The American Press Is Destroying Itself • Hacker News Board

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#171

Post by Woberto » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

giardini wrote: post #168

MattGaiser wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?speaker=tucker-c...

Politifact is left-leaning and not usable as a bias check unless you are satisfied with that: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=is+politifact+biased&t=opera&ia=we... There's even a site dedicated to revealing Politifact's bias: https://www.politifactbias.com/p/about-politifact-bias.html

Are we reading the same results? The top result[1] says they show very little bias. It also days right-leaning sources say politifact is biased, but if these sources are being fact checked in a way they don't like, of course they would claim politifact is biased.

[1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/politifact/

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#172

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

giardini wrote: post #170

CydeWeys wrote: post #63

I agree with some of this, but I just personally can't bring myself to care about the firings of the editors responsible for "Send in the troops" and "Buildings matter, too". A lot of my friends unsubscribed from the NY Times for publishing Tom Cotton's pro-fascism op-ed. The NY Times had to respond to this. They are a business and their income matters. It's not so much an issue of freedom of thought in the newsroom,…

CydeWeys says*>"As for "Buildings matter, too", what a colossal fuck-up that was. If you're that tone-deaf, you legitimately are a liability, and shouldn't be in charge." Not if "Buildings" is also metonymic and stands for "civilization".

Civilization is not at risk here.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#173

Post by claudeganon » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

ReptileMan wrote: post #167

claudeganon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, giving bigotry a prominent position and mass circulation is what protects and furthers democracy. History certainly agrees with your sentiment.

Since the US has outlived the russian, german, french, japanese, and british empires, USSR and select other totalitarian states while not stopped being democracy I would say that US society commitment to the principles of marketplace of ideas had indeed protected and furthered the US democracy. All while being a lot more bigoted society.

How did the US “commitment” to democracy and a “marketplace of ideas” play out in Indonesia again?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_...

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#174

Post by Woberto » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

born_a_skeptic wrote: post #128

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Says the Potomac River "has gotten dirtier and dirtier and dirtier and dirtier. I go down there and that litter is left almost exclusively by immigrants." I think you're missing something.

Help me understand what is wrong with that statement. If he fishes there regularly and sees (what he believes) are immigrants dumping trash, then isn't that statement true? How do you what he saw? This seems like splitting hairs.

You yourself said "what he believes". Not "what he knows". That's not an insignificant detail. That seems like slander, really. Also, without proof, how can anybody say whether it even did or didn't happen? There are so many credible sources with proof of large companies polluting water, why not use that as an example?

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#175

Post by giardini » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #92

remote_phone wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opinion pages are not objective. The news should be objective. If they aren’t objective then they should be clear about this otherwise people believe it as objective. That’s the whole point of news.

It is not possible for the news to be objective. Even the decision of what is news is a subjective process. If the news appears objective, that only means you share the perspective of the people reporting on and editing it.

I understand your point: any writer has a point of view and it may ooze out in his choice of words.

But a reporter should resist the desire to editorialize and instead emphasize the 5W's: who, what, where, when, why (and how):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws

If reporters did so, much contention would disssipate and we'd get more information (news) and less opinion - IMO a good thing.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#176

Post by Woberto » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

aww_dang wrote: post #108

>I always question, why does a Black life matter only when a white man takes it?... Like, if a white man takes my life tonight, it’s going to be national news, but if a Black man takes my life, it might not even be spoken of… It’s stuff just like that that I just want in the mix. Because the dominant media narrative has a fetishized view of violence, racism and victimhood. Combine this with their overarching savior c…

I don't think I see the logical consistency you're talking about. In one case, there is a black man killing another black man. To me it seems highly unlikely that race was a motivating factor. In the other case, there is a white man killing a black man. Without further knowledge if the situation, we can't say whether race was involved here either - but in so many recent cases we have seen that race is near the root of such killings. Arbery is such an example, where the killers made racial slurs at him indicating their views towards black people.

I don't think your quote is logically consistent; the man is talking about actions taking place in a vacuum where race isn't a factor, which doesn't apply to the current environment.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#177

Post by havelhovel » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #91

What I find most reprehensible about this whole situation is that more and more members of the left regulate political discourse, no make that any discourse, by defining any opposing view as illegitimate, bigoted, and now violence. As in, they are taking the position that their moral superiority is without question and anyone who does not ascribe to this has no rights and we are nearing the point of the same having n…

I’m not following this logic. People are expressing themselves and others are responding as they see fit: agreement, condemnation, silence, etc. It sounds like a marketplace of ideas in a free society. No one is having their basic human rights taken away from them because someone else called them a bigot.

If you’re uncomfortable with someone’s ideas making them a pariah, you’re describing a basic social dilemma that many can sympathize with, but not an Orwellian future being pushed upon us by the political left.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#178

Post by andrenth » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

epx wrote: post #99

infogulch wrote: post #17

The US seems to have fallen into a game-theoretic local minimum where each party lets their crazy cousin go throw dumb rocks at the opposition because it seems to be the optimal way to drum up fanatic support for their side, all the while whistling as if in ignorance of what's going on. At least that's how it seemed to start, now it's just devolved to outright scat slinging that's co-opted our system of government in…

Same in Brazil... I like two say there is no left and right, there are two right-wing parties, each one defending its slice of the status quo (left is pro-privileges of public servants here, which are already majority in top earners)

This seems to imply left = good, right = bad, so when a leftist party does something bad it’s reframed as right wing.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#179

Post by hedora » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

mushbino wrote: post #143

hedora wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newspapers in the 60’s didn’t pretend that 100% of the population was behind the civil rights movement. When racist politicians spoke, they got their platform. People could read, and decide for themselves. If an elected official wants to publish a racist diatribe, the press should circulate it as widely as possible. Informed voters make for a stronger democracy. Burying the editorial because it would offend their…

Is there a study or data that you could link to showing that frequently spreading white nationalist propaganda as widely and frequently as possible makes for better voters?

I suggested that we should make it more obvious that some elected politicians are white nationalists.

That is different than giving all white nationalists a platform to spread their garbage.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#180

Post by hedora » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #140

hedora wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newspapers in the 60’s didn’t pretend that 100% of the population was behind the civil rights movement. When racist politicians spoke, they got their platform. People could read, and decide for themselves. If an elected official wants to publish a racist diatribe, the press should circulate it as widely as possible. Informed voters make for a stronger democracy. Burying the editorial because it would offend their…

Ah yes, giving bigotry a prominent position and mass circulation is what protects and furthers democracy. History certainly agrees with your sentiment.

Well, there were a bunch of white nationalists in Germany doing all sorts of terrible stuff, and the news decided to filter the message to match their sponsors’ ideology (by adding fake stories about eating babies, and suppressing stories about death camps).

How did history judge that again?