Journalism These Days

This forum is for posting examples of major media stories that are examples of bad journalism. Do not post examples from blogs or opinion pieces.

Many of us old hippies long for the days when we could trust Walter Cronkite to tell us the truth on the nightly news. Today, pretty much all we get are sound bites and infotainment, and that's from the better sources. At worst, we get misleading distortions and lies from outlets pretending to be fair and balanced.

The giant media conglomerates that control the flow of news and information to the American people have abandoned their commitment to quality journalism. It's rare to find any investigations into corporate or political corruption or even policy issues. As an example, MSNBC the other day reported gravely on the shocking statistics on infant mortality in the US without even asking what the cause might be. No mention of the growing number of people without health insurance or the growing disparity between the rich and poor. Myself, I find that Al Jazeera is more balanced than CBS, NBC, ABC, or Fox. How often are candidates' statements even fact-checked?

The result: the American people are terribly misinformed on a whole range of major issues from health care to energy policy, and as a result, the US is in a state of decline.

 

my favourite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWY14eyMFg"]CNN Fake Newscast Best Quality - YouTube

 

British Channel 4 news is quite good

I think that a lot of the nostalgia about the old days is simply because we didn't have access to half of the information that we do now.
It was a nicer world back then for middle class people in the richest countries in the world but it wouldn't fly nowadays

I do wonder if this so called anti elitism that has sprung up is really any good at all. It's a bit like facebook. It actually limits people despite it's potential. Politics has in fact gone down the tubes with the opening up of communication. How did the ridiculous jump in our power to communicate and travel in the last 20 years make everything so limited?
We can see news anywhere in the world live as it happens and read posts about it from people who live there, and yet in America it is not out of the question that someone like Michelle Bachman (who said that the typhoon was because god was angry with liberals) could run for president

It isn't better

I hate people

 

All of the major US media outlets have slashed their international coverage and so have all the newspapers, not that anyone under the age of 50 still reads newspapers. So Americans really know little about the rest of the world.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/

Just on the front page of foxnews.com -

-Fox News leads readers to believe the President completely controls our economy and therefore is at fault for everything and the only person responsible for saving it.

-a pregnant woman in Michigan turned up dead and for some reason, everyone in the country needs to know about this.

- half the page is about celebrities.

http://www.cnn.com/

And on CNN...

US warned to be vigalant on 9/11, because if US citizens aren't kept in constant fear it means the terrorists have won.

No jobs. Sad America.

and not much else of substance.

 

US Fox News scares me. It's basically a big advert for itself. Lots of Americans seem to take it seriously though, and this whole 'we are not the mainstream media' thing is just unbelievable, they manage to make disagreeing with them into some kind of conspiracy

To be honest I've never been to America but your culture just makes me despair. Most of the best scientists and artists (art in the sense of movies, music, etc as well) are from the US or choose to work in America but there is this incredibly stupid culture as well, just shouting in an angry voice seems to be enough to get people to follow you

 

There was a local anti-homophobia rally/march. These are the newspaper articles on it:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_754466.html

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11237/1169798-100.stm

Was there any news coverage of the blatant, public act of homophobia? Fuck no. But they'll hate the fucking anarchists.

 

So, the other day, a very important wikileaks cable was released, which may have a big impact on our relations with Iraq

Has this been covered by the major media outlets or is it being smothered? I'm looking ...

 

I just did a web search for that story and found mentions only in these outlets:

Huffington Post
NY Daily News
Associated Press
Washington Post
Islamic News Daily
Star Telegram (Dallas,Fort Worth)
Salon.com

 

Um... it's hard NOT to find examples of bad journalism...

Although it seems proffesional and very well done, the next week information usually comes out about how incredibly wrong and biased that source had been!

I find that CSPAN is the only "journalism", or source to the world that is unbiased... but that's fucking BORING.

 

Just thought of another thing.

The way the U.S. 2010 elections were covered was terrible. There was extensive coverage by any number of media outlets. But in my opinion, the biggest news wasn't covered by anybody, which was:

With the Republicans taking over the House, there is now no chance in hell of the United States doing anything responsible about global warming. You can just forget about it. The worst will now happen.

 

If the news is in the control of any interests group the agenda is going to be distorted from state controlled media to wealth controlled media.

In the US wealth has traditionally controlled the media and people like William Randolph Hearst once had great political power just as Rupert Murdoch does today.

(Although the Murdoch’s have recently come undone somewhat in the UK)

The reason why Rupert wasn’t able to set up a Fox News Channel in the UK was that the BBC in its many forms would have ripped it to shreds. That was one of the reasons why the Murdoch’s were always attacking the BBC and trying to get it dismantled.

The thing is would Americans be willing to pay a tax in order to have an independent media network? (The BBC is funded through a £145 a year TV licence, not having a TV licence while owning a TV can lead to a fine or imprisonment)

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I had no idea that's what the TV license tax was for. That makes sense.

Anyway, I can't speak for the rest of my countrymen but if the US could setup a news network as reliable as BBC I'd be happy to pay a yearly fee.

 

I've never thought there should be a state-run media. I think the regulations got too lax about big corporations owning too much of the pie. Somehow we have to provide incentives for good journalism.

 

Sunfighter

But that is the problem virtually any regulation of the media is portrayed by those that don’t want regulation as an attack on the first amendment.

I mean is ‘good’ journalism in the interests of wealth or big business?

 

The Fairness Doctrine


"The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable and balanced. The FCC decided to eliminate the Doctrine in 1987, and in August 2011 the FCC formally removed the language that implemented the Doctrine"

Wiki

 

Sigh. You make good points. Well, is there any way these days to distinguish truth from lies in the media? I guess I'm hoping that eventually, people will gravitate towards sources that tell the truth, like the way I'm now reading Al Jazeera, but then again it seems that most people just gravitate toward sources that reinforce what they already believe, right or wrong.

 

Whereas it seems that you moved away from a certain type of media because you don't believe them to tell the truth. So you move in the opposite direction and believe everything that other type of media tells you.

The truth is that in most cases you do not have the possibility to verify stuff first hand. So the only thing you can do is to gather as much information from all sides as you can and make up your own mind.

Otherwise you just reinforce what you already believe.

 

I see what you mean. But I don't believe everything I read in Al Jazeera, and I still get exposed to a lot of big media. I even tune into Fox once in a while. But journalistic standards have sunk so low.

How do you sort out the truth?

 

The New York Times was asking its readers this week whether they thought the NYT should fact-check the statements of presidential candidates they are printing. So sad that this question even has to be asked.