Pew Research Finds Opinion Dominates MSNBC More Than Fox News 277
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Jack Mirkinson reports that Pew Research Center's annual "State of the Media" study found that, since 2007, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have all cut back sharply on the amount of actual reporting found on their airwaves. Cheaper, more provocative debate or interview segments have largely filled the void. Pew found that Fox News spent 55 percent of the time on opinion and 45 percent of the time on reporting. Critics of that figure would likely contend that the network's straight news reporting tilts conservative, but it is true that Fox News has more shows that feature reporting packages than MSNBC does. According to Pew MSNBC made the key decision to reprogram itself in prime time as a liberal counterweight to the Fox News Channel's conservative nighttime lineup. The new MSNBC strategy and lineup were accompanied by a substantial cut in interview time and sharply increased airtime devoted to edited packages. The Pew Research examination of programming in December 2012 found MSNBC by far the most opinionated of the three networks, with nearly 90% of MSNBC's primetime coverage coming in the form of opinion or commentary."
Re:Fuck Pew (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, take that Pew! If your puny "facts" don't agree with my bias, then you're total assholes and must be dismissed!!
The day journalists do not understand journalism.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is it, folks
Journalism has gone comatosed
With so many people calling themselves "journalists" - I think we have the most number of "journalists" in this world right now than any other period of human history - it is ironic that REAL JOURNALISM has gone to the dogs
Re:Seems useless (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems pretty useless if it doesn't also measure how often the purported news is incorrect or biased.
Opinion is always biased.
The current generation doesnt seem to know what journalism used to be, and apparently cannot seem to tell the difference between facts and opinions.
Commentary is cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Opinions are cheap. Reporters cost money.
Increasingly, people only seem to care about being outraged, anyway. Just look at all the blogs out there -- they're basically nothing more than "outrage of the day" articles, cynically designed to appeal to shallow, emotional outbursts. Slashdot is often guilty of this, as well. I'm not sure whether this trend took hold in Old Media or New Media first, but it has totally dominated New Media, and now the Old Media are struggling to stay relevant, by showing they can be just as fluffy and reactionary as the New Media. In some ways, I think this is just a natural progression of trends started in the 1990s. Hell, maybe it started a lot earlier than that, but that's when I remember things getting worse. My parents would probably say it started around 60s or 70s.
There is no such thing as unbiased reporting (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowhere. Ever. Why does anyone ever think that something like this could exist? Because you have free press? That only means that they are allowed to spread different lies than the government.
EVERY kind of reporting is biased. Even just reporting a fact is, because the question is why this fact was reported and not another one. And considering the amount of stuff happening around the globe, even trying to report everything to give a fully unbiased view is a futile task.
Re:The day journalists do not understand journalis (Score:5, Insightful)
Newspapers and other publications were traditionally politically biased, mostly printed by someone to put their own slant on things. Journalism is historically gonzo, it's only recently that this fair and impartial notion has arisen. I guess people like to read things that agree with their ideas.
Re:Misleadingly framed poll (again...) (Score:5, Insightful)
And you are just blind if you do not get hat MSNBC is exactly the same. Odds are their bias just happens to be your bias as well.. They both are just terrible.
Provocative Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Pew Research Finds Opinion Dominates MSNBC More Than Fox News
The headline suggests that Fox's news is less opinionated than MSNBC's News.
Pew found that Fox News spent 55 percent of the time on opinion and 45 percent of the time on reporting... with nearly 90% of MSNBC's primetime coverage coming in the form of opinion or commentary.
So we're talking about the type of shows being aired on the channel: "News"* or Opinion, not the slant of the news being presented. It would be more accurate to say "MSNBC Primetime Programming Reformulated to Include Nearly 90% Opinion," but that wouldn't be as provocative and get as many page views.
Fox News has a history of presenting "news" that is so slanted it's the butt of many jokes ("that story is so biased it should be on Fox News... if only it was funny it could be on the Onion"), so I'd argue that Fox's "News" programming counts in the opinion category.
That said, the story is actually about the increased polarization between MSNBC's lineup and Fox's. One would like think that a "news" channel as laughably-biased as Fox would not survive long, because it's not actually providing news. But they're successful because they've found that people want to be told things that seem to reinforce their own perceptions. That keeps them watching. MSNBC is just acknowledging this and reformulating to do the same for the left-leaning audience.
This is a bad thing, even if you're too intelligent to watch either of these channels, because they suck people in and polarize opinions. Then people walk around spreading these polarized opinions by word of mouth like conspiracy theories, and you end up with polarized politicians running the country who have no reason to compromise and get things done because they won't be re-elected if they compromise.
*As a former print journalist, I think all TV "news" is garbage by design. It's Jerry-Springer-esque entertainment disguised as news. It's formulated to tease you with provocative blurbs suggesting they're going to give you some juicy story, after you watch a bunch of other stuff and commercials. When they finally get to the promised story, it typically contains far less information than a print news story would because it takes too much time to do that much talking, and most people would lose interest part-way through.
At least Fox tries to pretend its unbiased (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I'll stick with my BBC News thank you, I like their proper British matter-of-factly way of telling the news and outside looking in approach to US coverage.
Re:Seems useless (Score:5, Insightful)
The current generation doesn't seem to know what journalism [is supposed] to be
FTFY - It's never actually been that way, sure there are some bright spots in it's history but they are few and far between. It's the fundamental reason why old media find it difficult to deal with the internet, they cannot control the content and their audience can shout back at them with equal volume. Everyone can publish (more or less) whatever they want. The "global village" is a reality in the west but in a way that people under 30 will have trouble understanding, it is a genuine communications "revolution". In a historical sense it started yesterday but it has already "changed everything".
So, CNN wins (Score:2, Insightful)
Specifically, what it says is that both MSNBC and Fox are more than 50% opinion (well, non-news "analysis", anyway). So, these are primarily "chat" sources rather than news sources.
if you want actual news, according to this, go to CNN.
Journalism sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a number of problems at the heart of what's wrong with journalism.
The first is celebrity culture, so there's a persistent undercurrent of self-aggrandizement. They'll latch on to big stories as a way to make a name for themselves, creating a natural inclination to sensationalize. In the mean time they're not really doing anything beyond talking to a camera. The closest thing they do to journalism is interviews. And when that happens if they like the interviewee it's a soft-ball puff piece, when they don't it's nothing but loaded messages to convey a particular message.
The second, bigger problem is that journalists don't see it as their job to inform, they think it's their duty to educate. The distinction is that in the former journalists are merely describing what happened, with the latter they're lulled into pushing agendas. This guarantees bias. This is when journalists approach a story with a hypothesis, find it disproved in research, but because it violates their worldview they get selective with facts and twist them to suit their viewpoint.
Bloggers are amongst the worst. When the topics are apolitical too many of them turn into hangers-on. It's celebrity by association, that they're somehow a crucial component to someone else's success and popularity. When the topics are political, then it's the worst kind of blogger circle-jerk. Some blogger somewhere posts some heavily slanted story which everyone else then reposts as fact adding their own pointless commentary.
The most obnoxious thing here is that simply looking at both sides doesn't translate into balance. Often times you're just getting extremist views with no substantive facts.
Re:Theres nothing wrong with opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
What I've noticed is that on opinion shows Fox will get a liberal and conservative to argue the issue and the commentator for Fox and the conservative will gang up on the liberal.
On MSNBC they get a liberal and a hardcore liberal to discuss an issue and they and the commentator engage in a circle jerk for the whole segment.
Re:Seems useless (Score:4, Insightful)
I avoid news sources I catch doing the latter completely. However, I would prefer news sources to be more honest in their bias. My biggest problem with Fox News is not their "conservative" bias, since they are rather upfront about that. Rather it is several of their other biases that they try to get people to overlook. I cannot give you examples at the moment because it has been several months since I saw the stories and I filed them in my head under "take all Fox News stories with a grain of salt". I do not find it necessary to take their stories about "conservative" issues with a grain of salt because I know where they are coming from and know exactly what information is likely to be missing. These other biases are a result of investments in Fox News and partnerships with Fox News by organizations and individuals who I know to have agendas, but whose agendas I am unfamiliar with the details.
Un-fair and un-balanced. (Score:3, Insightful)
So spare us the "Fox News is worse" garbage. While the Fox News slant is well known and acknowledged, every other news organization is left-of-center and denies it has any bias whatsoever. If MSNBC can't be relied upon to report all stories, even those that are negative to democrats, then it is a propaganda firm, not a news oranization.
Does MSNBC's 85% opinion consist of both liberal and conservative views? Of course not! The 85% is at least 85% liberal opinion. Does Fox news 55% opinion consist of both liberal and conservative views? Yes it does. Some of the liberals, independents, or non-conservatives that are now, or have been, on Fox are: Bob Beckel, Alan Colmes, Susan Estrich, Mara Liasson, Santita Jackson, Kirsten Powers, Geraldo Rivera, Simon Rosenberg, Bill Schulz, Shepard Smith, Juan Williams. Conservatives on MSNBC? Tucker Carlson, Michael Savage, Joe Scarborough (arguably fiscally conservative, socially liberal RINO). Sounds like MSNBC's reporting is severely un-fair and un-balanced.
THIS! (Score:2, Insightful)
This is exactly correct. Yes, MSNBC is biased and broadcasts opinion, but they don't try to pull off rebranding it as news. Their motto is "Lean Forward." Fox claims to be "Fair and Balanced," and has segments called stuff like "No Spin Zone" that are nothing but pure spin.
I personally don't care if a network says, "Here are shows that are sharply left/right," but what I take issue with is when a network presents itself as an unbiased news source and then proceeds to opine one way or another.
Re:So, CNN wins (Score:5, Insightful)
Specifically, what it says is that both MSNBC and Fox are more than 50% opinion (well, non-news "analysis", anyway). So, these are primarily "chat" sources rather than news sources.
if you want actual news, according to this, go to CNN.
This,
Just because MSNBC contains a higher percentage of male cow faeces does not mean Fox News isn't almost bullshit as well.
As an Australian who's seen US "news" channels I'm utterly flabbergasted whenever I see them. Opinion is masqueraded as fact, debates rigged and just about every thought terminating cliché is thrown in and repeated until you almost believe it. Coming from somewhere that has credible news sources like the BBC, ABC (Australian) and SBS I'm amazed at how poorly informed news sources truly are.
Even CNN is terrible. Last time I watched CNN it was the same four stories on repeat.
I'd be looking for news sources outside the US, US news channels make Top Gear's Clarkson look like the paragon of journalistic integrity.
Re:Fuck Pew (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck Fox and MSNBC they both suck.
Re:But just because it's labelled news (Score:2, Insightful)
Except that every Fox story is something like "Is Barack Obama the antichrist?" or "Do Democrats want to kill your grandmother?" or "Are liberals spineless cowards?" or "Is global warming actually good for you?"
It may be that they only answer the question with opinion and not facts 55% of the time, but 99% of their headlines are in that form, "asking a question" to make a statement.
Imagine I brought you on a show, and you didn't know what for, and then you found out the discussion of that episode was "Have you stopped beating your wife?" You can answer the question in a non-biased way, but the question was asked in a biased and leading way. MSNBC answers their questions in a biased way, absolutely, but the last time I checked(and admittedly it's been many years since I was a regular viewer), they were still asking real questions.
I turned on MSNBC just a minute ago. The question on the screen said "Can Mark Sanford win over family-values Republicans?" Then I turned on Fox. The question on the screen said "Automatic gun ban fail: Did the press pass on the news?" One of those is a real question, and one of those seems to be trying to put an answer in your head.
Re:But just because it's labelled news (Score:4, Insightful)
I love conserva-ACs who make it sound like liberalism is awash in this country. The corporate voices promote a fairly conservative corporate view. It's just liberal sounding because fairness and progressive views promote populism which is a fundamental part of democracy (Hence why they are called Democrats..)
Re:Seems useless (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it really isn't. If someone is reading the New York Times or the Washington Times, his political standing is pretty obvious.
Ditto MSNBC vs. Fox News. Or NPR vs. just about anything else on Talk Radio.
The difference is that a lot of people refuse to acknowledge they are biased, or don't realize it.
Re:At least Fox tries to pretend its unbiased (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks for engaging with a respectful tone. Please allow me to reply to the best of my knowledge.
See, that to me is an indication that you aren't impartial about this. My general view on any kind of warfare is that if you ask side A, they'll be convinced that they're the moral actors and B is irredeemably evil, whereas if you ask side B, they're convinced that they're the moral actor and A is irredeemably evil. As far as Hamas versus Israel goes, Hamas's charter specifically states that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth. I could see how you see that as irredeemably evil. On the other hand, prominent Israeli politicians (most notably Avigdor Lieberman, the Deputy PM only last year) have publicly made statements to the effect that the Palestinians should be wiped out. I could see how Palestinians see that as irredeemably evil. Also of great interest to me is that the militant Gaza hasn't shrunk whereas the basically peaceful West Bank Palestinians have been losing land to settlements steadily since about 1995, suggesting that Hamas' strategy could be seen as more effective in protecting their people's existence than Fatah's strategy.
There is an enormous gulf between the two sides. It is Hamas' stated policy to commit genocide. It is not Israel's stated policy to commit genocide. It is the opinion of one politician. In a free society you do not expect conformity to a single view. Until genocide becomes policy in Israel (hint: if you understand the founding motivations of Israel, it never will) it is clear that Hamas intends to commit genocide the first chance it gets and Israel does not (if it had intended this, the Palestinian Arabs would have been long gone - instead over a million are integrated as citizens of Israel with rights). It is a fallacy to apply "moral equivalence" between the two sides (as is done in the media to try an appear unbiased). So the question comes down to, "Do you support genocide or not?". Only one side aims to practice it.
Also of great interest to me is that the militant Gaza hasn't shrunk whereas the basically peaceful West Bank Palestinians have been losing land to settlements steadily since about 1995, suggesting that Hamas' strategy could be seen as more effective in protecting their people's existence than Fatah's strategy.
Hamas' strategy appears to work until the day they are destroyed. The opinion inside Israel, as far as I can tell, is shifting from accommodation of the Arabs to the realization that you won't ever be able to negotiate a permanent peace with people whose aim is to commit genocide on you. The unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (previously occupied by Egypt) was brought about by leftist elements within Israeli society who convinced the skeptical majority that if only the Palestinians were given territory back their grievance would be assuaged and peace would ensure. The result was a disaster, not peace but an increasing number of rockets targetting israeli civilians coupled with lethal raids targetting border patrols - the number of rockets fired at civilians is now approaching 13000. You see the political left mistake the Hamas' motivation as caused by poverty (not true, the statistics show many very wealthy Gazans, if you care to look) or land (not true, there are 56 majority Islamic countries - and vast uninhabited areas in the region that the Palestinian Arabs [who are actually mostly Egyptian ]). The reason the withdrawal didn't work is because Hamas is primarily motivated by the Qur'an, for example Sahih Muslim Book 41 "The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews. The Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: ‘Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him;’ but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews" or the similar Kitab al-Fitan, hadith. 2239 "So that Jews will hide behind trees and the tree will say “Muslim! The