"We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent"

[abculatter_2]

Very interesting speech from Edward R. Murrow about the corporatization and commercialization of the media, made back in 1958:

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHaV59RB8A8[/youtube]

Or, a direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHaV59RB8A8

Just thought you guys might find it interesting as well.

EDIT: Also, this is the article I found the above in: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2 ... -news.html

A good summarization is to just copy paste the second paragraph:

"Almost 60 years later, Murrow’s warning has gone unheeded by the corporate broadcast media. On June 8, CNN unveiled “Courageous,” a new production unit and an in-house studio that would be paid by advertisers to produce and broadcast news-like “branded content.” "

[FlowerChild]

I'm slightly concerned that this may be going into "no politics" territory.

Will see how it plays out. Please try to keep it civil :)

I was a big fan of HBOs Newsroom, which basically presented the opposite scenario of a fictitious news organization that decided to air real news again, so I'll just say this is a subject of particular interest to me.

I think right off the bat it's extremely telling that the concept of broadcasting real news is so alien that it makes a good premise for a fictional show :)

The first season in particular I found to be absolutely brilliant until public outcries of it being biased caused it to be nerfed severely. Was still interesting afterwards, but that first season...

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That was the very first scene of the first season. My jaw almost hit the floor when I saw it, and I was instantly hooked.

As for the article you linked about CNN and paid content, it is of course horrific, but I can't say it's at all surprising. I'm not sure if they were ever in the news rather than entertainment business, and they certainly haven't been since FOX showed up as competition. My personal opinion on it is that CNN has about as much to do with news as the History Channel does with actual history :)

On what I believe to be a related note, if you're interested in watching something rather stunning that highlights the difference between the past and now, try watching this:

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I watched it a little while ago due to my interest in space exploration and it brought tears to me eyes thinking of the impossibility of a modern politician speaking with such eloquence due to not wanting to look like an "intellectual".

[FlowerChild]

I hadn't heard of The Newsroom, though I do recognize that scene from somewhere. Now that I know it's from a series, my interest is piqued.

And I'm not surprised it was called 'biased' and the creators caved to these cries and made it more 'moderate'... It was probably FOX news that headed that charge, wasn't it?

Basically the same crowd, yes.

And yeah, it's really worth a watch especially if you are into this particular subject. Just be prepared to be mildly disappointed after season 1 for the reasons I mentioned. The quality of dialog remains throughout however (the banter between characters is really amazing at times), which is why I kept watching.

Also, as to that Reagan speech, it would probably be difficult, if not impossible to get a modern politician to be that candid even if you literally twisted his arm, let alone get him to be eloquent. :P

Reagan? Gods no man, that was Kennedy. Reagan was all into militarizing space with the "Star Wars" program. I doubt he ever would have talked about conquering it first to ensure it was for the benefit of all mankind :)

For contrast:

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So no, not Reagan :)

EDIT: Wait...where did your post go? Did I just accidentally delete it with my limitless moderation powers?

[abculatter_2]

I deleted the post, because I thought it was excessively negative and didn't really contribute much, but apparently it was fine.

And the Newsroom does sound like just the kinda thing I'd like, though unfortunately it's an extra $7.99 on Netflix, so I'll have to watch it elsewhere...

And right, Kennedy, not Reagan. That was a big derp, lol, especially since I live in the state with the Kennedy Space Center...

EDIT: Watching that news clip, holy fucking shit is THAT what news stations were like back then? Like, all the time? IT'S ACTUAL NEWS!

[FlowerChild]

EDIT: Watching that news clip, holy fucking shit is THAT what news stations were like back then? Like, all the time? IT'S ACTUAL NEWS!

Yeah, pretty much. My understanding on it is that the original contract between the state and TV stations was that they were granted access to what were considered public airwaves, in exchange for having to provide 1 hour of news a day (the traditional 6 o'clock news) that was strictly in the public interest. The whole "5th estate" thing.

By law, they were thus not allowed to serve private (or government) interests during that 1 hour, and thus the more lofty concepts of modern journalism were born (which have largely died now).

That's since essentially been dismantled by cable news networks (since they aren't on the public airwaves and thus have no such obligation), and I believe those rules have probably been nerfed into nothingness as well by corporate lobbyists, so the "news" channels pretty much don't serve any interests than their own at present.

As an interesting aside: I believe Canada actually changed its broadcasting regulations so that FOX could air there, because it would have violated its standards for truth in news otherwise. I found that particularly amusing when it happened :)

[Taleric]

I take in breaking stories form wherever but anything else I prefer foreign press reporting on the U.S.

Other counties have their own agenda but provide a unique lense.

The U.S. news you almost have to reverse engineer the bias out to get the regular story.

The 24hr cycle and stations have had a negative impact in the last 15 years I feel.

[DaveYanakov]

Thank you FC for posting that Newsroom clip. I've seen it before but no one I knew could tell me what it was from. I've got some DVDs to order.

[Zhil]

I think that if you look in the past, great leaps of human progress were made whenever there was an increase of information available to the general populace. I can give you dozens of examples related to the printing press (literacy itself being a direct example of course). We wouldn't have seen Martin Luther King reach an audience without TV. We wouldn't have seen the recent "Arab Spring" without the internet.

My girlfriend calls media "the fourth state power", next to justice, legislation and executive. I think that's apt. So, whatever your political leanings or opinions may be, I think we all have to agree that guarding freedom of information and even more importantly, trying to increase the base level of information gathering in the general populace, are of utmost importance in any country, at any level. That second one goes further than education and literacy, or even providing access to unbiased media, I think.

I did my best to avoid politics of course, it's very easy to subtly throw ideology into this. Not only did I try to avoid that due to forum rules, I think it's imperative we discuss these issues in any public forum, without ideological leanings, except those of "freedom of information". If you don't agree that access to correct information is a basic right, I guess you could say this is still leaning towards a political opinion of course :p. Be assured that if Big Brother ever comes into existence, I will get my punishment and you won't :D

[FlowerChild]

My girlfriend calls media "the fourth state power", next to justice, legislation and executive.

If your girlfriend is referring to the same thing I was with my mention of the "5th estate" above, then she's right in that it's the 4th. I must of been thinking more of punks, bloggers, and other fringe elements with the 5th :)

[FlowerChild]

I take in breaking stories form wherever but anything else I prefer foreign press reporting on the U.S.

Other counties have their own agenda but provide a unique lense.

The U.S. news you almost have to reverse engineer the bias out to get the regular story.

I think it's important to differentiate between mainstream media and some of the independent journalism outlets which can still be quite good. There is still a lot of quality news coming out of the US, you just have to look under the extremely thick layer of sensationalist bullshit CNN, FOX & other cable news networks put over it :)

For years (and this was years ago) I was trying to use an interpolation between CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera to try and get to some semblance of the truth. Eventually I gave up on that (extremely time consuming to try and follow and cross reference three news sources constantly, and CNN in particular became progressively more biased to the point of absurdity) and managed to find some sources of independent news online that I personally trust.

Really, I think that's what it comes down to: who do you trust? It is outside the scope of the day to day lives of most of us to go out and independently verify every "fact" that is placed in front of us. We might be able to occasionally go out and verify individual pieces of information by consulting a multitude of sources (and the internet certainly makes this easier), and thus form an opinion of who is lying to us or not over time, but true knowledge of what's occurred in any given situation is very hard to come by unless you experience an event yourself (and even then that can be from a distorted perspective).

[DaveYanakov]

I use a similar blend of sources and have found that public broadcasting is an effective replacement for CNN and most other north american agencies. Generally very little spin, comprehensive reports and they only go to man on the street opinions for observations on how events are affecting people at street level, not for opinions on expert level questions.

There's also nice bonus programming, such as the Intelligence Squared debates on Fridays.

[Zhil]

Around here, media is pretty unbiased still, but it's getting worse concerning national topics. Not sure if it's the same in the US, but around here, national issues account for a low percentage of news coverage, so it's okay. Most topics concern the real issues abroad, like Greece's current economical state, Boko Haram and IS.

I do see a weird trend where a certain vantage point is picked across all news channels, making the reporting a bit biased, just due to not providing all versions and nuances of the story. For example, in the whole Israel/Palestine debate, everyone in Europe sided with Palestine years ago, so you'll hardly ever find nuanced reporting on Israel, they only reach the news when they do something "bad". In the general case, all bulletins presume the viewer agrees with "Israel = pure evil". Now, I personally researched this issue a lot and there's a lot going on over there that can't just be reported on by assuming Israel = villain, Palestine = poor peasants being shot at. I assume that since the US is one of the few countries generally supporting Israel, you'll see the opposite in the US? Again, without picking a side, as that's not what it's really about.

[abculatter_2]

Well, we recently had Israel's prime minister of the time Netanyahu invited by a congressman to have a speech at our congress, in which he received a 4-minute standing ovation. Which was a rather interesting debacle, since the gesture was largely unprecedented to begin with, especially since Israeli elections were going on around that time. Israel is also often called our "greatest ally" by the media, and there was some complaining about how a few of the congressmen in the above speech didn't cheer/clap hard enough.

So yeah, we're slightly biased in the other direction.

[FlowerChild]

Whoa! My first tentative dipping of the toe into slightly relaxing "no politics" and straight into Israel/Palestine ftw.

Probably best to avoid that particular one, yes? :)

[abculatter_2]

Well, changing the topic, I'm curious about what everyone else's (who hasn't listed them already) news sources are, and why they choose to use those?

Personally, I'm honestly not that big on keeping up with news, and tend to just watch The Young Turks and other shows on the TYT Network (which can be found on youtube, or their website) because they seem honest and genuine, and though they seem to dedicate a portion of the stories they cover to be 'click bait', even these tend to be at least somewhat relevant. They also do have a pretty obvious progressive bias, which is something I tend to agree with.

I've also found RT and Democracy Now! seem to be good sources of news, though I haven't really watched them enough to determine if they're biased one way or another.

Obviously, not really big on mainstream media. I actually don't remember a time when I've actually watched a cable news station, and most of what I do know about them has come from second-hand sources. And most of those sources were making fun of those stations.

[FlowerChild]

Don't worry about spoilers or what have you, the above is totally fine, it's just that I have a very hard time thinking of a more controversial subject that the world is more polarized on than Israel/Palestine in particular. It's literally a topic that wars are fought over, and even the statement that it's controversial can be controversial in itself :)

It's just something I would prefer to avoid while I get a feel for how borderline political conversations play out here.

[Zhil]

Yeah, I couldn't think of a better example of journalism bias, but it's a topic we probably even can't discuss discussing about. Shouldn't have brought it up :).

Maybe we could discuss how the news seems to be a bit biased concerning Eurasia. I'm sure the proles in Eurasia don't really care what's going on either, yet we villify them all the time. I bet if we all reach out, we could be friends with Eurasia. I mean, it seems like this war with them has been going on forever. It's always Eastasia this, Eastasia that. It's like no one in Eastasia is even remotely a human being. I guess that's what happens when you've always been at war with Eastasia.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I couldn't think of a better example of journalism bias, but it's a topic we probably even can't discuss discussing about. Shouldn't have brought it up :).

No worries man, and yeah, I agree that it's an excellent example of how spin alters perception. Would love to sit down and discuss it over a beer.

The potential for things going vile is just a bit too much IMO.

Maybe we could discuss how the news seems to be a bit biased concerning Eurasia. I'm sure the proles in Eurasia don't really care what's going on either, yet we villify them all the time. I bet if we all reach out, we could be friends with Eurasia. I mean, it seems like this war with them has been going on forever. It's always Eastasia this, Eastasia that. It's like no one in Eastasia is even remotely a human being. I guess that's what happens when you've always been at war with Eastasia.

Don't get me started on Orwellian redefinition of words to encourage a "correct" thought process man. It can only end with me in a padded cell with a cage full of rats strapped to my head...again ;)

You know how I tend to obsess over how words get redefined in such mundane and ultimately irrelevant cases such as "alpha", "beta", "lag", or what have you? From that, you can imagine what happens when I watch the news :)

[SterlingRed]

Back to what news sources are actually used by us forum ppl, I have found I like to use twitter. I follow the major broadcasting networks and local newspapers. When an interesting or noteworthy headline pops up I searched twitter for the keywords and often can find the original reporter or reporting agency before it was picked up by a network. Works well for BBC news, some Us. Little harder with CNN as that shit is just straight up fabricated now.

[Zhil]

that shit is just straight up fabricated now.

See, I can't help but laugh at the whole prospect of news organizations making stuff up :D

Personally, I've adopted a persona that should do fairly well in our current society. I basically discarded any privacy, just about anything about me is public. I didn't even own curtains for a few months and I live right in the town center. I am skeptical about everything, paranoid about nothing. Whenever I want to know something, I'll do my research, try to get a semblance of truth, accept it's just that and assume no one is going to abuse that, except for the people I actually know will abuse it. Whenever I find a new source of truth abuse, I just add them to the list.

So far, it's brought me good fortune a number of times and I've bitten way less than the people around me. Best of all, I'm not paranoid all the time anymore. The best defense against paranoia is to just assume you're being fucked anyway and make sure there's no way for that to actually hurt your personal life. What can they take from me? Some material junk? All my furniture is thrift shopped or of sentimental value rather than material anyway.

[Sarudak]

So are there actually any news sources that are relatively unbiased? Does such a thing even exist? It seems like everyone has an agenda. Sure news corrupted by business or government interests is bad but I've seen just as much heavily biased or even straight fabrication of information coming from say environmentalists.

[FlowerChild]

So are there actually any news sources that are relatively unbiased? Does such a thing even exist? It seems like everyone has an agenda. Sure news corrupted by business or government interests is bad but I've seen just as much heavily biased or even straight fabrication of information coming from say environmentalists.

<quickly sidesteps getting into the subject of climate change denial>

I think I've given up on finding anything that's unbiased. I try to focus more on who I trust now as it's entirely possible to provide factual information while still having a heavy political leaning or what have you. I don't really mind if someone is biased as long as they cover the particular subjects I am personally interested in and draw a clear distinction between what they're stating as opinion/editorial comment and what they're stating as fact. As long as everything isn't all just mashed together, I feel very comfortable getting my news from someone I may disagree with about various issues, but whom I trust to share the full extent of the information they have on a subject rather than selectively emphasize tidbits to create a spin.

If there's a truly unbiased news source still out there I've yet to find it.

[Sarudak]

Ok I was trying to be non-specific to avoid touching on any particular sensitive issue but just to be clear I'm on board with climate change being a real thing. Although living in Seattle a little warming would probably be welcome. :)

[FlowerChild]

Ok I was trying to be non-specific to avoid touching on any particular sensitive issue but just to be clear I'm on board with climate change being a real thing. Although living in Seattle a little warming would probably be welcome. :)

No worries. It's a particularly touchy subject for me as I think that's an area that's undergone a huge amount of media manipulation, and has become one of the primary sources of me spontaneously wanting to pull an Elvis on a TV :)

Actually, that might be a far better specific subject to discuss than Israel/Palestine as how the spin of any particular news source can affect public perception.

It reminds me of something I saw fairly recently in Neil deGrasse Tyson's resurrection of the series Cosmos (the old one Carl Sagan did back in the day...80's was it?). I don't much care for him (there's something about his personality that really grates on my nerves and winds up making me feel like I'm listening to an evangelist rather than a scientist), but a lot of the series was damn good, especially one particular episode that revolved around how the oil industry manipulated the system to keep lead in gasoline for decades after it was proven to be harmful through manipulation of public perception.

Looking it up, it was this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clean_Room

Really interesting watch if you can get hold of it, and rather relevant to this conversation.

[Zhil]

So are there actually any news sources that are relatively unbiased?

It was mentioned before, but you could try watching The Young Turks, not because it's unbiased, but because it's very upfront about their bias. They usually try to present the whole extent of the truth known to them and then give a generally liberal/progressive opinion on it. I say generally, because they don't shy away from taking some conservative stand-points, especially in non-political matters.

Especially surrounding matters regarding Islam, I've noticed their view is very nuanced. I assume the anchor comes from a more or less Islamic background culturally, while being himself secular. The result is that I think their coverage of Islamic events catches way more subtleties than even some decent news stations.

Your mileage may vary, but it's worth a shot.