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Do You Trust The MSM?

Do you trust the MSM?

  • Total voters
    7
Moderate Right said:
That's exactly my point! The right wing media has their bias and the mainstream media has their bias. By the way, Mr. Fox News himself, Bill O'Reilly, was constantly attacking those who believed in the birther issue.
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While Beck, Hannity, Fox and Friends, and others continued to flout it. Is that a trait of a responsible network?
 
I don't know why folks continue to refer to MSM as "news outlets". They're mostly tabloids today. Tabloids generate more revenue because they will spin news or events to appeal to specific populations. This applies to what people consider liberal or conservative media sources.
 
Mycroft said:
Does the article cite "unnamed sources"...or something equally as ambiguous? Ignore the article.

Does a news source regularly cite "unnamed sources"...or something equally as ambiguous? Delete that source and every time someone cites that source tell them they are an idiot. (do it in a nice way)
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I disagree with the strategy of dismissing"unnamed sources" as a blanket rule. Using anonymous sources is how Watergate was broken. Citing unnamed sources in itself a bad thing, it's a privilege to be exercised by news vendors of high quality and reputation, which is specifically why I think my list is a pretty good starting point for eliminating the low quality vendors so that you can start possibly taking their unnamed sources with some seriousness again.

Unfortunately, crap sources today have elbowed their way to the front of the crowd to be taken with some seriousness, such as Think Progress, Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, Breitbart, Infowars, Alex Jones, Breitbart and WND. In the past we all knew the National Enquirer was nonsense. It existed to be pointed and laughed at in the supermarket checkout lane. Something happened today to make those tabloids explode in number and the echo-chamber effect of the internet has allowed people to treat them as legitimate. Those crap sources helped spoil it for everyone by making it more difficult to accept news stories even though nobody should have ever been reading them in the first place.

Now for the sources more in the center, the quality of some have fallen pretty low due to the ad-driven nature of their sites, resulting in more sensationalist stories, clickbait and ads disguised as stories. These are the news sites, network and online, that tend to be in the crosshairs of The Daily Show. It may be that if we truly want high quality news that doesn't fall victim to the ad-driven tradition in the future, we have to just break down and pay for them, though for now there are still some good sources you can use if you just take control of your feed and sensibly filter out the dross. I will be much more open to that "unnamed source" if it's in the Guardian or Wall Street Journal versus CNN or USA Today.
 
Cardinal said:
Oh, it's not so bad once you know what to look for and what to avoid. The "if it bleeds it leads" aspect is unfortunate but that's a permanent aspect of the media that goes back to the invention of the printing press.

Things to look for:

Which news sources have obvious clickbait? Delete those news sources from your feed immediately.

Which news sources disguise advertisements as news? Delete those news sources from your feed immediately.

Does your news source feature a daily front-page story on cruelty to some random puppy? (Yes, this is oddly specific) Delete this news source from your feed immediately.

Which news sources have sidebars featuring celebrities showing sideboob? Delete those sources from your feed immediately.

Does the news source post regular retractions and corrections? If not, delete that source immediately.

Then you're left with more complex decisions. Do the articles leave you feeling as uninformed as if you had never read the articles in the first place? If you had to explain the story to a friend, would the article have given you a relatively good handle on all the aspects of it?

Also, here's a complex one: is the story simply too convenient for your political point of view? This is a hard one for we who loathe Trump because nearly everything he says and does is super convenient for the political perspective we hold. That creates that much more work for us in separating the truth from the dross.
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I did just think of another: does your online news site's articles frequently get made into slideshows so that you have to keep hitting "next" for the sole purpose of generating clicks and ad revenue? Delete that source from your feed immediately.
 
Media_Truth said:
While Beck, Hannity, Fox and Friends, and others continued to flout it. Is that a trait of a responsible network?
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Just saying, the right wing media is slanted to the right. The mainstream media is slanted to the left. That's why no one trusts the media.
 
Cardinal said:
I disagree with the strategy of dismissing"unnamed sources" as a blanket rule. Using anonymous sources is how Watergate was broken. Citing unnamed sources in itself a bad thing, it's a privilege to be exercised by news vendors of high quality and reputation, which is specifically why I think my list is a pretty good starting point for eliminating the low quality vendors so that you can start possibly taking their unnamed sources with some seriousness again.

Unfortunately, crap sources today have elbowed their way to the front of the crowd to be taken with some seriousness, such as Think Progress, Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, Breitbart, Infowars, Alex Jones, Breitbart and WND. In the past we all knew the National Enquirer was nonsense. It existed to be pointed and laughed at in the supermarket checkout lane. Something happened today to make those tabloids explode in number and the echo-chamber effect of the internet has allowed people to treat them as legitimate. Those crap sources helped spoil it for everyone by making it more difficult to accept news stories even though nobody should have ever been reading them in the first place.

Now for the sources more in the center, the quality of some have fallen pretty low due to the ad-driven nature of their sites, resulting in more sensationalist stories, clickbait and ads disguised as stories. These are the news sites, network and online, that tend to be in the crosshairs of The Daily Show. It may be that if we truly want high quality news that doesn't fall victim to the ad-driven tradition in the future, we have to just break down and pay for them, though for now there are still some good sources you can use if you just take control of your feed and sensibly filter out the dross. I will be much more open to that "unnamed source" if it's in the Guardian or Wall Street Journal versus CNN or USA Today.
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Sorry, but we've been fed spun, erroneous and outright lying information from a slew of media outlets...mainstream and non-mainstream...for far to long. Almost all of it the result of "unnamed sources". I'm sick and tired of it...I don't trust any of them.

Give me the names...or shut the F up.

Look...you wouldn't accept some forum member making claims and supporting them with..."some guy told me so". Why would you accept that kind of thing from a news organization?
 
Mycroft said:
Sorry, but we've been fed spun, erroneous and outright lying information from a slew of media outlets...mainstream and non-mainstream. Almost all of it the result of "unnamed sources". I'm sick and tired of it...I don't trust any of them.

Give me the names...or shut the F up.
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Are you telling to me give you the names...or shut the F up?

Edit: my bad, I see you were referring to the "anonymous sources."
 
Mycroft said:
Sorry, but we've been fed spun, erroneous and outright lying information from a slew of media outlets...mainstream and non-mainstream...for far to long. Almost all of it the result of "unnamed sources". I'm sick and tired of it...I don't trust any of them.

Give me the names...or shut the F up.

Look...you wouldn't accept some forum member making claims and supporting them with..."some guy told me so". Why would you accept that kind of thing from a news organization?
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There are a number of posters in this forum who have a long history of making high quality posts and debating honestly. I am more inclined to giving their anecdotal evidence a little more weight than to those who don't have such a history. This is why journalistic standards in the past were so crucial: they provided the basis for trust that allowed them to provide anonymous sources.

Rather than just dismiss all media outright, approach it like you're shopping for anything else in your life.

Just an experiment, put all the news stories in your feed you can think of (the google news feed as well as Newsify are two such examples). Then, systematically, eliminate each news source when it becomes guilty of the transgressions I listed. I'll re-post them here for simplicity.

  1. Which news sources have obvious clickbait? Delete those news sources from your feed immediately.
  2. Which news sources disguise advertisements as news? Delete those news sources from your feed immediately.
  3. Does your news source feature a daily front-page story on cruelty to some random puppy? (Yes, this is oddly specific) Delete this news source from your feed immediately.
  4. Which news sources have sidebars featuring celebrities showing sideboob? Delete those sources from your feed immediately.
  5. Does the news source post regular retractions and corrections? If not, delete that source immediately.
  6. Does your online news site's articles frequently get made into slideshows so that you have to keep hitting "next" for the sole purpose of generating clicks and ad revenue? Delete that source from your feed immediately.

Notice how these items don't even address bias, only quality. That's on purpose.
 
Cardinal said:
There are a number of posters in this forum who have a long history of making high quality posts and debating honestly. I am more inclined to giving their anecdotal evidence a little more weight than to those who don't have such a history. This is why journalistic standards in the past were so crucial: they provided the basis for trust that allowed them to provide anonymous sources.

Rather than just dismiss all media outright, approach it like you're shopping for anything else in your life.

Just an experiment, put all the news stories in your feed you can think of (the google news feed as well as Newsify are two such examples). Then, systematically, eliminate each news source when it becomes guilty of the transgressions I listed. I'll re-post them here for simplicity.

  1. Which news sources have obvious clickbait? Delete those news sources from your feed immediately.
  2. Which news sources disguise advertisements as news? Delete those news sources from your feed immediately.
  3. Does your news source feature a daily front-page story on cruelty to some random puppy? (Yes, this is oddly specific) Delete this news source from your feed immediately.
  4. Which news sources have sidebars featuring celebrities showing sideboob? Delete those sources from your feed immediately.
  5. Does the news source post regular retractions and corrections? If not, delete that source immediately.
  6. Does your online news site's articles frequently get made into slideshows so that you have to keep hitting "next" for the sole purpose of generating clicks and ad revenue? Delete that source from your feed immediately.

Notice how these items don't even address bias, only quality. That's on purpose.
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I didn't address bias either. I only addressed quality. In my opinion, a source that doesn't want to be named is useless and the news story based on such unnamed source has a very low quality...pretty much the same as your average National Inquirer story.
 
Cardinal said:
Are you telling to me give you the names...or shut the F up?

Edit: my bad, I see you were referring to the "anonymous sources."
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Actually, I'm referring to the news organization that cites an unnamed source.
 
Moderate Right said:
Just saying, the right wing media is slanted to the right. The mainstream media is slanted to the left. That's why no one trusts the media.
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Not with character attacks. Show me any other major news network that created, propagated and promoted character attacks for 8+ years. The problem is that character attacks incite anger. Anger incites hate. Hate breeds ugliness. And that's where we are as a nation. This started in 1998, with the inception of FOX News, and has been escalating. Case in point -------->

Misinformation, Lies & Fear about Obama (VIDEO)
 
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Media_Truth said:
Not with character attacks. Show me any other major news network that created, propagated and promoted character attacks for 8+ years. The problem is that character attacks incite anger. Anger incites hate. Hate breeds ugliness. And that's where we are as a nation. This started in 1998, with the inception of FOX News, and has been escalating. Case in point -------->

Misinformation, Lies & Fear about Obama (VIDEO)
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Here's a couple of links that rise to the level of that non-major news network link you provided:

Democrats.com Archive: Bush Hatred

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet
 
Mycroft said:
I didn't address bias either. I only addressed quality. In my opinion, a source that doesn't want to be named is useless and the news story based on such unnamed source has a very low quality...pretty much the same as your average National Inquirer story.
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Baby with the bath water.
 
Moderate Right said:
Just saying, the right wing media is slanted to the right. The mainstream media is slanted to the left. That's why no one trusts the media.
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If the "mainstream media" is "slanted to the left," that is because "the left" generally deals in facts, while "the right" generally deals in fever dreams.
 
Kobie said:
If the "mainstream media" is "slanted to the left," that is because "the left" generally deals in facts, while "the right" generally deals in fever dreams.
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Facts? From "unnamed sources"?

How would you know what's a fact and what's not?
 
Media_Truth said:
Not with character attacks. Show me any other major news network that created, propagated and promoted character attacks for 8+ years. The problem is that character attacks incite anger. Anger incites hate. Hate breeds ugliness. And that's where we are as a nation. This started in 1998, with the inception of FOX News, and has been escalating. Case in point -------->

Misinformation, Lies & Fear about Obama (VIDEO)
Click to expand...

Character attacks? Are you kidding me? Hillary spent the entire campaign attacking Trump's character and calling people who supported him deplorables.
 
Moderate Right said:
Character attacks? Are you kidding me? Hillary spent the entire campaign attacking Trump's character and calling people who supported him deplorables.
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And Trump told Hillary, at a DEBATE, that she should be in jail. Want to back off the victim complex a tad there?
 
Kobie said:
If the "mainstream media" is "slanted to the left," that is because "the left" generally deals in facts, while "the right" generally deals in fever dreams.
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The mainstream media purposely runs more negative stories on the right and less on the left and more positive stories on the left and less on the right. The right wing media was born because there was a uuuuuge segment of society that realized the mainsream media told this slanted version of the news so they in turn told their slanted version of the news. People don't trust the media anymore because both sides tell nothing but slanted versions. Those are the facts.
 
Kobie said:
And Trump told Hillary, at a DEBATE, that she should be in jail. Want to back off the victim complex a tad there?
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That doesn't even have anything to do with the media. And, Hillary and the mainstream media had been demonizing Trump for months before he even said that. Talk about the victim complex. Hillary and the left have done nothing but play the victim card ever since the election. First it was the Comey letter. Then it was the electoral college. Then it was voting recounts in 3 blue states. Then it was unfair media coverage for Trump. Then it was harassing electors to stage a coup. Then it was Russian hacking. As Joe Biden says, "It's over". Trump is officially our 45th president. Lick your wounds, learn from your loss, and move on.
 
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