patrick.net

Fortunately, being reality based, I find several media players, such as "The Economist", "The New York Times." "PBS," "the New Yorker," "The Atlantic," and several other newspapers to be pretty decent in my book. Several other magazines too.

But I know that what I see as objective reality based, is liberal in your book. If you were honest about it, you would probably admit it's more their choice of stories than the way they do them that bothers you.

freespeechforever says

Does ANYONE here (liberal, indie or conserv) believe U.S. Media does good job?

No. Some news organizations like Fox, are way worst than others, being complete propaganda b.s., but all U.S. news has agendas and biases. The better ones don't outright lie or deliberately mislead their audience. I think PBS, east coast (not west coast) NPR, and American RT News (not Russian RT News) do a pretty good job on the stories they cover.

Is it possible for a news organization to be completely without bias? Probably not as long as humans are involved, but news organizations could be close to non-bias, in depth, and accurate.

Note that giving equal credence to two sides of a story IS NOT what being non-biased means. Non-biased means presenting all the real evidence without skewing it. This could mean that one side is 100% correct and the other is bat shit crazy. For example, people who say man never walked on the moon are just plain lunatics. Any unbiased reporting of such a story would expose the crazies for what they are.

I also think that some news agencies are much better are reporting news accurately on some subjects than others. I listen to American RT News about stories in the U.S., but I would never listen to their stories on Russia as they are a Russian state news organization and, of course, the Russian government uses it for propaganda. However, because of that, RT News will cover real stories about injustices in America that no other news organization in the U.S. will. I find it useful to listen to a lot of foreign news about the U.S. because those news organizations are further removed from the influence of American government and business. I suspect the same is true of domestic news organizations in every country.

P.S. For posterity, I'm a liberal fiscal conservative STEM worker. Highly educated, upper middle class.

i just wonder how much the tone will change as soon as obama and his lackeys leave office.

MSM is a for profit business.
You will be told what they think will make them the most money
and it's been turned into a fine tuned scam.

Governments and economic entities have been honing the use of disinformation for centuries i.e. generating popular mythologies, demonizing created bogeymen, engaging in legerdemain and misdirection, attempting to strike hue and cry against manufactured enemies etc.

In the past, there was not enough information to evaluate validity or non-validity of spoon fed information. With the internet nowadays, any intelligent person can see the veins of manipulation and misdirection that are rife in media.

Most modern media efforts now are blitzkrieg, full saturation pamphleteering and emotion mongering, trying to overwhelm with so much disinformation it is IMPOSSIBLE to see the truth or meaningful patterns except those that are forced.

I guess it works, because they certainly don't care any more if they debase themselves completely as long as they stay in business and can keep talking. They all appear whore-ier by the day, and the recent elections exposed them in all their propaganda majesty.

I had a relative in the foreign service who said years ago that street level Americans don't have the slightest idea what really happens in foreign countries based on our popular media. The pundits are fake, and countries are simply described in ways that are convenient to current policy and prejudice.