https://ground.news tries to solve this problem in an interesting way. It has a bunch of articles, where it shows how many left- and right-wing sources it was compiled from.
Media trust hits new low
161–170 of 205 posts
Re: Media trust hits new low
#162So this is from a very right-wing perspective, but it's a pretty compelling explainer as to why many people have no trust in media... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1422181544161128450.html
I read that (worth it sort of) and there are a few takeaways, but for me the big one is realising that the author seems to think that there is "an answer" out there, that "everyone else" knows it and that he (the author) ought to be told it upfront. And any indication that people change their minds, get things wrong or otherwise screw up is an indication that people are not just lying but hiding the truth. It took a…
That's not the impression that I got from the thread. Rather, the problem seems to be the aggression and utter certainty that the media assumes when it conveys it's narratives. There is no room for nuance or doubt, no impression of the other side except as racists or impressionable fools. The author's point isn't that the media shouldn't be allowed to change their minds, it's that the media should exhibit even a modicum of accountability, honesty, and humility in it's reporting.
Re: Media trust hits new low
#163I see most takes here discussing the growing distrust in media as a problem to fix. Instead, I see it as a welcome change, a necessary but not sufficient condition to a more free society. The media has always been extremely biased, selling a particular elite consensus view of the world. Sure, some real reporting made it though once in a while, especially when it was orthogonal to the overarching narrative or when it…
Very well put, agree a 100%.
Re: Media trust hits new low
#164We need a Howard Beale… except in this day and age I’m pretty sure they would be silently cut off by the station manager from the production booth and such a speech never heard by the public but here for anyone who hasn’t heard it is the speech by the character Howard Beale (a newscaster) from the 1975 movie “Network”….
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We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’
Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. (shouting) You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!’
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!…You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
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The only way I see people regaining trust in established media organisations is if they were “watching them burn”. The distrust is so built in now that to be trustworthy they have to be actively engaged in blatant self sabotage before we can overcome our collective cynicism. For us to trust them they must believe the “truth” they wish to tell us so much they are willing to self-immolate in-front of their audience otherwise how can we possibly tell it isn’t yet another marketing campaign for someone pulling the strings we haven’t seen yet.
Re: Media trust hits new low
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
But single reporters seem even more aggressively partisan than corporate. They're often at least fairly explicit about this though - billing themselves as a journalist of the left or of the right or whatever spectrum you want - but there's still no balance.
Corporate news aren't partisan. Unless you count chasing the bottom line as an ideology, that is. Fox, to take an extreme examples, isn't really partisan. They have just found a juicy business model where they've learnt to titillate the sensitivities of a certain segment of the population to maximize revenue. I don't have problem with a biased news source, as long as I have enough news sources to dig from and can ave…
> Corporate news aren't partisan.
You’ve got to be joking?
For example in the UK newspapers, even the best ones, literally declare their support for a particular party at the start of each election.
Re: Media trust hits new low
#166We need a Howard Beale… except in this day and age I’m pretty sure they would be silently cut off by the station manager from the production booth and such a speech never heard by the public but here for anyone who hasn’t heard it is the speech by the character Howard Beale (a newscaster) from the 1975 movie “Network”…. ———————————— “I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depr…
[deleted]
Re: Media trust hits new low
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
But single reporters seem even more aggressively partisan than corporate. They're often at least fairly explicit about this though - billing themselves as a journalist of the left or of the right or whatever spectrum you want - but there's still no balance.
What balance are you talking about? I've never been able to figure it out. Are we talking just providing an equal number of sentences from the perspective of each major party? How do we decide which parties get included, here? Do we instead break it up by major ideologies? Again, which ones? Even if we attempt to go no ideology and just raw facts, the facts you choose to report are a result of interpretation. You cou…
> What balance are you talking about?
It’s not as complicated as you’re making out.
If I read an article about how a proposed law is bad I’d also like to read an article about how it might be good.
Not rocket science is it?
Re: Media trust hits new low
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the aforementioned trusted CEOs faithfully and accurately are able to point out media they believe is trustworthy and keep an eye on those outlets, it could potentially work as a way to kick start the rejuvenation of these networks. But the media aren’t trustworthy. That’s how we got to this place. If that gets fixed, then indeed CEOs can celebrate it, but the problem is with the media right now, not the lack of…
The media have never been completely without issue. Even people trying to be objective have pre-existing biases and holes in their knowledge. Importantly journalists are professional writers and information gatherers whereas accurate understanding may require expertise in many and varied fields where the journalist is a sometimes inaccurate translator for actual experts who themselves may be wrong or biased. Americas…
> The media have never been completely without issue.
…
> Can you provide objective criteria to suggest that the accuracy of the news has declined?
Nobody is claiming a decline in accuracy. What is being claimed that the media is not trustworthy.
Can you provide objective criteria to show that the media is trustworthy?
Re: Media trust hits new low
#169I don’t think this is related to the media directly but is more related to the information during the pandemic.
Unfortunately science has said a lot of controversial things, not because it has failed but because it’s a new “thing” and must be studied and examined. So media have reported correct everything but the infos, at the beginning, were a bit misleading, like for the UNHCR with “no mask, then yes mask” or the story with AstraZeneca vaccine or the third shot etc…
Plus the “Afghanistan gate” where all media were reporting “Kabul can resists 3 months” and 7 days after it was in the Taliban’s hands.
And don’t forget all the infos on Facebook and other media, people are getting their infos on socials unfortunately, not because they’re more reliable but because they can confirm they’re theories. I mean a no-vax on FB will receive more no-vax infos due to the algorithm biases, so he will keep getting infos and trust in FB.
That’s not good by the way, we need more great journalists and newspapers!
Re: Media trust hits new low
#170Let's be honest, the media is just giving the people what they want, people subconsciously want bias news, its not pleasent to read news that disagrees with your own views. Why do you think facebook modified their algorithms for this? This applies to both on the left and the right politically.