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."
Say it isn't so... (Score:2)
[my surprised face]
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[my surprised face]
Hmm... Looks a lot like an "o-face" [urbandictionary.com], but -- given that this is /. -- the similarity is to be expected.
Misleadingly framed (Score:2, Interesting)
This is as misleading as the studies that "disproved" that organic food is more nutritious. Nobody was making the claim they disproved. The basic claim about Fox News' bias is that every single story is framed in such a way to reinforce a distorted, reactionary worldview.
Re:Misleadingly framed (Score:4, Funny)
This is as misleading as the studies that "disproved" that organic food is more nutritious. Nobody was making the claim they disproved.
There are absolutely many people making the claim that organic foods are more nutritious. Like here [organic.org], here [nytimes.com] and here [organicconsumers.org].
And yes, there are people making the claim that MSNBC is not biased or much less biased than Fox News.
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You seriously have to be joking. If you want to read http://mediamatters.org/ [mediamatters.org] then go there, if you want to read http://foxnewslies.net/ [foxnewslies.net], if you want to read http://www.politifact.com/ [politifact.com] then go there, if you want to read http://crooksandliars.com/ [crooksandliars.com] then go there. Don't waffle on about Fox not-News and demand people provide examples of Fox not-News blatant propaganda on slashdot, just bloody google it yourself there are thousands of examples, a regular daily act of corporate propaganda.
The reality here Fox
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There are way too many to list in a Slashdot post so you can start with these:
http://foxnewslies.net/ [foxnewslies.net]
http://www.politicususa.com/fox-news-hosts-speak-words-written-laughing.html [politicususa.com]
http://aattp.org/category/fox-news-lies-2/ [aattp.org]
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=8583 [newscorpse.com]
In fact, Fox has admitted to lying in Federal Appellate Court:
http://foxnewsboycott.com/resources/fox-can-lie-lawsuit/ [foxnewsboycott.com]
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Here's just one recent example from a few days ago.
While President Obama was being the first US president to be awarded the Israeli Medal Of Distinction (Israel's highest civilian honor) by Israeli president Simon Peres, most news organizations were reporting live from the event (and Peres' gushing admiration of Obama's "unforgettable contribution to [the people of Israel's] security").
At the exact same time, guess what FOX news was showing? They were reporting on repealing Obamacare, only interrupted by an
Misleadingly framed poll (again...) (Score:5, Informative)
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Indeed, and beside which commentary isn't necessarily bad. The BBC offers comments on most stories but is careful to do so in a way that just puts them in context.
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Indeed, and beside which commentary isn't necessarily bad. The BBC offers comments on most stories but is careful to do so in a way that just puts them in context.
Would this be the same BBC that is and has been routinely been caught lying about events in the middle east? I thought so. No they're just as guilty of "inserting opinion as news" and have been for a fewl decades, the quality of the Beeb has degraded hard and fast.
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.
Re:Misleadingly framed poll (again...) (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone outside of america looking in, but seeing all of these stations from time to time...
MSNBC is as much total bullshit as fox news is, they fail, but they fail less hard because they frame their bullshit as what it is, bullshit. Fox puts on 'reporting' programs supposedly reporting facts but often the facts are distorted and they've got commentary that destroys what truth there was in the report.
CNN is the only halfway decent major news network in the U.S. They shift back and forth from 25% bullshit to 75% bullshit depending on what current events are going on, but their news reporting IS news reporting and their bullshit is framed as such. Its actually not a terrible station even on an international comparison.
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Frankly, I lost a lot of respect for CNN when they turned CNN Headline News, arguably the only place in the US where you could get national news without spin, and turned it into E! News.
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In modern politics, the term "reactionary" is mainly a derogatory term for those who oppose socialist and progressive ideologies. Yes, Fox is unapologetically opposed to socialism and progressivism, as are the majority of Americans. And as such, even in its new segments, Fox tends to select stories intended to show failures of
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None of what I said requires me to be "fair and balanced"; I just stated facts that are independent of my personal political views. Which of those facts do you disagree with?
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Fair and balanced.. (Score:3, Funny)
The Soviet Unions national newspaper, during the height of the governments paranoid plummet into self destruction, was called 'Pravda' which translates to 'Truth' or 'Justice' in Russian.
When was the last time a 'breaking story' was something uncovered by an investigative reporter, rather than spoon fed to it by pundits or politicians?
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Lean Forward is a motto that means "get engaged". It is not a comment on their content.
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The "Forward" motto is also meaningful to Marxist political terminology. I would doubt people as smart as MSNBC keeps telling people they are would chose the word without historical understanding.
The Ubiquitous Axe to Grind (Score:2)
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Actually, Brokaw, Rather and company were generally repeating what was in the New York Times that morning. When I was in school I used to both read the Times and watch the evening news regularly, and the fit was pretty amazing.
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.
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-then-
> 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>
Cynical, check
Opinion, check
Emotional, somewhat
Yet another cheap opinion?
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Hmm. Good point. Next time, I'll remember to ramp up the emotional content.
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And yellow journalism has been around as long as there have been newspapers.
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I'm not sure whether this trend took hold in Old Media or New Media first
Old Media invented it long before New Media was even imagined. [wikipedia.org] The whole idea of "objective journalism" is a relatively recent canard; for most of the news media's existence, it's been unashamedly partisan and emotional. What we're seeing now is really a return to form.
It's cheaper. (Score:3)
Bloviating is cheap and easy, actual reporting is expensive and hard. What more do you need to know?
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.
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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.
Quite true. What you leave out, however, is that you can asymptotically approach objectivity. You will never get there, but you can get closer by using objective measures to search for bias, which is a very powerful tool. (It is, in fact, the basis of the scientific method.) Likewise, the inability to describe all important facts does not mean that you cannot conclude that certain facts are important, which, again, can be incredibly valuable. One advantage of the Internet is that it makes it possible to eva
Re:There is no such thing as unbiased reporting (Score:5, Funny)
No, but 3 and 5 are outside your door and want a word with you since you're obviously biased towards even numbers and have a deep seated hatred for all things odd. Also, they don't want to be called odd anymore since that word has gotten a negative tone to it, the correct term today is "bidivisionally challenged".
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Oh please, now you're deliberately being irrational.
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Actually I would suggest following news sources that do NOT share your view. It allows you to put your perspective to the test.
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.
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Yes, it is all about world view. Fox's straight news reports as if all conservative world views are correct so you get off teh cuff assumptions that make my head explode....they also seem to cover useless crap more than MSNBC like "car chase in L.A." or "Missing White Girl in AZ". And Fox's morning show is ridiculous. MSNBC's "Morning Joe" is the only show that has decent issues covered.
Re:Provocative Headline (Score:4, Informative)
Numbers are included to look objective but if you read the footnotes, you can see that the study was designed to generate high numbers for the opinion category. A segment was considered to be opinion if at least 25% of it was opinion. So, if the format in one news organization was for every story to spend 70% of the air-time on fact based news, the study would still show that 0% of the programming was fact based and 100% was opinion. Not exactly the results one would expect. If, on the other hand, a news organization's format was to have 70% of their shows as entirely fact based and 30% as entirely opinion based, the study would report what you would expect: 70% of the programming was fact based. So, in this example, you have two new organizations that both spend 70% of air-time on fact based coverage and the study reports one as 100% opinion and the other is reported as 30% opinion. The numbers can be made to show whatever you want based on how you decide to calculate them.
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*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.
(Very nice summary, by the way.)
I would disagree with this in one particular - TV can show events live, in real time, which can be just provocation, but which can also show you things that get filtered out afterwards. As one example, I always try and watch Presidential debates in real time, and not infrequently have felt, either watching the talking heads just afterwards, or reading about it in the paper the next day, that they sure weren't watching the same event I was.
I frankly think of Fox news as value-
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:At least Fox tries to pretend its unbiased (Score:4, Interesting)
BBC and Al Jazeera are better than any news in the US.
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BBC used to be impartial. Comparing BBC to news on the Internet it is clear the BBC now has a political Left bias that is anti-Israel (if it is anti-Israeli they always go with it, they don't fact check: eg. their reporting on their associate's child tragically killed in Gaza and accused the Israelis when in fact it was a Hamas rocket that killed her - proper journalists don't make up stuff to match their narrative like the BBC do). BBC News is politically correct mash by wimps for wimps.
Al Jazeera isn'
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
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I assume then that you don't have any qualms with the constant use of "Repbulican" as an adjective on MSNBC and the endless claims of all republicans being rich old white men... and the unceasing claims that being white men makes them automatically evil.
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and the unceasing claims that being white men makes them automatically evil
No one says that, you are being intellectually dishonest.
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From this point, I'm going to assume that you were in a stasis chamber during the last election run-up.
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The Democratic message is that <sarcasm>white people have raped the planet can created instituions that instill "structural violence" on non-whites, women and poor little innocent children. All these greedy people care about is making themselves rich and exploiting others. They should and do pay nearly all the tax and everyone else is *entitled* to spend it even if they didn't pay any tax on their own income. All of history is bad white people and Jews enslaving and exploiting non-whites with their m
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"Democrat" is a noun, while "Democratic" is the corresponding adjective. "Republican" is both an adjective and a noun. If you choose to pretend you don't understand this, go right ahead, but don't expect anyone except your comrades in your ideological echo chamber to take you seriously.
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.
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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.
Cigarettes kill everyone who smokes them.
Cigarettes are healthy and good for your lungs.
Two extremist views, yet one is far less balanced or substantive (or correct) than the other.
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.
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Both stations are disgraces. Fox more so; although, I've not had cable in many years I highly doubt that MSNBC is going beyond being the ratings whore it always was. Fox is run by a famously successful professional propagandist, ratings are not it's sole mission... well, it might actually be - since propaganda and ratings are close enough to run parallel. I think fox would run at a loss if it could accomplish it's true mission; but since its mission includes suckering as many as possible their ratings coi
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
That's not the point. (Score:2)
The fact that MSNBC has more opinion shows than FoxNews is not the point. MSNBC doesn't format their programming so their opinion shows appear to be news shows. On the other hand, it is often very difficult to tell if one is watching a news program or a opinion show.
Put differently, nobody mistakes the content of the Today show for the Nightly News on NBC. Nor do people mistake Rachel Madow or the Ed Show on MSNBC for the nightly news. The said cannot be said for much of the programming on FoxNews that in
Journalism is rarely profitable (Score:2)
In result, news has turned into circus style entertainment. Tabloids, "people news"?
Also people are slowly start to accept selective reality offered by different media channels. Fox News gives reasoning behind Tea Party/Republican struggle, MSNBC gives more of left angle (although everyone saying they both equal in BS levels need reality check - Fox News quite frequently invents facts form their opinions, I have rarely seen it in left leaning media and they also admit mistakes). In nutshell, it is easier to
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!!
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Fuck Fox and MSNBC they both suck.
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: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.
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Thank you for saying that before me. I've explained to my students in poli sci 101 that the concept of the news being unbiased and truthful is a late 20th century idea screed by baby boomers who look back on their childhood with painful rose tinted looks to avoid reality. It doesn't help that most news is now concentrated ina a handful of expensive medias and that most bloggers and internet sites are aggrating services (I.e. /.) which is an issue as the idea that this or that new is more truthful is compl
Re:The day journalists do not understand journalis (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Yes, it is highly ironic that I have to go to blogs to get news because the mainstream "news" outlets are controlled by corrupt corporate interests.
Re:The day journalists do not understand journalis (Score:4, Interesting)
How about a law to require them to put "opinion" in the corner of the screen when they're just spouting crap.
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You could just get a plastic cling printed with "Opinion" and put it in the lower right corner. Or better yet, use one of the plastic clings printed with Mike or Joel and the Bots that occasionally come in MST3K DVDs. I have one on my mirror in the bathroom.
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.
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.
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I don't know about ABC, but BBC is hardly a source of unbiased news. Its bias may simply be more in line with your preferences.
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I have to agre with mjwx.
Also as an Australian, whenever I have travelled and had CNN in the hotel, this fog of brain deadness eminates from the tv. Issues are not really discussed. A broken fire hydrant becomes a 24/7 reporting event.
Your news is like your fast food; designed to be slightly sweet and swallowed with as few chews as possible.
It's almost if someone wants to deliberately dumb the masses as much as possible.
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Er, not forgetting of course that Fox News (and the practice of direct political interference by the media) is the brainchild of an ex-Australian?
Also, have you ever watched Today/Tonight?
Re:So, CNN wins (Score:4, Funny)
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The truth is always in the middle. I like to read Fox, MSNBC(Now NBCNEWS) and CNN to see different sides of the story and decide for myself what the truth is.
That's good in theory, but my experience with US "news" agencies is that neither one presents facts, only opinion and interpretation which means that you dont see the "truth" as you would call it, only someone elses opinion. What you're simply doing is hearing two biased opinions and deciding which one you agree with.
With news it is very good to get the facts from multiple reports of a situation and decide on your own opinion. But you cant do this if your sources don't contain the facts.
News should be
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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.
Re:Seems useless (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course. But what the OP was talking about is the parts not marked as opinion, but the reporting parts, which should be as objective as possible. What the OP questioned is how much of that reporting is actually biased, and thus not truly reporting (he also questioned how much of it is simply incorrect, which is already a strong hint he wasn't talking about the opinion part).
And yes, it's not really possible to be 100% objective even in reporting, but good reporting goes as close to that as possible. Biased reporting, on the other hand, is worse than marked opinion, because it makes the opinion look like hard facts.
In German public TV they once had a very nice demonstration of this: They purposefully made two oppositely biased "documentations" about the same East-German city (the report was a short time after the German re-unification). Both of them reported only hard facts, yet one of them painted the picture of a declining city which was essentially doomed, while the other one told the story of a booming city with a great future. And both did do it in a quite convincing way.
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.
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".
Re:Seems useless (Score:5, Interesting)
The current generation doesnt seem to know what journalism used to be, and apparently cannot seem to tell the difference between facts and opinions.
I don't know about this current generation claim; all of the highly charged opinion masquerading as fact that I hear in discussions or get forwarded to my inbox, all come from people over the age of 65.
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Reality is bias as I can only be myself, so can you offer another moment of zen or would you like to quantify that statement with some meaning?
I think we can replace the term 'bias' with 'interest' something that should disclosed. Like say a conservative news commentator has an interest in 'X candidate' because they both served in a think tank together or is being pushed by the corporate agenda. Expose the relationship and let the people validate or invalidate the link.
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His explanation didn't at all involve MSNBC being unbiased. It involved it being exactly as biased as the study claims, but Fox more biased than the study claims, while still not necessarily being as biased as MSNBC.
Possibly. I use neither as news sources (and I definitely lean liberal, but I try to get news from non-ridiculous conservative news sources to have an understanding of why people think differently).
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:But just because it's labelled news (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed
"Democrats fail to undermine Republican policy with lies" vs. "Flaws in Republican scheme ignored, despite Democrat efforts".
(Feel free to switch the names around).
From what I've seen, both MSNBC and Fox are both pretty much all opinion all the time, to the point of being detrimental rather than useless as sources of news.
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From what I've seen, both MSNBC and Fox are both pretty much all opinion all the time, to the point of being detrimental rather than useless as sources of news.
Right, but thankfully we don't have to rely on your opinion of what you've seen. This source found that 90% of MSNBC programming is opinion versus 55% of Fox News. So, in fact, MSNBC is pretty much opinion all the time and Fox News is pretty much opinion half the time.
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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
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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.
That is a testable assertion on the web [foxnews.com] and video [foxnews.com]. It looks to me that you get both points wrong in both forms of media.
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F for critical reading.
What do you think the purpose of those two sentences was?
The point was that even "news" items can (and often are) presented in an opinionated way.
Basically, MSNBC has 90% opinion programs and 10% opinionated news, Fox has 55% opinion programs and 45% opinionated news; they're both still 100% opinion.
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I agree in an overall way but in the nuanced sense if I gathered a roundtable of liberals and conservatives and they discussed during traditional news hours the topic of the day instead of reading it from a prompter Pew would call that "opinion." But if Fox makes inaccurate appearing to be factual statements or half-truths as we would call them by using single caster and a desk it gets classified as news. It's more an issue of format than anything else. Fox pretends to be news, MSNBC is more openly a disc
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The article is painfully misleading. MSNBC gets put into the opinion category if they are interviewing people. Because they seem to focus a majority of their day on politics on the national level while Fox splits their daily broadcast a bit more evenly but all news skews towards conservative views Pew made a strange judgment call. Which is honestly OK, that's why Pew's research is wonderful but highly bias simply because it is making unquantified calls on such things as interviews and such. Even if the
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: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.
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Re:Theres nothing wrong with opinion (Score:4, Funny)
No, I'm not being serious.
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.
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Hardball, for instance, was an unreserved supporter of the invasion of Iraq.
It was? I recall correctly (it has been a decade) Chris Mathews and Tim Russert of Meet the Press were part of the handful of people actually asking difficult questions. I've been watching a lot less of T.V. news/opinion/journalism lately. I just don't get why MSNBC and Fox report on each others crappiness - ratings I guess. I've now just started looking for decent long-form journalism websites to get my news now.
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Here's how opinion should be done on News channels: You invite guests on. The guests are the ones with the opinions, and the host does his best to stay neutral. This is how it's done in countries with decent standards in the TV media.
And when I say guests I mean REAL guests. Fox News has a small army of people that are on the payroll and the talking points email list, that they present as if they were guests. But they're not.
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Also kudos to Wallace in that link, an honorable Devil's advocate is a rare thing these days.
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Fair and balanced! Fair and balanced!
(Repeat until liberal heads start exploding)
Sounds like an excellent plan ! Keep doing it !
I'll check back in 500 years or so and see how its going.