Sad news today

[ErosWired]

On 3/8/2022 at 9:14 PM, TheSRQDude said:

The is no longer a centrist outlet that focuses on "news" without some level of political bias, and for decades, the 3 major networks have had a more liberal treatment. 

Here's a link that shows the overall slanting of the media as a scatter diagram. [think before following links] [think before following links] https://adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?utm_source=HomePage_StaticMBC_Button&utm_medium=OnWebSite_Button

Wait a minute. I just had a moment to take a look at the link you provided, and its diagram showing where various media outlets land (according to this source) in terms of their left/right skew, as well as the nature of their reportage, from straight fact to propaganda and utter fabrication and lies. No longer a centrist outlet, you say? No one who focuses on fact and impartial analysis?

 I invite you to examine the chart a little more carefully, particularly the column marked “Middle” - meaning skewing neither left nor right - and the upper area, from about the center of the green zone to the top, indicating content that is either fact, analysis, or a combination. The area thus defined would then be occupied by, if any such existed, outlets doing fair and balanced news reporting of facts and analysis, from a center of objectivity. What do we find in that area?

The Associated Press. Reuters. PBS. BBC. CBS. ABC. NPR. USA Today. And venturing just slightly left we find NBC and the New York Times; slight right, the Wall Street Journal (and WSJ’s “What’s News” product is dead center, up top). That’s not a list of some niche-market outliers, that’s a roster of the bastions of American journalism, and there they all are, top and center. Your premise that there’s no one in the center is, I’m afraid, simply wrong.

Moreso, if you look further down and to the sides, at all those outlets skewing outward but still reporting fact and analysis, or even expressing informed opinion? Those outlets aren’t sending reporters out to collect all their stories - they don’t have the resources. Instead, they do what downstream outlets have been doing for decades - they string stories off the wire from AP and Reuters because they’re a trusted news source at the center of all information.

 I might add, just to underscore my earlier point about the false equivalency of comparing Fox News with legitimate journalism as though they only differed in their bias, note that Fox News’ tv products, and particularly Hannity and Fucker Carlson, are slumming it in the bottom half of the yellow zone (selective or incomplete information, unfair persuasion, propaganda) and in the column for hyperpartisan Right. They’re keeping company there with Newsmax. OAN is scraping the bottom of the barrel underneath them in the “throwing my own feces like an ape” zone. Comparing any of that lot with the ones up top with the apologetic that they’re all the same, just slanted differently, is a lot like saying that there were “very fine people on both sides” of that little incident in Charlottesville in 2017.

There really are facts that look the same no matter what way you’re tilted, and there’s a whole professional industry dedicated to pointing them out to anybody with the wit to listen. Unfortunately, there’s also a cottage industry of liars, deceivers and manipulators sprung up now, armed with social media, hell-bent on destroying not just the people’s faith in the press, but our ability to trust each other.

Frankly, I think the First Amendment was intended to protect people’s ability to say what they honestly believe. I don’t think it was ever meant as a means to let liars lie with impunity.

[BootmanLA]

On 3/13/2022 at 12:03 AM, ErosWired said:

 I invite you to examine the chart a little more carefully, particularly the column marked “Middle” - meaning skewing neither left nor right - and the upper area, from about the center of the green zone to the top, indicating content that is either fact, analysis, or a combination. The area thus defined would then be occupied by, if any such existed, outlets doing fair and balanced news reporting of facts and analysis, from a center of objectivity. What do we find in that area?

The Associated Press. Reuters. PBS. BBC. CBS. ABC. NPR. USA Today. And venturing just slightly left we find NBC and the New York Times; slight right, the Wall Street Journal (and WSJ’s “What’s News” product is dead center, up top). That’s not a list of some niche-market outliers, that’s a roster of the bastions of American journalism, and there they all are, top and center. Your premise that there’s no one in the center is, I’m afraid, simply wrong.

To this excellent point I would add that on the liberal side, everything below the orange-yellow line (where things cross over to problematic) is a niche, small-market item. Nothing below that line is anything but a website or podcast, and all with limited reach.

But below that line on the "conservative" side? You've got the entirety of the FOXNews Channel, as well as two of its most popular shows (Hannity and Carlson), plus InfoWars. You have the Supreme Grifters of Turning Point USA and the Charlie Kirk Show. Not to mention Epoch Times and (as you noted) OAN on TV (soon to be dead) and Newsmax TV. 

In other words, the sites and people the right holds up as paragons of information are - by your own admission, by linking this here - among the worst of the worst. It's especially noteworthy that the "journalistic" personalities most admired on the right are also squarely among the least reliable AND farthest right. By contrast, though no one doubts Rachel Maddow is a lefty and Joe Scarborough is leaning in that direction, they're head and shoulders above Hannity, Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, and Alex Jones in terms of accuracy and quality of their work.

Edited March 15, 2022 by viking8x6
Correction of error acknowledged by poster

[ErosWired]

2 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

In other words, the sites and people the left holds up as paragons of information are - by your own admission, by linking this here - among the worst of the worst.

I think you meant the sites and people the right holds up, rather than the left, did you not?

[BootmanLA]

17 hours ago, ErosWired said:

I think you meant the sites and people the right holds up, rather than the left, did you not?

You are correct. I shouldn't post when I'm tired and aggravated. 

[SugarCaneDaddy]

Now keep the same energy/empathy when non white countries collapse