowledging that facts can be misleading (clickbait anyone?) you double down on your tribal tendencies of trusting those who are similar to you. Instead of seeking facts seek understanding. I don't think understanding and comprehending is very easy. If it is easy maybe you could write a script and I'll unit test it :P
The presentation of facts can be misleading, and you're right that comprehending the world isn't easy. But that doesn't mean we reject truth or stop aiming for a true view of the world.
The commenter didn't say our collective belief in something holds the world together – they said our collective being in facts (i.e. not fictions). You're failing to comprehend, yourself, and writing as though the comment endorsed tribalism when it did the opposite.
I'm not saying parent endorsed tribalism, but that his reasoning is the result of tribalism. Using reason and objectivity is what most people call "science" and people who engage in it are "scientists". Confusing scientists with reporters is a silly mistake to make, and I think parent is able to do so because of our monkey brain induced cognitive dissonance.
Every "good" example you cite is a publicly funded entity except DV which caused a teacher to kill himself in 2006 with an unverified story about child abuse[0].
I think you may have inadvertently bolstered OPs claim.
Facts by themselves are not valuable. Suppose there is a fact that "1000 people die of terrorism per year". What does this fact actually mean in the grand scheme of things? How does it compare to other causes of death? Why do we even have terrorism? Etc etc.
The lack of willingness to value good journalism by paying for it and therefore reinforcing the already opportunistic selection of topics blessed with media coverage fueled by ad revenue will drive us all into the ground, combined with a select few big media corps controlling public opinion.
That being said regarding your snarky comments on being intellectually lazy I'd personally recommend to go through life in a humble fashion, since it might turn out at some point that your supposedly intellectually superior ways had flaws as well...
NPR and PBS don’t belong on that list. Their coverage of news is very much biased toward corporate interests. It’s not as naked or extreme as, say, Fox’s partisanship, and some programs are better than others, but generally they lean toward advancing the interests of the wealthy and connected.
BBC doesn't belong on that list either. They covered for Jimmy Savile's pedophilia for decades. Fun fact: the head of the BBC left as their cover-up came to light after Savile's death. He is now the CEO of The New York Times, which has its own history with Jeffery Epstein (Ito on the board...).
You're entering into a bit of circular logic, there. Why should someone trust you in this case? How would anyone know you have their best interests at heart? Journalists have more accountability than a hardline online BB commenter.
Recent history shows otherwise. All you have to do is look at the many hoaxes and lies that have been allowed to dominate the airwaves on... any... major news site. CNN? Check. Smollett, Covington, etc. Fox? Check. tons of examples exists there.
You brag of accountability when, if you pick a news source, we can find more than a handful of examples of bias, lies and misinformation.
I really get irked by this attitude. Think of how much news is produced by the nature of how big the world is and how fast it can move. How many screwups do you think there are proportionately to that universe?
If we are gonna judge the news that harshly, then we should actually talk about how horrific a job they’re doing at their whole world order controlling thing. Because they’re leaving a lot of better opportunities to waste out there.
Is there a downside to recognizing when the media deliberately deceives their audience? We should do more of that, not less. These media companies do not have your best interest at heart.
Journalists are human. They will make mistakes. They will by default trust people e.g. Smollett who may then turn out to be liars. But as a profession they do seek to be accountable e.g. multiple sources and ethical e.g. protecting sources at all cost.
Should we also not trust doctors, pilots, engineers, programmers etc because they also are infallible. What exactly do you want here ?
The problem is when journalist make "mistakes" and are subsequently promoted. When Bloomberg made one of the biggest hacking accusations of the decade and failed to even remotely substantiate their claim that Apple and others were victims of a supply chain hack the journalists who wrote this story didn't get fired or disciplined. In fact one of the co-authors, Michael Riley, was promoted to be in charge of all of Bloomberg's technology security reporting.
With a few exceptions, I find news to be an area where you get what you pay for. The incentives are far better at publications that make money from monthly subscriptions than channels that are incentivized by clicks and Neilson ratings.
In my experience, it's sales and audience retention who are concerned with those figures. Editorial is concerned with the content. They may A/B headlines, but not stories (let alone facts).
It's important to note what outlets classify themselves as entertainment versus journalism when pressed on an inaccuracy.
Editors are absolutely looking at page view metrics, “resulting in the creation and promotion of content that does little to augment informed discourse and is glaringly lacking in news value.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2018.1...
I think you’re arguing against something I didn’t say.
Editorial doesn’t live in a hole where metrics are unknown to them, but their primary focus is the content.
I had a look at your linked paper. It was a lot of opinion and questionable experience.
There is an enormous amount of context missing and the paper seems to have been written looking for a problem and attempting to prove it versus an observation that was derived purely out of experience.
It’s my birthday this weekend and I’m meeting family soon so I don’t have the time to do a deep dive right now, but there are many factors I’d like to point out that may help provide context for that paper.
One is the consolidation of media in Canada. The National Post is an outlet founded by the infamous Conrad Black after the Financial Post to legitimize his further right-wing viewpoints as well as provide a national voice for them. It’s traditionally been known for being factually accurate in its news reporting, but has increasingly become polarizing and filled with shock writers and hardline opinion columns as one of its early goals was to insert a new, further right political voice in Canadian media and to convert readership to that viewpoint.
As part of that mission the Postmedia group (National Post’s parent organization) has been purchasing small town and city news outlets including the Hamilton Spectator central to the paper. The purchased newsrooms have been reduced in size and much of the papers’ content is syndicated from the parent source. The approach is eerily similar to that of Sinclair Media in the United States.the parent company is also known for its less scrupulous business practices.
One outlets practices does not make an industry or profession, no matter the country or region that the article focuses on.
The article you linked also contains this:
> “Journalists in the past were far removed from what was happening on sales etc. but now a journalist’s story is linked to things like Google links, social media platforms – and when there is no readership a journalist would have failed the organization” (interviewee, Tiso Black Star Group, 11 April 2017)
The first part of that seeming crucible is exactly what I noted. The second has never been untrue. Those journalists are not typically fired for their stories not driving readership, they’d be reassigned. Publishing has always been about readership. I’m not sure where the shock comes from there. Journalists still don’t sit staring at the monitors.
At least in my experience they have too bloody much to do because they’re short-staffed as corporate holders are looking to save money because owning a media outlet isn’t the hot “asset de la mode” it was in the 90s.
Logically why do we think they have our best interest at heart. Why do we think they are neutral and what they say is a fact? Why do we divide them into news and fake news (the labels change based on the view as to who is who)?