
Political Bias Is Destroying Peoples Faith in Journalism - Trisell
https://nypost.com/2019/02/26/political-bias-is-destroying-peoples-faith-in-journalism/
======
sleepysysadmin
It's not political bias. People's faith in journalism is being destroyed by
the journalists themselves.

[https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/media/abc-news-stage-
live-s...](https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/media/abc-news-stage-live-
shot/index.html)

ABC faking a crime scene.

[https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg)

Anderson Cooper faking a scene.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2016/04...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2016/04/06/clinton-questions-whether-sanders-is-qualified-to-be-
president/?utm_term=.168f32c16721)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-
checker/wp/2016/04/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-
checker/wp/2016/04/07/sanderss-incorrect-claim-that-clinton-called-him-not-
qualified-for-the-presidency/)

Which is it Washington Post? One of these articles is FALSE.

We are losing faith in journalism because the journalists are WRONG.

~~~
throwaway201903
In regards to the Anderson Cooper thing: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-
check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-
cooper-hurricane/).

He also did an on-air segment with the full footage:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2018/09/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2018/09/18/anderson-cooper-accuses-donald-trump-jr-of-tweeting-lies-
with-old-hurricane-photo/).

Not to say that CNN is not often wrong, but this is a meme that isn't true.

~~~
timtim51251
You need to realize that snopes is a propaganda site that lies all the time.
They are very liberal and don't believe in the truth.

------
AtlasBarfed
[https://vimeo.com/34419805](https://vimeo.com/34419805)

The massive corporate centralization of all media channels is the primary
source of distrust in journalism now. It seeks profit by whatever controversy,
fake news, or distraction that will sell ads, regardless of traditional value.

Being a staunch environmentalist I obviously loathe most Republicans and hate
centrist-dominated Democrats almost as much.

But it is clear to me that the partisanship of the country is due to a flood
of media desperate for clicks, overwhelming people who have not or cannot
adapt to the propaganda firehose.

Here's a fun little experiment: where can you tune in on TV for balanced
opinions on issues that will actually account for more that a single
viewpoints, coming out of the same mouth? You know, things like "caveats" or
saying "granted" about some aspect of the opposing side?

Moderation doesn't fuel emotions, and emotions and radicalization are what
gets you constant viewership.

Like all other industries in America, the conglomerates need to be split up.

~~~
gthaman
I like how they try to blame subversion and propaganda on the "current divide"
in politics.

Most people know good and well whats happening, its more the intellectuals who
are making out well in this current environment who are doing (in good faith)
the mental gymnastics to put the fault of the american media's decline on some
abstract idea as if tree's didn't bear fruit.

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-
propaganda-...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-
ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act)

------
dopamean
I wonder how much of it is really bias or people perceiving bias. I know
people who think that if they read something negative about a political figure
they like then the person and publication who wrote it are automatically
biased in favor of the other side.

It also seems like it might be hard to write about certain political stories
without being accused of bias. Is it possible to write anything about the
shutdown and border wall fiasco that doesn't paint he President and GOP in a
bad light? Wont many people incorrectly perceive that as biased reporting?

I don't mean to imply that there isn't actual bias but it just seems like a
strange thing to bring up at a time when certain political figures are acting
in such extreme ways. Simply reporting on those actions and their consequences
if often going to be very negative.

~~~
rubbingalcohol
Here in case you didn't read:

> It is not hard to find examples of how far we have strayed from reporting
> standards in the Trump era. A simple example is Time Magazine falsely
> reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s first day in office, stating that
> he’d removed a statue of Martin Luther King from the Oval Office. The news
> went viral. But the writer did not follow the most basic rule of journalism
> — pick up the phone and ask the White House if it was really gone, and why?
> The writer late wrote a correction on his Twitter account, stating “The MLK
> bust is still in the Oval Office. It was obscured by an agent and door.”

There are numerous examples. Most recently the entire media running with a
Buzzfeed story to the tune of "Trump is finished" that Mueller himself
disputed, or the stuff about the MAGA hat kids that allegedly surrounded and
mocked a Native American peace activist (turns out he had muscled his way into
their gathering and was physically intimidating them, but the press ran with a
selectively edited video and didn't bother corroborating it). This is stuff
that gets widespread coverage before any journalist bothers with due
diligence.

I think it's a shame because a free press is one of the only ways to keep the
government in check but they are shredding their own credibility, apparently
because of personal biases (but who really knows), and the result of that is a
government that can rightfully dismiss a lot of what gets reported. How do you
recover after "crying wolf" too many times?

~~~
RandomTisk
That's part of it but I think it goes much deeper than just recent examples
like the Covington kids. I can't stand most of cable news because any topic
that I know anything about, political or not, I know I'm being lied to through
omission of key facts. CNN/MSNBC are especially unwatchable because, like
clockwork and for many years now, they bring on several "experts" that
magically always champion Democrat's causes but will only bring on few or very
weak proponents of any other opposing view. Many media outlets will
continually bring out their best champions for something to go up against the
absolute worst proponent the other side has to offer. To people who only watch
CNN/MSNBC, it will look like Macho Man Randy Savage is constantly beating down
Spongebob but that's simply the purposeful illusion they carefully cultivate.

There is also a tendril that reaches into Academia. Free speech on most
campuses is dead. The left has seen to that. Kids are being militantly trained
to shut down speakers with whom they disagree, simply because they disagree.
This empowers the rest of politics because these kids will never let fairness
and unbiased reporting happen and the more prestigious the school this happens
at, the more likely these students will affect the media in their lifetimes.

~~~
rubbingalcohol
> these kids will never let fairness and unbiased reporting happen and the
> more prestigious the school this happens at, the more likely these students
> will affect the media in their lifetimes

You're not wrong, but I see that as self-correcting. If the media continues to
undermine their credibility, then independent journalism will continue to
rise. We're already seeing YouTube creators with bigger followings than any of
the traditional media channels. This is a double-edged sword because a lot of
these channels don't have the same level of journalistic training that
traditional media champions, but training is also a moot point when the
traditional actors have abandoned their best practices to chase sensational
headlines.

We are rapidly approaching a place where people can choose whatever facts they
want to believe because everything is questionable. That is more dangerous to
democracy than the so-called fascist president the media is railing against.

------
isoskeles
I recently watched the "Hulk Hogan / Gawker" Netflix documentary, "Nobody
Speak: Trials of the Free Press." It was only about the Hulk Hogan / Gawker
trial at the beginning, and then it turned into a full-on propaganda piece
about how journalism is good and orange man bad. Maybe I am too dumb to have
understood, but my takeaway was the morals of the story were basically: (1)
it's bad that rich people can influence journalism and that needs to stop and
(2) people need to start believing in journalists again because journalists
are fundamental to democracy and actually they're very good etc.

I agree with #1 to some extent, but they came up with the dumbest possible
example in pointing out that the lawsuit was funded by Peter Thiel. I'm pretty
sure there's a concept on the "left" that says it's not your right to "out" a
person's sexuality. Gawker violated that. Not that I (or even the law) care
one way or another, and not that this was the focus of the trial (it wasn't),
but I get why Thiel was livid with them. Thiel (secretly) funded a lawsuit
against Gawker for _posting a sex tape of Hulk Hogan_. I'm not even sure what
mental backflips you have to do to presume that this was newsworthy or okay.
They tried to explain it to us, and the best they got was the meta-point that
Thiel funded the lawsuit. Nothing worthy of note about why they had a right
(via Freedom of the Press) to make a sex tape public against the wishes of one
of the participants. Maybe if it was a sex tape surrounding the impeachment of
a current president, I'd understand.

And somehow, I'm supposed to believe that this means there's a slippery slope
now, where journalists can no longer freely state the news, for fear of being
sued. As if this case weren't limited to the example of, _maybe don 't post a
sex tape of some D-list celebrity as news_.

All that said, and per the article here, I am unhappy with "journalists" as a
group, specifically with their sanctimonious claims that they're protecting
democracy. And the conclusion of this idea, when you take it to the end, is
that people simply _need to believe them on moral principle_ , non-believers
are against democracy.

They're the victims here, the perpetrators are all the people who don't
believe their stories any more--as if there was nothing they did to put
themselves in this place.

~~~
deogeo
> (1) it's bad that rich people can influence journalism and that needs to
> stop

But when ~6 companies own 90% of US media, that doesn't count as influence.

The best part is, they don't even have to lie. They can shape public opinion
just by selecting which stories get covered, or get more prominence, without
giving you a smoking gun false-story you can point at to prove their bias.

------
civilitty
It's hard to take this article seriously coming from the New York Post [1],
which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of dozens of politically biased
news organizations and Fox News, a propaganda outlet made expressly to protect
the Republican party from another loss like the Nixon impeachment.

[1] [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-
post/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/)

~~~
CompanionCuuube
It's hard to take a criticism of an article seriously if it only involves an
ad hominem absent any critique of the actual content of the article.

------
MrMember
I don't even bother clicking on most news links anymore. I follow a Reuters
RSS feed for business and market news and a few NPR feeds for general news.
Over the past couple or years I've lost a lot of faith in most of the major
news outlets. Some are little more than propaganda, and the ones that manage
to remain factually correct most of the time have their reporting clouded by
bias.

------
mc32
She’s saying journalists are becoming activists rather than seekers of facts
and corroborating evidence. Today they will cherrypick data and facts to
advocate for one side or the other, but because roughly 7 out of 10
journalists are registered Democrats this attitude will favor Democrat/liberal
narratives over Repub/Conservative narratives.

One of most hilarious things happening, as others point out is the “fact
checks” which should be called “gotcha on technicalities”. No, it wasn’t
200,000 gallons, it was 189,480 gallons, liar! No, unemployment isn’t down to
4.2%, it’s actually expected to be down to 3.9%, you are so wrong!

------
RickJWagner
I agree. News is supposed to be presented in an unbiased way, but virtually
every source now heavily injects some spin with each article.

It's a shame, really. But I'm very glad Lara Logan is speaking out. It will
cost her, but by raising awareness of the issue maybe things can start to
improve.

------
sleepysysadmin
It's not political bias. People's faith in journalism is being destroyed by
the journalists themselves.

~~~
he0001
I’m curious, what's wrong with the two CNN articles? One is written 2015 and
the other 2019 by two different persons and one seems to be a doctor?

~~~
sleepysysadmin
There's tons of bullshit from the media:
[https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg)

~~~
he0001
And you don’t think it’s legitimate to write those two pieces, although there
are 4 years between them, two different cases, and two different persons that
wrote them? I think for this particularly case, you can’t say it’s wrong. It’s
two different pieces telling two different stories by two completely different
persons with four years apart. Much can happen in four years. I’m mostly
impressed that you picked them up, with them written so far apart.

~~~
obtaniumstool
Considering all of his examples were top boogeymen of the alt right, I'd be
surprised if there was any deeper reasoning behind it than parroting talking
points.

------
robgibbons
I've weaned myself almost entirely off of sensationalized news, especially
social feeds. I try to eliminate any "colorful" (read: opinionated) news
sources, be they progressive or conservative. I will only consciously consume
objective reporting, from outlets which I respect for neutrality.

Reuters, for example, still does a great job at focusing only on the facts,
without attempting to interpret or inject personal opinions. They hold their
journalists to a very high degree of journalistic integrity, and it really
shows.

------
dragonsngoblins
I think the issue is instead the rush to publish. With the internet you have
to put something out on a story almost immediately 24/7\. Even basic fact
checking is a huge time drag when you have less than hours in which to get
something out.

Political Bias is in my mind largely a side effect: politically charged
stories get lots of eyes and getting to them late means missing out on the
inevitable flutter of angry and indignant retweets about the story. So loads
of political stories get rushed, which means we see a lot of slanted ones
(because more are written), and because they were rushed they are missing
facts or have incorrect facts.

------
war1025
Yellow journalism is not just a thing of the past. A free press is important,
that doesn't mean all press is high-quality or well-intentioned.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism)

------
anth_anm
This thread consists of conservatives whining about CNN and others, vs others
taking shots at the post and the author of the article.

So yeah, bias. I'm not at all convinced this is a "both sides" issue. You can
find errors in coverage and examples of bias, but the scale of the
Murdoch/Mercer news empires really has no match from the center. The actual
left wing is pretty well unrepresented.

The big problem I have is their obsession with ridiculous fact checking now.
Not checking how many bodies are actually in the morgue, or whether or not a
statue was removed. I mean the bullshit pedantry. Donald Trump says in the
state of the union that the US has been at war in the middle east for almost
19 years. The NYT "fact checks" that as "actually it's only been almost 18
years". What does that accomplish? Is anyone more informed? Is there any story
there? Is there any commentary on the state of the union, or just a summary?
Does it matter at all? Is their fact check even accurate?

My problem with it is that this has replaced any sort of quality journalism
with just a mass of worthless fact checks and the important stuff gets buried.

~~~
timw4mail
There's huge bias on both sides, especially to the extremes.

There are very few moderate left or moderate right news outlets, perhaps
because moderate news isn't as prone to the virality of the far left/far right
viewpoints.

"Fact checking" largely seems to be an attempt at appeasement to the error-
rate of instant news.

