In a functioning democracy, the news media performs the role of a government watchdog, holding those in power accountable for their actions. In the US, however, it operates more like the fictional Hunger Games, whereby a fascination with the spectacle of the race supersedes the notion of journalists being guardians of the public interest.
Sounds like the start of a media bias thread...if there was such a thing.
In the age of cable television news, entertainment has replaced information and investigative reporting, while journalists themselves have been replaced by entertainers. This is why a 2012 study found that consumers of the right-wing Fox News channel are less informed about current affairs than those who watch no news at all...
Article didn't link the study, and while I find the evaluation of Fox consumers less informed than those who watch no news both humorous and unsurprising, I am curious how consumers of left wing media (CNN, MSNBC) would rank on the same survey. EDIT:
found an article talking about the survey, MSNBC and CNN did bad, but still notably better than FOX. They also broke down a bit of radio v television, and where the respondent's political views lie in relation to the sources they listened to.
More from the article, which shows a heavy left lean (anything Trump is vile, anything Clinton is cleared). Interesting in reading it that while it blames the media for giving Trump's candidacy for too much coverage, thereby giving it legitimacy:
There are many reasons why Trump won the presidency despite his lifelong record of dishonesty, corruption and failure. But a principal reason was that the media, and the way it obsessed over and then profited from his spectacle and showmanship, granted him round-the-clock coverage. This non-stop reality TV show, with Trump at its centre, helped legitimise his candidacy and normalise his lies, racism, sexism and extremist politics.
But, I read further....
Trump is helping these networks to rake in billions of dollars of revenue and profits, but his lies and deceit have not only undermined the public’s faith in democracy and media, but has also led to 205,000 American deaths from COVID-19. A Cornell University
study found a whopping 38% of all pandemic misinformation traces back to Trump, identifying him as the largest driver of an “infodemic”.
Again, the bias is showing. I should have stopped there, but I didn't. I regret it.
Conservatives view MSM as covering for the left, and lambasting Trump and the right. Progressives view the MSM as ... ? I won't speak for the left, but would like to read the replies. I honestly would like to know.
The article views the MSM as being at fault for giving Trump too much air time, and not enough for Hillary, and now Biden. The heart of the article is that MSM should be exposing how bad a person Trump is, and how great Biden is. THAT is the MSM's job according to this article, along with a return to being unbiased journalists rather than dollar chasing buzz fiends. Somehow, those two priorities aren't going to work out.
. But it is there, albeit somewhat irrelevant now other than for comparisons to how people act today.
