Tangent Thread - P&R Edition

I understand American journalism sensationalizing almost everything.  That's gonna happen when they have to "sell a product" rather than "provide a service."

But I challenge you to go to the super duper liberal CNN page right now and find just one article that is "fake".  I dare ya.

People who think all news is fake news aren't "free thinkers", they are "lazy thinkers".
It isn’t just the corruption of the content, it’s what they choose to run stories on and what they choose not to run stories on.

cnn had to pay out millions to the kid from Covington Kentucky who they claimed was harassing a “ Vietnam war vet” native american

They chose not to cover the assault and theft from Biden supporters against a 7 year old boy and his mom who were trump supporters  at the dnc convention.  Had that been trump supporters doing the same thing it would be front page news. 

 
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I understand American journalism sensationalizing almost everything.  That's gonna happen when they have to "sell a product" rather than "provide a service."

But I challenge you to go to the super duper liberal CNN page right now and find just one article that is "fake".  I dare ya.

People who think all news is fake news aren't "free thinkers", they are "lazy thinkers".




I don’t think all the news at cnn is fake. But when the questions from the town hall debate ends up passing from cnn to the Clinton camp and their reporters are openly hostile and partisan, it’s a bit much. Same for how they frame stories and which ones they choose to cover. 

 
So your issue isn't that you don't "trust" the media.  You just don't like what stories they choose to tell.
Not at all, there is Often times extreme bias in the stories they run and in how they decide what stories they choose to run so as to promote a narrative. Anything that goes against that narrative isn’t shown.  Last week a 5 year old boy was shot in the head at point blank range for no reason by a next door neighbor, yesterday a 17 year old girl was brutally attacked by 4 people and killed for her new purse in the parking lot of a fast food joint- we will never hear about it because they are black on white crimes. If it was the other way around, we all know it’s front and center- start the riots.

 
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When it comes to news or any information for that matter.  I use what we teach our students.  You really need to read a cross section of news organizations and make an informed decision.  It is called critical thinking.  When you listen to just one side, you become one of their zombies.  Both sides, like both parties tend to suck.  The truth tends to be somewhere in the middle.  

 
Very true. The mainstream media, have little credibility with most free thinking Americans. The alternative media’s record isn’t consistent either. So many of us are so skeptical now we don’t know who to trust for our information.


Oddly, enough, this is the exact outcome those peddling false news, alternative facts, and bad research are aiming for. Glad to see their strategy is working. 

 
Not at all, there is extreme bias in the stories they choose to run so as to promote a narrative. Anything that goes against that narrative isn’t shown.  Last week a 5 year old boy was shot in the head at point blank range for no reason by a next door neighbor, yesterday a 17 year old girl was brutally attacked by 4 people and killed for her new purse in the parking lot of a fast food joint- we will never hear about it because they are black on white crimes. If it was the other way around, we all know it’s front and center- start the riots.
This discussion started because people said they couldn't trust the numbers being shared by media.

I agree that all media, big and small, left and right, post stories that their readers/viewers/listeners want to hear.  It's frustrating.  But just because ABC Nightly news didn't cover the gas station robbery in Plainview, NE doesn't mean their misrepresenting COVID numbers.

 
When it comes to news or any information for that matter.  I use what we teach our students.  You really need to read a cross section of news organizations and make an informed decision.  It is called critical thinking.  When you listen to just one side, you become one of their zombies.  Both sides, like both parties tend to suck.  The truth tends to be somewhere in the middle.  
^^^yep

That is far, far different than throwing up our hands and saying "welp, can't trust anything these days...."

 
I'm not necessarily going to disagree with any of this.  Maybe this is happening and I'm just not aware, but I haven't seen any people reporting that the UK, Italy, Germany, Canada, etc are being accused of under-reporting their numbers.
Its not just under or over reporting of cases, deaths, hospitalizations but treatments, recoveries, etc etc etc.   

You cannot compare countries without context, accurate and truly comparable data and so on.  

Each country is unique in terms of demographics, geography, etc.  States are different in important, relevant ways.  Populations, density, lifestyles, transportation, housing, etc.   

Testing methods, frequency, sampling, therapies/treatments, shutdowns by region, by town, by county, by state, by industry, by business, within each of these, by time, by extent and application, and the same variations by reopening, and so forth.  

Public response is just as variable.  

Yet the news media broadly reports some aspects while totally ignoring others.  All of it is agenda driven and so misleading as to be almost useless to the people.  

The Big Ten officials offer little real substance to support blanket declarations of policy without - apparently based on vague anecdotal reporting - real internal discussion or analysis or public input.    

Thus far, even parents of many student athletes cannot get an honest explanation as to why their sons and daughter are not allowed to particioate in collegiate sports while most others across the entire country (high schools, colleges, pros) are allowed to play.

They should not have to ask. It should have been forthcoming in detail and directly to them.  Email and otherwise - communication is readily available in the year 2020!  

 
When it comes to news or any information for that matter.  I use what we teach our students.  You really need to read a cross section of news organizations and make an informed decision.  It is called critical thinking.  When you listen to just one side, you become one of their zombies.  Both sides, like both parties tend to suck.  The truth tends to be somewhere in the middle.  


This is exactly what I do, and why twitter is such a great tool. I follow local news stations, newspapers, and sometimes radio stations from all over the country. Not just the big papers in New York or LA, but the small town news in Idaho and Mississippi. They still cover national news and I'm getting a lot of the national news from the major outlets, too. But that huge cross-section gets you perspectives from a lot of different places, and it's often far more informative. 

I see lots of people bashing twitter, but really, that's their fault for not knowing how to use it properly. It's like any other tool - if you don't know what you're doing, it probably seems useless to you.

Also, I pretty much never watch news. I read it. It's much less biased that way, although bias still seeps in - but that's what the broader cross section of news is for.

 
Its not just under or over reporting of cases, deaths, hospitalizations but treatments, recoveries, etc etc etc.   

You cannot compare countries without context, accurate and truly comparable data and so on.  

Each country is unique in terms of demographics, geography, etc.  States are different in important, relevant ways.  Populations, density, lifestyles, transportation, housing, etc.   

Testing methods, frequency, sampling, therapies/treatments, shutdowns by region, by town, by county, by state, by industry, by business, within each of these, by time, by extent and application, and the same variations by reopening, and so forth.  

Public response is just as variable.  

Yet the news media broadly reports some aspects while totally ignoring others.  All of it is agenda driven and so misleading as to be almost useless to the people.  


If you don't follow the news, where do you get all this information?

 
This is exactly what I do, and why twitter is such a great tool. I follow local news stations, newspapers, and sometimes radio stations from all over the country. Not just the big papers in New York or LA, but the small town news in Idaho and Mississippi. They still cover national news and I'm getting a lot of the national news from the major outlets, too. But that huge cross-section gets you perspectives from a lot of different places, and it's often far more informative. 

I see lots of people bashing twitter, but really, that's their fault for not knowing how to use it properly. It's like any other tool - if you don't know what you're doing, it probably seems useless to you.

Also, I pretty much never watch news. I read it. It's much less biased that way, although bias still seeps in - but that's what the broader cross section of news is for.
I will say this though, where is there is smoke, there does tend to be fire.  I give it a few days and see if it continues.  

 
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