Media Bias

Guy Chamberlin said:
In the early days of lazy 24/7 news reporting, you just grabbed a spokesperson from both sides and gave them air time. Voila --- fairness.

But you can't presume both sides are making an equally good case unless you research their claims, a job that reporters are paid to do on behalf of the average less-informed viewer. If you have a partisan agenda --- and I'm assuming every journalist casts a vote -- you have to be ready to report some inconvenient truths. But....if you uncover some shoddy intel on Russian collusion or a legitimate theory of a Covid lab leak, does that wipe out the larger stories about Russian electoral influence and pandemic response? It shouldn't, but of course it does. There are even people on this board who think Donald Trump was exonerated by the Mueller Report, even when Mueller went to the trouble of literally declaring the opposite. 

Kinda makes me think of the steroid era in baseball. The drug-free players watched the roid heads elevating their stats and salary, apparently facing no consequences from the league. Until some said f#&% it: if we're not playing fair, and I'm getting no love for playing clean, I'll take the short cut, too. Fox was tv news on steroids, and CNN and MSNBC realized they better juice, too. 
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What needs to be noticed in the NPR situation is, this is coming to light BECAUSE they used to not be nearly as biased.  Historically, they have been a good source of balanced and reasonable coverage.  This is more of a recent development that hopefully can be corrected by these people speaking out.

 
BigRedBuster said:
How is the F-35 project not a boondoggle?
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The first point seems idiotic if someone really said that.

The second is still true. The F-35 works, mostly... Now... But it was a massive budget overrun and waaaay late. Not to mention some versions couldn't fly at night, the Marine Corp version couldn't conduct combat missions for years, the maintenance costs are higher than estimated... Etc.

 
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ZRod said:
The first point seems idiotic if someone really said that.

The second is still true. The F-35 works, mostly... Now... But it was a massive budget overrun and waaaay late. Not to mention a se versions couldn't fly at night, the Marine Corp version couldn't conduct combat missions for years, the maintenance costs are higher than estimated... Etc.
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Exactly!!!

 
BigRedBuster said:
What needs to be noticed in the NPR situation is, this is coming to light BECAUSE they used to not be nearly as biased.  Historically, they have been a good source of balanced and reasonable coverage.  This is more of a recent development that hopefully can be corrected by these people speaking out.
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I think Election Night 2016 broke a lot of people's brains. I no longer trusted my own opinion. 

Donald Trump had already declared war on journalism, and it was probably hard not to fight back. You can find tons of historical precedents for White House vs Journalist adversity, but I don't think it was ever this clear cut or dangerous.  

If we're comparing Fox News to CNN, would we compare NPR to Newsmax? Joe Rogan? Infowars? In terms of both bias and integrity, it doesn't seem like an equivalent. Maybe it's more like the Wall Street Journal, generally solid reporting, but leans right in what it chooses to cover. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I think Election Night 2016 broke a lot of people's brains. I no longer trusted my own opinion. 

Donald Trump had already declared war on journalism, and it was probably hard not to fight back. You can find tons of historical precedents for White House vs Journalist adversity, but I don't think it was ever this clear cut or dangerous.  

If we're comparing Fox News to CNN, would we compare NPR to Newsmax? Joe Rogan? Infowars? In terms of both bias and integrity, it doesn't seem like an equivalent. Maybe it's more like the Wall Street Journal, generally solid reporting, but leans right in what it chooses to cover. 
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Yep. 
 

my problem in all this is that the right tries to equate all of them as being the same….and no way in hell are they the same. 
 

But, when NPR (probably the best TV news) does this, now the right forever will point and say ….AHHAA!!! SEE!!!!

 
What was the cost compared to what it was sold as costing?

This was the epitome of military industrial complex going bat s#!t crazy with no checks and balances. 

 










I fairly frequently see comments in relation to fighter jets along these lines of, "it's lightyears ahead" or "the platform is tremendous" or whatever.

As someone that knows literally nothing about jets, can somebody fill me in? Like it can fly, shoot, track, is fast, etc. But jets have been able to do that for decades, so what's the deal?

 
BigRedBuster said:
Well, the difference as I see it is, people from NPR are talking about it with the hopes of fixing it.  There have been stories come out the last year or so talking about how CNN is trying to make a bigger effort in not be biased.  Getting rid of Lemon was a step in that direction.

Fox???  Naaa....they just like reporting how horrible everyone else is without looking at themselves.

And....just because CNN's stories are not favorable to Trump, doesn't mean they are biased.  He is, afterall, on trial.
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My point about CNN was how much they report on Trump especially with the Iran Israel situation still only two days old. I am not the only one who noticed either.

"Real Time" host Bill Maher took a swipe at his corporate colleagues at CNN for the network's non-stop bashing of former President Trump, suggesting it has gotten "boring" even for a Trump hater like himself

CNN fired the guy who was attempting to bring them back to middle BTW. I was hopeful when CNN was moving that way, but of course it did not last. I want the CNN of old....from the 90s.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/07/media/chris-licht-cnn

 


NPR's official statement in defense of Berliner's claim was pretty thin and mealy.

So who out there has a news source they like and trust and seems nonpartisan? 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
NPR's official statement in defense of Berliner's claim was pretty thin and mealy.

So who out there has a news source they like and trust and seems nonpartisan? 
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There’s no perfectly objective news source. AP and Reuters usually do a pretty good job. BBC too. But they all have some level of editorial influence.

People need to just read varied sources and use critical thinking skills to evaluate which editorial bent might color those sources. The critical thinking part is lacking in a lot of people.

 
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