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Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

fortune.com

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Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#21

Post by kqr »

bmacho wrote: post #10
nokcha wrote: post #2

Highly relevant: https://AstralCodexTen.substack.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-...

> The point is: the media rarely lies explicitly and directly. Reporters rarely say specific things they know to be false. When the media misinforms people, it does so by misinterpreting things, excluding context, or signal-boosting some events while ignoring others, not by participating in some bright-line category called “misinformation”. I don't think it's true (why would it be), and even it is true, it is stupid…

What do you not believe is true? That print space in newspapers is limited so you have to report selectively and your news organisation may just find one category of articles more relevant or interesting or important than another?

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#22

Post by hgsgm »

Differing definitions of "mislead" are going to make these comments useless.

> Half of Americans in a recent survey indicated they believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting.

The headline defines "mislead" as including "leading via truthful reporting" aka "present opinion".

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#23

Post by quacked »

I never watch or read any news, I'm just sick of them reporting on things that have full unedited videos without posting the full unedited video. One example is the Floyd case. The full bodycam video was available for almost half of a year before it was pushed in the media during the trial. My extended family exclusively saw it through the professional news filter, which means that those who watch bluer news organizations came to the conclusion that he was murdered, and those who watch redder news organizations came to the conclusion that he overdosed. I'm not saying that everyone should "draw their own conclusions" or "do their own research" whenever there's a new video, but it helps to keep a clearer head when you've seen the evidence and are now waiting for expert analysis, rather than seeing the evidence pushed by a relatable authority figure who's already been instructed to be in a certain mood and is only showing short clips at a time.

I sometimes daydream about a "grey news" organization. No hosts, just text articles with confidence intervals next to claims, all sources listed, no editorials, and all interviews and videos reported on have full transcripts next to the full unedited video.

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#24

Post by RivieraKid »

gtmitchell wrote: post #4

Because, to first approximation, this is true. Every organization, every person has their own biases and agenda. I'm not sure why Americans believe that objectivity in news reporting is even possible. Other countries don't seem to have as much of an issue with this, since you typically have news sources that are either owned directly by the government or are published by political parties.

The first approximation is: a typical journalist working at a serious news organization has some amount of bias but at the same time tries to be objective.

So it is approximately false, they don't deliberately mislead.

My threshold for "serious news organization" is that CNN gets there, Fox News doesn't.

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#25

Post by cramjabsyn »

Why is it that propaganda somehow has become a new idea? Is it because the phrase “fake news” dumbed it down?

Either way its always been a factor, and was likely worse before the age of information.

The big problem now is there are multiple competing false narratives, instead of just the one in the paper.

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#26

Post by mc32 »

nokcha wrote: post #2

Highly relevant: https://AstralCodexTen.substack.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-...

It's right in that they don't often feed you with provably false stuff --at least not at the time of publication (such as Hunter's Laptop being Russian misinfo but now owned up to by Hunter himself) but yes, they lie by omission, innuendo/leading and half truths. Similar to how quite a few social programs are based on small unreplicated studies that sound good on paper --the intent matters more than the results or reality.

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#28

Post by fimdomeio »

elil17 wrote: post #13

Better headline: half of Americans don't know that (many) news organizations deliberately mislead them.

Not in the US, but I usually see a lot of people saying don't trust the news but it's also not as if they are doing any rational thinking about it. And a lot of the times is just because news are not validating their own beliefs so I think it's even worse than just having bad news.

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#29

Post by kneebonian »

brookst wrote: post #20
elil17 wrote: post #13

Better headline: half of Americans don't know that (many) news organizations deliberately mislead them.

Bette yet: half of Americans believe in conspiracies with superhuman coordination and execution capabilities. I’ve worked in a newsroom. The idea that puppet masters thousands of miles away are controlling things is absurd to the point of hilarity. Yes, Rupert Murdoch, etc. But it’s all emergent behavior. There is no master plan. These organizations are not well run enough to deliberately get stories out in time, let…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo

Re: Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

#30

Post by omgomgomgomg »

Correct me if I am wrong, but this is attributed to Jefferson:

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers"

Makes you wonder who remains to be trusted, the governments are not reliable at all times either in most parts of the world.

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