On The Media: Where Do You Get Your News?

[Superblood Wolfmoon]

He's a fucking loudmouthed hack and always has been. Good riddance.

[BurtReynolds]

[Bammer]

He's a fucking loudmouthed hack and always has been. Good riddance.

Name a politician or pundit that this does not describe.

[96583UP]

McConnell once again the diabolical getting the best of the Dems

makes a hardball move to draft the initial take of the bill without Dem input and move the starting point in negotiations anchored far to his side

then leave the Dems to either accept it and do his bidding or reject it in a time-is-of-the-essence context and take the blame

brilliant

asshole

[Biff Pocoroba]

Oh Fox News, I see you haven't changed. Actual headline on their site:

Pelosi Pork-a-palooza
House Dems cram coronavirus bill with arts funding, union help, Obamaphones

[Monkey_Driven]

Oh Fox News, I see you haven't changed. Actual headline on their site:

Pelosi Pork-a-palooza
House Dems cram coronavirus bill with arts funding, union help, Obamaphones

That site is an absolute mess.

[96583UP]

Oh Fox News, I see you haven't changed. Actual headline on their site:

Pelosi Pork-a-palooza
House Dems cram coronavirus bill with arts funding, union help, Obamaphones

That site is an absolute mess.

would love to be part of a Pelosi Pork-a-palooza and thank her for her service

[BurtReynolds]

[Bi_3]

What are you getting at Burt? Let us in bro, let us in

[B]

WHO!? WHO, I say!? Who could have predicted that there would be sexual harassment charges against this middle-of-the-road candidate that we were all told would appeal to all Americans!?

It was totally unknowable!

[B]

Do Democrats have a plan for victory in which all women stay home?

[Mickey]

Do Democrats have a plan for victory in which all women stay home?

They're going to eat shit and lose, which is preferable to angering the donor class with a modicum of social democracy.

[Bi_3]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/busi ... arrow.html

"Mr. Farrow, 32, is not a fabulist. His reporting can be misleading but he does not make things up. His work, though, reveals the weakness of a kind of resistance journalism that has thrived in the age of Donald Trump: That if reporters swim ably along with the tides of social media and produce damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by the loudest voices, the old rules of fairness and open-mindedness can seem more like impediments than essential journalistic imperatives."

and

"We are living in an era of conspiracies and dangerous untruths — many pushed by President Trump, but others hyped by his enemies — that have lured ordinary Americans into passionately believing wild and unfounded theories and fiercely rejecting evidence to the contrary. The best reporting tries to capture the most attainable version of the truth, with clarity and humility about what we don’t know. Instead, Mr. Farrow told us what we wanted to believe about the way power works, and now, it seems, he and his publicity team are not even pretending to know if it’s true."

Wow. Good on the NYT for allowing an obvious, but unoften spoken truth about a large chunk modern reporting onto it's pages.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[Bi_3]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-libera ... 1590430876

The ‘Liberal Leaning’ Media Has Passed Its Tipping Point
A return to balance would be commercially unviable. The best solution may be an honest embrace of bias.

By Van Gordon Sauter
May 25, 2020 2:21 pm ET

About 35 years ago I was sitting at lunch next to Jeane Kirkpatrick, a onetime Democrat who became a foreign-policy adviser to President Reagan and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She was lamenting what she called the “liberal leaning” media. As the president of CBS News, I assured her it was only a “liberal tilt” and could be corrected.

“You don’t understand,“ she scolded. “It’s too late.”

Kirkpatrick was prophetic. The highly influential daily newspapers in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Boston are now decidedly liberal. On the home screen, the three broadcast network divisions still have their liberal tilt. Two of the three leading cable news sources are unrelentingly liberal in their fear and loathing of President Trump.

News organizations that claim to be neutral have long been creeping leftward, and their loathing of Mr. Trump has accelerated the pace. The news media is catching up with the liberalism of the professoriate, the entertainment industry, upscale magazines and the literary world. Recent arrivals are the late-night TV hosts who have broken the boundaries of what was considered acceptable political humor for networks.

To many journalists, objectivity, balance and fairness—once the gold standard of reporting—are not mandatory in a divided political era and in a country they believe to be severely flawed. That assumption folds neatly into their assessment of the president. To the journalists, including more than a few Republicans, he is a blatant vulgarian, an incessant prevaricator, and a dangerous leader who should be ousted next January, if not sooner. Much of journalism has become the clarion voice of the “resistance,” dedicated to ousting the president, even though he was legally elected and, according to the polls, enjoys the support of about 44% of likely 2020 voters.

This poses significant problems not only for Mr. Trump but for the media’s own standing. If Mr. Trump prevails in November, what’s the next act, if any, for journalists and the resistance? They will likely find Mr. Trump more dangerous and offensive in a second term than in the first.

More important, how will a large segment of the public ever put stock in journalism it considers hostile to the country’s best interests? Unfortunately, dominant media organizations have bonded with another large segment of the public—one that embraces its new approach. Pulling back from anti-Trump activism could prove commercially harmful.

On the other hand, how would the media respond to a Joe Biden victory (beyond exhilaration)? Will Mr. Biden be subjected to the rigor and skepticism imposed on Mr. Trump? Will he get a pass because he is a liberal and “not Trump”? The media’s protective coverage of the sexual-assault allegation against Mr. Biden is perhaps a clear and concerning preview to how his presidency would be covered.

The media seems uninterested in these issues of bias. But wouldn’t a softening of its editorial orientation bring new readers or viewers? Probably not. The growth of new customers would be more than offset by the defection of outraged members of the current audience. The news media seems very comfortable with its product and ability to sell it.

There’s probably no way to seal the gap between the media and a large segment of the public. The media likes what it is doing. Admires it. Celebrates it. There is no personal, professional or financial reason to change. If anything, the gap will expand. Ultimately, the media finds the “deplorables” deplorable.

Dan Abrams, ABC’s chief legal-affairs anchor and founder of the website Mediaite, has a novel but valuable idea for the media—candor. Speaking to the matter at February’s Rancho Mirage Writers Festival, Mr. Abrams said “I think the first thing that would help . . . is to admit . . . that the people in the media are left of center.”

It would be delightful if a publisher, an editor, a reporter, would just say: Yes, I am left of center! I’m proud of it. I think our reporting is accurate. It best serves the public. And the credibility of the media. So there!

Publications open about their bias might feel freer to focus on the specifics: story selection, presentation, facts, fairness, balance. Not devoid of subtlety for sure, but manageable.

Journalism affects social cohesion. Convinced of its role and its legitimacy, however, the media doesn’t seem to much care. And the other side can certainly enjoy throwing rotten tomatoes at distant targets.

But America won’t reunite until far more people can look at a news story in print or on the screen and, of all things, believe it.

Mr. Sauter was president of CBS News, 1982-83 and 1986.

[McParadigm]

Mr Sauter was removed as president of CBS News in part because the network was getting hammered for his approach to reporting, which was described at the time as “glitzy,” “misrepresentative,” and “inappropriately dramatized.”

He then became president of Fox News for a time.

Weird that a Murdoch media organization forgot that part of his biography.

Anyways, I’m pretty sure if Joe Biden tweeted multiple direct accusations that Brit Hume murdered someone, it’d get a far louder and more vitriolic reaction than what we’re seeing now. This whole piece is a joke.

[Rob]

Fox News has almost as many viewers as MSNBC & CNN combined. Pretty sure Rush has like 10x the audience of Maddow. There's an entire right wing media empire out there, yet these "liberal media" arguments only get louder. It makes no sense. The argument is that the Liberal media/journalists are indoctrinating/influencing people. But in real life, the left doesn't seem to agree on anything, while Trump, a mostly insane man, is able to (credibly) cite polling that shows 85-90% of the GOP approves of him. It's almost as if their future depends on this argument still resonating.

[Bi_3]

Fox News has almost as many viewers as MSNBC & CNN combined. Pretty sure Rush has like 10x the audience of Maddow. There's an entire right wing media empire out there, yet these "liberal media" arguments only get louder. It makes no sense. The argument is that the Liberal media/journalists are indoctrinating/influencing people. But in real life, the left doesn't seem to agree on anything, while Trump, a mostly insane man, is able to (credibly) cite polling that shows 85-90% of the GOP approves of him. It's almost as if their future depends on this argument still resonating.

The argument is that intellectual society is moving left and the media has moved to the forefront to capitalize on that, so why should they continue to hide it? Fox News and the MAGA moron brigade aren't particularly relevant to that assertion.

[digster]

Fox News has almost as many viewers as MSNBC & CNN combined. Pretty sure Rush has like 10x the audience of Maddow. There's an entire right wing media empire out there, yet these "liberal media" arguments only get louder. It makes no sense. The argument is that the Liberal media/journalists are indoctrinating/influencing people. But in real life, the left doesn't seem to agree on anything, while Trump, a mostly insane man, is able to (credibly) cite polling that shows 85-90% of the GOP approves of him. It's almost as if their future depends on this argument still resonating.

This. Would anyone try to raise an argument that feeling aggrieved and victimized by a liberal media elite is far more central to defining conservatism in the present day that, for example, fiscal discipline? Which do you think matters more? If it's a part of your identity, you're not just going to give it up.

And of course, there's an argument that conservatives' emphasis on fiscal discipline was always a crock that wasn't backed with action, but I'd argue that in terms of how they self-identified as conservative it used to hold some import.

[McParadigm]

Great posts