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The Media News

Hundreds of Hyperpartisan Sites Are Masquerading as Local News (niemanlab.org) 116

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The growth of partisan media masquerading as state and local reporting is a troubling trend we've seen emerge amid the financial declines of local news organizations. But what do these outlets mean for journalism in American communities? NiemanLab: Using previous research and news reports as a guide, we've mapped the locations of more than 400 partisan media outlets -- often funded and operated by government officials, political candidates, PACs, and political party operatives -- and found, somewhat unsurprisingly, that these outlets are emerging most often in swing states, raising a concern about the ability of such organizations to fill community information needs while prioritizing the electoral value of an audience. We found that while left-leaning sites prioritize statewide reporting, right-leaning sites are more focused on local reporting, suggesting different strategies for engaging with targeted audiences and indicating the potential for these sites to exacerbate polarization in local communities.
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Hundreds of Hyperpartisan Sites Are Masquerading as Local News More

Hundreds of Hyperpartisan Sites Are Masquerading as Local News

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  • Example of a hyper partisan site (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @12:40PM (#60297456)
    masquerading as local news right [wikipedia.org] here [wikipedia.org].
    • Viral video [youtube.com] from 2018 raises worry over Sinclair's political messaging inside local news.

    • Re:Example of a hyper partisan site (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @01:40PM (#60297708)

      Frankly, this is far more insightful than the article. That's been a problem for quite some time.

      Also, there are a couple things of immediate note.

      First is that out of the "more than 400" only 24 were labeled "liberal" or about 5%. Why isn't this a headline, and why is there highlighted commentary that might suggests both-sides-ism when that is quite clearly not the case? There is a grotesque false equivalence wallpapered over here.

      Second, I went to the one and only "left" site in Texas, because it's in my town, and they make it EXTREMELY clear they are a progressive media company pushing a "progressive message". Absolutely no "masquerade" at all. They're acting as if HuffPo is a pretending to be news.

      I'm not bothering to check the "right-leaning" sites because it's a bad look whether they masquerade or not. The fact is the article substantially misrepresents the issue, almost as though the authors are masquerading as journalists.

      • in the sense that we're seeing a mountain of fake news sites. Most of these are just there to serve up adverts. The reason they're hyper partisan is that those kinds of sites are more likely to be shared and therefor get the most ad impressions.

      • Re:Example of a hyper partisan site (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @02:01PM (#60297808)

        Frankly, this is far more insightful than the article. That's been a problem for quite some time.

        Also, there are a couple things of immediate note.

        First is that out of the "more than 400" only 24 were labeled "liberal" or about 5%. Why isn't this a headline, and why is there highlighted commentary that might suggests both-sides-ism when that is quite clearly not the case? There is a grotesque false equivalence wallpapered over here.

        Probably because if they didn't play up the "both sides" argument then a bunch of right wing people would start screaming about how it's all fake news. Which is ironic, since this article is about actual fake news.

    • Golly!

      I sure am glad that only one of the duopoly party teams slants their news.

  • News at 6!

    No fucking shit sherlock, but you still need to read them all to get their perspectives. You cannot learn about your enemy and their motivations by locking them down... they just spring up as terrorists later and then you have a bigger problem on your hands than just "people spouting lies or hate".

    Can we just keep the liars and haters? I would rather have them instead of murderous terrorists willing to kill people over their bullshit politics.

    The moment you think it is okay to oppress anyone bec

    • Re:News is political, biased, and extremist... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @12:45PM (#60297480)

      Bullshit. There is a clear difference between a news outlet, biased or not, and something pretending to be a news outlet.

      OANN is a good example of the later.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by sycodon ( 149926 )

        Tell us which news outlets pushed Russian Collusion and even got awards for reporting on Russian Collusion.

        Did any of them ever publish retractions or give back their awards?

        • Re:News is political, biased, and extremist... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @01:27PM (#60297658)

          All of the objective ones. Also, every federal intelligence agency and the special investigation. No, there were no retractions because the facts were established.

          • All of the objective ones. Also, every federal intelligence agency and the special investigation. No, there were no retractions because the facts were established.

            Which facts? You mean the ones were people in public were saying they had evidence of collusion, but in their private testimony were saying the opposite?
            https://nypost.com/2020/05/11/... [nypost.com]

          • There's a difference between facts and objectivity. Objectivity requires fairly reporting all facts. To objectively establish that a restaurant is shockingly infested with cockroaches, you need to measure the number of roaches in that restaurant, and compare to the number of roaches in other restaurants. If you only report on on the roaches in the one restaurant, without reporting (or even investigating) the number of roaches in other restaurants for comparison, you are lying by omission - selectively pr

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DogDude ( 805747 )
          Retraction for what? Trump clearly colluded with the Russians, and it says so in the Mueller Report.

          • Retraction for what? Trump clearly colluded with the Russians, and it says so in the Mueller Report.

            It doesn't say that at all. What is says is there is no evidence, but they could not conclude that it didn't happen.

            So that is the new standard - guilty without evidence. By that standard, I heard DogDude is a pedophile. Now, I am not aware of any evidence that DogDude is a pedophile, but that doesn't prove he isn't one. And given millions of dollars and two dozen prosecutors looking into every aspect of DogDude's life and the life of his family, friends, and business associates I'm sure we could dig u

        • No, they didn't publish retractions because it's pretty goddamned clear it happened.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Shotgun ( 30919 )

            What clearly happened in that Hillary got her lawyer John Podesta to pay a foreign national to dig up some dirt on candidate Trump. That foreign national paid a Russian misinformation officer for some wild-ass tales, and too that to the FBI. The FBI found it completely ridiculous, so some players secretly released to the news media, then came back to the FBI. This time the FBI said that it must be credible since they were hearing the same info in multiple places.

            If you'd pay attention to you'd know that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Tell us which news outlets pushed Russian Collusion and even got awards for reporting on Russian Collusion.

          Did any of them ever publish retractions or give back their awards?

          What would they retract? They reported that President Trump was being investigated for collusion. That's a fact. It doesn't stop being a fact just because no charges were filed at the end of the investigation.

          Heck, the investigation didn't even exonerate him. It just concluded that it was impossible to have a proper finding of facts because of the administration's obstruction of proper discovery. Had it been a criminal case instead of a congressional investigation, President Trump would have gone to ja

      • Never heard of OANN before Mike Gundy got caught in a photo spilling fish guts on one of their shirts.

        and FYI, there are NONE, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA "News Outlets" in the USA at this point, so get off your high horse.
        They are all Biased propaganda mouth pieces, 90% of which are controlled by the extreme Left.

  • "Twitter is not on the masthead of The NY Times" (Score:5, Informative)

    by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @12:45PM (#60297478)

    Bari Weiss, a staff writer and editor for the New York Times’ increasingly heated Opinion section, is leaving her job, she announced in a letter to the publisher.

    “Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor,” Weiss said in a note addressed to A.G. Sulzberger that was posted on her personal site Tuesday. “Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.”

    She described an “illiberal environment” at the newspaper, and alleged her work “made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views.”

    https://nypost.com/2020/07/14/... [nypost.com]

    • A vocal minority commandeering the conversation and corralling the data into two very stark choices, forcing attention to be driven from a broader topic and possible accord?

      Not in the USA!

      Sarcasm aside, anyone using the words or derived words "liberal" or "leftist" referring to others can immediately be disregarded. I stopped using the word "conservative" since I realized that the word isn't being used by it's definition and most people can identify with it, when correctly defined.

      Most of us are conserv

  • Shame those that cite them as source of information. Should take care of that in no time.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You do know that we have lawmakers openly quoting QAnon these days, right?

  • Whose fault is that? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @01:33PM (#60297682) Journal

    Honestly, if these 'hyper partisan' faux-news sites are not immediately distinguishable from actual news sites, whose fault is that?

    June 2016 I listened GOBSMACKED to NPR radio (I remember *precisely* where I was, in fact) as the editor for the NYT explained with not small pride that the NYT needed to set aside traditional journalistic objectivity to oppose Donald Trump's rising candidacy for president.

    The NYT has always been 'establishmentarian' liberal; I think all journalism is intrinsically a little bit liberal - that's ok.

    But to announce that participating in The Resistance was more important than a century-long tradition of journalism was....startling. And they wonder why "journalists" have become targets for political attack? THEY PUT THEMSELVES IN THE GAME.

    • The New York Times was competing with an increasing number of "entertainment networks" masquerading as news outlets which have been pushing a far-right agenda. I don't agree with their decision (if anything, the more the mainstream media did to oppose Trump, the more people managed to think that he, a rich man, was as an outsider that would favor the working class) but I can certainly understand the temptation they faced. Now they, and all of the other left-leaning news outlets that went with them, are le
      • Just to add to that, we've all known about the dangers of state-sponsored news outlets pushing the agenda of government officials in power but now we're seeing firsthand that this is not unique to government-controlled news outlets. So if it's just as bad of a problem in the private sector as it is in the public sector, what path is left for us towards news outlets that report unbiased information in a professional manner? Unfortunately, I don't see our current situation changing until we stop paying atte

      • The New York Times was competing with an increasing number of "entertainment networks" masquerading as news outlets which have been pushing a far-right agenda. I don't agree with their decision (if anything, the more the mainstream media did to oppose Trump, the more people managed to think that he, a rich man, was as an outsider that would favor the working class) but I can certainly understand the temptation they faced. Now they, and all of the other left-leaning news outlets that went with them, are left with the same level of integrity as the far-right "news" outlets. And we the people are left with very few places to get accurate news that isn't tainted by political agendas pushed by the influential owners of these "news" outlets.

        The New York Times is not in competition with any right wing news source. If the right were their target audience their coverage wouldn't be so far left.
        That "entertainment networks" tag applies to left wing networks too. For example, in Rachel Maddow's recent slander court case she won the case with testimony that the Rachel Maddow show is entertainment and opinion, not news.
        Whatever their temptation they sacrificed their integrity in favor of ideology.
        I have no idea where to get objective news any more.

        • The New York Times is not in competition with any right wing news source.

          Both sides already have their loyal viewers/readers on their side of the spectrum - the competition is for the people in the middle. Instead of presenting rational and unbiased news, they're presenting emotionally-charged content (fear on the right and social justice on the left) in an attempt to win over anyone left in the middle as well as to keep the attention of the rabid viewers on their extreme side of the spectrum.

          That "entert

    • First, I'll need a link to the NPR story where that happened. It doesn't sound credible.

      Second, "traditional journalistic objectivity" is a lack of judgement that leads to "Republicans and Democrats disagree on if the earth is round."

      • Hm, yeah, I'm going to spend my time combing through NPRs archive for some afternoon in June for a person who ALREADY insists that "Democrats RIGHT! Republicans BAD" is simply fact and not a problem at all.

        Why, pray tell, would I bother? I know what I heard. IDGAF whether you, in particular, believe me or not. If I found it, it's not going to change your vote, or your beliefs an iota. I rather expect we'd be treated - if you bothered to return - to an explanation of how it wold be entirely justified by

        • It's amazing you read what I wrote as "Democrats RIGHT! Republicans BAD" at all, let alone a fact. I said traditional journalistic integrity sucks. But that fail of reading comprehension just calls more doubt into your recollection of a 4 year old radio broadcast. Keep up your persecution complex!

          Maybe get more secure in your political beliefs.

      • https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0... [nytimes.com]

        Is a NYT link good enough for you?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I have long defended NPR as a quality news source, but I find that more and more they are difficult to defend. Last week, I cringed as White House reporter, Ayesha Rascoe, rambled on unchallenged by the host complaining about President Trump's politics of grievance completely unironically. Since self awareness was in short supply among her assets, I was stunned that the host failed to question once her opinions since that was all the segment was. It was immediately followed by a history professor who spe

    • Did you see the resignation letter of Bari Weiss?

      https://www.bariweiss.com/resi... [bariweiss.com]

      Fake news sites are the least of our problems....

  • Anyone else remember the Fairness Doctrine? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by inode_buddha ( 576844 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @01:41PM (#60297710) Journal

    Anyone else remember the Fairness Doctrine? I remember when Reagan proposed doing away with it -- and then Clinton actually did it.

    It is exactly this kind of shit that the Fairness Doctrine was designed to prevent. Currently, something like 90% of all mass media in the USA is owned or controlled by 6 corporations, and the individuals at the top of those corporations.

    Maybe government regulations don't seem so bad now? Because in my 55 years on this planet, I've yet to see a Free Market actually regulate itself. Which leads me to ask if the individual players are capable of regulating themselves.

  • And well them ABC, CBS, NBC, Spectrum..Oh yes, that is still NBC. All anti-American pro-Democrat Communist party news.

  • Well, why shouldn't the local news be just as partisan as the rest of the media?

    • All propaganda all the time? You need it to sell paid health care, gifts to the rich, incarceration for the poor, and general head bashing.

  • The only news I trust, come from personal observation by people I trust. And know personally. Meaning I know their goals and character, and can hence judge how reliable something probably is.

    In consider everything else (including Slashdot and its opposites) to be useless, as it's manipulation with hidden goals. So with unknown reliability.

    I'm much happier since I started to.focus on my real world. As it's there, where I can actually control and change things.
    I can only recommend it.

    (Slashdot is just like a

    • You're not going to be able to get a wide enough experience that way. How will you know what's happening on other continents. Or if your experiences are common or rare? How do you turn anecdote into data?

  • Thats right, if your reading this, you should stop visiting any news site, you are consuming too much media.

  • Main stream news is just a political propaganda tool these days. Any unbiased news has been bought up and taken over long ago. Operations like this have been a wet dream for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]


    Don't believe me or the news. Just watch a press briefing by Trump with an unbiased mind(yes its hard to do, but be honest with yourself). 1st you will see the reporters start the question with a lie or try and twist words to support a narrative. Most don't listen and ask the same quest
  • I know my local news stations, I have apps to most of them (I cut the cord, jeez, 3 years ago last June? Where I live OTA just isn't a thing) Absolutely none of them are unbiased (pro-abortion, anti-2nd amendment, the usual liberal crap), but none of them are so rabid as this bullshit suggests.

    Yeah, local news is biased. It's liberal.
    Deal, it's why Trump gets so much mileage over his "fake media"
    He's not wrong, he's just the wrong messanger

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