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Colbert Destroys Pizzagate and CTs at the same time!

cpwill said:
Who are the fake news sites everyone is suddenly concerned with other than semi paid bloggers who double as political hacks?

Both exist for the same reason - people want their biases confirmed, and they want to look down on people who disagree with them.

But hey, if they're just entertainment, then we can stop worrying. Crises Averted! :)

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Only Colbert is an entertainer, and these people aren't pretending to be real news, they think of themselves as such when they clearly aren't.
 
Hatuey said:
Only Colbert is an entertainer, and these people aren't pretending to be real news, they think of themselves as such when they clearly aren't.
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No, if you are making crap up/distorting for effect, you know what you are doing. That, after all, is how you make money.

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cpwill said:
No, if you are making crap up/distorting for effect, you know what you are doing. That, after all, is how you make money.

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Colbert impersonated a rabid right wing conservative - as a joke - for nearly a decade. That you didn't get that and now want to compare him to guys who aren't playing pretend is kind of dishonest.

Don't you think?
 
Hatuey said:
Colbert impersonated a rabid right wing conservative - as a joke - for nearly a decade. That you didn't get that and now want to compare him to guys who aren't playing pretend is kind of dishonest.

Don't you think?
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No, everyone got it. I enjoyed the show (and Stewart), tbh. If you can't laugh at yourself, you'll have a sadder life.

However, if you go back and read, you will note that I have explicitly and repeatedly pointed out that I am comparing "people who are deliberately deceptive" with "people who are deliberately deceptive". I'm also happy to compare "people who do not question that which confirms their biases" with "people who do not question that which confirms their biases" as well as "people who make a living by telling one side the other is stupid and/or immoral" with "people who make a living telling one side the other is stupid and/or immoral".

I enjoy the comedies. But they've played their role, as has dishonest mainstream media, in helping to build the market for what they are now decrying. When they are willing to take the log from their own eye, I will take more credibly their claims to be offended at logs-in-eyes in general. As I said earlier, Colbert has perhaps come closest to realizing this with his comments about perhaps drinking too much of the poison, and he deserves credit for that. Glen Beck has made similar comments, and deserves credit for that as well.


But spare me Brian Williams complaining about "fake news". Colbert's audience is informed by his show, even if he pro forma tells them to watch others. So was Stewart's. Ditto John Oliver, and whomever he is "totally destroying!!!!!!!!!! this week. A mountain of psychology tells us that we tend to believe what feels right / confirms our preferences, and that we tend to overestimate the truth or likelihood of that which we can most easily recall. People who are misinformed tend not to change their minds upon receiving new data - instead, they become more insistent upon their original opinion. These shows, while entertaining, make the bubbles of the liberals who watch them thicker, and leave them with a less accurate understanding others.


Fake News didn't start this cycle. It's old news. It's just now on the Right in a big way, and so suddenly now it's a problem.


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cpwill said:
Eh. The "Oh I'm Just A Comedian" schtick was always a cop out, for Colbert and Jon Stewart. Colbert came close to almost realizing this with the "maybe we drank too much of the poison" bit after the election was called.
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It's no different than Hannity or Limbaugh coping out and saying they are entertainment. I know several conservatives that get their information exclusively from radio talk shows and believe it's 100% true.
 
cpwill said:
FakeNews® is very upset about Fake News.
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Erod said:
This is as crazy as CNN and the DNC rigging the nomination for Hillary and feeding her the debate questions against Trump
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And against Sanders.
 
ModerateGOP said:
The best jab at CTs in totality that I've seen in a long time:

...
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Applying the Colbert model to more accessible and mundane activities, can choosing a screen name that suggests a political lean that's intentionally divorced from accuracy be considered a kind of fake news or simply a failed attempt at persuasion?
 
Praxas said:
It's no different than Hannity or Limbaugh coping out and saying they are entertainment. I know several conservatives that get their information exclusively from radio talk shows and believe it's 100% true.
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Absolutely.
btw, where do you get your news?
 
bubbabgone said:
Absolutely.
btw, where do you get your news?
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Multiple sources. There isn't "one" place I get the news from. I look at Foxnews, CNN, BBC, MSNBC, have listened to talk radio (both conservative and progressive) on Sirius, and multiple news stations when the story is local and looking at the internet. when going through multiple sources from different perspectives you can generally see what the story is. Sifting through the commentary bull**** sometimes is a hassle but it can be done.
 
Praxas said:
Multiple sources. There isn't "one" place I get the news from. I look at Foxnews, CNN, BBC, MSNBC, have listened to talk radio (both conservative and progressive) on Sirius, and multiple news stations when the story is local and looking at the internet. when going through multiple sources from different perspectives you can generally see what the story is. Sifting through the commentary bull**** sometimes is a hassle but it can be done.
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That sounds like a wise approach.
As you're doing that have you already formed an opinion of what's probably the truth or are you sincerely searching for the truth?
 
Praxas said:
Multiple sources. There isn't "one" place I get the news from. I look at Foxnews, CNN, BBC, MSNBC, have listened to talk radio (both conservative and progressive) on Sirius, and multiple news stations when the story is local and looking at the internet. when going through multiple sources from different perspectives you can generally see what the story is. Sifting through the commentary bull**** sometimes is a hassle but it can be done.
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The other thing to consider is bias of those sources.
How are you able to weigh what they say?
Volume?
Considering that, say, radio news reports and smaller daily & periodical news sources typically use major news sources like AP, the NYT, or WAPO as their own sources, how are you able to slice through the bull**** to arrive at your truth?
 
bubbabgone said:
That sounds like a wise approach.
As you're doing that have you already formed an opinion of what's probably the truth or are you sincerely searching for the truth?
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There is always a biasness in both the news and what "truth" we search for in stories. The fact I may fact check Trump's statements versus fact checking what a Republican governor did is biasness. The trick is to try and hold back that biasness until more information is found. And since no one is perfect, I have failed at that many times.

bubbabgone said:
The other thing to consider is bias of those sources.
How are you able to weigh what they say?
Volume?
Considering that, say, radio news reports and smaller daily & periodical news sources typically use major news sources like AP, the NYT, or WAPO as their own sources, how are you able to slice through the bull**** to arrive at your truth?
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It's easy to get the general idea of the story. For instance, President Obama signs a spending bill. That is easy enough and factual enough that almost all sources agree, though the intent and thought process of the consequence of that is completely subjective. To continue the example some left-wing sources could say he did that because he is wanting to help Americans while right-wing sources will say he doesn't care about Americans and he is doing this to destroy America. The left-wing sources will say that the benefit outweighs the cost, while the right-wing sources could say it will have dire affect on the debt. From there I typically look at the pattern and try to take into account many other previous actions. Admittingly, there is always biasness in that process and sometimes my conclusion is not say your conclusion for the same reason. Sometimes the whole "truth" is not able to be obtained. Hence why we have a division in this country, people arriving at different conclusions and I would wager to say no side has a monopoly on the "truth".
 
Praxas said:
There is always a biasness in both the news and what "truth" we search for in stories. The fact I may fact check Trump's statements versus fact checking what a Republican governor did is biasness. The trick is to try and hold back that biasness until more information is found. And since no one is perfect, I have failed at that many times.



It's easy to get the general idea of the story. For instance, President Obama signs a spending bill. That is easy enough and factual enough that almost all sources agree, though the intent and thought process of the consequence of that is completely subjective. To continue the example some left-wing sources could say he did that because he is wanting to help Americans while right-wing sources will say he doesn't care about Americans and he is doing this to destroy America. The left-wing sources will say that the benefit outweighs the cost, while the right-wing sources could say it will have dire affect on the debt. From there I typically look at the pattern and try to take into account many other previous actions. Admittingly, there is always biasness in that process and sometimes my conclusion is not say your conclusion for the same reason. Sometimes the whole "truth" is not able to be obtained. Hence why we have a division in this country, people arriving at different conclusions and I would wager to say no side has a monopoly on the "truth".
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I've found there simply is no way for common folk like us to ever really know the truth since the folks doing reporting and their bosses got into the business to persuade.
Are there exceptions? Probably ... I can maybe think of some who seem to try but you can tell the ones who don't.

Another thing that I've noticed is about orgs like Politifact and other self professed "fact checking" orgs.
They tend to misrepresent someone's statement (our President does that a lot when he's not outright lying) and then declare their own misrepresentation to be somewhere on the truth scale.
Yet they're cited as reliable.
 
bubbabgone said:
I've found there simply is no way for common folk like us to ever really know the truth since the folks doing reporting and their bosses got into the business to persuade.
Are there exceptions? Probably ... I can maybe think of some who seem to try but you can tell the ones who don't.
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That is true to an extent because the decision on what to even report on is biased.

Another thing that I've noticed is about orgs like Politifact and other self professed "fact checking" orgs.
They tend to misrepresent someone's statement (our President does that a lot when he's not outright lying) and then declare their own misrepresentation to be somewhere on the truth scale.
Yet they're cited as reliable.
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It is easy to fact check what someone actually said (the words), the intent or context is usually where the biasness comes in with those sites.
 
cpwill said:
No, everyone got it.
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Then what are we discussing? They're not comparable. Colbert is a comedian, if you get to his show and you don't realize it's a comedian doing a show - and you want to compare that to some news site that presents itself as the truth, you really aren't paying attention to either.
 
Praxas said:
That is true to an extent because the decision on what to even report on is biased.



It is easy to fact check what someone actually said (the words), the intent or context is usually where the biasness comes in with those sites.
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Yes ... to both statements.
 
bubbabgone said:
Applying the Colbert model to more accessible and mundane activities, can choosing a screen name that suggests a political lean that's intentionally divorced from accuracy be considered a kind of fake news or simply a failed attempt at persuasion?
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So you don't think moderate Republicans exist? Republicans who are just as ticked off about this crap as the rest of the world is? Maybe they are rare but they do exist. I am one.
 
cpwill said:
FakeNews® is very upset about Fake News.
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exactly!

speaking of fake news, I wish I had footage of Seth Myer complaining about the Hillary health scare stories a couple days before she collapsed infront of a crowd of people.
 
Hatuey said:
Then what are we discussing? They're not comparable
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Sure they are. Like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al, they're just entertainment, right?





Sadly, Wrong. :(

As jmotivator pointed out:


jmotivator said:
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What we hear and what we integrate impacts what we think and shapes what we believe. Stewart and Jones helped to mass-normalize the idea that one of the purposes of ingesting news was to look down on people who disagreed with you, and find ways to portray them as dishonest and/or morons. It was their schtick. It was funny, sure. Not all its effects were.


The unwillingness or inability of folks to accept that things we enjoy can have unintended consequences that we do not is a major part of today's political dysfunction.



you want to compare that to some news site that presents itself as the truth
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:lol: what, you mean like CNN and the Washington Times? :)
 
ARealConservative said:
exactly!

speaking of fake news, I wish I had footage of Seth Myer complaining about the Hillary health scare stories a couple days before she collapsed infront of a crowd of people.
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Anti-Trump conservatives have been complaining about this for months now. The self-destruction of the main line media's credibility meant that there were no arbiters of truth who couldn't be dismissed anymore. Meaning, you couldn't bring any evidence against Trump to his supporters, because they would dismiss it as the product of a dishonest media.
 
cpwill said:
Sure they are. Like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al, they're just entertainment, right?
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They entertain. They aren't comedians. One takes themselves seriously in their entertainment and espouse those views. People pretending to be something else clearly don't. They're not comparable.

Seriously, this is like comparing George Carlin to a guy doing a talk show about politics because they're both discussing politics.
 
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