Decent reporting: does it exist any more?

Linus · 11-11-2009, 09:38 AM

I originally thought about asking why Fox News is considered such an authority in the US (they have the lion's share of the viewing audience, although that might be more due to location on the cable bill than anything else). I remember growing up on the likes Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite et al. where they did research, presented the research and then, maybe, once in a while, did an opinion piece separate from the news they told. Has this become a dying art?

To be fair, it's not just Fox News but many news channels are biased one way or another. It seems like the idea of truly unbiased and well researched news has been tossed out the window in favour of tabloid-like reporting. It's the 10-second grab and toss if you will and the juicier the news, the more we want it (hello FUD).

And speaking of Fox News, I don't get it (well, I kinda do -- it appears to the natural FUDing nature of people). The more I learn about what they do, the more I ask how the FCC et al. can allow them to exist. Two events recently made me go "Whaaaatttt?" (I laughed when he said that he was considering removing Fox News from Google search engine -- ya. Good luck with that, dude).

The first was an interview with Rupert Murdoch. During his interview he admitted that Glenn Beck was right at saying that Obama "doesn't like white people much" but that doesn't agree in saying that Obama is racist. Uh... huh? I could have sworn he just said that.. didn't he?

And I have to admit an affinity for the likes of Colbert and Stewart (along with Maddow and Olberman -- hrmm.. I may be skewed but I also like the CBC, BBC et al., which aren't necessarily liberal either). But a recent comment by Stewart made me do another double-take.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...rotest-footage

They actually make up news? I mean, is that really allowed to mislead people like that? I thought there were rules about this stuff or is it just the advertising?

Sigh.

Perhaps I'm too old-fashioned to want stories that were well researched and without a forced opinion so that I could form my own thoughts and opinions. It is 1984. I don't need a uniformed-tyrant to control the state; the mass media with it's distortion does a fine job, it seems. And it would appear that Marshall McLuhan was right: the medium is the message.

Legendryder · 11-11-2009, 09:51 AM

I stick with the AP. They seem to keep things pretty unbiased. And, the reporters are normally in the same area all the time, so they can report not only what is going on, but how the people around them feel about it.

Greyson · 11-11-2009, 10:16 AM

Hey Linus, spot on observation and a reasonable question. In answer to your question, "Decent reporting: does it exist anymore?" Mostly No. I say mostly because well researched news and unbiased news/journalism is hard to find. I know you know this already but much of the population gives no thought to the "news" they are being fed or not.

With the event of the internet news or what is labeled news/journalism can be found with the magic search engine. As like all news the key is some critical analysis but what I see happening is people take in the news, images react with some sort of emotional response, form an opinion without much critical and honest analysis. Can you tell I have got a bee in my bonnet? (Using that last phrase, I am showing my age.)

Back to journalism and the internet.... I am concerned that journalism is really in danger of disappearing altogether. People can get their "news" for free on the internet. Why buy a newspaper, magazine, journal? I like getting information/news for free and from all over the world. But how is real journalism, real researched news going to be sustained?

Thanks for the question.

Linus · 11-11-2009, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greyson

Hey Linus, spot on observation and a reasonable question. In answer to your question, "Decent reporting: does it exist anymore?" Mostly No. I say mostly because well researched news and unbiased news/journalism is hard to find. I know you know this already but much of the population gives no thought to the "news" they are being fed or not.

With the event of the internet news or what is labeled news/journalism can be found with the magic search engine. As like all news the key is some critical analysis but what I see happening is people take in the news, images react with some sort of emotional response, form an opinion without much critical and honest analysis. Can you tell I have got a bee in my bonnet? (Using that last phrase, I am showing my age.)

Back to journalism and the internet.... I am concerned that journalism is really in danger of disappearing altogether. People can get their "news" for free on the internet. Why buy a newspaper, magazine, journal? I like getting information/news for free and from all over the world. But how is real journalism, real researched news going to be sustained?

Thanks for the question.

See, that's one of the things that bugged me when I was a professor. The internet is a tool that can be used for effective research. Just because the news is online (although a good, hefty Sunday edition with oodles of comics is something I still miss -- I do remember reading the Toronto Star front to back on Sundays) doesn't excuse it, IMO, from being done well.

Greyson · 11-11-2009, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linus

See, that's one of the things that bugged me when I was a professor. The internet is a tool that can be used for effective research. Just because the news is online (although a good, hefty Sunday edition with oodles of comics is something I still miss -- I do remember reading the Toronto Star front to back on Sundays) doesn't excuse it, IMO, from being done well.

Linus, I agree. It does not excuse it. You were a professor of Journalism? I am not surprised. Many times I have told my gf, if I knew what I know now, I would have majored in Journalism. I sold newspapers standing on the corner when I was in Junior High. Now I am really showing my age.

Linus, I remember when I first started to see you in cyberland. I think we are very fortunate that you found us and participate with us.

Linus · 11-11-2009, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greyson

Linus, I agree. It does not excuse it. You were a professor of Journalism? I am not surprised. Many times I have told my gf, if I knew what I know now, I would have majored in Journalism. I sold newspapers standing on the corner when I was in Junior High. Now I am really showing my age.

Linus, I remember when I first started to see you in cyberland. I think we are very fortunate that you found us and participate with us.

LOL. No. I was a Professor of Computer and Network Security. When I saw the papers submitted by students it was there that I saw a degradation of research abilities. It was rather shocking and eye-opening but indicative of the nature of education and expectations that have changed over the years.

SuperFemme · 11-11-2009, 11:03 AM

Linus, great thread. I recently watched Rachel Maddow speaking about why Fox is *just* a news organization. Thoughts?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3LUid0IZ2w"]YouTube- Why Fox News isn't news[/ame]

Linus · 11-11-2009, 11:16 AM

A lot of what she said is right. I'm trying to remember when Bush was in power if MSNBC or other "liberal" outlets did the same thing as Beck et al have done and for the life of me, I cannot. I don't mind news stations having opinions and being vocal about their opinion but I dislike it when they mask that opinion as "news". (e.g., FoxNews promoting Tea Parties and the like). It smacks, to me, of nothing less than what gov't controlled media is like in nations like China, North Korea, etc.

SuperFemme · 11-11-2009, 11:29 AM

For the life of me I don't understand how Fox gets away with it. IMO they are creating the "perfect storm" and we could very well end up with an assassination. They are using racism SO overtly it frightens me. Deeply. They prey on the fears of the people in the worst possible ways.

little man · 11-11-2009, 11:31 AM

like so many other things, the "news" has come down to entertainment. advertisers, politicos, station owners are looking for more bang for the buck. or perhaps, more accurately, more buck for the bang.

while the days of yellow journalism are behind us, we've taken yet another turn on the truth spectrum. i've long held that the truth is subjective, and generally it's what you want to believe.

i think the type/level of reporting we see is indicative of the general malaise of society as a whole. if we didn't buy this tripe, they wouldn't be selling it. seems the standards for truth have fallen a bit. perhaps more people are willing to do less thinking for themselves right now.

SuperFemme · 11-11-2009, 11:44 AM

I agree with you LM. I watch BBC news to find out what is going on here because they report all the stuff our media squashes.

Balloon Boy was the perfect example of how "news" has turned into a dog and pony show that is akin to 24/7 reality t.v.

In winter of 2004 I was not sleeping much due to medical issues. I had the tv on and at about 3 a.m. up pops a report of a 1.5 mile mushroom cloud over North Korea. A few minutes later Condeleeza Rice is on saying that yes it was a huge mushroom cloud (you could see it on satellite) but she was confident it was NOT a nuclear testing incident.

I fell asleep and woke back up at around 7 a.m. and no mention of the mushroom cloud anywhere. I searched online and found ONE reference to it, but that site was closed for maintenance when I refreshed the page. I watched every channel I could for three days and it was like the whole thing never happened. It was a huge moment of clarity for me that a one and half mile wide mushroom cloud over a country that was illegally making nukes could disappear into the abyss and be covered.

little man · 11-11-2009, 01:15 PM

call me paranoid, but i have to wonder if the overabundance of conservative news programs is a way to get us inured to violence and wars and power struggles. conservative parties tend to me more hawkish than liberal parties and one of the best ways to get people to agree to things they might not is to scare the bejesus out of them.

point in case: the news after 9/11. like most everyone else, i was glued to the television, watching the same footage over and over. unlike most everyone else, i wasn't hugely surprised, nor was i of a mind that we were innocent victims. after all the governments we've installed and toppled, after all the collateral damage we've done....well, we had it coming. we'd been damned lucky that it never happened here before. i'm also of a mind that our government allowed this to happen. yes, conspiracy theory.

what i saw play out on the news made my skin crawl. i recall seeing all our legislators, walking into some building with lights strategically placed, flags flying...it smacked of the nuremburg rallies, at least visually. and what happened after that? the american public willingly gave away some of their civil liberties...to feel safer.

i see the slant and presentation of current news to be a further extension of that. while the republicans are no longer in power, they still wield a mighty hand behind the scenes. things being what they are, i won't be shocked if obama ends up being a single term president. hard to say what we'll end up with next.

girl_dee · 11-11-2009, 02:24 PM

Great thread and I have thought about this so much.

I am currently so annoyed at the coverage of the case of the 15 year old girl being ganged raped and beaten as others watched.

On CNN they have replayed the interview of one eye witness who describes in detail what he saw ( and watched for 30 minutes) . Hasn't this girl been brutalized enough? Have they acquired her permission to KEEP talking about her attack? I doubt it!

I would love to invent a station that would report on the good things and heroes in this world.. highlight teachers, nurses, firefighters etc..

The case with the boy in the balloon is another one.. its now a big joke. Are people forgetting there are kids here who were used by their parents and now
this poor kid will go through life as the "Balloon Boy"...where is our compassion?

Maybe no one would watch but as long as we focus over and over on the bad stuff we think that is all there is.

MsDemeanor · 11-12-2009, 08:15 PM

When I grow up I want to be rich enough to create a news network that actually reports news.

Faux is the media wing of the republican party, MSNBC is left wing politics in the evenings and entertainment-style news during the day, and CNN is pretty people reading twitter feeds on the air. While I do enjoy Ed, Rachel, and Keith on MSNBC, the daytime "news" feels like anything but.

11-11-2009, 09:38 AM	#1
Linus The Planet's Technical Bubba How Do You Identify?: FTM Preferred Pronoun?: He/Him/Geek Relationship Status: Married to my forever! Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Redondo Beach, CA Posts: 5,440 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,929 Thanked 10,743 Times in 3,176 Posts Rep Power: 21474856	Decent reporting: does it exist any more? I originally thought about asking why Fox News is considered such an authority in the US (they have the lion's share of the viewing audience, although that might be more due to location on the cable bill than anything else). I remember growing up on the likes Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite et al. where they did research, presented the research and then, maybe, once in a while, did an opinion piece separate from the news they told. Has this become a dying art? To be fair, it's not just Fox News but many news channels are biased one way or another. It seems like the idea of truly unbiased and well researched news has been tossed out the window in favour of tabloid-like reporting. It's the 10-second grab and toss if you will and the juicier the news, the more we want it (hello FUD). And speaking of Fox News, I don't get it (well, I kinda do -- it appears to the natural FUDing nature of people). The more I learn about what they do, the more I ask how the FCC et al. can allow them to exist. Two events recently made me go "Whaaaatttt?" (I laughed when he said that he was considering removing Fox News from Google search engine -- ya. Good luck with that, dude). The first was an interview with Rupert Murdoch. During his interview he admitted that Glenn Beck was right at saying that Obama "doesn't like white people much" but that doesn't agree in saying that Obama is racist. Uh... huh? I could have sworn he just said that.. didn't he? And I have to admit an affinity for the likes of Colbert and Stewart (along with Maddow and Olberman -- hrmm.. I may be skewed but I also like the CBC, BBC et al., which aren't necessarily liberal either). But a recent comment by Stewart made me do another double-take. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...rotest-footage They actually make up news? I mean, is that really allowed to mislead people like that? I thought there were rules about this stuff or is it just the advertising? Sigh. Perhaps I'm too old-fashioned to want stories that were well researched and without a forced opinion so that I could form my own thoughts and opinions. It is 1984. I don't need a uniformed-tyrant to control the state; the mass media with it's distortion does a fine job, it seems. And it would appear that Marshall McLuhan was right: the medium is the message.

11-11-2009, 11:31 AM	#10
little man Member How Do You Identify?: mister Preferred Pronoun?: he Relationship Status: hard to hold Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: where the road goes on forever and the party never ends Posts: 1,003 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 169 Thanked 1,533 Times in 437 Posts Rep Power: 13709163	like so many other things, the "news" has come down to entertainment. advertisers, politicos, station owners are looking for more bang for the buck. or perhaps, more accurately, more buck for the bang. while the days of yellow journalism are behind us, we've taken yet another turn on the truth spectrum. i've long held that the truth is subjective, and generally it's what you want to believe. i think the type/level of reporting we see is indicative of the general malaise of society as a whole. if we didn't buy this tripe, they wouldn't be selling it. seems the standards for truth have fallen a bit. perhaps more people are willing to do less thinking for themselves right now. __________________ i gots pitchers here i'm a rambling man i ain't ever gonna change i got a gypsy soul to blame and i was born for leaving --zac brown band (colder weather)

11-11-2009, 01:15 PM	#12
little man Member How Do You Identify?: mister Preferred Pronoun?: he Relationship Status: hard to hold Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: where the road goes on forever and the party never ends Posts: 1,003 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 169 Thanked 1,533 Times in 437 Posts Rep Power: 13709163	and another thing.... call me paranoid, but i have to wonder if the overabundance of conservative news programs is a way to get us inured to violence and wars and power struggles. conservative parties tend to me more hawkish than liberal parties and one of the best ways to get people to agree to things they might not is to scare the bejesus out of them. point in case: the news after 9/11. like most everyone else, i was glued to the television, watching the same footage over and over. unlike most everyone else, i wasn't hugely surprised, nor was i of a mind that we were innocent victims. after all the governments we've installed and toppled, after all the collateral damage we've done....well, we had it coming. we'd been damned lucky that it never happened here before. i'm also of a mind that our government allowed this to happen. yes, conspiracy theory. what i saw play out on the news made my skin crawl. i recall seeing all our legislators, walking into some building with lights strategically placed, flags flying...it smacked of the nuremburg rallies, at least visually. and what happened after that? the american public willingly gave away some of their civil liberties...to feel safer. i see the slant and presentation of current news to be a further extension of that. while the republicans are no longer in power, they still wield a mighty hand behind the scenes. things being what they are, i won't be shocked if obama ends up being a single term president. hard to say what we'll end up with next. __________________ i gots pitchers here i'm a rambling man i ain't ever gonna change i got a gypsy soul to blame and i was born for leaving --zac brown band (colder weather)

11-11-2009, 09:51 AM	#2
Legendryder Member How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: Single Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Queen City, MO Posts: 420 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 14 Thanked 969 Times in 261 Posts Rep Power: 7270130	I stick with the AP. They seem to keep things pretty unbiased. And, the reporters are normally in the same area all the time, so they can report not only what is going on, but how the people around them feel about it.

11-11-2009, 10:16 AM	#3
Greyson Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: Transmasculine/Non-Binary Preferred Pronoun?: Hy (Pronounced He) Relationship Status: Married Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: SF Bay Area Posts: 6,589 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 21,132 Thanked 8,165 Times in 2,007 Posts Rep Power: 21474857	Hey Linus, spot on observation and a reasonable question. In answer to your question, "Decent reporting: does it exist anymore?" Mostly No. I say mostly because well researched news and unbiased news/journalism is hard to find. I know you know this already but much of the population gives no thought to the "news" they are being fed or not. With the event of the internet news or what is labeled news/journalism can be found with the magic search engine. As like all news the key is some critical analysis but what I see happening is people take in the news, images react with some sort of emotional response, form an opinion without much critical and honest analysis. Can you tell I have got a bee in my bonnet? (Using that last phrase, I am showing my age.) Back to journalism and the internet.... I am concerned that journalism is really in danger of disappearing altogether. People can get their "news" for free on the internet. Why buy a newspaper, magazine, journal? I like getting information/news for free and from all over the world. But how is real journalism, real researched news going to be sustained? Thanks for the question.

11-11-2009, 11:03 AM	#7
SuperFemme Timed Out How Do You Identify?: Permanently Banned 10/24/2010 Preferred Pronoun?: She. Relationship Status: Married (one of 18,000) Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Atascadero, CA Posts: 4,933 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,309 Thanked 7,109 Times in 2,327 Posts Rep Power: 0	Linus, great thread. I recently watched Rachel Maddow speaking about why Fox is just a news organization. Thoughts? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3LUid0IZ2w"]YouTube- Why Fox News isn't news[/ame]

11-11-2009, 11:16 AM	#8
Linus The Planet's Technical Bubba How Do You Identify?: FTM Preferred Pronoun?: He/Him/Geek Relationship Status: Married to my forever! Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Redondo Beach, CA Posts: 5,440 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,929 Thanked 10,743 Times in 3,176 Posts Rep Power: 21474856	A lot of what she said is right. I'm trying to remember when Bush was in power if MSNBC or other "liberal" outlets did the same thing as Beck et al have done and for the life of me, I cannot. I don't mind news stations having opinions and being vocal about their opinion but I dislike it when they mask that opinion as "news". (e.g., FoxNews promoting Tea Parties and the like). It smacks, to me, of nothing less than what gov't controlled media is like in nations like China, North Korea, etc.

11-11-2009, 11:29 AM	#9
SuperFemme Timed Out How Do You Identify?: Permanently Banned 10/24/2010 Preferred Pronoun?: She. Relationship Status: Married (one of 18,000) Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Atascadero, CA Posts: 4,933 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,309 Thanked 7,109 Times in 2,327 Posts Rep Power: 0	For the life of me I don't understand how Fox gets away with it. IMO they are creating the "perfect storm" and we could very well end up with an assassination. They are using racism SO overtly it frightens me. Deeply. They prey on the fears of the people in the worst possible ways.

11-11-2009, 11:44 AM	#11
SuperFemme Timed Out How Do You Identify?: Permanently Banned 10/24/2010 Preferred Pronoun?: She. Relationship Status: Married (one of 18,000) Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Atascadero, CA Posts: 4,933 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,309 Thanked 7,109 Times in 2,327 Posts Rep Power: 0	I agree with you LM. I watch BBC news to find out what is going on here because they report all the stuff our media squashes. Balloon Boy was the perfect example of how "news" has turned into a dog and pony show that is akin to 24/7 reality t.v. In winter of 2004 I was not sleeping much due to medical issues. I had the tv on and at about 3 a.m. up pops a report of a 1.5 mile mushroom cloud over North Korea. A few minutes later Condeleeza Rice is on saying that yes it was a huge mushroom cloud (you could see it on satellite) but she was confident it was NOT a nuclear testing incident. I fell asleep and woke back up at around 7 a.m. and no mention of the mushroom cloud anywhere. I searched online and found ONE reference to it, but that site was closed for maintenance when I refreshed the page. I watched every channel I could for three days and it was like the whole thing never happened. It was a huge moment of clarity for me that a one and half mile wide mushroom cloud over a country that was illegally making nukes could disappear into the abyss and be covered.

11-11-2009, 02:24 PM	#13
girl_dee Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: dee Relationship Status: Hitched up Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Livin’ the Dream Posts: 24,079 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 30,560 Thanked 54,956 Times in 13,922 Posts Rep Power: 21474873	Great thread and I have thought about this so much. I am currently so annoyed at the coverage of the case of the 15 year old girl being ganged raped and beaten as others watched. On CNN they have replayed the interview of one eye witness who describes in detail what he saw ( and watched for 30 minutes) . Hasn't this girl been brutalized enough? Have they acquired her permission to KEEP talking about her attack? I doubt it! I would love to invent a station that would report on the good things and heroes in this world.. highlight teachers, nurses, firefighters etc.. The case with the boy in the balloon is another one.. its now a big joke. Are people forgetting there are kids here who were used by their parents and now this poor kid will go through life as the "Balloon Boy"...where is our compassion? Maybe no one would watch but as long as we focus over and over on the bad stuff we think that is all there is.

11-12-2009, 08:15 PM	#14
MsDemeanor Member How Do You Identify?: queer stone femme Relationship Status: Happily married to MisterMeanor, the man of my dreams Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: SF Bay Area Posts: 703 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 165 Thanked 1,850 Times in 511 Posts Rep Power: 2698179	When I grow up I want to be rich enough to create a news network that actually reports news. Faux is the media wing of the republican party, MSNBC is left wing politics in the evenings and entertainment-style news during the day, and CNN is pretty people reading twitter feeds on the air. While I do enjoy Ed, Rachel, and Keith on MSNBC, the daytime "news" feels like anything but.