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Originally Posted by Tom Earp
Now does this not raise the question that can we really believe "National News Media"?
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Your major news networks, even Fox News (commentary is different) have journalistic standards. Journalists who embellish the truth or misrepresent facts are severely dealt with. Those sources of journalism value their integrity greatly.
That said, you need to understand that part of the newspaper or part of the news program is news, other parts are commentary. If you're on HLN watching a report about talks with the Iranian government regarding the ongoing negotiations, the news reporter is simply there to relay the facts.
Then you have commentary. Commentary analyzes the facts. I'm annoyed with news shows which hire individuals to do analysis and commentary but only regurgitate talking points. Commentary these days tries to put a spin on the facts almost like a lawyer presenting his client's case to the judge. Except no one holds these commentators liable if they spin so far they're lying. That, I think is a problem.
Underlying all of that is the fact that people are attending school and graduating not knowing the difference between facts and opinions. Knowing the difference between fact and opinion is important in that you could get a meme stating that Clinton is deathly ill and unfit to be President and be bombarded with sources from sites known for publishing manufactured news or from sites you've never heard of that even though what is being presented is fact is still going to have some major question marks on it. If you can find the same news being reported by the New York Times, NBC, ABC, etc. in their NEWS divisions, then you can probably consider it true.
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I watch two local news stations on T V and see so many mistakes I just cringe!! BTW, ABC And CBS affiliates.
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There are a lot of local affiliates owned by Sinclair, for example, who are required to have some far right wing commentary. I think the reporters still try to report news there.
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So again the question is whom can we feel good with watching? Don't they all sell news for getting money from ads!
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My best advice is to question everything. There are some sites which I consider to be basically gold standards in ascertaining facts. Snopes or politifact are very good sites which do the research regarding their subject matter areas. I know the far Right has gone after Snopes simply because Snopes is a quick place you can go to see where the latest bullshit right wing meme or fake news story you just saw in your news feed is not only several years old, but false.
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I read paper print Kansas City Star every morning and wonder how much is true?
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A lot of newspapers are owned by individuals pushing far right political agendas. The news section can mostly be relied on. I don't know much about Kansas City, but we have a paper in OKC called the Oklahoman. Their news is generally all true, but there's little real journalism going on. The news we get is because the powers that be want us to have it. There's no real budget at local papers for any real journalism.
If your editorial page is anything like OKC's, then no, it's worthless. Skip it unless you're just curious about what the Chamber of Commerce talking points are.
You should also be aware of agenda setting. Many newspapers won't advocate a position in their news departments, but they will advocate an agenda by choosing to cover certain things and not to cover other things. I think that is apparent between the coverage on Fox vs. Huffington Post, for example in that you will never hear about what went down at Evergreen College from the Huffington Post. Fox, on the other hand will make something like that its top story. And then there are things like this:
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/18/167466...ys-early-hours
Where we're talking about "fog of war" where the true facts really aren't knowable until much later. If you take a moment and consider how the news gets made, you're going to accept that mistakes will be made because just getting the information out there is a priority. We can come back and correct the record later.
