Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product • Hacker News Board

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#271

Post by jrs95 » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:13 PM UTC

rndmize wrote: post #80

banned1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

I don't understand this perspective. When CNN gets a story wrong, the right creates a huge storm and people get fired. When the right gets a story wrong (Breitbart still pushing the hard anti-climate change line, Hannity with the Seth Rich conspiracy, the entire birther movement, Pizzagate, and on and on and on )... nothing happens. Nothing. It took Milo saying "maybe pedophelia isn't that bad" before there was enoug…

CNN's Trump/Russia coverage has been ridiculous, theyre running that story 33% of the time 24 hours a day, and nobody has or will be fired for that. Unless their ratings sink so far that upper management needs to be changed.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#272

Post by zimpenfish » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:15 PM UTC

jrs95 wrote: post #271

rndmize wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this perspective. When CNN gets a story wrong, the right creates a huge storm and people get fired. When the right gets a story wrong (Breitbart still pushing the hard anti-climate change line, Hannity with the Seth Rich conspiracy, the entire birther movement, Pizzagate, and on and on and on )... nothing happens. Nothing. It took Milo saying "maybe pedophelia isn't that bad" before there was enoug…

CNN's Trump/Russia coverage has been ridiculous, theyre running that story 33% of the time 24 hours a day, and nobody has or will be fired for that. Unless their ratings sink so far that upper management needs to be changed.

Do you not think that covering the (admitted!) collusion between a presidential candidate and a foreign power warrants that coverage?

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#273

Post by tertius » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:16 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #185

tertius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The No Agenda show analyses (twice weekly) exactly what you're talking about and compares many sources. They deconstruct the media. They frequently also use European (France 24 and Deutsche Welle) and Asian (like CCTV) to contrast the news in the U.S. They also include RT and compare. http://www.noagendashow.com/

They tend to demonstrate what I've been calling the conspiracy funnel - they may have some worthy criticisms at first, but to be worthy to be on their show everything they air must have a huge slant they can fight against, or else they won't talk about it. They end up talking about mostly conspiracies and propaganda, leaving out the idea that a lot of journalism in the US is biased but more or less above board.

> they may have some worthy criticisms at first, but to be worthy to be on their show everything they air must have a huge slant they can fight against, or else they won't talk about it.

They call themselves "media analysts" so by definition they only talk about whatever nonsense the media is spewing this week.

By that very nature they focus on the things you mention. That's they're goal.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#274

Post by nostromo123 » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:16 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #193

rndmize wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this perspective. When CNN gets a story wrong, the right creates a huge storm and people get fired. When the right gets a story wrong (Breitbart still pushing the hard anti-climate change line, Hannity with the Seth Rich conspiracy, the entire birther movement, Pizzagate, and on and on and on )... nothing happens. Nothing. It took Milo saying "maybe pedophelia isn't that bad" before there was enoug…

The truth is, there's actually a huge amount of centrist in the USA. Those centrists are reasonable people. They'll hear you out, think, analyze and make up their mind. They'll accept compromise, and they'll try hard to see if maybe there's truth to consider, even if most things said appears exaggerated, or ridiculous. And then there's unreasonable people. They don't want to think, or consider options. In the USA, if…

You mean the leftists who demand that white people should be eliminated?

Or the ones who say not wanting to date trans people makes you a racist?

The right has its crazies, but I'll also stay far away from the leftist ideologies, thank you very much. I'd rather be "unreasonable".

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#275

Post by heartbreak » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

uncletaco wrote: post #255

mtberatwork wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are referring to the PBS NewsHour. (PBS != NPR)

Nah. He's referring to Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Also, this entire conversation is really ignoring how networks like Fox News and NPR work. When they play to their audiences they're not really concerned with biases, they're concerned with playing to their audiences. Each network will probably guarantee its listeners/viewers 2-3 hours of solid reporting per day. For Fox News its when Brett Baier and S…

I think you're referring to Chris Wallace and Shep Smith. Not Brett Baier.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#276

Post by wu-ikkyu » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

eloary wrote: post #90

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Business news sources tend to be clear headed, because they are in the space of news you can put a dollar value on, and hence will pay for to make more accurate. It also pays to put out dishonest hit pieces against competitors, or dishonest reviews of your own products to make them seem better than they really are.

We get to see those because they're advertising. That's the whole point of "you have to pay." When I read a hype story about a company someone else is paying. Really good, cheap or free info about the present and future tends to lie not in a consumer paper but in dense, wordy PDFs that are cast offs of internal researchers at major multinationals and government bureaus. Those documents are often released to tell inve…

>Those documents are often released to tell investors and taxpayers "here is how we view the situation and why"

Indeed these tend to be more data oriented but they are still not without their great faults.

Case and point: the echo chamber of 2008 that culminated from the reports of the ratings agencies, academics, financial analysts, government regulators et al who were all pushing the same false narrative to the detriment of the investors and tax payers

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#277

Post by graphitezepp » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:26 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #238

debaserab2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really disappointing that you list an outlet like Breitbart with all the other reputable publications you name in an otherwise well formed argument. What a sad state of affairs when we've legitimized a publication that identifies itself as central to the political movement that's brought together the xenophobes of our society.

> ...the xenophobes of our society I'll argue that there are "xenophobes" on the left, it's just that they consider middle America the foreign land. They identify more closely with formally educated people from other countries than Americans who enjoy hunting, processed food, revival churches, etc. The bitter clingers, deplorables, etc.

Increasingly it feels like, at least to me, the last group it is socially acceptable to harshly generalize is rural Americans.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#278

Post by heartbreak » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:27 PM UTC

mrkrabo wrote: post #265

YCode wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reddit is a lost cause I'd agree only with the default front page/subreddits. There are still a plethora of smaller community subs in Reddit that are thriving and useful. Unfortunately it takes a lot of informed curating to know which subs to ditch.

The "smaller community subs are great" meme doesn't work here. All subs about politics are rubbish.

The smaller community subs really are great, though. I follow college football, and throughout last fall - in the heart of the election - politics was never visible on /r/cfb. It was all good, relevant content about the college football season.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#279

Post by pyroinferno » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:44 PM UTC

Hasknewbie wrote: post #192

ben_w wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar situation in the UK, however in my case it's mocking Trump and being outraged about Brexit (other than the BBC, Brexit outrage/derision is omnipresent regardless of if the news site or story author is pro or anti). Unfortunately, I can't look to local news, because that's either "goose removed from river Cam after attacking cyclist" or "parking in car park now more expensive than fine for parking ill…

If both pro- and anti-Brexit are outraged, this should be a pretty clear indicator that it's not bias or manufactured editorializing. "Leaving the EU" is a valid political worldview/goal, whether you agree with it or not, however the specific "implementation" known as Brexit has proven to be a scam, because it's not an implementation at all: politicians manipulated and lied their way to victory, and once the referend…

The whole world can laugh at the US, but that's not going to solve any of their own problems.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#280

Post by humanrebar » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

debaserab2 wrote: post #263

humanrebar wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone may be unbiased, but the implied narratives and selection of stories is not.

I don't really see the problem with that, though, as long as you're aware of it as you listen to it. There's just no right wing counter to NPR, and to compare it to Fox News or Breitbart is complete nonesense. I'd love to find a media outlet with real journalistic integrity that draws the narrative from a right wing perspective but it just doesn't seem to exist. They seem to either go the route of tabloid style news…

> ...There's just no right wing counter to NPR

Basically every right wing magazine and journal had a podcast of some sort. Usually several. Find worthwhile writers for The National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Federalist Society, and Ricochet. Then find them on podcasts, either as hosts or guests.