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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

#701

Post by no-dr-onboard »

slg wrote: post #643
no-dr-onboard wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying this is a "spin" seems like an attempt to undermine the comment. > Saying they're all lying and always have is a (probably politically motivated) spin against normal news organizations. Perhaps the most wooden way to interpret what they're is saying. I think that most people would read this as "by in large, most are lying". Pointing this out is useful because it shows the irony in the whole matter. This kind o…

>I think that most people would read this as "by in large, most are lying". This is still too extreme. "Lying" requires intentionality and implies maliciousness. It suggests that people who work in media are mostly evil people with the primary goal of misleading you. It both ignores and shows ignorance of how the media industry actually works. It also removes any hope of actually fixing the media industry because the…

Disagree. "Lying" is objectively deceit, or intending to deceive. It can be, and often is, malicious, but to ascribe all lying as malicious is a step too far.

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

#702

Post by joe_the_user »

jsonne wrote: post #263

I am not in journalism per say however as I've spent a decade in advertising I work with media companies a lot. Conspiracy theorists that push the idea there is some global cabal of people trying to control the narrative for their own enrichment / others detriment is simply false, and that narrative is damaging in a number of ways. Cynically most of these organizations are too dysfunctional to pull something like tha…

Conspiracy theorists that push the idea there is some global cabal of people trying to control the narrative for their own enrichment / others detriment is simply false, and that narrative is damaging in a number of ways.

Agreed, the problem is that there is also palpable, verifiable distortion of facts and "imposition of narrative" within a substantial portion of mainstream and "alternative" news.

We face the problem that many people can't go from "journalism is objective" to "journalism is a mixture of multiple agenda-serving narratives mixed with facts that still isn't a 'grand conspiracy'". Moreover, a substantial portion of media one step from the mainstream really like the "grand conspiracy" narrative because it binds people to them as "truthers".

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

#703

Post by cbar_tx »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #289
ss108 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can find unflattering footage of anybody's supporters. I was never a Trump supporter, but as someone who has friends and family who are/were supporters, I resent the situation where people think like you do. In fact, I think that attitude is part of why these people end up voting for Trump. They know what the cool kids on the blue team say about them when they aren't in the room (hell, even when they are in the r…

cool kids? unreal.

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

#704

Post by Lammy »

nickdothutton wrote: post #194

Edward L. Bernays published his book "Propaganda" in 1928. Even that only came after his earlier works in on a similar theme in the early 20s. I clearly remember questioning my father at the breakfast table (where newspapers were read) about the veracity of some story I barely grasped at age 5. He explained to me that not everything you read in the papers was true, and some of it was made up from whole cloth. My 5 ye…

And earlier than that in the 'teens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Informatio...

“[George] Creel urged [Woodrow] Wilson to create a government agency to coordinate "not propaganda as the Germans defined it, but propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the 'propagation of faith.'"”

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

#705

Post by EGreg »

That's why I started https://rational.app

We are currently building it and will be rolling it out to our 10 million users around the world in a few months.

If anyone wants to be involved, you can contact me by filling out the form on the bottom.

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

#706

Post by janjanmax »

Propaganda is not something that happens to other people. It is happening to you now. It is in the movies, tv, and mass media. CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, OANN. They Are their own palatable version to their own captured audience. Each viewer believe the opposing political network is the one with crazy propagandized viewers. They are emotional manipulators. The music, colors, graphics, tone and speech are to mislead. Try watching the news on mute and think what you are not feeling and supposed to feel. Do it for a week. 9 hours of news on mute see the opposite side from your believes too. You will be surprised what you will find.

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

#708

Post by donohoe »

locustous wrote: post #583
donohoe wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that you do not know how the editorial workflow works. You may not even be aware there is one. There is. It usually accounts for a lot of this. Not perfect, most systems are not - but it goes a long way to providing better reporting. Think of it from a coding point of view. Many people think that some developers write code directly on production, to their personal style, and thats it. That certainly happe…

> My point is that you do not know how the editorial workflow works. I think you have it the other way around. The bias is institutionalized so deeply that the process makes it essentially impossible to get a non curated with bias point of view out of the organization. Look at how tightly political leanings are tied to news outlets. If it were as easy and objective as you say we would get a lot more random pieces out…

>> I think you have it the other way around. The bias is institutionalized so deeply that the process makes it essentially impossible to get a non curated with bias point of view out of the organization.

That appears to be your opinion, likely that of many here. However thats not how it works.

I have worked in media for 20 years and have had the opportunity to see how many editors, newsrooms, and publications in general work. I have sat in editorial meetings where coverage and stories are discussed. I have been present when editors and writers go back and fourth on stories.

The problem is that for any given news org, you and most people do not know what it takes to publish a story at some of these places. Thats NOT a criticism of you - I think we'd all be better off if folks knew how it worked.

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

#709

Post by BeFlatXIII »

fidgewidge wrote: post #331
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…

> The average journalist values the truth and desires to report on the news with accuracy and fairness The average journalist thinks they value the truth, accuracy and fairness. Observed behavior is very different to this flattering self portrait which is why they aren't trusted. Actual behaviors of real journalists that create distrust which can't be blamed on advertisers or editors: - Accepting large grants from bi…

Those are pretty much all problems at the level of the editors, not the individual journalists.

> the way the press constantly cites academic "experts" whose papers are known to not replicate or which have major methodology problems.

Most journalists don't have the background to know whose papers replicate and whose do not if they are not specialized science reporters.

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

#710

Post by jawns »

fidgewidge wrote: post #331
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…

> The average journalist values the truth and desires to report on the news with accuracy and fairness The average journalist thinks they value the truth, accuracy and fairness. Observed behavior is very different to this flattering self portrait which is why they aren't trusted. Actual behaviors of real journalists that create distrust which can't be blamed on advertisers or editors: - Accepting large grants from bi…

I think your response represent a common trap that people fall into, where we treat "the media" as if it's one entity, whereas in fact it's many distinct entities with very different attributes.

When we blame "the media" by lumping them all together, it's like blaming "the Americans," when in fact there is a big diversity in what Americans do and think.

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