A Discussion of the News Media...

[YSSMAN]

As a student that is required to keep up to date with things going on in our world today, I've always found it fascinating to observe the different ways in which news media not only in the United States covers particular issues, but also how the rest of the world sees similar events. Between the 2008 Election in the United States, the ongoing conflict in Georgia, and even coverage of the economic status of the world can show very different results depending on where you look.

Just a few questions to kick-start a conversation...

- Are there any favorites that you find "trustworthy," or for that matter, your "benchmark" (of sorts) compared to other media?
- Are we at a point where it now becomes "acceptable" to have media outlets pushing far-right or far-left views?
- Should we be worried when fewer and fewer media outlets are operated independently and instead are under umbrella corporations (NewsCorp, TimeWarner, General Electric, Viacom, etc)?
- Is the internet "fair ground" for news?

Feel free to kick in your own thoughts/ideas, its just something I've been thinking about the past few days.

=======

Generally speaking, I've been very dissatisfied with the majority of news media these days. Maybe its my intense watching and reading of the news on a daily basis, but I've noticed an increasing trend of becoming very upset with the far right lean, far left lean, and the claims of "independence" and "fairness" in media despite the clear lack thereof. It just seems like these days you have to take a spoonfull of BS from everyone to get a fair picture of what the hell is going on in the world, or in a very sad picture of things, rely on "fake news" like The Daily Show to see a fair shot given to anyone.

I've really found it best to attempt to take a dose of everything to try and get the full picture these days. Countdown with Keith Olberman with a balance of Glenn Beck seems to be a good way to get the message on TV, and as far as print media goes, I tend to avoid it completely. I think you could make an arguement either way on far too many papers these days, and it just really ends up becoming a mess of political opinion and news that never gets the idea across.

If anything, it seems like the BBC has my bases covered. It, at least to me, is a bit disappointing when you have to turn to a foreign media outlet to get the best news coverage of what is happening in your own country. I've found that Al Jezera has had an interesting viewpoint on many things happening as well, and a new favorite has been peeking in on the CCTV (Chinese operated news) coverage of events as well. Not that its "good" by any means, but different nevertheless.

 

[niky]

- Are there any favorites that you find "trustworthy," or for that matter, your "benchmark" (of sorts) compared to other media? The further the outlet is away from the news, the more objective it seems to be.

- Are we at a point where it now becomes "acceptable" to have media outlets pushing far-right or far-left views? It's never acceptable to allow political bias to color your coverage of the news. If it's an editorial, fine, but once you start editorializing news items, that's a big no-no...

- Should we be worried when fewer and fewer media outlets are operated independently and instead are under umbrella corporations (NewsCorp, TimeWarner, General Electric, Viacom, etc)? Yes. Very worried. Fewer viewpoints, pushing the shared interests of the corporate parent, whether they be right-wing or left-wing.

- Is the internet "fair ground" for news? The internet is a circus. Great place to print news for maximum readership, but I'm wary of internet-only sources. Internet rumor mills have done more harm, IMHO, than good in the past decade (withness 9/11 conspiracy theory, etcetera).

Generally speaking, I've been very dissatisfied with the majority of news media these days. Maybe its my intense watching and reading of the news on a daily basis, but I've noticed an increasing trend of becoming very upset with the far right lean, far left lean, and the claims of "independence" and "fairness" in media despite the clear lack thereof. It just seems like these days you have to take a spoonfull of BS from everyone to get a fair picture of what the hell is going on in the world, or in a very sad picture of things, rely on "fake news" like The Daily Show to see a fair shot given to anyone.

I like the Daily Show, too. If you have no interests to protect, everyone is fair game. Unfortunately, if you're watching news about politics... everyone has interests to protect and viewpoints to espouse. That's why they're covering politics. The only way to ensure true objectivity in political coverage is to get someone who doesn't like politics to cover it.

That's like forcing Hugh Hefner to become a priest to enforce sexual law reform in the Church. It's notgonnahappen.com.

 

[Zrow]

I check out Drudge every day (and afternoon and night admittedly) to see if anything major is going on.

The problem with so much news these days, though, is that everything is total speculation. So many news stories seem to be these kind of, "Will this guy do this? Will this effect this? Will blah blah blah?"

I see that as just political gossip, which is occasionally okay, but not acceptable as a large portion of what these sources cover. This is especially so during an election year: it's all about campaign rumors and speculation.

Maybe it's not as bad during the actual "headline news" kinds of programs on the news channels, but the problem is so much of their programming time is filled with pundits who don't really do anything but speculate on things that nobody really knows yet.

 

[nk4e]

- Are there any favorites that you find "trustworthy," or for that matter, your "benchmark" (of sorts) compared to other media?

As for the Media on TV, I can't really say much because the details is usually the same.I tend to look at AP's reports on the Yahoo page( mostly from the world's view like BBC)but the information is usually changing. So I wouldn't deemed it to be trustworthy, but also on some reports the AP tends to edit and add more information.

- Are we at a point where it now becomes "acceptable" to have media outlets pushing far-right or far-left views?

I believe if we did that, then so many arguments would be fought for no reason than the real truth being sought after( I'm thinking about conspiracy theorist..etc..etc). But the information tends to be twisted from its original source to get more ratings.
-

Should we be worried when fewer and fewer media outlets are operated independently and instead are under umbrella corporations (NewsCorp, TimeWarner, General Electric, Viacom, etc)?

I would be worried if most of the independently outlets are gone. IMO, I would like to see more sources backing up an evidence than a single source using their "creditability" to tell the truth.
-

Is the internet "fair ground" for news?

I don't believe so, because data could be modified and twisted.

 

[Duke]

Even The Daily Show is really pretty left-wing. I'd bet you my next paycheck that Jon Stewart is voting Obama this November. I agree, he does tend to give it to both sides, but you can see where his heart of hearts lies.

Frankly, I don't find the sainted BBC World News to be all that non-biased either. When I really need to find out about something, I try several different sources to see what they are all saying. It's the only way to formulate a somewhat real picture.

And it's a PITA do have to do so. Unfortunately, that means I tend to ignore all but the most important news items because it is such a bother to filter out the kilotons of blatant slant that 90% of the news media puts on everything.

 

[Danoff]

My primary news source is CNN. That's not because I find it particularly trustworthy or unbiased - it is most certainly biased. I use them because their page layout is better than others, and because they tend to cover things quickly. That being said, it's painful to try to extract facts from the opinion-loaded articles on CNN. But it's no better anywhere else (certainly not the BBC, which is comparably biased).

I try not to read opinion pieces or analysis on these sites. When I want opinions or analysis I turn to cato.org.


To answer some of the questions:
- Nobody is trustworthy
- "Acceptable" as in, I put up with it. It almost seems impossible to remove bias from news. But if someone came out with a news website that contained articles with facts instead of bias, and was timely about coverage, I would go there instead.
- I don't mind umbrella corporations. The free market can keep them in check.
- I get my news on the internet exclusively.

The problem here is not the newsmedia. It's the public that accepts and rewards this behavior.

Edit: And yes, the Daily show is heavily biased.

 

[Sage]

If there's breaking news that I want to look up right away, I go to Google News. For my "daily digest" of news, I subscribe to ABC's podcast - not because they're not biased, but because their podcast is well-edited and in 15 minutes I can get all of the top headline news as well as some interesting ancillary things (they do a "Today's Top Google Searches" segment, which I like). When I listen though, I try to mentally filter things so that I only pay attention to the known facts. For opinion stuff, I have an RSS subscription to Reason Magazine's Hit & Run blog.

 

[YSSMAN]

Edit: And yes, the Daily show is heavily biased.

It wouldn't be funny if it wasn't. I still love it when McCain is on there though, he is one of their best (and most-funny) guests.

I've been finding the Chinese CCTV news to be a bit odd and interesting. I was expecting more propaganda and such in the news, but, I dunno. It just seems like news. Short (almost too-short) and to the point.