Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reuters' position on covering Trump

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 263 posts

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#61

Post by fareesh »

I remember being on Twitter on most of election day and seeing evidence of all sorts of manufactured rhetoric from Reuters, and was really disturbed (proof below). There are a lot of other explanations for why this happened, but I'm not inclined to believe them given the reality of what happened on election day.

It looked like Reuters' polling towards the 8th showed Trump taking the lead, but they deleted the data and replaced it with Nov 1 data. Plenty of people caught it and called them out - several people took videos as well so the chance of them being a coordinated effort to doctor screenshots seems low. I don't know if they ever responded to this issue, but it forever changed my opinion of Reuters. If we're to assume the worst about this then it's pretty disgusting if this is the kind of shady stuff the media is pulling. I sympathize in principle, but in reality the question is whether this breed of media deserves anything but contempt.

Tweets with screenshots / photos (more in the same thread): https://twitter.com/Blazingcatfur/status/796071971700244480 https://twitter.com/ProtectthePope/status/796068457137733637

Also of note (posted elsewhere in the comments here, but downvoted): They posted this article on the 8th, saying there was a 90% chance of a Clinton win. Their data didn't support this claim.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN1...

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#62

Post by malnourish »

owenversteeg wrote: post #10

Reuters is consistently my favorite news source. What I love about them is how they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased as possible. Of course, like any news organization, they have a few biases, but I think that purely because of the position that they're in they are the least biased news source today. They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al…

I almost exclusively read Reuters and have turned all my friends onto Reuters. If I could read the AP feeds I would read those too.

I'm not looking for what to think, I'm looking for what happened, and Reuters tends to give me that, even if I miss out on some stories.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#63

Post by AlexC04 »

joekrill wrote: post #34
genieyclo wrote: post #20

"Clinton has 90 percent chance of winning: Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation" - Nov 8 - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN1...

OK, and your point? They said 90 percent. Not 100.

Exactly - I've played enough Dungeons & Dragons to know that it is possible to roll 1 or 2 on a D20.

If there was a 90% chance of winning, it is the 10% which happened. That's pretty clear by how crazy close it wound up being to. Just 80,000 specific votes in specific states are outweighing more than 3,000,000 across the rest of the United States. That really feels like something that had about a 10% chance of happening (or less really).

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#64

Post by malnourish »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #36
owenversteeg wrote: post #10

Reuters is consistently my favorite news source. What I love about them is how they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased as possible. Of course, like any news organization, they have a few biases, but I think that purely because of the position that they're in they are the least biased news source today. They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al…

As a supplement to that, it's also good to get news from diverse perspectives (not just left/right). For example, Techdirt and Reason might have ideas that neither NBC nor WSJ are going to give you, and talk about niche topics that don't otherwise hit the radar. R/neutralnews is also a great community for people who want to discuss news with documented facts as a requirement.

NeutralNews is all right, but there are some substantial biases in the comments that people get away with.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#65

Post by camperman »

JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #3

Honestly I feel way overwhelmed by the administration related news and it has barely been over a week. It's also a constant reminder that oh yeah this really did happen and it continues to get worse.

This is entirely intentional. The God Emperor is overwhelming you with shock and awe to make opposition seem pointless, which it is of course.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#66

Post by malnourish »

ufmace wrote: post #60
a_humean wrote: post #14

So Reuter's position is that the media environment in the US is rapidly becoming like illiberal democracies in Egypt, Russia and Iran, and so its time to use skills applicable when operating within typically third world authoritarian regimes. What heart warming times we live in.

I should note that if you lean to the Right and/or don't worship the Clintons and the Democratic party, then most of the US media has seemed like a third-world Party Line news for a long time.

It's a damn shame that our country is so split into two parties (or worse -- "moderates") that we assume you're either Left or your Right. I know many people who would feel more involved in the political system if there were viable parties that represented beliefs that cross (or often are completely unrepresented in) party lines.

The two party system coerces us into false dichotomies far too often.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#67

Post by MrZongle2 »

beat wrote: post #44
MrZongle2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No disagreement about Fox. But is the feud really because those media outlets aren't advancing his agenda? The tone from the press started with mockery during the primaries and advanced to hostility once Trump became the forerunner. Look at the election night coverage from most of the networks: it looked like a funeral , which is rather surprising given the supposed objectivity of these organizations. IMO the feud is…

I disagree. It's not about whether CNN and other outlets are "objective". It's about scapegoating an enemy. Beating on the "liberal media" has been a cartoon villain from the GOP ever since the rise of FOX News and right-wing talk radio two decades ago, but this is a new level. They can discourage even believing in facts, and focus supporters on "alt" media that isn't impeded by inconveniences like having to report t…

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree (especially about CNN's journalistic integrity). But I appreciate you taking the time to respond, as opposed to those users who simply abuse the downvote button.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

iriche wrote: post #24
genieyclo wrote: post #20

"Clinton has 90 percent chance of winning: Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation" - Nov 8 - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN1...

Which news outlet didn't say that?

The most well-regarded poll-based predictor, 538, gave Clinton a much lower than 90% chance and pointed out the key error of those predictors giving that high of a chance -- they used models which assumed, contrary to evidence, that deviations from polling results in different states in the same Presidential election are independent, when in fact they are strongly correlated.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#69

Post by malnourish »

logicallee wrote: post #54
a_humean wrote: post #14

So Reuter's position is that the media environment in the US is rapidly becoming like illiberal democracies in Egypt, Russia and Iran, and so its time to use skills applicable when operating within typically third world authoritarian regimes. What heart warming times we live in.

America is a country where you can read Hillary's emails (via wikileaks, that you won't get in trouble for visiting) but she can't read yours. (Nor can Trump.)

We can really only read those emails due to leaks.

Public officials' communications should be in the domain of the public by default unless there is a real urgent need to keep something secret.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#70

Post by dragonwriter »

beat wrote: post #44
MrZongle2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No disagreement about Fox. But is the feud really because those media outlets aren't advancing his agenda? The tone from the press started with mockery during the primaries and advanced to hostility once Trump became the forerunner. Look at the election night coverage from most of the networks: it looked like a funeral , which is rather surprising given the supposed objectivity of these organizations. IMO the feud is…

I disagree. It's not about whether CNN and other outlets are "objective". It's about scapegoating an enemy. Beating on the "liberal media" has been a cartoon villain from the GOP ever since the rise of FOX News and right-wing talk radio two decades ago, but this is a new level. They can discourage even believing in facts, and focus supporters on "alt" media that isn't impeded by inconveniences like having to report t…

> Beating on the "liberal media" has been a cartoon villain from the GOP ever since the rise of FOX News and right-wing talk radio two decades ago, but this is a new level.

No, it's been that way at least two decades longer than that.

Post reply on HN