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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

#81

Post by foldr »

kneebonian wrote: post #42
KptMarchewa wrote: post #8

The problem is that people look at some (relatively rare) media lie, decide mainstream media aren't trustworthy and go to "alternative" media that lie all the time.

I realized that a lot of MSM was grox turds when they spent two full weeks of nonstop coverage on covefe and whether it was some sort of secret Nazi dog whistle. If anyone can defend why we needed to spend 2 weeks on covefe though I'm all ears.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to ignore good reporting because there’s also some bad reporting.

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

#82

Post by notdonspaulding »

RivieraKid wrote: post #24
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.

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

I don't put those 2 channels in different categories at all. And certainly they don't divide from each other along lines of objectivity. They are both in the News Entertainment industry. Neither cares in the least about objectivity.

The only split I see between them is their mutually exclusive audiences.

Fox News is actually in a better place because they don't seem to be hiding the fact that they are there for entertainment and audience-building. They both care about their ratings first and foremost, but CNN is still trying to keep some veneer of serious journalism.

As a test: I haven't watched it recently, but how has CNN mea culpa'd over the news that the Hunter Biden laptop was real? A "serious news organization" should have had a real period of soul-searching over that. I bet it was barely a blip on their radar.

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

#83

Post by RandomTisk »

zmxz wrote: post #68
brookst wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There is no master plan This. I have problem organizing 2 intelligent people to place dirty laundry in the laundry box or to do their homework on time or to place dirty dishes in the dishwasher. But there's a mastermind somewhere who can organize something so complex, with so many variables where each depends on a human being of varying intellect and skillset and the plan is so intricate that out of 100,000 possibi…

Imagine for a moment if you made $100 Billion in profits in 2.5 years.

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

mantas wrote: post #40
b4je7d7wb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is still very much an issue in many countries with government owned "nonprofit" media. Even in countries with low amount of corruption and high freedom of press.

It’s not an issue. You just assume that this is government voice. It’s good to have direct propaganda channel to learn what your government is up to. But it shall not be confused with journalism.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by soctac »

pjc50 wrote: post #36
brookst wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Conspire , no, but the emergent behavior is like stochastic terrorism; if everyone in the chain of production places their finger slightly on the same side of the scale, you can very easily end up with a very misleading result. You can produce misleading news by who you don't cover as much as who you do. A current example: https://www.glaad.org/new-york-times-sign-on-letter-from-lgt... ; coverage of trans people is h…

> A current example: https://www.glaad.org/new-york-times-sign-on-letter-from-lgt... ; coverage of trans people is heavily skewed, partly because it's risky being a named source in the paper, or people have had previous bad experiences with the press. So you get lots of articles that don't cover the side from the point of view of people most closely affected.

That is a demand from a trans advocacy group. They don't want criticism of the movement they are promoting because it brings up uncomfortable questions about impositions upon women's rights, and the medical abuse of children. Rather than addressing these questions, they attempt to shut down any coverage. Much of social media has been censored this way already, and they are attempting complete ideological capture of traditional media too.

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

#86

Post by boringg »

elil17 wrote: post #13

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

Best headline: half of Americans don't know that (many) news organizations deliberately mislead them and all of them are watching cable news.

Aka cable news (one site specifically with the largest reach) is constantly engaging in deception and the viewership doesn't know. Other orgs are also engaged in deception but not with the same level of flagrant abuse.

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

#87

Post by didntreadarticl »

RivieraKid wrote: post #79
didntreadarticl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American news organisations are all paid for by advertisers who have a vested interest in the status quo

Do you have an example of a particular interest in status quo? Status quo can be both good or bad.

I would point to the general way that in the USA the balance of rights is tipped away from people and towards corporations, e.g. very little sick pay, very little paid leave, very little parental leave, very few rights for employees, Healthcare provided at the whims of employers and insurance companies. etc

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

#88

Post by kneebonian »

RivieraKid wrote: post #74
elil17 wrote: post #13

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

Do you have an example from the last year how CNN deliberately misled? How often does that happen? My view is that serious news organizations clearly don't deliberately mislead but they have some amount of bias and contain inaccuracies as a result of low-quality reporting. And I think the perception of "MSM" which is common among the group of people which includes Elon / libertarians / MAGA fanatics / alt-right is ob…

I said it farther down but I'll say it again. What possible justification could there have been for 2 weeks of continuous news coverage on covefe?

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

#89

Post by twoodfin »

potatototoo99 wrote: post #71
tallanvor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edward Snowden was not, nor as far as I know did he ever claim to be, a journalist. He was at best a whistleblower, although given where he now lives and the citizenship he holds, it's clear that nothing he says or does can be trusted.

You mean in exile?

Edward Snowden has not been exiled in any non-misleading use of the term. He had many opportunities to return to the United States, and could do so today if his current hosts allowed it.

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

#90

Post by dotnet00 »

brookst wrote: post #48
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.

Nobody believes in perfectly objectively reporting. This is more about the rising belief that there is a massive conspiracy by them (the liberals, the Jews, the military industrial complex, the star chamber, take your pick) to systematically distort news in a coordinated way so as to realize their plans for world domination / genocide / fascism / destroying the family (circle one).

I don't think those conspiracies are what are driving this kind of distrust. In my experience, the most common belief on that end is simply that the reporting is meant to keep people too busy bickering over meaningless issues (in the sense that the bickering itself won't accomplish anything of substance) to prevent them from actually organizing and acting against real problems which would be inconvenient for those who benefit from those problems.

Eg keeping people bickering about racial issues instead of agreeing on the aspects of policing which need reform, or from focusing on class issues.

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