LOL NBC is giving Alex ****ing Jones a platform and hiring former Fox "journalists".

There's a certain level of bias built into good journalism, it's even present in the ideals that define what good journalism is. Bias isn't necessarily bad thing, for example a news source's values and biases help guide them in identifying and choosing problems that people should be informed of. That people today should be care about high lead levels in tap water throughout the country today is a judgment call.

The problem is that recognizing and accounting for bias is a learned skill, one that many folks don't have. Even those who do know that it's not one that you really master as there's always another more subtle level of bias to think about. You want bias, you just need to manage it. It's the approach that should be objective.

From that perspective, trying to answer the OP's question as to whether the "liberal media bias is better or worse" is tough, because it's a loaded and biased question to begin with.

The best I can do is say that Trump has attracted more interest and media coverage of the political goings-on in the US as well as world events, and probably displaced a few less-important stories in the process. I'm not keeping a count but it just seems that way to me.

A casual look at a CNN's page right this moment is kind of an example:



Of course CNN is a 3rd-rate news site and mostly laughable, despite having some credible journalists in their ranks. But notice that their top 3 stories are all international events, the 4th is POTUS - still some fluff in there but it seems like it's been dropped a notch. I've seen entire days that were just Justin Beiber and nonsensical bull**** up there.

BTW - as a liberal, I think that's a great sign. I heartily agree with anyone on the right (even alt-right) who says you should be skeptical or even (to a point) distrustful of mainstream media. Right there in my favorite sources there's a lot of trash, especially in the editorial pages. Skepticism is an asset.

Where we apparently disagree is that I try my best to apply that standard with all media, while they basically run off to give Breitbart or YouTube a free pass and take nonsense at face value. It's a wonder they don't have someone else chew their food for them.

I've read a few articles that basically admitted Trump is great for ratings and for clickbait. That simply putting "Trump" in your article's title will increase your clickthrough rate by a factor of x5.

The anti-Trump crowd are extremely enthusiastic and ravenous for anti-Trump news and stories, so the media is largely giving them what they want.

It extends to the entertainment media too, shows like Colbert and SNL were in ratings doldrums before Trump came along. The more they attack Trump, the higher their ratings soar. Attacking Trump is win/win for the media at the moment, fits their agenda AND gives ratings, you can't beat that.

IMO, televised news is all about ratings. Whatever the audience wants, the audience gets.
They don't want FOX/CNN giving weekly updates for 30 minutes on GAO-11-318-SP that identified 100s of billions of waste in 2011 & what Congress has done to rectify the waste. They want shytt that excites them.

Just look at this forum. Nuttin' but stuff about topics that boil the blood. Numbers & keepin' up the pressure on your rep & senator is too much to ask for. We want touchy/feely reality show type subjects to debate.

Plenty of talk about the Russia scandal & Trump tweets, not much about what matters........what matters isn't exciting. If it did, there would be a national uprising for an amendment to the Constitution voiding the Citizens United ruling. Those 9 pin-heads in black robes are not the last word! It was a 5-4 ruling with the 5 republicans voting in favor of it............but nobody seems to listen.........nobody seems to care..........they wanna' debate tweets & a scandal that has yet to shed facts.

Incredible confirmation bias ITP. This forum does a fair job in covering all topics, in varying amounts. I mean, if we spent 20 hours a day talking about covfefe you might have a point.

1) "What matters" is different for different lifestyles. I don't mean in an opinionated way either, although that has some value too. I'm talking about how these things reach our lives. Why do you get to declare lengthened prisoner sentences more important than the Trumpcare disgrace, and vice versa?

2) Even covfefe has importance. We talked about it enough for a few jokes and a few points about Trump's mental health. Later, it was a great extreme example of exactly how much the WH defends the POTUS. We're now strongly inclined to believe it's unconditional.

Likewise, Russia has huge importance. The news channels haven't been talking about the same "Russia" for months you know. We keep learning new, significant details pretty much every day, and they fit into a whole puzzle together. Is MSM supposed to ignore all these stories daily, or are we not expected to post when new scoops hit? Russia isn't finished either. They have been active since election interference and plan on hitting the next ones also. Then there's the crazy **** Trump and Co have been doing to cover up the crazy **** they've been covering up. There's a good reason that we have Mueller's special investigation + FBI investigation + 4 Congressional committees + Treasury financial inquiries + State AGs + grand jury subpoenas into Trump and many many others who have all been covering up crimes they committed that are specifically Russia-related. There's also good reason why people who are dismissive of Russia, Obstruction, or the POTUS's behavior in general are often either ignorant of exactly HOW important this stuff is, or are Trumpkins themselves.

Tweets matter too. Of course they do. Stupid ones get ignored completely or commented on only once or twice. More important ones get more attention. The White House has told us numerous times that Trump tweets are official POTUS statements. Some are even being used as legal evidence. And lots are fun!

Then there are a zillion other topics that are affecting us in a bad way. It's not that hard with a LYING SNEAKY SCUMBAG over-sensationalizing everything he does. There's a huge thread on Trumpcare, others on terrorism, there's racism, elections & voter suppression, fake news IDK...you just have to look around. We spend plenty of time on plenty of stuff, and posters do a pretty decent job overall. Sorry you have a bad impression of it, and of the media. Most of it is Trump's relentless branding and marketing and more than most is flat out falsely spewed garbage.

Our House, You're right. I was out of line. However, how can anyone disagree that nothing has come to close to destroying the republic as much as the Citizens United ruling.
IMO, it's proof that the elite own, not only the Congress, but the judges.

That Georgia race that has taken place - 15 million spent campaigning for a job that pays what? - 176k.

5M was raised for Ossoff from out of state sources. Wouldn't it be great if only people could donate & they had to live within the district?

Look at the stranglehold that the elite have on Congress: Boeing had a string of years [I can't remember the exact number] where they profited 40B+. Not only did they not pay any taxes, but they received huge tax refunds!

Now let's put the icing on the cake: They donated 40% [I think] back to Congress. 1/2 of it went to the DNC & RNC with damn near a 50/50 split. The other half was split pretty much 50/50 between individual Dems & Repubs.

When Obama opened the door for companies to do business with Iran last summer & Boeing was to get the K, I told two of my friends, during dinner at the casino, that we need to invest. I had already done the other homework. It was at 132. It's topped 190 now, in 11 months. A huge corporation going up that much is sweet. Too bad I didn't invest as much as I wanted to. Too conservative.

What's sick is that voters keep reelecting the same people over & over again, expecting different results.

When Congress had to come up with cuts the summer of 2011 or be shutdown, that special committee could have just split up into Dems & Repubs, taken the GAO report and come back with what they thought should be cut. Each of them coming up with enough cuts to make the minimum. Then they meet & just take turns picking 1 until they reach the amount they need. They could have resolved the matter in a week.

Good luck trying to find the current status of Congress resolving the issues identified by the GAO. I know some of them have been resolved, but I finally gave up. Last time I wrote her an e-mail about a subject, I was told my concerns would be passed along to those responsible for the matter. Never heard anything again, nor was I told who was responsible. Now she's a senator. Imagine that. Why? Because the majority of voters in my district are republicans & no democrat is going to win anything. I don't care if they do, but don't reelect the same worthless republican. I am an independent & because I know there's no chance of a democrat winning, I vote in the republican primary & vote for the challenger.

So many horrible things have gotten buried in this administration. Without trying to sound like a cliche, it's Trump's fault. I don't know how much is by design, how much is criminal, and how much is incompetence. None of us know. Trump knows. We will find out though, and really hope it doesn't take too long.

No, I'm surrounded by a majority of right wing extremist nut jobs. Some of them even consider themselves liberals.

People believe this because the right wing keeps screaming about it, not because it's true.

Like what's the media supposed to do when a politician is talking about things like stripping health care from 23 million people, building a wall on an 1800 mile border and banning Muslims from entering the US? Talk about how those policies could potentially be good?

The right wing lives in a fantasy world, pure and simple. It's up to the media to report facts fairly. Facts like dumb policies are dumb.

This is precisely the case and precisely the problem. There is a liberal bias, but how on earth do you educate ignorant or dumb people who don't understand why there should be one? The more outlandish something is, the more of a bias it deserves. Normal informed and educated people don't object to the bias towards evolution, or against creationism.

The problem is that all of the right, and many on the left, believe that Republican policies deserve 50/50 fairness in coverage when they attack people unfairly.

See, you're doing it too.

Both news media and academia are 90% in the Democrats pocket but it's still hard to sell the voters when many see through the BS and realize the message is:

"Let us make your town Chicago, Venezuela"

The real danger though is that more and more are buying in to the new message of no tolerance for freedom of speech/opposing ideas. That has never once in the history of mankind ended well.

Doing what? Read everything in the post. Or even the full sentence if the whole post is too much.

We can't doubt there are biases. Just like we can't doubt that the MSM is anti-Trump. The ONLY thing that matters is "does the amount of bias match the amount that's deserved?"

If the answer is yes, then the reporting is fair.

Related:

"I'm looking forward to voting Democrat again," the acclaimed philosopher explained. "But the point is I feel that the media has so utterly lost its credibility that I think people are going to vote against the media again."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ca...rticle/2623299

bias hasn't gotten better or worse, theres just more media than there's ever been before. So people have more options. And people are getting news from random sources that agree with them. and not just liberal vs conservative, but sources that agree with them EXACTLY.

What is considered "better"? Like that there's less of it or that it's less extreme?

Good question. The way I've been looking at it is like this...

"Best" is what's most ideal for America. So, if Donald T Rump does 80% bad stuff and 20% good stuff (don't question what's good or bad for the sake of the example) then a fair media report on the actual content without lies and without much spin would come up 80/20 negative to positive.

To answer your question specifically, use both but give more weight to "less of it" because that comes into play much more often than what's extreme.

Really looking forward to Chris Wallace tomorrow. Not sure what guests he will have on, but anyone'll do after the ass kicking he handed to Trump's pathetic hack of a lawyer last week.

“I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." - George W. Bush - (Washington DC, 12 May, 2008)

Lucky for us that Trump is dumber than even Bush the younger. We'll figure a lot out before Trump is "long gone", but that's not the problem here. Our concern is what will be done about it if GOP decides treason and 15 other federal crimes are legal for our president to commit.

In case you guys haven't heard, that's the latest from Fox and right wing nut jobs over the weekend. "Even if Trump did collude with Russia to win, it's not a crime."

Yeah, that's where we're at.

Here Are All The Questions Fox News Recently Asked The President And His Top Aides

I watch Bret Baier on FOX. I also record the hour on CNN & watch them both, ffwd thru commercials. FOX hardly ever had anything good to say about Obama.

I remember the time the FBI executed a historic raid throughout the country of doctors' offices for medicaid fraud. It took Bret 10-15 seconds to mention it & then press on.

Krauthammer ripped Obama day after day. So, when Krauthammer no longer defends Trump, you know you've got yourself a bad president.

Let's remember: In 2008, the majority of voters decided, that the best person to lead our country, was a 1st term senator, who had abstained in the majority of votes while serving in the Illinois Congress. He claimed he had "legal issues" with the bill. I was one of those people. My excuse: I feared McCain would destroy, even further, our relationship with foreign nations & possibly get us into another conflict. He was known as the most short-tempered person in Congress.

I put my hopes in an unknown, just like those fed up with the govt put their hopes in this Bozo. We are a cult of personality

Given that a large portion of what the MSM covers are his own UNEDITED tweets and speeches, what does that say about Trump? OF COURSE the coverage is so negative. They're reporting about a negatoid. A negatoid who picks battles with everyone (even his own party and staff) in the world except Putin & Russia. Sure, Russia can do anything they want to hurt us and they are. And Trump doesn't say a ****ing word.

You Trumptards figure it out. The rest of us aren't blind.

This is false, fwiw

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/oba...lative-record/