The news media and how they cover (or don't cover) News/Politics. Let's argue.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

That's why I blame the media for how the government is.

[Tami]

A QAnon con: How the viral Wayfair sex trafficking lie hurt real kids

In May, Samara had stuffed a box of Frosted Flakes into her sparkly backpack, slipped out the door and ran away. She had just needed a break from it all, you know?

It was terrifying for her parents, Samara understood that now. The search parties, the police alerts, the missing posters.

They found her after two days, and ever since, everything in Samara’s life was about “rebuilding trust” and “taking responsibility.” All she wanted was for her parents to see that she was fine, and they didn’t need to be so worried.

She scrolled to the next Instagram post, and the next, and the next, until her phone rang. Her dad’s name was on the screen.

“Something’s going on,” Kevin Duplessis told his daughter.

Within the last 20 minutes, more than a dozen people had called him, frantic about whether Samara was okay. Apparently, thousands of people on the Internet were talking about the same thing.

Samara’s name and face were going viral, along with the names and faces of half a dozen other children.

The person behind the post was seemingly arguing that because the pillow was marked at a ridiculous price, and because its name matched the last name of a child who appeared to be missing, Wayfair was involved in something sinister.

There were thousands of tweets making similar accusations about cabinets Wayfair was selling. The claims were on Facebook, too. And on Reddit, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Within 72 hours, the company was trending, with an estimated 1.2 million tweets about Wayfair and trafficking.

In the days to come, every aspect of these claims would be found to be false.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

A QAnon con: How the viral Wayfair sex trafficking lie hurt real kids

I remember this, but this was more so social media than MSM tho. Misinformation is wild AF on Social Media.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

Chuck Todd was asked why he put Roger Marshall — an election denier — on his show last week to deny that Biden won the election and his answer is that Roger Marshall has credibility because he’s a senator

https://twitter.com/MattNegrin/statu...157011462?s=20

[numberthirty]

Far as I've seen...

No one has stuck a microphone in front of Manchin to ask if he actually said that about the child tax credit.

(Never mind concrete examples of it actually happening if he will cop to actually having said it...)

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

On a Sunday news show the esteemed CBS defense correspondent David Martin was asked if the greatest threat to US security comes from outside or within. He said military generals overwhelmingly say within. And then the host moved on to next topic. Like yawning at a coming cyclone

https://twitter.com/michele_norris/s...518313985?s=20

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

https://twitter.com/michele_norris/s...518313985?s=20

Likely had no follow up questions planned regardless of the answer. It's not like those Sunday shows were going to dig deeper into it regardless.

[GindyPosts]

I notice that the media, in general, is very skewed towards certain topics on the subject of mortality. Like, heart conditions still rank as the top killer among Americans, but that barely gets any play whatsoever. Meanwhile, terrorism is something that doesn't happen all the time (though, for some reason, mass shootings don't qualify as "terrorism" unless it was done by a person of color or ethnic origin) but are guaranteed to get playback for days and days.

[Malvolio]

There's an old saying in journalism: Dog Bites Man isn't news. Man Bites Dog is news. Someone dying of a heart attack isn't news unless the person was already famous. But a terrorist attack is news, even if only a few people are killed.

[Johnathan]

There's an old saying in journalism: Dog Bites Man isn't news. Man Bites Dog is news. Someone dying of a heart attack isn't news unless the person was already famous. But a terrorist attack is news, even if only a few people are killed.

It's a good point when accessing events on the news. It seems obvious, but what we see in news reports is inherently exceptional. If it is on the news, then it does not represent anything normal.

At the same time, there is also a lot of commentary in the news (and more needed) to provide the context on why you should care. Honestly, if there is no context, then I don't think you should care.

David Brinkley pointed out that it is not easy to come up with a definition of "news" but the best one he had heard was "News is something worth knowing that you did not already know." For me, a lot what is on the news does not meet the "worth knowing" condition.

[Mister Mets]

It's a good point when accessing events on the news. It seems obvious, but what we see in news reports is inherently exceptional. If it is on the news, then it does not represent anything normal.

At the same time, there is also a lot of commentary in the news (and more needed) to provide the context on why you should care. Honestly, if there is no context, then I don't think you should care.

David Brinkley pointed out that it is not easy to come up with a definition of "news" but the best one he had heard was "News is something worth knowing that you did not already know." For me, a lot what is on the news does not meet the "worth knowing" condition.

Often, it's just entertainment but they try to make it more respectable.

[Totoro Man]

I feel like the news media is a big part of the public being ignorant about things. And frankly speaking, I think it's mostly intentional. I agree with Dana Milbank when he said...

“I don’t think anything in our training or experience as journalists prepared us for a moment in which one of the two major political parties is no longer cooperating with the democratic process."

I feel like before the Republicans became whatever they are now it was easy for the news media to just sell political horse races and "both side-isms". But now that Republicans went full blown fascists the news media is kinda forced to be real journalists now. But even still I see them kinda weaseling out of doing that.

For instance, Punchbowl News be like “I don’t think it’s incumbent on us to say, a person is a liar" If you are planning on reporting FACTS, that is indeed your job, it's probably your MAIN job ffs . If you wish to explain motivations for lying, well that's branching into opinion is it not? I mean the mental gymnastics of that statement.

I feel like people don't criticize the news media enough for the type of inviroment we're in. They're so concerned about looking partisan they forget to do their jobs.

why would they suddenly be "forced to be real journalists" now? what are we talking about when we discuss journalists? I hold journalists responsible for Trump becoming a political figure and running for political office. if anything, journalists seem to be a big part of the political 'problem' we have now.

as for calling out people for being liars... there's this problem with calling people a liar. it's slander - and you can get fired, or even sued over it. you don't even have to be a journalist. as a journalist you're not allowed to directly CALL a person a liar. you have to use direct quotes, written documents, and provide irrefutable evidence that a person IS lying. it's a laudable act when a journalism thoroughly documents a persons collected public statements and can prove that they're lying to everybody. but it still might not make a difference.

journalists, as far as I've personally interacted with them, tend to be very progressive or liberal in their political leanings. even editors tend to skew towards the Left side of the political spectrum. PUBLISHERS and OWNERS, however, have a lot more money at stake and tend to be 'conservative'. and by that, I mean they are anxious to resist and thwart major socio-political and economic changes that might negatively impact their lives.

I don't read a lot of news articles. I'm not the newshound political junky that my parents are. when I do bother reading the news, I usually end up reading at least three to six different articles to see what differences I can find. I also find it interesting to try and read international coverage of important events as well as domestic coverage.

last year or so I read an article (at Vox, and a few other places) explaining that conservatives were over 30 times more likely to repost fake news than liberals. one of the researchers interviewed explained that they tried getting liberals to retweet fake news, but it "didn't work". the implication in the article was that liberals and progressives didn't retweet fake news. and yet, if the headline was to be true... these liberal retweets of fake news HAD TO EXIST. I'm not the world's greatest mathematician, but I DO KNOW that 30x0=0.

but, what made it strange is that most of the articles talked about this as if it were actual news. and yet, if and when they spoke with professional analysts, they all said that the numbers were not statistically significant... and yet, every journalist camped out on this idea for several hundred words.

I actually saw the same pattern in a half-dozen different articles. but what I found so puzzling is that almost NOBODY provided the actual numbers. I found myself thinking "well, show me the numbers... so, I can make an informed opinion." I finally found an article (it was the seventh or eighth article) that provided some totals.

out of something like 43 million tweets it turned out that roughly 48,000 of them were retweets of fake news. so, that would have left us with roughly 1600 fake news retweets being posted by 'liberals' and the other 46,400 fake news retweets being from 'conservatives'. they could also prove that about 3,000 of those fake news tweets were from spam robots...

their click bait strategy certainly worked on me. when they said that conservatives retweet fake news 30 times more than liberals, I was genuinely curious. and yet, when you look at the percentage of the fake news retweets as part of the total body of tweets being studied, we're still talking about MICROSCOPICALLY SMALL FRACTIONS OF A SINGLE PERCENTAGE POINT.

0.000966666667
0.0000333333333

it wasn't until I read a ninth article where writers pointed out that the vast majority of those retweets were from retired people over 60 years old who had voted for Donald Trump.

so, for people who believe that the media is simply acting on behalf of big business "conservatives", how would you classify that journalism approach? is it speaking truth to power? is it political spin? would it even qualify as journalism or real news if all they did was pull a couple of quotes from a statistical summary and then NOT include the raw data points to help people make an informed opinion of the study results?

I've seen this growing trend in journalism that says we shouldn't try to be 'objective' or look at 'both sides' because that plays into the hands of powerful people with money (which apparently can only be Republicans). but if ALL journalists are supposed to become activists fighting for a righteous cause... that doesn't make them journalists in my opinion. that makes them propagandists working on behalf of political organizations.

journalists still have to do legitimate research, ask questions, verify the truth of what is being reported to the best of their ability, and provide vital information in a timely manner.

now, before people get too excited... even Joseph Goebbels believed that effective propaganda has to be based on something that can be proven to be true. the key is to eliminate context and take the details out of context. so, by this line of thinking, I would argue that the Vox article doesn't qualify as journalism at all. it's political propaganda.

ah, here's the article
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...-than-liberals

[Gray Lensman]

Local News has been going by the adage "If it bleeds, it leads" for decades. Rarely does local News tackle actual local problems. The report on corruption only after some pol is arrested. They concentrate on crime because it is "sexier". Outside of weather and traffic, they don't report anything useful.

Always relevant....

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

On MSNBC: Prof. Jay Rosen, NYU Journalism warned corporate media to be cautious in covering Trump's "press conference" on Jan. 6: Offer no lIve coverage! Record the event, delete Trump's lies and rabble-rousing, report only news facts. The media must abate insurrection.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Amy Siskind said she have info from an inside source who lives in AZ and has a direct connection to Sinema. With his permission she started sharing what's behind Sinema's behavior. Her source assumed the media would come knocking and find this story - it is well known in Sinema’s inner circle! But they for whatever reason never did.