US News. Can we trust it?

[Tom K.]

Fox News is ultra partisan. They are not ashamed to strut it.

CNN has gone Hollywood. I can't count how many movies show CNN in their fictional news segments.

Everyone else seems to steer to one side or the other.

Can we trust US cable news anymore? Is it just another form of entertainment? I vote cbc.ca and bbc.co.uk if you are looking for least biased news in English, seriously.

What do you say?

[katherine]

You need to diversify sources. A single source is always going to steer your mind one way or the other.

[Tom K.]

I agree. As long as you include into the mix of sources a good dose of non-biased news and view agenda-driven news as mainly "entertainment lightly peppered with news".

I believe the next decade at least will belong to blogger-driven reporting. Until they sell out to a corporate sponsor.

[ilovedomains]

With so many sources for news these days, people can choose the ones that backs up their own beliefs.

No matter how looney you are, theres a "news source" somewhere that will feed you whatever "truth" you want to hear. Ever since TV news became a for profit enterprise, getting faithful dedicated viewers became more important than accurate reporting. The big money is in telling people what the want to hear, not what they should hear.

[Tom K.]

With so many sources for news these days, people can choose the ones that backs up their own beliefs.

No matter how looney you are, theres a "news source" somewhere that will feed you whatever "truth" you want to hear. Ever since TV news became a for profit enterprise, getting faithful dedicated viewers became more important than accurate reporting. The big money is in telling people what the want to hear, not what they should hear.

I am not talking about Mikey-mouse so-called "news sources" that always existed but now find a greater audience thanks to the Internet. And I agree that money has more power than the truth today. I am talking about the most accessible prime news channels that in the past had a high sense of journalistic integrity to the public but now have sold out to commercial and/or political interests, some of which probably did so from the start. There still exists a finite number of these (FOXNews, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) In the not-so-distant past we had journalists like Walter Cronkite, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Dan Rather you just knew you can trust because of their track record. How about now? Has that legacy ended with those gentlemen?

What is certain is that the viewer needs far more discernment and common-sense viewing news than ever in the past. However, that is not the case with many viewers. And that is very scary. Many prime-time news sources seem to not care about that and play to the lowest common denominator.

[Mark Talbot]

Can you trust the news,.. lol

Thats like saying, can you trust Cramer for stock tips.

No you cannot on either counts.

One must learn and practice the art of Logic and reason.

One must also understand and recognise
Change Agents And Reality Creation

An excellent read if you can. I dare you. It may open up your mind to a few things.

[Tom K.]

If freedom of the press is the corner-stone of democracy (as we're told) what does this say about democracy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press

What is the difference between press repression and press manipulation? Which is worse?

Freedom of the press or journalistic integrity should be an undeniable right of a free society, shouldn't it?

Where can we go to for truth (if there is such a place)?

[Mark Talbot]

Well, as you know by noting your post, and assuming you read the link I gave in entirety, the internet can provide both source and objective.

Is the intenet truth? Of course not.
Can you recognise the truth if you saw it? Not without reasoning and intelligence.
Can you be fooled? Easily, but if smart not for long.

And you need to learn how to see the hidden agenda before you can accept the data provided.

That is the hard part.

Now, back on topic,... the broadcast news.

Remember, they are commercial entities licenced by a government organisation.
They have fcc bylaws to follow, and paying clients to appease.
The internet is no different.

Now, with this at hand, can you see my agenda? Do you know my client? Who is my 'customer'?

Good luck discerning the truth from commercial sales.

[Tom K.]

I think you nailed it on the head, Mark. To discern the truth takes hard work and most of us prefer to be entertained and/or have our preconceptions appeased (ie: have our ears tickled). And that is the magic of democracy. As long as you keep your people entertained and/or satisfy their perceived ideals you can do anything you want, either politically or commercially or both. But I believe there is a market for authentic and genuine journalism. My question is where will the next Walter Cronkite or Bob Woodward come from? Can journalism in general recover its good name.

[Mark Talbot]

There wont be a next. Unless someone is found with the right persona that conveys the 'right' message.

Can journalism in general recover its good name.

That is an interesting question.

Define 'good name'.

[Bill F.]

The whole concept of journalism having a "good name" was a construct of the new mass media, starting with radio and moving on to network television. The whole thing of "trustworthy journalists" was sales pitch that the pubic readily swallowed. Until that time, journalists were seen as generally unsavory, which is as it should be. There have never been trustworthy journalists - even kindly Uncle Cronkite has his own agenda - and anyone who trusts journalists to interpret the truth is already lost.
Use your critical thinking skills, cross reference, analyze the use of leading phrases and subliminal suggestion in new reports, the use of word-choice to suggest something negative without actually lying... it's all very tiring, and most of us don't have the time. So, as Mark says, we go with those we trust (i.e, those who share our biases).
If you are really interested in a story, read both sides of it, then search the net for contrarian views. Read journalists you hate, and investigate for yourself whether there's likely any truth in what they say. Ask yourself why Story A is on the front page, while similar story B is buried among the minor news items.
And throw away your TV. 99% of TV news is stuff you don't need to know about (cannibal murders, scandal du jour, children stuck in drainpipes, politicians saying something stupid, economics forecasts by people who don't have a clue, human interest-aka voyeurism, foreign correspondents who report news from the hotel bar). The remaining 1% of broadcast news that focuses on anything of importance is so slanted as to be useless.

Read history and study human nature - the 2 of those will tell you what's happening better than any news report.

[Anthony Ng]

I vote cbc.ca and bbc.co.uk if you are looking for least biased news in English, seriously.

What do you say?

I now watch less BBC than 20 years ago when I lived in a British colony, but yes, publicly funded broadcasting services are critical in keeping the media from being "contaminated" like CNN. I agree though that we need to read from different perspectives: too many people lose sight of the big picture by reading only from the "center of THEIR universe". I would say Al Jazeera is a good balancing source, not just for Gulf-related news. I also specifically look for reporting from the other side of the Atlantic in order to get a wider spectrum.

[JuniperPark]

Fox News is not just ultra partisan, they make up false stories as they please, and get angry when questioned about it. Just look at The Daily Show to see daily mockery of their own contradictions.

Not sure why CNN's participation in movies has anything to do with anything. The same could be said about the BBC or any other network.

There are some exceptions, but for the most part US News from major sources is honest, but the choosing of topics that make the news is slanted to what people want to see, NOT what is important. Example, the Tryvon shooting by a white guy in Florida. The coverage was obsessive. Yet there were other similar stories that got NO coverage, most notably a white couple that were kidnapped, both raped and tortured over a period of days, then killed by a group of black men. There was no national coverage that, and you can speculate as to why... and there are no possible answers that are not objectionable. Also of note in the Tryvon example was that the recording of the 911 was edited to remove the operator's question about his race, and just leaving in the statement "he's black". The editor was busted, but that critical bit of information didn't make it to 99% of the people who heard the original version.

News also turns a blind eye to certain agendas... for example, Al Gore PROMISED that Manhattan and several Pacific countries would be "under water by 2010". Didn't happen. Yet the Global Warming myth is still popular years after being proven wrong.

Most disturbing is that the US Media on its own eliminated a US Presidential Candidate. During the primaries, cameras would not show close ups of Ron Paul, even focusing on other candidates (and their WIVES!!) while he was speaking. They refused to give him interviews, even when he came in 2nd, and they instead interviewed the 3rd and 4th place candidates. In the rare cases the news even spoke to him, they only asked him stupid questions, like how the other candidates seem to be getting along. Few few people noticed or objected to the fact that the media literally eliminated a candidate that did WELL in the polls and in the voting. He may suck - but we don't know that, and the decisions should be that of the voters, not the news media. Very disturbing.

Fox News is ultra partisan. They are not ashamed to strut it.

CNN has gone Hollywood. I can't count how many movies show CNN in their fictional news segments.

Everyone else seems to steer to one side or the other.

Can we trust US cable news anymore? Is it just another form of entertainment? I vote cbc.ca and bbc.co.uk if you are looking for least biased news in English, seriously.

What do you say?