Fox News least trusted in news

And I am not biased, I am foreign.

You're also Hot-Blooded.

It's because of the love for humanity that overflows from me. I know everyone are good people deep inside. I have interiorized this so much I am slowly starting to get a Captain Carrot effect: people act nicer around me for fear of disappointing me. It's nowhere as strong, but I'm working on it. Heart Is an Awesome Power!

You are foreign. Foreign and biased.

As am I, of course.

The reason Fox News is biased in favor of conservatives is the reason why MSNBC is biased toward liberals is the same reason why the other major networks are biased towards the status quo/fearmongering/infotainment. It's the almighty dollar. Mainly I speak of the pundits and editorializers, which arguably are what most people watch those channels for.

It doesn't surprise me that people trust NPR/PBS in news coverage and analysis - they're not funded by profit margins, but from a combination of government subsidies (which never go away even if government changes hands) and voluntary donations. They don't have to be biased (at least not as much as the other networks) because they don't benefit at all from that amount of spin - their funding streams, while relatively small, are also reliable and not as dependent on market forces. However, lack of spin also means people tend not to watch them, as the lack of train wreck is comparatively boring.

^ Cited for truth.

I think it's worth saying that even if Fox and MSNBC are equally biased (which I doubt, but never mind) a lot more people watch/agree with Fox. Sorry, conservatives on this thread, but you guys are more guilty. I'm not going to generalize here, but the averages don't show you in a positive light.

^ Assuming averages can be used as an assessment of individuals is a bad idea.

Which...would be why I didn't do it, and said conservatives as a group look worse.

Is that unclear? Sorry, I meant "Sorry, conservatives (individuals here) on this thread, but you guys (now the entire group) are more guilty." I could see how that could be easily misinterpreted, though. I'd change it, but then our posts would look silly.

I think it's worth saying that even if Fox and MSNBC are equally biased (which I doubt, but never mind) a lot more people watch/agree with Fox. Sorry, conservatives on this thread, but you guys are more guilty. I'm not going to generalize here, but the averages don't show you in a positive light.

Oh yes, by an entire one percent.

I think it's worth saying that even if Fox and MSNBC are equally biased (which I doubt, but never mind) a lot more people watch/agree with Fox.

Bias is bias. I don't care if one is more biased than the other (which is probably true), the fact that they're AT ALL biased is enough to make me hate them.

Bah. You're just a hater.

I don't mind my media having a bias in how they present stuff. However, there is this, and there is Michael Moore and Bill O Reily spinning of stuff. While the former doesn't lie as far as I remember, unlike the latter who does it all the freaking time, I don't like stuff to be presented to me with a built-in, incredibly emotional interpretation. It's like the "collateral murder" videos: while the vidoes didn't lie and all the footage was there for me to read, it's the way it was presented that irritated me, because it was made to seem like a cruel and unusual act when it was perfectly normal within Rules of Engagement. I don't like to be wound up into an outrage only to later find out there wasn't that much to be outraged about.

edited 24th Jan '11 1:38:37 AM by RawPower

Again, you won't find unbiased news, because you won't find an unbiased person. About the only way they could make the news completely unbiased would be if they selected all their stories from a list of recent events at random, listed only objective statistics and details pertaining to each one, and did so in a completely monotonous voice.

^^ Well if Moore certainly loves quoting out of context and arranging footage in completely deceptive ways.

Again, you won't find unbiased news, because you won't find an unbiased person. About the only way they could make the news completely unbiased would be if they selected all their stories from a list of recent events at random, listed only objective statistics and details pertaining to each one, and did so in a completely monotonous voice.

Right you are. People are people, after all. And it doesn't just apply to the present — it applies to the past as well. You can't trust anything. Even Yourself

edited 24th Jan '11 6:13:15 AM by Greenmantle

It's also interesting to note that while each ideological side is more likely to trust its own "side's" media, moderates tend to distrust Fox far more than other news services of other degrees and flavors of bias. That's perhaps the most telling statistic.

MSNBC may be biased toward the left, but only the center-left, and as a corporation they're still very pro-business. They fired Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, after all. I suspect they're bringing in Cenk Uygur less because of his politics and more because he's as much of a blowhard as Olbermann.

Fox, on the other hand, is not only biased toward the far right, but is practically the party propaganda organ of the Republican Party. There's no comparison between them and MSNBC.

The only news sources I trust at all are BBC, PBS, and C-Span.

Re: The Young Turks: It's highly biased garbage, and I say that as someone who's farther left than Uygur is. He's a frat boy shock jock who's more about getting in zingers than delivering news. If Glenn Beck has a left-wing counterpart, it's him, not Olby.

"Re: The Young Turks: It's highly biased garbage, and I say that as someone who's farther left than Uygur is. He's a frat boy shock jock who's more about getting in zingers than delivering news. If Glenn Beck has a left-wing counterpart, it's him, not Olby." - Filby

This, except that I wouldn't go so far as to call TYT garbage.

Bleh, your standards for "baised" are ridiculously narrow. I call "biaised" news sources those that present information in a specifically, deliberately and systematically arranged way to further an agenda or push their ideology on people, or those that are written assuming you already share the ideology and making lots of winks at you while bashing the Acceptable Targets. Hence, to be "unbiaised", a news source simply has to:

• Treat all sides and factions more-or-less equally, allowing them equal amounts of screentime, questioning them with the same tone and incisiveness, and the same respect. An unbiaised journalist does not share his own personal unsubstantiated opinions.
• While hard facts with cited references, dosed to give an overall view of a situation from all perspectives is the ideal, as long as all of the facts are true, and presented in a non-misleading way, I can forgive a journalist for not giving me the whole picture, because they prioritized the information they believed I needed in order to form a fair and balanced opinion on the subject.

This is why I have started to dislike stuff like Alan Moore and The Story Of Stuff, They allow themselves to occasionally take jabs at their opponents that are petty and weakly substantiated, and they make incomplete defenses of their theses, leaving them open for attack. Now I know a movie doesn't allow for an such an airtight presentation as, say, a book, but,,,

Let me see... exemplary journalism... this book. While it irritated the crap out of me because it kept presenting Israel as an ally and a friend and a nation to be supported despite everything, I still read it and appreciated it because it took pains to damn well prove every point it made, and reached their conclusions in a logical, systematic, reasoned way. It was a dry, scholarly book, but damn it was awesome.

On the other hand, journalism that tried very hard to get there but kinda failed...Blackwater... half of the prologue is a relevant but exaggerately in-depth Ad Hominem against the owners of Blackwater, presenting them (with lots of solid hard facts, but it still felt like a Demonization) as the prototypical enemies of the Liberal person: ultra-conservative, ultra-christian Corrupt Corporate Excutive military-culture Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! republican caricatures). Then it went on to present Blackwater itself. It felt more like a Stephen King or Bram Stroker novel, slowly and progressively approaching the Ultimate Evil from many angles, using excerpts from many sources, revealing details that, by themselves, are harmless, but worrying, and stacking them up one after the other in a Paranoia Fuel fashion, buliding up the horror little by little.

That's poor journalism. Get to the freaking point. Tell us what's so bad about these dudes. Then tell us why it is so bad if it wasn't obvious. But don't stack up innuendo after innuendo without anything solid to back it up. Gah, Farenheit Nine Eleven, what a frustrating movie...

Uygar is a self-promoting douchebag. Full stop. And again, said as someone who's probably further to the 'left' of him. (I don't like the left-right spectrum, as I think things are a lot more complicated than that. For example, I support market solutions for most of the economic ills that are currently in place in the first world, however I think that for those solutions to be viable, we need full employment. I really don't care HOW it's done, as long as it's done)

Everybody is biased. I think blaming Fox News is blaming the symptom in a way and not the cause. The cause is that you have a very divided electorate with a huge voting bloc that quite frankly is more interested in tribalism than policy, with a voting structure that magnifies their power.

And of course, targeting certain demographics is much easier now with the internets and other modern communications technologies, so it's easier to be tribal.

more interested in tribalism than policy

YOU! HAVE! JUST! NAILED IT!!!

Whats the margin of error? If its large enough, it is basically a 50 50 split.