Where do you get your news?

And do you fully trust them? Every single news outlet has been caught hiding or stretching the truth, or even out right lying, just to push their agenda. Who do you believe?

I usually start off by watching the Phillip Defranco show on YouTube, he puts his sources in the videos and I learned a long time ago if you really want to find the truth then you have to check multiple sources.

I just skim the Infowars subreddit.

Ander1969 wrote:And do you fully trust them? Every single news outlet has been caught hiding or stretching the truth, or even out right lying, just to push their agenda. Who do you believe?

What do you mean exactly by "hiding or stretching the truth"? Lying in journalism is, of course, a serious misdemeanor, and it does happen, but "pushing an agenda" is not lying. Every outlet has some viewpoint, slant, or interest, you just need to be aware of it. There's no God's eye view of reality, you know.

But to answer your question, daily news from the BBC, weekly news from New Statesman, The Guardian, and a news aggregator that gives a run down on the big stories from all the UK newspapers. I broadly trust them to present good reporting, and am aware of their slants. Sometimes pick up the Economist for the good analysis and graphics, and sometimes the Morning Star for the socialism.

I also watch the Reddit News Cycle in horror. I do not trust it one bit.

I don't make a habit of reading newspapers much, but when I do, the two I opt for are The Guardian and the Daily Mail. Not because I like or trust either source, I tend to find both are hyperbolic, biased and incendiary, but because by comparing the rhetoric and reporting in each, you can usually fathom out the more rational truth, somewhere between the two diametrically opposed viewpoints the papers present.

I no longer watch broadcast television, I dumped the BBC, SkyNews and both Channel4 and ITV news long ago, they have all either adopted worrying trends from American mainstream media or seek to capitalise on the financial advantages of being influence peddlers.

I admit to enjoying World is One News from India, it can be biased at times but it's unflinchinly critical of alot of stories it presents, although not always. It also reports on stories we just don't hear about in the main stream media here in the UK and that says alot in itself.

Beyond that, I tend to rely on anything with provable sources, papers or studies to back up claims and if I read something I can't independantly verify, I treat it as "Truth Status: Pending"

PopTart wrote:I no longer watch broadcast television, I dumped the BBC, SkyNews and both Channel4 and ITV news long ago, they have all either adopted worrying trends from American mainstream media or seek to capitalise on the financial advantages of being influence peddlers.

What sort of trends are you thinking of?

Magic J wrote:

PopTart wrote:I no longer watch broadcast television, I dumped the BBC, SkyNews and both Channel4 and ITV news long ago, they have all either adopted worrying trends from American mainstream media or seek to capitalise on the financial advantages of being influence peddlers.

What sort of trends are you thinking of?

In the case of the BBC, selective data representation or misrepresentation, during the 2019 general elections for example, they conflated figures in such a way as to make labours defeat seem more sensational, sure it was bad and imho, rightly so, but what bothers me, was that they were more concerned about the impact of their reporting than with the accuracy of their reporting. Thats a very worrying trend.

With broadcast media in general, I don't like the way our once sober and frank news reporting, famed for being largely unbiased and admittedly boring, has taken on a totally different approach. I don't care who Naga Munchety is or what her opinion are, nor do I care for Alister Stewart and his take on news. I want the information and the chance to make up my own mind, not have news outlets tell me how I ought to interpret the news they are reporting. I'm not looking for cheerful presenters who seem more interested in ingratiating themselves into my good graces, than sharing with me the facts unadorned. That desire to win over the viewership by means other than honest reporting with variafiable facts (which speaks for itself) by using the cult of personality... Sensationalism sells, it gets people tuning in. If that isn't American cable news methodology...

The use of key language is also an issue and one I couldn't ignore during brexit. I've mentioned many times, I was on the fence, I was willing to be swayed, but the truth is, that broadcast media, in direct opposition to print media, was so shockingly pro-remain, that I found it hard to not be turned off by the bias, I would listen to news in which key phrases such as "cliff edge" "little britain" and veiled sneers of "brexiteer" where impossible to ignore, they were repeated with such frequency. It was so all encompassing that I was left feeling like I was being very clearly driven to think a certain way and I didn't like that at all. I don't like someone driving me to a conclusion.

It's all about influencing people into a certain way of viewing information, the news has never really been about the truth, but never before has it been so blatantly a means of influencing people towards certain viewpoints. It's become coercive, dishonest and dresses itself up in the finery of serving a vital need within society, protects itself with a veneer of respectability, from behind which it plies it's trade.

Which goes abit beyond your question I know But I don't like what has happened to modern news media. I'm not one of those Trump supporting "fake" news types, it's more that I regard the dissemination of information, to be poorly served, when it's being done so, with an eye towards making money or some other objective, beyond the act of dissemonation itself. It's inevitably corrupted. It's reached a zenith in modernity, that perhaps, it never could before.

Dons foil hat in corner.

See, that is interesting. I was a pretty unequivocal remainer (Varoufakis style radical democratic reform, blah blah), so I suppose I might not have felt it quite as much. Although, there was definitely a liberal sneer from lots of more centre/left-of-centre outlets that I found quite disturbing. Culminated in that ridiculous Lib Dem authoritarian line where they proposed to overturn the referendum rather than address the causes.

I didn't see so much airing of left-leave views, either. The ones who might have put forward that view were like some kind of mythical beast. I'm unsure, but perhaps if there was more left leave, or critical-remain views, it might not have become so much of a culture war. It obviously was a "culture" issue in large part, but that might have forced people to think harder about what the EU actually is and what it does, and improved the quality of the discussion.

But in the more character driven news, I dunno. I think I'd want to make a distinction between news and analysis. I don't want personality driven news, but I do tend to give credence to analysis done by certain people, because I respect their abilities and way they approach the issues. I'm not sure if that is what's meant by "personality driven", though.

I listen to the FiveThirtyEight podcast religiously (Nate Silver is kind of my favorite gay) and also enjoy Ezra Klein's podcast, which isn't news exactly but does great deep dives on topics keyed to current events.

Beyond those, I just scroll through NYT headlines.

Magic J wrote:See, that is interesting. I was a pretty unequivocal remainer (Varoufakis style radical democratic reform, blah blah), so I suppose I might not have felt it quite as much. Although, there was definitely a liberal sneer from lots of more centre/left-of-centre outlets that I found quite disturbing. Culminated in that ridiculous Lib Dem authoritarian line where they proposed to overturn the referendum rather than address the causes.

I was a conditional remainer/brexiteer. I'd have voted to remain, had the remain camp, campaigned on a clear message of how they would engage across Europe for meaningful reform. (Varoufakis style) moving legislative and executive powers to the EU parliament, to redress my concerns there. But they failed miserably to even present a positive image beyond "business as usual" but disagree and your racist...

Magic J wrote:I didn't see so much airing of left-leave views, either. The ones who might have put forward that view were like some kind of mythical beast. I'm unsure, but perhaps if there was more left leave, or critical-remain views, it might not have become so much of a culture war. It obviously was a "culture" issue in large part, but that might have forced people to think harder about what the EU actually is and what it does, and improved the quality of the discussion.

Perhaps it was a result of print media being so blatantly anti-eu that we got such a wild swing towards pro-eu coverage, but regardless of the reasons, the approach and attitude was a dangerous precedent. Noticing those inequities in views promoted (or silenced) I began to notice other subtle agenda pushing.

Magic J wrote:But in the more character driven news, I dunno. I think I'd want to make a distinction between news and analysis. I don't want personality driven news, but I do tend to give credence to analysis done by certain people, because I respect their abilities and way they approach the issues. I'm not sure if that is what's meant by "personality driven", though.

While I can respect a degree of intellectual or academic analysis of the news, I like that too. I don't want to see celebrity style reporters, garnering public appeal, not through educated debate, but by voicing opinions that are popular, who then use that influence in service to the broadcasters viewpoints or political leanings, to define a narrative the viewer is supposed to follow. Thats what I mean by personality driven reporting.

I'm not objecting to critique or analysis.

PopTart wrote:... They failed miserably to even present a positive image beyond "business as usual"...

Yeah, it was a totally uninspired campaign. I think Cameron saw how successful the economic argument had been with the Scottish independence referendum, and so just went with that. They got complacent. Not even a realpolitik take on the EU being the obvious vehicle to tackle global problems like climate change.

Magic J wrote:Thats what I mean by personality driven reporting.

I understand. I just had one of my ex-colleagues in mind. She was firmly of the opinion that you should trust absolutely no one to analyse anything, and that you should always think for yourself when it comes to reporting. Sounds great in theory, but an impossible epistemic nightmare in practice.

Why be so passive, Derek? I'm curious to know your objections.

I let Google recommend articles for me to read that it thinks I'll find interesting, then teach it by telling it when it's wrong. Typically it ends up being stuff from the Guardian.

I obviously haven't given this anywhere near as much thought as some people here.

Sullivan wrote:Why be so passive, Derek? I'm curious to know your objections.

I was driving when I read that comment. I'm also just a lazy and passive-aggressive bastard.

Well fine, there's not much point hashing things out anyway if you're just gonna preemptively admit to the ad hominems I had lined up.