Study Sees Continued Decline in Overall Credibility of News Media

[CorporalCaptain]

A big part of the problem today is that most modern 'journalists' have little, if any, experience or education in anything but journalism. So they don't really understand what they're covering. As a result, they can't provide depth to anything.

While no doubt that's true in many cases, and it's easy to come to that conclusion based on their lameness on the air, I've also noted that there are some correspondents who spend a lot of time in hot spots. Extended first hand experience does count for something. These types of correspondents are a cut above the empty-headed anchors.

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Just as a general remark on topic, I try to take each report in the news as a puzzle piece. More news (from independent sources) means more pieces to the puzzle. I don't limit my exposure, except to stay the hell away from Fox.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I have to wonder why anyone bothers with TV news at all. Almost all of it is a complete joke.

I find PBS NewsHour still maintains a pretty high standard with longer-form pieces and extended interviews. BBC World News America is also excellent.

Al Jazeera English is quite good as well if you can get it (or you can watch it streaming online).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_English#Availability

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I have read some who say that the "Golden Age" of conscientiously-neutral TV news may have been more an aberration due to the scarcity of bandwith, and now that's loosened up journalism is going back to its "natural state" of competing partisan outlets.

That's an interesting theory, thanks for that.

 

[the G-man]

New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane’s reflections on how the Times covers the news in his final column:

I also noted two years ago that I had taken up the public editor duties believing “there is no conspiracy” and that The Times’s output was too vast and complex to be dictated by any Wizard of Oz-like individual or cabal. I still believe that, but also see that the hive on Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds — a phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than from within.
When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.
As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.
​

 

[sidious618]

It's worth noting that the Times was willing to print that which actually helps its credibility in my book.

 

[the G-man]

Admitting a problem is good but fixing it would seem to be better.

 

[sidious618]

Not if the problem isn't there. I have some problems with the Times, it relies on anonymous sources a little too much for my taste, but the idea that it's this elitist liberal newspaper is laughable.

 

[the G-man]

So you think it enhances their credibility to acknowledge a problem that doesn't exist? Ohhhhkayyy....

 

[sidious618]

So you think it enhances their credibility to acknowledge a problem that doesn't exist? Ohhhhkayyy....

It's called free speech. One of the editors has a problem with the newspaper and they allowed him to speak on the issue. The paper believes he's wrong but they're respectable enough to allow him to speak on it anyway. How is this at all hard to understand?

 

[C.E. Evans]

TV News is just a bunch of sensational soundbites, one right after another, but carefully arranged around the teasers before the commercial breaks.

 

[the G-man]

How is this at all hard to understand?

Actually, I understand perfectly. You're a liberal. Therefore, the Times seems "middle of the road" to you. You're basically doing the same thing as the staffers discussed in the article.

 

[J.T.B.]

That's an interesting theory, thanks for that.

It is interesting, though if true I wouldn't say it's a positive development!

Admitting a problem is good but fixing it would seem to be better.

Fixing what? The newsroom of a paper in a city that is two-thirds Democratic has a staff that skews left. That's news? What's not provided is evidence of reportorial misconduct or even bias. The biggest NYT "scandal" in recent memory was not critically questioning Bush administration claims in the run-up to the Iraq war, not really a liberal-progressive cause.

So you think it enhances their credibility to acknowledge a problem that doesn't exist? Ohhhhkayyy....

"They" aren't acknowledging anything, it's an individual's personal view in an opinion column.

Justin

 

[sidious618]

How is this at all hard to understand?

Actually, I understand perfectly. You're a liberal. Therefore, the Times seems "middle of the road" to you. You're basically doing the same thing as the staffers discussed in the article.

Bullshit, I'm afraid. I'm liberal but I'm perfectly capable of seeing what does and doesn't have a liberal bias. MSNBC is massively biased towards the liberal side, for example, so much so that I'd never watch it. The fact is that conservatives for years have decried anything that goes against their worldview. It's not that the NYT is liberal, it's that it says things which are inconvenient for the conservative viewpoint.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

At this point it seems to me that "liberal bias" is used to describe any point-of-view that isn't anti-gay, anti-women, anti-tax, pro-Christian, and pro-war.

 

[the G-man]

How is this at all hard to understand?

Actually, I understand perfectly. You're a liberal. Therefore, the Times seems "middle of the road" to you. You're basically doing the same thing as the staffers discussed in the article.

Bullshit, I'm afraid. I'm liberal but I'm perfectly capable of seeing what does and doesn't have a liberal bias. MSNBC is massively biased towards the liberal side, for example

Yes. Massively. But that doesn't mean the NYT isn't also biased, albeit much less so.

The fact is that conservatives for years have decried anything that goes against their worldview.

While I fully admit this is not a scientific sample, I know far more conservatives who are willing to listen to or read center-left material than liberals who do so with center-right material.

It's not that the NYT is liberal, it's that it says things which are inconvenient for the conservative viewpoint.

The problem is that, lately, you are getting a certain number of liberals or moderates, often in the media themselves also saying that they've let their biases get the better of them. There's the outgoing NYT editor, cited above.

Here's the bottom line: you saying you're not biased or the NYT isn't because you're/it's not as bad as MSNBC would be like me saying I'm not biased because I'm better than Glenn Beck. That doesn't disprove bias. If anything it shows a bias.

 

[sidious618]

Here's the bottom line: you saying you're not biased or the NYT isn't because you're/it's not as bad as MSNBC would be like me saying I'm not biased because I'm better than Glenn Beck. That doesn't disprove bias. If anything it shows a bias.

That's not what I said at all.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

All news media are biased, but some biases are more onerous than others. There are biases that push a particular sociopolitical agenda, and then there are biases that ignore facts and reality and instead produce fabricated nonsense.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'd like to see concrete evidence of bias in the form of specific examples, if someone's going to be throwing around the charge. Not a vague appeal to the fact that ya know the staff leans a certain way.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Most news organizations are actually are more right leaning than left leaning.

Interesting graph from the Atlantic.

 

[J.T.B.]

I'd like to see concrete evidence of bias in the form of specific examples, if someone's going to be throwing around the charge. Not a vague appeal to the fact that ya know the staff leans a certain way.

Yeah, me too. It's just like NPR. Last year there was a gotcha video of an NPR exec expressing his personal left-of-center opinions, and a big cry went up on the right: "See, NPR has a liberal bias!" But nobody could point to examples of biased reportage. NPR's "On the Media" show did a story with self-identified conservative listeners who reported what they perceived as bias. And it basically came down to "Well, I can't put my finger on it, but I know it when I hear it." Transcript here: http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/mar/25/does-public-radio-have-a-liberal-bias-the-finale/transcript/

So if it's all subjective -- as in the NYT public editor piece, where he had to use weasel words like "seems to" -- then how could that perception problem be remedied? Have a quota system where prospective reporters have to provide proof of political views? I don't see how something like that would work. It seems to me the most practical course is for readers who perceive a particular slant to either take that into account and adjust for it, or find another news source.

Justin