Media and politics....

Maddogg6 · Oct 26, 2006, 02:49 PM

Ok - so we have debated - and it *seems* like it may not get anywhere... but I did learn something (or at least I think I did)

It seems many here suspect mainstream media is not telling us all we should know.

How many agree? Post your thoughts.

I have what I think to be a unique idea about it I will share later.

SFOSOK · Oct 26, 2006, 04:33 PM

I think it was ABC that has many a time fabricated news and been caught and never was punished.

BlueMak · Oct 26, 2006, 04:39 PM

oh crap. I wanted to vote no and I pressed yes.

I think the media hide a lot of info that should be known. Don't take this that I believe they are hiding "your" side of view as to what they are hiding though.

merry · Oct 26, 2006, 05:01 PM

I'm not in a position to judge American media but...

This is especially true for TV

Remember they put up shows, and yes, news shows are shows, not news. People who are trained to report on man-bites-dog type of "news" are hardly competent to provide any real information. Mind that I'm not even mentioning bias and ethics (or lack thereof).

Maddogg6 · Oct 26, 2006, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by merry

I'm not in a position to judge American media but...

This is especially true for TV

Brings up a point I failed to mention

- It wasnt aimed at any specific medium - or country.

SFOSOK · Oct 26, 2006, 11:29 PM

Well I'm sure there things the media hides from the public for fear of mass chaos and panic. But since in America News organization are huge businesses, so who ever is in charge has final say in what we see on the news. There is no such thing as a trusted news organization in my opinion as the owners shape the company to reflect how they believe.

Pompey · Oct 27, 2006, 03:13 AM

It depends what you consider "all the info". Conspiracy theorists claim that the media dont report all the the wonderful truths they have discovered because they are bias, but how much of it is because what they say genuinely has no substance?

I generally hold the view that the media is sensationalist - their goal is to sell a story. On some occasions it is bias but not to the extent some people claim. I find that the 'media bias' card is over used like the race card - everyone claims it when the content of an article doesn’t back their own opinion.

I think people need to learn the difference between a news article and an editorial - the latter will virtually always push an opinion. If any of you read time magazine you will notice many article have 'counterviews' on the next page if they seem genuinely bias.

I have seen some American domestic news shows and I have to admit, they are appalling. I remember watching a big article on how trees 'push' leaves off themselves and I was like "WTF why are you airing this? It belongs in the back pages of a paper." A lot of the content was like that and after seeing the lack of international news I can see why most American cant find Iraq on the map.

For all of you that bleat on about liberal bias in the news; read a copy of 'The New Internationalist' then you will see what a truly liberal bias magazine looks like. I wont say buy it because...well...i wouldn’t (although they do have some good content).

Also I would like to know what the attitude towards the media reporting the personal lives of politicians is in different countries.
It is very taboo in NZ and recently when a govt minister implied the leader of the opposition was having an affair during a parliamentary debate a newspaper reported it. It then spread further, and the news was not that he may have had an affair, but that the media reported it - the news for the next week became a debate over whether the media should or should not have reported it. We never actually found out if he had an affair.

BlueMak · Oct 27, 2006, 10:53 AM

You want to see anti american biased? news, come to Greece. For the last almost 20 years most of the media are against the USA. While they report most news, almost always have an anti american "colour" in them. While not reaching the levels of some other countries, they are still not exactly objective. Sad thing is that because this is happening over the last 20 years many greeks believe them, not to mention most of the people belong to the younger generation where they know nothing else. An example would be mentioning there was some suicide bomb in Iraq by one islamic group, kill X other iraqis, then adding in some way, how bad the US occupation is. Or in a sports site, where they occasionaly have some news, having an article about the recent plan for a wall across the USA-Mexico border and adding (most of it actualy was like that) how the US are hypocritical, how they speak in favour of globalization but also building this wall and how they are building a new wall after the fall of the berlin wall etc. Of course they don't mention all the millions of illegal immigrants or the daily influx of more. So I sent them an email about it. Not expecting any reply, especially since I ended it with a nice touch about red flag and a banana up their ass.

Maddogg6 · Oct 27, 2006, 03:41 PM

Quote:

I generally hold the view that the media is sensationalist - their goal is to sell a story. On some occasions it is bias but not to the extent some people claim. I find that the 'media bias' card is over used like the race card - everyone claims it when the content of an article doesn’t back their own opinion.

I agree with this except...
I call media bias when they make no mention of potential 'other sides' to an issue.

Maddogg6 · Oct 27, 2006, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueMak

So I sent them an email about it. Not expecting any reply, especially since I ended it with a nice touch about red flag and a banana up their ass.

Well, can you blame them for not responding?? lol

Words need to used tactfully - otherwise - you come off like an irrate / irrational - circular file deserving 'complainer', reguardless of the message contained in the complaint. (edit: and thus - distracting from the issue)

Maddogg6 · Oct 27, 2006, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Also I would like to know what the attitude towards the media reporting the personal lives of politicians is in different countries.

You mean like the clinton - lewinski crap.... I think it was 'mis-direction' from the real issues.. (FTA, iraq/afghanistan...etc...)

I was sick reading/hearing/seeing about such swill that everyone else was yapping about - like it was important or something...it was between bill and hillery - NOT the nation...thats my view anyway. (granted - he should not have lied under oath - but I thought it was dumb for him to be 'sworn' about it to begin with - I mean - who here would get on national TV and say - 'Yup - she gave me a hummer - I hope my wife dont see this' - ??) (edit: when it wasnt a 'sexual harrassment' case - 2 willing participant screw in offices all the time - who cares.)
Not to mention later I heard >$1M (way more but I cant remember what I heard exactly, but anything more than a couple peoples salery was rediculous anyway) was spent on this 'investigation'. OMG if this IS true.

SFOSOK · Oct 27, 2006, 04:09 PM

You really have to check every news station to filter out all the crap and confirm any news to be legit.

Pompey · Oct 27, 2006, 05:27 PM

yay google reader!

Oh crap! I didnt check my account for a couple of days and i have 400+ stories sitting there!

TheBlackCat · Oct 27, 2006, 08:56 PM

TV news is a waste of time. They have to reduce every complex issue to 30-second sound bites. Anything complex is discussed on talk shows run by one guy who pretty much always is highly biased. I never watch TV news.

Ultimately, news is in the business to make money. They don't tell people important issues that they don't want to hear, they don't tell people important things that will piss of the government too much and possibly run them into regulatory or grant issues, they don't want to report things that might allow people or competitors to paint them in a negative light. They tell people 2 things: what they want to hear, and what they want to hear more of. Issues that are too complicated are ignored or over-simplified. Issues that are of critical importance but beyond the understanding or concern of everyday people are ignored. Facts that are questionable but sensational are reported but retractions never are. I wouldn't say they are systematically biased in one direction, although some particular organizations are. They are systematically in the business to make money, and will do whatever will guarantee that.

SFOSOK · Oct 27, 2006, 10:10 PM

Kinda why I don't watch TV anymore. Has to do with crap TV shows and the overall quality of TV nowadays.

Pompey · Oct 28, 2006, 03:20 AM

Quote:

Facts that are questionable but sensational are reported but retractions never are.

That hasn’t been my experience. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in NZ if a broadcaster makes a statement anyone can challenge its validity by going to the Broadcasting standards Authority. If the BSA finds that something was incorrect or misleading the broadcaster is forced to make a retraction on air.

TheBlackCat · Oct 28, 2006, 10:22 AM

I've personally never seen that happen in the US. I think freedom of the press would prevent that. Besides, the information may be correct at the time but when it is shown to be completely wrong by later information they very often just ignore the new information because the correction is not "big news". "High voltage power lines cause cancer! You're DOOOOOMED!!!!!!!" is much more sensationalist than "Oops, we're wrong, it turns out high voltage power lines are perfectly safe, stop panicking".

Maddogg6 · Oct 28, 2006, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBlackCat

I've personally never seen that happen in the US. I think freedom of the press would prevent that. Besides, the information may be correct at the time but when it is shown to be completely wrong by later information they very often just ignore the new information because the correction is not "big news". "High voltage power lines cause cancer! You're DOOOOOMED!!!!!!!" is much more sensationalist than "Oops, we're wrong, it turns out high voltage power lines are perfectly safe, stop panicking".

And lets look at the side effects... (this is in general, but I ll keep using the powerline issue..but there are prolly 1000's more examples like this one)
Some people DID find out that power lines weren't so bad...
So now theres conflict and confusion among people. (arguing over something one may consider trivial, compared to some other issues IMO)

And with conflict among the people is less likely to band together -

Hmmm.. it really does make me wonder if its intentional or not.
Becuase I could see some people in gov't not exactly upset over this side effect.

OnDborder · Nov 17, 2006, 03:07 PM

Looky what I found.. I think this contributes a ton to this topic.
Gee, I just to think, I used to be an avid watcher of Fux news. Times have changed and so have I. Watch this and "opine"..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...outfoxed&hl=en

Maddogg6 · Nov 17, 2006, 04:08 PM

Yeah - I was quite disappointed (and thus a bit of a loss of respect for some of the DH'ers here) - to see this thread loose interest in < 100 posts.

I suspected much of this prior to seeing this vid - but I dont use this as my reason to turn the station to another that is likely doing the same - just less blatently.

I instead 'read between the lines' and do research on my on accord - instead of blindly accepting ANYTHING told to me - much less on the 'boob tube'.

I made the conscience decision to pay less attention to anything 'FOX' - when I realized how they blatently released 'speculation' that there were 20,000+ people dead from the twin towers alone.
I see how even fox TV shows and (20th Century Fox) movies spew propaganda as well. But I see it in ALL media in some way or level or another.
The big media companies (IMO) is NOW soley a propaganda tool and little else but a way to sell crap we either dont need or kills us very slowly.

Why do I make this assertion?... NO OTHER NEWS is airing this to the public... Thank google for some exposure to the public. But I dont thank democrats NOR do I thank ANY OTHER mass media outlet not even CNN.
Why is this?

Dowaco · Nov 17, 2006, 06:32 PM

I am not so worried about what they withhold, but the spin they put on the news they do deem worthy to relate to us affects a lot of people who do not look past the first layer of trash to see the true garbage beneath.

Pompey · Nov 18, 2006, 05:44 PM

A little while ago I made a post about our Broadcasting standards Authority.

Here is their latest decision if for some reason any of you are interested. It concerned an article that one news aired back in January. Someone complained that it was misleading and their complaint was upheld.
http://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/2006/2006-021.htm

I can’t find the video of the statement that one news was forced to air admitting that the article was misleading.

SFOSOK · Nov 18, 2006, 07:01 PM

media = politics

OnDborder · Feb 28, 2007, 03:49 PM

Here's a good series on the media by Frontline. It's a 3 parter... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/view/