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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

#481

Post by anonymouskimmer »

this_user wrote: post #385
nathan_compton wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong here. The idea that a news article should be a "basic record of events" is ridiculous. In this toy example, the most we could quibble with is the words "Due to" and those may be appropriate if there is a reasonable amount of evidence referred to somewhere in the article which suggests an association. In fact, I believe in the case of traffic accidents such a link is sufficiently well documented t…

For this to work properly, the journalists would have to be experts in the respective field, or would at the very least have to possess enough of an understanding to make these judgements. But reality has become far too complex for that, plus these articles are being written under severe time constraints. Ultimately, what will happen is the journalist using their personal or the editorial biases of the publication to…

> the journalists would have to be experts in the respective field, or would at the very least have to possess enough of an understanding to make these judgements.

This is why journalists will often attribute cause and effect interpretation of facts to expert sources.

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

#482

Post by mensetmanusman »

pjc50 wrote: post #103
soctac wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

> uncomfortable questions about impositions upon women's rights The only right alleged is a right to exclude trans women, and consequentially a right to screen all women suspected of being trans. > and the medical abuse of children The children in question want to transition, and their parents or the state want to prevent them; defining this as "abuse" without actually listening to the allegedly abused is the problem…

Children also want to only eat chocolate coco puffs, so it gets complicated (parenting is hard) how to care for them when clearly their strongly held beliefs should be questioned.

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

#483

Post by sophacles »

giantg2 wrote: post #315
tgv wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a black and white spin. First: I don't know which sociological studies you refer to, but most of it is politically colored arm chair philosophy. These insights didn't come from sociology, but from political movements. Second: there's a difference not providing a full picture of a war or a new economic policy, and outright lying. I expect news organizations to provide me with the basic info: incomplete, b…

It seems spot on to me. "they believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting." This is the core of the survey. I didn't see them or your parent mention lying. Although I have seen such blatant miscommunication of the facts that the resulting news is counter-factual.

> intend to mislead

This is literally the definition of lying.

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

#484

Post by gaws »

fidgewidge wrote: post #390
kthejoker2 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sources do you personally trust?

The sort that provide hyperlinked citations for their claims, which are correct when checked, which allow or encourage open commenting with third party moderation so I can quickly see disagreement, etc. Mostly that means Substacks, these days.

> Mostly that means Substacks, these days.

Yikes.

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

#485

Post by yamtaddle »

fidgewidge wrote: post #438
yamtaddle wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sort that provide hyperlinked citations for their claims, which are correct when checked What makes the citation correct or trustworthy? Is it turtles (citations) all the way down?

Turtles all the way down, yep. At some level you have to rely on heuristics and just make a judgement call, but the checking at the prior levels still has a lot of value.

Straight news reporting has no lower level, short of your going out and talking to the same kind of people the reporter did.

Commentary can have such citations. Investigative journalism might have citable passages in part, but ultimately, a lot of journalism is itself a primary source. There's nothing to cite, beyond whatever attribution is given for e.g. quotes in the piece itself (which won't be some hyperlink you can go check). Journalists create the things that others cite. If they could produce what they need mainly by reading and citing, they wouldn't be journalists.

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

#486

Post by latchkey »

jahsome wrote: post #258
jawns wrote: post #202

I formerly worked as a news editor at a metro daily newspaper, and before that I worked at various other news outlets and magazines. Here's the reality: The average journalist values the truth and desires to report on the news with accuracy and fairness. I worked with a bunch of really talented reporters and editors throughout my career, and almost without exception, they highly valued those things. Moreover, many ha…

Former journalist. I have ranted to friends and family for decades about the lack of media literacy and the lack of understanding for the newsgathering and reporting processes. I'm glad to see others continuing those rants because I gave up shortly after j school and transitioning careers. Media literacy should be mandated in school.

> Media literacy should be mandated in school.

Just try for basic literacy first.

  A Gallup analysis published in March 2020 looked at data collected by the U.S. Department of Education in 2012, 2014, and 2017. It found that 130 million adults in the country have low literacy skills, meaning that more than half (54%) of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level, according to a piece published in 2022 by APM Research Lab.
https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFou...

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

#487

Post by anonymouskimmer »

lockhouse wrote: post #237
eatsyourtacos wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-polls-fake-news-fox-brett-bai... Actually, he did call Fox News fake news at one point, although yes it was due to them running a story about polls that were unflattering to him. However, he is still fundamentally correct about the issue that the media deliberately misleads or outright lies consistently enough to not deserve our trust, be it Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, or even NPR.

He was his own anonymous source to news media. Though I don't know whether the Enquirer should count as news media, per se. Given news was not its focus.

> However, he is still fundamentally correct about the issue that the media deliberately misleads or outright lies consistently enough to not deserve our trust, be it Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, or even NPR.

That doesn't make him, or any other source of information, more trustworthy than the corporate news media.

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

#488

Post by rootusrootus »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #262
ss108 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Seeing footage of Trump supporters and speaking with them is sufficient to expose them as bad people You just classified 46% of voting Americans as bad people, as if they have no other motive than to do evil. I didn’t like him either, but give me a break and try to let go of that media narrative. His supporters were just people. Both sides have outspoken nut jobs stealing the spotlight

Maybe not 46%, but c'mon. No Democrats ever came up to me at a restaurant and told my three year old they hoped Daddy was smart enough for vote for Hillary. I don't recall any attempts by Democratic supporters to run a Trump bus off the road. I've never seen the equivalent of "Fuck your Feelings" flags flown by liberals. Remind me of the years long conserted effort on the part of liberals to claim a Republican politician was born in some other country. How many of that 46% you refer to believe to this day that Obama is a secret muslim or Kenyan? Please be honest.

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

#489

Post by mandmandam »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #448
marcosdumay wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today it's quite difficult sorting fact from fiction from speculation. That was never easy. The only thing that changed is that there isn't one specific fiction pushed with incontestable power anymore. The thing is that people are used to that incontestable fiction. With it gone, many people never learned to healthily distrust their information, and many are unsettled that people can not agree anymore. > But the ba…

> With it gone, many people never learned to healthily distrust their information, and many are unsettled that people can not agree anymore. Definitely agree. But it's also difficult to fact check even if you do distrust. Even educated bloggers and readers can have difficulty accurately interpreting information, and what that information indicates, if technological advances make their knowledgebase outdated. > Yep, a…

All US news stations covered Trump's campaign at least 20x more than Sanders.

All US news stations covered Hilary's campaign at least 5x more than Sanders.

That's without even getting into the hit pieces, the lies, the questions sneaked to Hillary in advance.

That style of narrative warping is repeated across every topic that might hurt corporate profits. There's facts, and then there's repetition, presentation, sentiment.

Look at how US media covered the Northern Southern train derailment - one story on page 20, with no context linking the accident to Biden's strike breaking, no context about Northern Southern's $10 billion stock buyback last year, no context about their lobbying against the very regulations that would have prevented this. The vast majority of corporate news ources didn't even name the company.

US media is absolute unequivocal dogshit across the board. It's utterly indefensible. That half of American's have any faith at all in corporate news is astounding. Trust them for sport coverage, sure - but that's entertainment friendo, not news.

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