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Media Bias Thread

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TheLoveBandit said:
You're touching upon a 'personal' bias, something I fully accept and in fact appreciate about human beings. Nobody has the same experience through life, it shapes their views and expectations, their understanding and interpretation of others. Personal bias exists and should be welcomed to the degree that by sharing it helps us understand a fuller picture. This is not intended to say that bias that harms or hinders others (racism) should be welcomed, but should at least be understood to see how it fits into the overall cultural expectations and norms, and if it should be nurtured or nipped.

Media bias, however, is not a personal view - it is a corporate one. By extending beyond an individual to a corporate entity, there are expectations that arise with the surrounding society and culture. I say 'media' but I think more directly of 'news' when I say it. News is supposed to present to you what happened, so you can grasp it, interpret it, and decide for yourself what it means to you, to society at large. News is 'something happened'. Opinion is 'here is what I think about what happened', which I still hold to be an individual right...but now 'news' companies have shifted to voicing their opinion as what happened, saving the average person the effort of understanding the full context or forming any sort of meaning about it. This is what upsets me so about 'Media Bias'.

I could extend it further, as movies and television programs (moreso than movies, most likely) have the expectation of entertaining us as a primary goal, and educating us in some cases. However, we've seen over the years a steady infusion of not just situations (plot, storyline....events that happened) but a focus on the individuals, moreso what they thought and felt of what happened, and even going so far as to get 'preachy' to the audience on what they should think or feel on what happened. It's likely that those aspects have always been in media, and I was simply too immature to grasp the overt messaging. But now, I see it more, and it bothers me more.
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I think your position is understandable and one I run into pretty consistently. I guess my problem with it though perhaps hinges pretty heavily on this notion of the news being objective or trying to be if we reasonably recognize human fallibility. I think we've come to this position, especially if you are a US Citizen (Sorry TLB, I don't remember where you are from, its been too long!) following investigative journalism surrounding Watergate or the Pentagon papers. However, I think that objectivity is fairly ahistoric. Newspapers and journals in this country and many others have until the recent period been rags for various interests and of course yellow journalism to sell sensation, rather than news. My point being is that the investigative, objective journalism period is the oddity. Journalism even during the most objective periods was just as often used as propaganda for the government.

That is to say that I think your point about media bias being a corporate view is exactly correct but I think that decision to be biased is perhaps the norm, rather than exception. We can pick on Fox News (and boy do I) but almost every corporate owned journalistic outlet carries the biggest bias of supporting their advertising and the demographic group the advertising is aimed at. I also think this is a function of capitalism. Everything is for sale. So is our news.


TheLoveBandit said:
Likewise.
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TheLoveBandit said:
There is something how social media overall is treated legally, though I can't recall the specifics. There is a balance between being a privately owned entity able to set it's own standards and rules for acceptance VS a public platform equivalent to a street corner where anyone can shout about what interests them. I'll have to go look for the article or reference, as it is frustrating me not to be able to articulate this effectively, but it comes down to something like the difference between a public internet forum (like BL) vs a ubiquitous monopoly (like FB or twitter). If we make a rule that nobody can say the word "Bandit", we are free to enforce that rule on our platform, mostly because there are a thousand other platforms where people CAN go and say the word "Bandit" with an equivalent social reach. More to the point, if we ban a person from our site, they have other ways of speaking and being heard by the audience they wish to reach.

However, when a giant like FB or twitter, if they censor a word (or more relevantly choose to censor certain views or content) they are THE global entity for such content and are effectively shaping the world's ability to hear all voices, to get information and form individual opinions on the content. They are in effect shaping the message, controlling it. Much worse, when they ban someone they are choosing who can be heard according to their own arbitrary standards. Who is to say they can't silence you next? This is the balance between being just another outlet, able to control the content of your members without impacting the world at large VS controlling what the world hears, sees, and thinks.

Given my growing up with BL and our BLUA holding out that 'we reserve the right to do whatever the fk we want', I have a huge amount of respect and support for FB and twitter being able to do the same. However, I struggle to accept them silencing someone for having a voice they don't agree with...but a lot of people do agree with. This leaves me in the conundrum of not knowing exactly where I stand on the mega-social companies having judicial independence of their content, they reach too many people to have that control, but they also shouldn't be overrun simply because they are so successful.
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Oh see now this is a big issue of mine. I think, and some will absolutely disagree with me, but Facebook and Twitter aren't necessarily "just" social media companies. They are either media companies that should be subject to certain rules or they should be treated as public utilities and either regulated or nationalized, and should absolutely be broken up for being outright monopolies. I think their size is a danger to the political discourse in America.
 
Infernal said:
However, I think that objectivity is fairly ahistoric. Newspapers and journals in this country and many others have until the recent period been rags for various interests and of course yellow journalism to sell sensation, rather than news. My point being is that the investigative, objective journalism period is the oddity. Journalism even during the most objective periods was just as often used as propaganda for the government.

That is to say that I think your point about media bias being a corporate view is exactly correct but I think that decision to be biased is perhaps the norm, rather than exception. We can pick on Fox News (and boy do I) but almost every corporate owned journalistic outlet carries the biggest bias of supporting their advertising and the demographic group the advertising is aimed at. I also think this is a function of capitalism. Everything is for sale. So is our news.
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I touched on this earlier in this forum (hell, could have been this thread, I don't recall) in that early papers were propoganda outlets for political reasons. So, I fully agree with your point of unbiased media being the exception (mythical unicorn?) rather than the norm. I just grew up (in America ;) ) with the belief or expectation that when were were given news, we were being told what happened without the tone of what to think of it. But most likely the tone of judgement had always been there and I simply didn't realize it. I don't believe there is an unbiased 'news' source. I simply don't. And as much as I pine for one, it likely wouldn't survive today's marketplace.

Infernal said:
Oh see now this is a big issue of mine. I think, and some will absolutely disagree with me, but Facebook and Twitter aren't necessarily "just" social media companies. They are either media companies that should be subject to certain rules or they should be treated as public utilities and either regulated or nationalized, and should absolutely be broken up for being outright monopolies. I think their size is a danger to the political discourse in America.
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I'm one who respects when anyone can grow an idea into a company, much more so when it becomes hugely (YUGEly?) successful like these. However, like you, I don't see a monolithic monopoly 'policing itself' as healthy for the public. It stifles competition (google being the exception in it's early years, but now it's grown to nefarious, IMO, with what it knows and wants to know). I'd join you in calling for these to be broken up (rather than nationalized...though, I might agree to some regulation as well). Mostly to prevent someone from making their own rules without oversight, and to encourage more competition and transparency.
 
Yeah media "back in the day" was often extremely biased. It's definitely not a new phenomenon brought on by the rise of social media, as it's sometimes portrayed.

I had to do a research project involving looking at a lot of newspapers from the "Reconstruction era" of American history, and looking at such documents really puts things in perspective. Papers in the South engaged in straight-up white supremacist propaganda, while papers in the North advanced the political objectives of wealthy financiers. It's same shit different day in the modern era...if anything it's probably better today, as achieving near-total messaging dominance is harder than it was in previous eras. The fall in the media's respectability coincided with other major institutions, like the United States government or the Catholic Church...I feel like it's the result of people gaining more info on such bodies and becoming a bit jaded as consumers of information. Which is a good thing! Quality journalism is so important and people should try to be discerning consumers imo
 
I will admit though, that in the last decade things have been drifting in the wrong direction, with a few big players like Facebook/Google consolidating power & tightening their control on the internet ecosystem (with all kinds of ramifications for journalism)
 
Infernal said:
Oh see now this is a big issue of mine. I think, and some will absolutely disagree with me, but Facebook and Twitter aren't necessarily "just" social media companies. They are either media companies that should be subject to certain rules or they should be treated as public utilities and either regulated or nationalized, and should absolutely be broken up for being outright monopolies. I think their size is a danger to the political discourse in America.
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I agree. Social media platforms, especially facebook and Twitter, are more than a typical Internet company. These companies have become, essentially, public utilities, a resource platform that is immensely powerful and goes beyond any single government. Misuse of these utilities represents a huge danger to the stability of any and all parts of the world. They should face a different amount of restrictions and government oversight/regulation than most companies. Like how the power companies do, for example. Except that Facebook represents a far more corruptible tool.

There's a fine line. It's not social media itself, or any social media service, that makes the big ones subject to regulation and oversight. It's the fact that they become powerful tools that reach and influence the whole globe, and have become intimately tied in with way of life to almost everyone who exists where sufficient technology is present.
 
That quote outlined it perfectly. Its not just what is covered, its what is not said. We could probably list reams of stories "not covered by the mainstream media" or "only given cursory glances" but I fear that would also lead into a crushingly depressive conversation about news being ineffective because its profitable to be so.
 
CNN is mostly biased in favor of itself. They try to make things sound more interesting than they are; they happily give someone like Trump a microphone while claiming to oppose him because it brings in viewers.

The Last Psychiatrist: We Have Breaking News: You Don't

thelastpsychiatrist.com

"Medical journals are rarely accused of ideological bias, they are accused of financial bias. The press are rarely accused of financial bias, they are accused of ideological bias. If you studiously spend one month looking for the opposite bias in both, what will happen is that you will become an alcoholic."

EDIT: Re above, anyone who thinks the GOP opening statement for the impeachment inquiry contained any useful information is insane lmao
 
The liberal government gave 600 million to our media. Bias is an understatement
 
Oh dear god. We are the birthplace of the media Satan himself, Rupert Murdoch 😰

Climate Change Denial is one of his specialties.. Which is just great when half the country is on fire like never before. NewsCorp know the majority of readers are now worried about it though. So they got their golden boy to do some stories on how he’s changed and believes in man-made climate change... But it’s good!

This was one of the headlines today. I’m laughing now but it’s incredible. I just wonder how many readers will see that, then see the latest inferno, and agree.

64414006-3D4B-4FAC-8645-F88D2A4FB8C9.jpeg
 
I realize this is a bit of a duplicate in that I made a Nick Sandmann thread separate from this, but it bears repeating in this thread regarding MSM's lack of honesty. At the heart is nearly all 'news' outlets running with the viral video of a HS kid on a field trip wearing a MAGA hat and supposedly confronting a Native American who was exercising his first amendment at the time. The video showed the kid, Nick Sandmann, smiling 'smugly' at Nathan Phillips as you hear racist words being spoken around them. The story was the kid was being racist towards the Native American (he is wearing a MAGA hat, after all). The truth is that there were a group of Black Hebrew Israelites off camera hurling the racist words and inciting people; the Native American approached the HS kid and got in HIS face; and the kid never did anything wrong.

Media never apologized for smearing the kid, who got death threats because of it, nor did they ever address their misrepresentation. As such, lawyers stepped up to represent the kid in defamation suits aimed at most of those MSM 'news' outlets.

Original video for reference:

 
TheLoveBandit said:
I realize this is a bit of a duplicate in that I made a Nick Sandmann thread separate from this, but it bears repeating in this thread regarding MSM's lack of honesty. At the heart is nearly all 'news' outlets running with the viral video of a HS kid on a field trip wearing a MAGA hat and supposedly confronting a Native American who was exercising his first amendment at the time. The video showed the kid, Nick Sandmann, smiling 'smugly' at Nathan Phillips as you hear racist words being spoken around them. The story was the kid was being racist towards the Native American (he is wearing a MAGA hat, after all). The truth is that there were a group of Black Hebrew Israelites off camera hurling the racist words and inciting people; the Native American approached the HS kid and got in HIS face; and the kid never did anything wrong.

Media never apologized for smearing the kid, who got death threats because of it, nor did they ever address their misrepresentation. As such, lawyers stepped up to represent the kid in defamation suits aimed at most of those MSM 'news' outlets.

Original video for reference:

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Not surprising. Media outlets from both sides of politics are always manipulating people in order to create controversy and division.
 
Don Lemon is so funny and has such a great sense of humor.

He's also really honest and genuine.
 
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