Poll: Where do you get your news?

[Kyle B]

I still get all of my news from the onion. Today's breaking news:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/wei...is-nake,34304/

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by PascalsWager

The Associated Press and Reuters are really all that remains of inverted pyramid, classic journalistic writing with the facts up top and supporting quotes below.

Of course, they are paid wire services used by the majority of major media outlets.

But remember your Plato and his parable of the shadow of a fire on the wall of a cave: everything we read is through someone else's lens, which is an inherent bias by definition.

The Allegory of The Cave provides a very good, well, allegory, lol, for desiring factual information and determining the rest for oneself. As long as one gives me facts, I can manage through the rest. By contrast, if one gives me the conclusion one draws from the facts as one saw them, my ability to make a good assessment of my own is indeed compromised.

+1 AP/Reuters. I really don't see why news need to be anything but that. Editorial commentary is not news, it's opinion. Many a so called news group provides the latter under the auspices of the former.

I feel that PBS Newshour also delivers good old fashioned news too and it's clear to the viewer when they are delivering opinion. That's OK by me too.

[PascalsWager]

Originally Posted by tony20009

The Allegory of The Cave provides a very good, well, allegory, lol, for desiring factual information and determining the rest for oneself. As long as one gives me facts, I can manage through the rest. By contrast, if one gives me the conclusion one draws from the facts as one saw them, my ability to make a good assessment of my own is indeed compromised.

+1 AP/Reuters. I really don't see why news need to be anything but that. Editorial commentary is not news, it's opinion. Many a so called news group provides the latter under the auspices of the former.

I feel that PBS Newshour also delivers good old fashioned news too and it's clear to the viewer when they are delivering opinion. That's OK by me too.

I was hoping I wasnt the only "classically educated" one in the forums. Apologies for bungling the title as I was in Vegas and winding down from a night on the tables...My philosophy degree, while the source of much ridicule at the time, has deftly prepared me for everything the world tries to slip by the masses. They say in a war - the enemy kills the philosophers first....

I was actually an aspiring journalist just as the cable news phenomenon was taking the world by storm (turn of the millenia, abouts?) and I became so disenchanted with the distortion of fact that I quit and moved on to other, greener pastures. Smart move considering online news has essentially destroyed traditional print media and a news cycle that allowed us some measure of perspective instead of the be first, be controversial, then be accurate style of today's media.

The only thing I watch on TV anymore is sports and car shows. No more news, debates, reality garbage etc. That tube is for zombie entertainment, not enlightenment.

I tend to sift the wire and listen to NPR here and there...forgot about PBS NewsHour and my old BBC World updates from my time abroad... but overall, life is better when i use my own filter and dont bother with the garbage everyone is trying to serve me.

Appreciate your perspective on this issue, Tony. Being in DC, you likely deal with more tail-wagging political BS then anyone.

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by PascalsWager

I was hoping I wasnt the only "classically educated" one in the forums. Apologies for bungling the title as I was in Vegas and winding down from a night on the tables...My philosophy degree, while the source of much ridicule at the time, has deftly prepared me for everything the world tries to slip by the masses. They say in a war - the enemy kills the philosophers first....

I was actually an aspiring journalist just as the cable news phenomenon was taking the world by storm (turn of the millenia, abouts?) and I became so disenchanted with the distortion of fact that I quit and moved on to other, greener pastures. Smart move considering online news has essentially destroyed traditional print media and a news cycle that allowed us some measure of perspective instead of the be first, be controversial, then be accurate style of today's media.

The only thing I watch on TV anymore is sports and car shows. No more news, debates, reality garbage etc. That tube is for zombie entertainment, not enlightenment.

I tend to sift the wire and listen to NPR here and there...forgot about PBS NewsHour and my old BBC World updates from my time abroad... but overall, life is better when i use my own filter and dont bother with the garbage everyone is trying to serve me.

Appreciate your perspective on this issue, Tony. Being in DC, you likely deal with more tail-wagging political BS then anyone.

+1

I live in DC, and the politics are around me when I'm there, but I don't work in DC, so I it's not something I endure daily.

Phil is a great study. It teaches one how to think critically and objectively and it teaches one how to write well. The latter is something rarely seen on the WWW, and the former is all but extinct.

Re: political debate, you no doubt cannot stand what's put forth as political debate, even the Presidential ones. I can't tell you when I last saw anything even remotely on par with the points high school students offer in forensics competitions. Well, actually, I can. In a long ago political debate, Ron Paul was asked the following (or something to this effect):

If you knew you were headed to a deserted island what one thing would you want to take with you?

Candidate 1: some book or other
Candidate 2: wife
Candidate 3: matches
Candidate 4: bible
And on and on with stuff like that. Finally they get to Ron Paul: a boat.

That was when I knew that if the could win the nomination, I would vote for that man. That was easily the most intelligent, practical, direct, and and sane thing I've heard in a political debate ever, before or since.

All the best.

[reelop19]

There is only one way to get news and thats from the Blaze. Glenn Beck is the man!

[bjayfan]

Originally Posted by PascalsWager

The Associated Press and Reuters are really all that remains of inverted pyramid, classic journalistic writing with the facts up top and supporting quotes below.

Of course, they are paid wire services used by the majority of major media outlets.

The AP may look like classic journalism compared to the remaining mass media today, but their standards have eroded significantly over the years, which in turn has helped Reuters.

The sad fact is that people today want to read and view news from their point of view, and with the middle being least vocal we get more from the more extreme ends, both left and right.

Technically, the AP is a co-op, but it really hasn't been run that way for a long time.

[QC]

Obligatory first post. Thought I'd waste it here. Tony, you may be interested in this. Old but still interesting: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...ucla-6664.aspx

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by QC

Obligatory first post. Thought I'd waste it here. Tony, you may be interested in this. Old but still interesting: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...ucla-6664.aspx

TY for sharing. It was an interesting read. As expected most news does fall close to the center and it's the editorials from the various new organizations that defines whether they are left or right leaning. That's probably a good thing if one defines news as "just the facts."

Looking at the methodology of the study, I wonder how the references to left or right leaning groups can accurately represent the liberality or conservativeness of a news story. For example, if the NAACP or the Heritage Foundation are cited as having said or done something, why would that make either of those organizations be anything more than the inspiration for the story?

You'll recall the article described the study's methodology in part as:

They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

I have two objections with any news organization:

• Presenting editorial commentary as though it's news. Naturally, given that any news outlet has volume limits (TV program duration or pages in a paper/magazine), the more "space" that is devoted to editorial commentary, the less that goes to simply presenting the news and vice versa. (the article you posted doesn't address this)
• Presenting an incomplete set of facts. As goes the actual facts of the news that's presented, certainly some facts will be left out and some will never have been obtained. Accordingly, it seems the study offered one useful suggestion: obtaining news from a left and right leaning organization will yield a balanced view of the facts.

While one's position on an issue or course of action is left or right leaning, the issue/action itself is neutral. So while the issue may be more important to one group and and irrelevant to another, the degree of importance placed on them is what leans left or right. When reading a fact, I don't care who presented the fact, so long as it is just that, a fact. To do care about from where the fact came would be analogous to a teacher giving a student a good grade on a current assignment because the student performed well on past assignments.

It's worth considering why a given source may have wanted to have a story reported. The facts of the story, however, are the same regardless of the reason for their being communicated. You and I have to decide whether the story is important to us.

Lastly, one must wonder whether there is a positive correlation between where on gets one's news and to which editorial commentary one is most exposed. My gut tells me there is such a relationship, and based on that perception I can only say that it's emblematic of the way people "operate," for lack of a better description. It takes a great deal of "something" for folks to deliberately seek out well informed points of view that differ from their own. Obviously researchers and academics are used to doing so, but most folks aren't and don't.

All the best.

[QC]

I am fascinated by this topic. A couple of clarifications and addtions

Originally Posted by tony20009

That's probably a good thing if one defines news as "just the facts."

I do, but the other issue not addressed is which "facts" are reported and which are not. Opinion by omission is just as bad as saturation IMHO.

Originally Posted by tony20009

Presenting editorial commentary as though it's news. Naturally, given that any news outlet has volume limits (TV program duration or pages in a paper/magazine), the more "space" that is devoted to editorial commentary, the less that goes to simply presenting the news and vice versa. (the article you posted doesn't address this)

Since Groseclose and Milyo were more concerned with bias in news reporting than opinion pieces, which are designed to stake a political position, they omitted editorials and Op‑Eds from their tallies. This is one reason their study finds The Wall Street Journal more liberal than conventional wisdom asserts.

I believe this is intended to address your observation. I took it as they only rated actual "News" shows as opposed to the endless commentary hours. Distinguishing the difference between Piers Morgan and the regular CNN news shows is extremely important although a constant barrage from one side or the other, with a break or two for actual News, is a problem by itself. I would suggest that MSNBC is at least as guilty as Fox of this despite your thoughts. My personal attempt at balancing my news is that I force myself to watch MSNBC when I travel (frequent). At home I flip between CNN and Fox.

[enfield]

antiwar.com

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by QC

I am fascinated by this topic. A couple of clarifications and addtions


I do, but the other issue not addressed is which "facts" are reported and which are not. Opinion by omission is just as bad as saturation IMHO.

I agree. The abundance of "sound bite" reporting unfortunately is essentially what one has to endure these days. It's rare to find big picture, complete fact reporting in journalism these days. That's not to say "sound bite" reporting is new, but rather that it's gotten worse in its pervasiveness.

Aside form sound bites presenting a biased viewpoint, I find it insulting for a news organization to presume that the audience doesn't need to know all the facts. Reporting news that way perniciously slants viewers' opinions and makes a new organization little more than a political megaphone for it's editors and owners. That sort of reporting demonstrates, IMO, a gross, not negligent for the folks involved are too intelligent for it to be just negligence, lack of integrity.

Originally Posted by QC

Since Groseclose and Milyo were more concerned with bias in news reporting than opinion pieces, which are designed to stake a political position, they omitted editorials and Op‑Eds from their tallies. This is one reason their study finds The Wall Street Journal more liberal than conventional wisdom asserts.

Originally Posted by QC

I believe this is intended to address your observation. I took it as they only rated actual "News" shows as opposed to the endless commentary hours. Distinguishing the difference between Piers Morgan and the regular CNN news shows is extremely important although a constant barrage from one side or the other, with a break or two for actual News, is a problem by itself. I would suggest that MSNBC is at least as guilty as Fox of this despite your thoughts. My personal attempt at balancing my news is that I force myself to watch MSNBC when I travel (frequent). At home I flip between CNN and Fox.

Blue:
Agree. Unfortunately, news organizations have applied the principles of marketing/industrial psychology and are more concerned with identifying a target "consumer," a target audience, and telling them what they are already predisposed to hear/think. That approach pretty well ensures a certain level of viewership and thus advertising revenue. It's pretty much going to be that way whenever a news organization must also be a revenue/profit center within the overall business entity in which it exists.

Red:
I think I get what you mean by "balance." If you mean that you watch several in order to collect as many facts as possible so you can draw your own conclusion, I agree with you.

It shouldn't be that we viewers have to go to multiple sources to get a complete set of facts. Facts are facts and one'd think that any organization could report them as completely and accurately as possible.

Observation/Commentary:
I think too that part of the issue is the general public's desire to be led, to be told what to think. Occasionally, in threads on B-post and in other forums, I've seem members write "it hurts my brain" in reference to the idea that they are required to have to think cogently about a given topic. I have seen a similar reticence toward thinking in my father who was recently told his prostate cancer has reached the point where he needs to do something about it.

We had meetings with several doctors -- oncologists, hormone therapy specialists, urologists, and an ultra-sound specialist in France. Each time, the doctors to us the pros and cons of their various treatments. After every meeting, my father wanted to use the approach that that doctor had indicated. He is very "old school" in that he thinks doctors tell patients what to do rather than the way I see doctors, which is that doctors tell patients what is possible and the patient chooses the course of treatment that best suits them.

Dad thinks the doctors know what's best and he wants to be told what to do and how to consider the situation. I think many people are like that about most things. I'm like that on some things, but not most things. I'm like that because if I follow someone else on the basis of their expertise on a subject, I don't learn anything, but also, if they are wrong, I have to blame them. I prefer to succeed or fail on the basis of my own analysis and judgment. I have no desire to point my finger at somebody else and say it's their fault.

All the best.

[Kitsune sama]

To me, Aljazeera seems to be one of the few outlets that just reports the stories and that's it. That's one thing I don't seem to like about CNN and Fox News, that they report a story, and then throw their opinions in. Also, to me, they seem to place their emphasis on stories that aren't newsworthy (like Justin Beiber)

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by Kitsune sama

To me, Aljazeera seems to be one of the few outlets that just reports the stories and that's it. That's one thing I don't seem to like about CNN and Fox News, that they report a story, and then throw their opinions in. Also, to me, they seem to place their emphasis on stories that aren't newsworthy (like Justin Beiber)

+1

I know I could do without any reporting on what motion picture, TV and music celebs do when they aren't performing.

All the best.

[bbbbmw]

Originally Posted by Kitsune sama

To me, Aljazeera seems to be one of the few outlets that just reports the stories and that's it. That's one thing I don't seem to like about CNN and Fox News, that they report a story, and then throw their opinions in. Also, to me, they seem to place their emphasis on stories that aren't newsworthy (like Justin Beiber)

I keep reading about teams of Al Jazeera reporters walking off the job to protest the anti-American, anti-Israel bias of the outlet. Last July, 22 people in their Egypt bureau walked out because AJ was biased in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood. It's also owned by the government of Qatar.

[tturbolife]

Originally Posted by Kyle B

I still get all of my news from the onion. Today's breaking news:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/wei...is-nake,34304/

i've been getting my news from them for years