Mainstream journalism

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: US declassification of the biggies.

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123189765#Comment_123189765

Correct.

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123189960#Comment_123189960

Reuters is not to be trusted. And alternative news is an alternative to the lies most people read every day.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123191383#Comment_123191383

Reuters is pretty trustworthy and reliable. It can be correlated with other reports from credible outlets, including independents, freelancers and so on. If someone wants to be really paranoid they can tune into e.g. Nordic news outlets, considered among the free in the world.

In history there are people who try to discredit the facts for all sorts of disingenuous reasons. They use the same technique, "don't trust mainstream history, here swallow this alternative revisionist history instead".

Likewise in science the same thing occurs. Individuals try to discredit scientific fact for whatever reasons, and use that technique to do so.

Credible outlets, historians, scientists, etc obviously aren't perfectly infallible. I was watching BBC news the other day and they made a mistake. Unfortunately individuals seize on isolated mistakes or issues to claim it's systematic - "look they can't be trusted, here go to this dodgy other source instead". Which is another technique.

Why? It's effective. If you want to get people to believe something that isn't true, you first have to get them not to trust journalism, history, science, etc.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123191383#Comment_123191383

Highly reputable news resource so pretty good reason to trust it. What's incorrect in the article?

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123191505#Comment_123191505

But why do record numbers of Americans not trust the media, including huge numbers of Democrats? Look at the Gallup poll results.

The Western media are a nightmare.

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123191937#Comment_123191937

Highly reputable in whose eyes?

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123191981#Comment_123191981

To paraphrase what Churchill said about democracy, they’re the worse apart from all the rest.
Knock yourself out with the alternative media, where else can you get the real facts on things that just happened (or never happened)from someone who is sitting on their bedroom whose only talent is having wi fi access and a phone.

Chemtrails are making a comeback, I’m sure there’s some great stuff in non mainstream media on that.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123191981#Comment_123191981

If a poll asked me if I implicitly trusted news media - my answer is no I don't trust it. Some outlets are terrible (e.g. Fox news)

Context is important. It's why it's judged it per outlet. There's a spectrum of reliability, credibility and quality. Reuters rates fairly high on that.

If Reuters is producing a lot of factually incorrect information then that will be blindingly obvious when comparing it to all the other outlets reporting on the same stories. They'd also open themselves up to a lot of lawsuits and issues.

As a bit of a news junkie I read from a mix of credible outlets from all over the world, gives a broad objective view.

If I wanted to block out reality, then I'd tune into Russian propaganda, or pro-conservative sites, or hard left outlets, or Chinese media, or Alex Jones and so on. All of which claim to be the "real truth" whilst all regularly contradicting each other. That's when you know it's garbage.

You aren't wrong to distrust, but apply it equally and fairly. The usual - question the sites that tell you to "question everything" whilst trying to sell supplements and fear

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123192011#Comment_123192011

James Delingpole is worth reading. As is John Nolte. John Nolte regularly lists a huge number of hoaxes in his articles that the mainstream media have pushed to explain why hardly anyone trusts them. In fact, 54% of Americans agree with Trump that the media are "truly the enemy of the people": (https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration_second_term/54_still_agree_media_are_the_enemy_of_the_people)

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123192043#Comment_123192043

Why are CNN's ratings lower than those for reruns of Yogi Bear?

https://www.theblaze.com/podcasts/a-cartoon-bear-is-beating-cnn-in-the-ratings

I presume they still are.

But 99% of the media is made up of hard left outlets. They can lie and call themselves "centre left / right / whatever you want", but they all have the same opinions, use the same language, support the same things, etc.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123192140#Comment_123192140

» But 99% of the media is made up of hard left outlets.

Outlets can be checked on various sites (like Mediabias/factcheck, Allsides, Newsguard, etc) to get an idea of roughly where they might lean. And also credibility/quality. It's not an exact science but the consensus is usually close enough.

It's a relatively even spread, overall aggregate in the US I'd say it's a fairly even spread now. Also keep in mind that e.g. "left" in modern US politics might be considered more in line with centrist policies in many European countries.

A cheap way to dispel modern journalism is to claim it's mostly "extreme left" or "extreme right". Those types of shortcuts are a slippery slope.

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123193206#Comment_123193206

I don't think there's any difference between a 'centrist' and a 'lefty'. Both support the same things, use the same language, and are indistinguishable from one another as a result.

But it is mostly extreme left because there's no difference between extreme left, left and 'centrist'. There's no difference between the Irish Times, RTÉ, Virgin, the Irish Independent, all the tabloids, Newstalk, Today FM, et al. And there's no difference between the political parties either. They're identical.

Here, for example, is a list of hoaxes that John Nolte says the US media push:

• Springfield Bomb Threat Hoax
• Trump Called for Liz Cheney to Be Executed Hoax
• Violent Crime Down Under Biden/Harris Hoax
• Arlington Cemetery Hoax
• Kamala Was Never America’s Border Czar Hoax
• Russia Collusion Hoax
• Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax
• Jussie Smollett Hoax
• Covington KKKids Hoax
• Very Fine People Hoax
• Seven-Hour Gap Hoax
• Russian Bounties Hoax
• Trump Trashes Troops Hoax
• Policemen Killed at Mostly Peaceful January 6 Protest Hoax
• Rittenhouse Hoax
• Eating While Black Hoax
• Border Agents Whipping Illegals Hoax
• NASCAR Noose Hoax
• Georgia Jim Crow 2.0 Hoax
• Trump Assaulted Secret Service Agents and Grabbed Steering Wheel of Beast Hoax
• MAGA Assaulted Paul Pelosi Hoax
• COVID Lab Leak Theory Is Racist Hoax
• Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is Russian Disinformation Hoax
• Joe Biden Will Never Ban Gas Stoves Hoax
• COVID Deaths are Overcounted Is a Conspiracy Theory Hoax
• Mass Graves of Native Children in Canada Hoax
• Trump Killed Japanese Koi Fish Hoax
• Trump Told People to Drink Bleach Hoax
• Hamas Hospital Hoax
• If Reelected, Trump Will Execute People Hoax
• The 900,000 Kids Hospitalized with Coronavirus Hoax
• Dozens of Environmental Hoaxes
• The Alfa Bank Hoax
• Libs of TikTok Murdered Non-Binary Teen Hoax
• Aaron Rodgers Sandy Hook-Truther Hoax
• ‘Bloodbath’ Hoax
• Biden ‘Sharp-as-a-Tack’ Hoax
• Iowa Poll Hoax

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123199067#Comment_123199067

Nolte is a far right writer, who is into the "great replacement", "cultural marxist" conspiracy stuff.

The links are mostly to Breitbart, which is a hard right/extreme right outlet

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/breitbart/

Reasoning:

 Extreme Right, Propaganda, Conspiracy, Failed Fact Checks

Bias Rating: RIGHT (8.1)
Factual Reporting: MIXED (6.4)
Country: USA
MBFC’s Country Freedom Rating: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: High Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

And from allsides.

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/breitbart

If someone wants to follow that kind of stuff, that's fine, but at least be aware of what it is.

And for the list of talking points, obviously won't go into each one, but having a glance, some I recognise as true, some are questionable.

To use an analogy it's like producing a list of "things journalists got wrong about Putin" in order to demonise global journalism and make Putin out to be a victim.

As for the belief that "99% of news is hard left", the most watched news in the US is Fox news.

Billy Mays

The media in the UK is overwhelmingly right leaning

The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Express are all right wing

The Daily Mirror and The Guardian are left wing

I nean you'd have to be completely deluded to believe that 99% of the media is hard left.

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123200663#Comment_123200663

They are populist, which is very different from conservative / right wing. They are all pro-abortion, for example. They go on about "common sense" and focus on things such as political correctness and transexuals and pronouns. The Conservative Party in the UK is also not conservative. It's a bit populist, but it's almost identical to Labour. Peter Hitchens often writes about how they're pretty much indistinguishable from each other.

And The Independent is extreme left too. And the BBC. They pretend to follow their Charter, but all you have to do is read Peter Hitchens to learn all about their so-called impartiality.

They are hard left insofar as on anything that matters, such as life and preserving thousands of years of tradition, they agree with each other. The things they disagree somewhat on are trivial in the grand scheme of things. But my argument is that there is no difference between 'centrist', which I believe isn't a real thing, and left / extreme left. They all hold the same opinions on anything that matters.

But if you believe in "centrism" then you won't be able to see where I'm coming from. In the entire of Western Europe I would argue that there is only one truly conservative party. That party is Vox. The rest are populist, but not conservative or right wing. Another populist party is Fratelli d'Italia.

And there is no conservative media outlet on the island of Ireland. Gript would be, but it's not widely read. But there will never be a conservative media outlet here because it's not possible. The conditions aren't there for one. It's the most anti-Catholic country on earth and hates conservatism and it's full of identical political parties, radio stations, etc.

Canaibh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123199439#Comment_123199439

The Fox thing is confusing. I've never understood why that's the most watched news station in the US considering most Americans aren't really that conservative. It's just another populist media outlet.

What you call 'hard right' I call conservative. I am reminded of something that Peter Hitchens once said on The Big Questions: "I am in the eyes of many many people extreme, simple for holding by and large the views which my parent's generation held. Those views have become in the eyes of many many people extreme. Extremism is a dud word. It means nothing. It means "opinion currently unfashionable"."

Would you not agree that there is no difference between all the Irish newspapers, radio stations, Virgin and RTÉ? They might have the odd conservative person on or writing for them, but when on a news' programme that person is outnumbered by presenter + left-wing / centrist (same thing) guests, and verbally savaged by same, and when someone like David Quinn, for example, writes in the Irish Times his conservative article is preceded by, and followed by, left-wing / centrist (same thing) articles.

Hannibal_Smith

My mistake folks. I thought there was a conversation to be had about mainstream media that would suit the CT forum. Link dumping to far right, sites wasn't where I thought the discussion was headed. There's a thread already in CA about Grift etc if you want to discuss it there. Theres nothing here that suits the CT forum. I'll close the thread in the circumstances.

HS