Spot Journalistic Bias and Manipulation (was Media Bias)

[TRGTspecialist]

There are so many negative labels to apply to people we disagree with I can't keep up.

If you're having trouble just stick to the simple ones, like lefty/leftist, liberal, SJW, then you should be fine......

 

[LeMansAid]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/marine-le-...ti-semitic-comment-far-right-fn-party-1491647

Funny that they claim to have "5000 screen grabs" that would expose party members' true colours, but there's barely a quote attributed directly to the "watched". Almost all of the quotes in the article are from the "watchers", where they describe in their own words the supposed held views of those party members.

I'd never read anything from that site previously, and the articles I've just had a look through seem very, very trashy (the linked one included). I doubt it was by chance that the featured photo captured Le Pen in a Nazi-salute-like pose. Another, titled "Trump Health Care Plan Would Give Wealthy Republican Lawmakers A Tax Break" seems to be the equivalent to something like "Obama's Economic Stimulus Package Benefited Convicted Paedophiles" - it's picking an action with a wide-ranging effect and arbitrarily but pointedly narrowing the focus. Trashy. "Canadian beauty salon fat shames woman – 'you won't fit in the chair' " was a corker as well.....

"Discrimination is defined as treating a person differently on the basis of one of the characteristics in The Code (such as age, sex, disability, ancestry etc.) but also as failing to reasonably accommodate the special needs of a person where those needs are based on one of those characteristics," Isha Khan with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission said.

I didn't know that being denied a pedicure was human rights abuse. The lady apparently said she may file a human rights complaint. I can only assume that the justification is in the "etc." component of the discrimination code. I'd have thought they'd actually quote the one that aligns. I'm sure it exists though. Really..... really sure.

You should get on it Penso. Seems it's maybe not quite as factual as something like The Onion, but it's certainly entertaining.

 

[UKMikey]

I kinda guessed there would be an attempt to poison the well in the absence of any other counterevidence *shrugs*. The linked site contained a lot of screen grabs but I don't speak French unfortunately.

Back to post #81, I guess.

 

[Tornado]

Melania Trump likes 'cry for help' tweet saying her marriage to president is awful

*blah blah blah*

The suggestion Melania Trump may have accidentally liked the tweet – or that it was done by a heavy fingered staffer who may have control of her social media account – could be a more likely reason than her signalling for help.

Melania Trump has stopped wearing fur and Pamela Anderson might be why

*blah blah blah*

It remains unclear when exactly that Mrs Trump stopped wearing fur.

This site is fantastic. Reminds me of when cable news outlets learned halfway through the Bush administration that they could just say whatever bat:censored: crazy thing they wanted and pose it as a question and it would fly. Thank you for the link UKMikey.

 

[UKMikey]

Well, I was kinda hoping for more discussion of the article at hand but it doesn't look good for the website.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Business_Times#Content_quality

 

[huskeR32]

Compare the headline to the content.

 

[UKMikey]

This one has been doing the rounds recently:

 

[Danoff]

I saw a headline this morning along the lines of "Trump fires FBI Directory Comey, investigating administration Russia ties". You're obviously supposed to insert the word "for" in the middle.

 

[Danoff]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...s-airstrike-killed-over-100-civilians-n764541

Pentagon Officials Say a U.S. Airstrike Killed Over 100 Civilians in Mosul

"The probe found that the U.S. bomb triggered secondary explosions from devices clandestinely planted there by ISIS fighters. And the military says the secondary blasts caused the concrete building to collapse."

So the Pentagon Officials said what now?

 

[Lizard]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...s-airstrike-killed-over-100-civilians-n764541

Pentagon Officials Say a U.S. Airstrike Killed Over 100 Civilians in Mosul

"The probe found that the U.S. bomb triggered secondary explosions from devices clandestinely planted there by ISIS fighters. And the military says the secondary blasts caused the concrete building to collapse."

So the Pentagon Officials said what now?

The airstrike still set off the explosives.

 

[Danoff]

The airstrike still set off the explosives.

Thanks for pointing that out. I understood that. But ISIS wouldn't have been there if not for the Sykes Picot agreement in 1916, so actually the British killed those people.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Thanks for pointing that out. I understood that. But ISIS wouldn't have been there if not for the Sykes Picot agreement in 1916, so actually the British killed those people.

No no, that was the culmination of centuries of interference re-escalated by George I. Therefore it's the fault of the Germans

 

[Danoff]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ed-civilians-in-mosul-to-be-released-thursday
Pentagon Blames 105 Civilian Deaths From Mosul Strike On 'Secondary Explosion'

Same story, less bias.

 

[Dennisch]

Thanks for pointing that out. I understood that. But ISIS wouldn't have been there if not for the Sykes Picot agreement in 1916, so actually the British killed those people.

No no, that was the culmination of centuries of interference re-escalated by George I. Therefore it's the fault of the Germans

Can we spin this in any way to blame Trump for this?

 

[PeterJB]

Or straight white men?

 

[UKMikey]

Here's a video by the London School of Economics of a study covering a recent particular aspect of media bias.



http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/Mainstream-Media-Representations-of-Jeremy-Corbyn.aspx

 

[Danoff]

Put the french fries down: Eating fried potatoes doubles risk of death

From the study:
"Conclusions: The frequent consumption of fried potatoes appears to be associated with an increased mortality risk."

Not even remotely the same thing.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Put the french fries down: Eating fried potatoes doubles risk of death

From the study:
"Conclusions: The frequent consumption of fried potatoes appears to be associated with an increased mortality risk."

Not even remotely the same thing.

Is this media bias or simply a clickbait headline intended to generate traffic?

 

[Danoff]

Is this media bias or simply a clickbait headline intended to generate traffic?

They can be the same thing. It's not necessarily a political bias, but it is a bias toward the extreme or upsetting. It's especially pervasive in medicine and law. They take a case or study that you might be uninterested in and lie about the contents just enough to get you upset. Everyone reading the headline comes away with the impression that the world is more dangerous and unfair than it is.

 

[BobK]

Put the french fries down: Eating fried potatoes doubles risk of death

From the study:
"Conclusions: The frequent consumption of fried potatoes appears to be associated with an increased mortality risk."

Not even remotely the same thing.

Wow. According to that headline I have a 200% chance of dying if I eat French fries!

Granted, the article itself specifies an "early" death.

The only quote from the study itself is (as @Danoff states) “The frequent consumption of fried potatoes appears to be associated with an increased mortality risk.”

I don't believe the article (or headline) is political bias at all, but it's certainly clickbait. And misleading clickbait, at that.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Wow. According to that headline I have a 200% chance of dying if I eat French fries!

Granted, the article itself specifies an "early" death.

The only quote from the study itself is (as @Danoff states) “The frequent consumption of fried potatoes appears to be associated with an increased mortality risk.”

I don't believe the article (or headline) is political bias at all, but it's certainly clickbait. And misleading clickbait, at that.

I don't like taking chances with my health so I'm going to play the odds and switch from french fries with my bacon cheeseburger to onion rings. I suggest you do the same.

 

[polysmut]

"a recent study shows" is the equivalent of "here's what will sell today".
It's only through meta-analyses of studies that information is really found.
The rest is just filler.

 

[Liquid]

"Studies show.."

What study?
Who conducted it?
How large was the sample?
Was there a control group?
How long did the study go on for?
Who funds the research?
Why is said group funding the research?

Especially with food health, you should almost never trust whatever a quick newspaper column tells you. Find a peer reviewed paper instead.

---

It's almost rhetorical to bring the Daily Heil into a media bias debate but their election coverage has been quite special:

There is a legal classification in the United Kingdom that newspapers must be registered as such with the Post Office. (Or at least there used to be.)

"Crush The Saboteurs" divisive, warmongering rhetoric
Actively instructing people on how to vote tactically
Turbow:censored:ing at a predicted Tory majority

And then the sheer hypocrisy to report on the opposite outcome as though they weren't hoping for it in the first place.

At what point do newspapers stop being newspapers and just become a full-blown, editoralised ideology pamphlet? They're not reporting news, they're fulfilling Herr Goebbels' wildest wet dream.

And by no means is the Daily Heil the only "news" paper guilty of this on any side of the political spectrum.

 

[TenEightyOne]

"Studies show.."

The Daily Mail loves any study (however tenuous their interpretation of its findings or validity) that tells you you're going to die (and what of), that somebody's house/car/shag is nicer/better/costlier than yours or that immigrants are eating all the fish from public parks.

 

[Lizard]

As I have always said.

There are 2 main issues with the idea of a free press. Those issues are known as The Daily Mail and Fox News.

 

[ryzno]

There are 2 main issues with the idea of a free press. Those issues are known as The Daily Mail and Fox News.

You forgot CNN...

 

[Johnnypenso]

You forgot CNN...

You forgot MSNBC, the Huffington Post, Breitbart and a few dozen others

 

[Lizard]

Breitbart

Forgot that. Their editor was retweeting the EDL.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Scott Pelley on CBS Evening News, thinks the recent shooting of Republicans was, "forseeable, predictable and, to some degree, self inflicted":

It's time to ask whether the attack on the United States Congress, yesterday, was foreseeable, predictable and, to some degree, self-inflicted.
Too many leaders, and political commentators, who set an example for us to follow, have led us into an abyss of violent rhetoric which, it should be no surprise, has led to violence. Yesterday was not the first time.

In December last year, a man with an assault rifle stormed into a Washington-area pizzeria to free child sex slaves whom Hillary Clinton was holding there -- or at least that's what political blog sites had said. He fired into a locked door to discover no children in chains. Sen. Bernie Sanders has called the president the "most dangerous in history." The shooter yesterday was a Sanders volunteer.

You might think that no sane person would act on political hate speech, and you'd be right. Trouble is, there are a lot of Americans who struggle with mental illness. In February, the president tweeted that the news media were the "enemy of the American people":

The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @abc, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017

Later, at a lunch for reporters, President Trump was asked whether he worried that language would incite violence. His pause indicated it had never crossed his mind. Then he said, "No, that doesn't worry me." As children we're taught, "Words will never hurt me." But when you think about it, violence almost always begins with words. In "Twitter world," we've come to believe that our first thought is our best thought.

It's past time for all of us -- presidents, politicians, reporters, citizens, all of us -- to pause to think again.

 

[Danoff]

"...it should be no surprise, has led to violence."

There it is ^