toldailytopic: The media. What do you think of the mainstream news media? Where do yo

[GuySmiley]

TV news is annoying. They inject too much emotion. Every story it seems they have to interview the "man on the street" to personalize it. Reading is a far more efficient way to take in information, in terms of bias and just time use. Lately though, I've really not been paying much attention.

 

[MrRadish]

Ah yes, the 'man on the street'. When the opinion about a legal case of somebody who's spent five minutes on a park bench reading 'The Sun' is given just as much time and weight as that of someone who's spent five years at university reading law.

What do you reckon?

 

[Town Heretic]

You forgot The Daily Worker.

He probably left it next to your objectivity, so that's gone for good.

 

[Sleepy Time]

ALL stations, at least here in the U.S. have their biases.
Fox struts out their right-wing bias on a regular basis.
The others? CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, etc...for the most part, not all as blantantly, tend to give a slightly (sometimes blatently) left-tilt to everything; not all, some more than others.
For the last 20 years or so, I watch them all and filter out what I think to be horse-crap balanced against the truth. None of them are total liars. Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day.

 

[Yorzhik]

Journolist. 'nuf said.

 

[Alate_One]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for August 19th, 2010 09:24 AM
toldailytopic: The media. What do you think of the mainstream news media?

I watch some of the cable news networks which occasionally have some interesting insights but its mostly talking heads slanted to one side or the other. I go for MSNBC or CNN in that area.

Where do you get your news?

NPR
BBC
Democracy now

ScienceDaily and Nature podcast for science news

 

[TomO]

I watched a little of everything...read the Journal, took in magazines from/with differing editorial viewpoints. Lately I've stopped.

:think: I used to be a real news junkie myself....not so much anymore.

Now it's just NPR, BBC & Fox. lain:

 

[Nick M]

Well, they are not media, as that would describe a medium. A transfer of information.

They shape it, fabricate it, hide it, and are propagandists.

 

[Ktoyou]

:think: I used to be a real news junkie myself....not so much anymore.

Now it's just NPR, BBC & Fox. lain:

I used to be a real news junkie myself....not so much anymore.

I get news on TOL

 

[Granite]

You forgot The Daily Worker.

You are such a tool.

 

[Frank Ernest]

Primarily, I get my news from the interwebs and I use...

MSNBC
Christian Science Monitor
A new site I started using a few weeks ago - The Daily Beast
Drudge Report, less often

I throw in a few other sites here and there. Drudge and Beast have lots of links to other sites so I also get to other sites through those.

I think most networks are biased one way or the other. I like to read from both sides and hopefully find the truth somewhere in the middle.

I also worry that the MSM is influenced by corporate and political factors, which prevents us from getting the whole story. I like to read news from non-MSM sources but I don't search those out as much as I should.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. :up:

Yes. The truth is never found in the middle. The truth is never reached by consensus or compromise.

 

[Frank Ernest]

Not that any of our news sources in the UK are anywhere near perfect (especially a lot of the newspapers) but I must say I've always American TV news quite difficult to watch. A lot of it seems incredibly sensationalised, one-sided, and soundbite-oriented, without tending to go into much detail about facts. It seems very obviously commercial when compared with, say, BBC news.

We do have news sources that may be more to your liking. NPR, for example.

That said, the BBC has its problems (like struggling so hard for neutrality that they end up accidentally being quite misleading) as do the other news channels, in their way.

I like BBC because of their "problems."

I have to admit I don't watch the news much any more. I occasionally read the Guardian or the Independent. The Daily Mail is an absolutely loathsome newspaper, filled with horribly distorted stories, a deeply worrying propensity to always show foreign people as 'bad' in some way, and of course the odd bald-faced lie thrown in for good measure. The Daily Express is the same, but with a Princess Diana fixation.

Been checking in with the Guardian for years. I like it. Daily Mail, not so much.

It really did upset me around election time when newspapers on both sides of the spectrum openly supported particular parties and encouraged their readers to follow suit.

Newspapers are run by editors who may have political leanings one way of the other. Nothing unusual there.

The information industry should be about empowerment of the readers to decide for themselves, not pushing the political goals of a tiny group of plutocrats.

The information industry sells information. There is no hazy notion of empowerment involved. If people like what is offered, they will buy it. If not, no. Opposing opinions offer a reader a chance to decide for themselves. The readers will vote with their dollars, euros, pounds, etc.

Which is why Murdoch donating a huge sum of money to the Republican Party recently was so infurating.

You did not find Soros' huge sums contributed to the Democrat Party infuriating?

 

[Persephone66]

I get my news from Facebook, Twitter, and right here on TOL. Keeps me up to date on the really important stuff.