251–260 of 468 posts
Reading the comments here, I am surprised that so many comments are saying that the New York Times and mainstream media in general are fake news. I'm no fan of the NYTimes (I think it is too much filler and not enough substance) but I'm curious as to what commenters think is real news or what makes the NYTimes fake news.
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We need some mechanism to actually authenticate anonymous sources if we expect them to continue to be taken seriously. It's exhausting to be bombarded by article after article that makes all sorts of claims where the evidence consists primarily or entirely of testimony by unnamed sources who may or may not actually exist. It's a "tried" practice, yes, but I have my doubts about how "true" it is in this day and age. I…
> It's exhausting to be bombarded by article after article that makes all sorts of claims where the evidence consists primarily or entirely of testimony by unnamed sources who may or may not actually exist. Are you suggesting that reputable newspapers are making up unnamed sources or are too careless to privately confirm that they're real? > I don't pretend to have an actual answer to how we'd build such a mechanism…
No, they would never do that would they?!
I do, broadly, agree with the sentiment. I pay for The Economist, The Financial Times, and the Australian Financial Review. Plus I read BBC and Thompson Routers regularly. If there's something particularly contentious I'll have a look at what the Guardian is saying about it to try and get an alternative perspective. There's definitely a huge bias in almost all news sources. The Economist explicitly states their posit…
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I would appreciate less emphasis on pretending to cover news from several angles. By doing so they imply that both sides are equally valid even when they're not. For instance I've seen them bring on a climate change denier to give the "other side" on a climate change story; anti vaxxers, et cetera. It's particularly bad when one side is willing to lie.
that arguably is another form of political bias - if I want to push position A, I will choose the most ridiculous and deranged proponent of position B to imply that "all rational people choose position A". Like on the issue of climate change - there's clearly some fraction of people who choose to deny it completely, but the more meaningful debate at this point is around how much we can do to prevent it, and what appr…
Case in point. The BBC trotting out Nigel Lawson as their standard puppet to "balance" pieces on climate change appears to have been about presenting the opposite point of view for balance. From a denier happy to spout easily disprovable fake facts, with no knowledge of the science. Every interview with a climate scientist appeared to come with a space for an unqualified denier. I suspect it's far more an indictment of a sad lack of scientific awareness in the BBC than deliberate political bias. Perhaps inevitable now they've been required to outsource so much.
Far from demonstrating the absurdity of the denier's position, for many of the public, it gave it credibility. For those with enough scientific awareness, yes his "balance" clearly consisted of cringe-inducing lies.
Of course it was made far worse by the BBC taking so long to realise and acknowledge their big mistake. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the memo they had to send around late last year. I suppose cry, I expected much better of them. Maybe a little fact checking too.
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that arguably is another form of political bias - if I want to push position A, I will choose the most ridiculous and deranged proponent of position B to imply that "all rational people choose position A". Like on the issue of climate change - there's clearly some fraction of people who choose to deny it completely, but the more meaningful debate at this point is around how much we can do to prevent it, and what appr…
> Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced presentation of the available angles. But this is litterally the position of both camps in the US right now. Donald Trump, Wells Griffith, Jeff Sessions, all have (or had) tremendous power o…
Or do you double and triple down on denial so your opponents are busy trying to convince you rather than trying to maneuver you into compromise.
After all, based on progress so far your strategy has been exceptionally successful.
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that arguably is another form of political bias - if I want to push position A, I will choose the most ridiculous and deranged proponent of position B to imply that "all rational people choose position A". Like on the issue of climate change - there's clearly some fraction of people who choose to deny it completely, but the more meaningful debate at this point is around how much we can do to prevent it, and what appr…
> Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced presentation of the available angles. But this is litterally the position of both camps in the US right now. Donald Trump, Wells Griffith, Jeff Sessions, all have (or had) tremendous power o…
But I think the whole issue comes down to a lack of trust in the media - if I already thought that the media is following a political agenda (or just exaggerating to get more views/shares) and then they started pushing climate change heavily, saying we need to aggressively regulate industries and eliminate blue-collar energy jobs in favour of high-tech clean energy (both generally considered left wing policies/strategies already) I would likely look at that with extreme skepticism.
So we're back to the issue of media trustworthiness. I think media needs to earn back the trust of the right in order that climate change reporting be taken seriously. There's still going to be the issue of industry advocates pushing fake science, but that needs a whole different approach to tackle.
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Yes. Here is a report from OFCOM itself about a talk given by Ms White on the subject of diversity and how OFCOM can support a “positive change” agenda. [1] Here are details of Project Diamond a programme to enforce and monitor Ms White’s diversity agenda across the industry [2] Also [3] where Ms White speaks about punishing the BBC for not meeting her requested standards. [1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/lat…
The BBC striving for diversity in hiring != Th BBC pushing a “social justice agenda” in its content. If you can’t see the distinction, I doubt you will find any journalism stooping to your level.
I don't want individual subscriptions, but I'd be happy to pay once.