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US Presidential election

CNN are equally to the extreme of one side as Fox is to the other. That`s how it`s been for the last years or so, probably for many more. Anyone who is neutral and spent a few hours watching either side would be hard pressed not to draw that inference. Crikey, in recent weeks I could hardly believe the overt bias coming from both directions on their newscasts and magazine programs.
 
Because that isn't true mate.

Fox news was set up, literally, as a conservative propagandist wing of the republican party. If you want examples from the last month, just look at their apologist stance over the sedition riot compared with the grief they gave Biden over wearing a fucking watch...

The fact that other news stations in the US continue to report the actual news, and criticising Fox, does not mean in contrast that they are the propagandist wing of the dems or the left.

I agree with your point over divide and rule, however the divide isn't right and "left", it's reality and fantasy. Make people think they can't believe anything (as they have done with you), and then authoritarians win.

Blimey MM
Have you ever watched CNN ?
I do regularly and can tell you without equivocation that it’s just the flip side of Fox.
It’s incredibly biased in it’s reporting.
A lot of what Trump would have called......
 
Us more mature folk remember the old days , when news coverage wasn't so biased.
'Millennials' have been brainwashed into thinking the likes of CNN , NBC etc is normal.
Sky news used to be better , but since ownership transferred to Comcast it has sadly become just as partisan as the others.
 
Us more mature folk remember the old days , when news coverage wasn't so biased.
'Millennials' have been brainwashed into thinking the likes of CNN , NBC etc is normal.
Sky news used to be better , but since ownership transferred to Comcast it has sadly become just as partisan as the others.
I don’t actually mind bias as long as they don’t pretend that they are not and take the moral high ground.
I reckon that the BBC get it about right as both sides of the divide hate them.
 
Us more mature folk remember the old days , when news coverage wasn't so biased.
'Millennials' have been brainwashed into thinking the likes of CNN , NBC etc is normal.
Sky news used to be better , but since ownership transferred to Comcast it has sadly become just as partisan as the others.

News coverage has alwas been biased, val. And not always in the way you might expect.

When Orwell returned to England after fighting with the POUM against Franco he studied the English newspaper reports of events that he had been an eye-witness to. He had been fully expecting the right-wing press to be telling lies but what made him really lose his shit was the discovery that the left-wing press had also been printing lies and falsehoods; things he knew to be untrue because he had been there and witnessed what had reallly been happening. What Orwell was forgetting though, was his own bias.

At school my history teacher one did a great lesson (I'm sure she did more than one, but it's this one I remember!). It was the first lesson of the day and we had just been at assembly. The teacher told us she'd not been able to make the assembly and wanted us all to write a report on what had happened in it. She then got on with marking or something, I rememeber thinking it was a bloody cheek and questioning what this had to do with history!

Anyway, once we'd all finished she collected them in and then set us some other work. A while later she stopped us and told us that she'd read all our reports and written her own one, which she then read aloud to us. It was far, far better than any of the individual reports that we'd written, giving a much broader and accurate representation of what had happened in assembly than any of ours.

The purpose of the lesson was to teach us that a secondary source can be better than a primary source, and that the best way to produce a decent secondary source is to read lots of primary sources first. And this applies to secondary sources too, you'll get a better understanding the more you read.

You can't trust any indivdual media or news outlet entirely. Sure, some are more reliable than others but you nead to consume a broad range and work out for yourselves which bits are most likely to be reliable from each one. This isn't made easier by those who deliberately disseminate disinformation, and it may seem like there is more of this happening now with social media etc,. but as a concept, it's nothing new.
 
The Truth is in your own mind.
Everybody is right
Everybody is wrong
People have entrenched views and very few will change them, even when evidence dictates that they should.
 
News coverage has alwas been biased, val. And not always in the way you might expect.

When Orwell returned to England after fighting with the POUM against Franco he studied the English newspaper reports of events that he had been an eye-witness to. He had been fully expecting the right-wing press to be telling lies but what made him really lose his shit was the discovery that the left-wing press had also been printing lies and falsehoods; things he knew to be untrue because he had been there and witnessed what had reallly been happening. What Orwell was forgetting though, was his own bias.

At school my history teacher one did a great lesson (I'm sure she did more than one, but it's this one I remember!). It was the first lesson of the day and we had just been at assembly. The teacher told us she'd not been able to make the assembly and wanted us all to write a report on what had happened in it. She then got on with marking or something, I rememeber thinking it was a bloody cheek and questioning what this had to do with history!

Anyway, once we'd all finished she collected them in and then set us some other work. A while later she stopped us and told us that she'd read all our reports and written her own one, which she then read aloud to us. It was far, far better than any of the individual reports that we'd written, giving a much broader and accurate representation of what had happened in assembly than any of ours.

The purpose of the lesson was to teach us that a secondary source can be better than a primary source, and that the best way to produce a decent secondary source is to read lots of primary sources first. And this applies to secondary sources too, you'll get a better understanding the more you read.

You can't trust any indivdual media or news outlet entirely. Sure, some are more reliable than others but you nead to consume a broad range and work out for yourselves which bits are most likely to be reliable from each one. This isn't made easier by those who deliberately disseminate disinformation, and it may seem like there is more of this happening now with social media etc,. but as a concept, it's nothing new.

She missed assembly and then set you lot an assignment while she finished the Times crossword. Then she pulls together a literate summary of the class's efforts (she took Jones minor's who was already Oxbridge material), and then tells you you've had a lesson in the superiority of secondary sources. And they say that teaching isn't a real profession. I call that one classy performance.
 
She missed assembly and then set you lot an assignment while she finished the Times crossword. Then she pulls together a literate summary of the class's efforts (she took Jones minor's who was already Oxbridge material), and then tells you you've had a lesson in the superiority of secondary sources. And they say that teaching isn't a real profession. I call that one classy performance.


Jokerman, I`d be very interested to know which national U.S. news broadcast (TV) media you feel is the most even handed, politically ? Thank you.
 
CNN are equally to the extreme of one side as Fox is to the other. That`s how it`s been for the last years or so, probably for many more. Anyone who is neutral and spent a few hours watching either side would be hard pressed not to draw that inference. Crikey, in recent weeks I could hardly believe the overt bias coming from both directions on their newscasts and magazine programs.
I don't think CNN is quite the flip of Fox. Fox is full of out and out lies, whereas CNN, from what I have seen, isn't. However, CNN certainly makes little effort to give the viewer alternative views nor does it give much time to conservative views. Saying that, I think the reporters on CNN have the ability to change. The ones on Fox don't. The sad thing is, neither will make the effort.
 
Bias of some sort is hard to avoid and can be in the eye of the beholder. I welcome reading stuff coming from the right, even fairly robust stuff, as long as it is consistent (a bit like refs). That way I can have a fairly clear idea where they are coming from and have the added bonus that they aren't affected by attachment to "my" side of things. I may be suffering from nostalgia but I feel as if it used to be easier to rely on the angle of certain publications.

I'd guess that we all have odd journalists, politicians, commentators who we trust even though they are broadly opposed to our point of view. It's always worth seeing what people think, who spend their professional lives devising arguments against your treasured beliefs. I reserve the right to be right at all times, of course.
 
Bias of some sort is hard to avoid and can be in the eye of the beholder. I welcome reading stuff coming from the right, even fairly robust stuff, as long as it is consistent (a bit like refs). That way I can have a fairly clear idea where they are coming from and have the added bonus that they aren't affected by attachment to "my" side of things. I may be suffering from nostalgia but I feel as if it used to be easier to rely on the angle of certain publications.

I'd guess that we all have odd journalists, politicians, commentators who we trust even though they are broadly opposed to our point of view. It's always worth seeing what people think, who spend their professional lives devising arguments against your treasured beliefs. I reserve the right to be right at all times, of course.

I quite like Peter Oborne’s writing although I rarely agree with him.
I also like a lot of George Monbiot.
Polly Toynbee often talks a lot of sense but writes absolute tosh (usually)
I always feel she is feeding me masses
 
I don't think CNN is quite the flip of Fox. Fox is full of out and out lies, whereas CNN, from what I have seen, isn't. However, CNN certainly makes little effort to give the viewer alternative views nor does it give much time to conservative views. Saying that, I think the reporters on CNN have the ability to change. The ones on Fox don't. The sad thing is, neither will make the effort.

Think we see it differently,MC. My take on it comes from a very neutral standpoint (not saying that you don`t btw). Some Fox and CNN presenters, in equal proportions, seem to want to spit after they say some names - it`s really quite embarrassing.
 
Think we see it differently,MC. My take on it comes from a very neutral standpoint (not saying that you don`t btw). Some Fox and CNN presenters, in equal proportions, seem to want to spit after they say some names - it`s really quite embarrassing.
I try to be neutral and because of that I am watching less and less if CNN, because it is so one sided. You get the same, from both sides, with the social media blogs. I remember seeing one that said something along the lines of "Trump destroyed at Press Conference". Watched it and it was absolute nonsense. It was a inane question and Trump dismissed it by saying "Fake News"!! That is repeated time and time again from both sides.
 
Think we see it differently,MC. My take on it comes from a very neutral standpoint (not saying that you don`t btw). Some Fox and CNN presenters, in equal proportions, seem to want to spit after they say some names - it`s really quite embarrassing.
Us more mature folk remember the old days , when news coverage wasn't so biased.
'Millennials' have been brainwashed into thinking the likes of CNN , NBC etc is normal.
Sky news used to be better , but since ownership transferred to Comcast it has sadly become just as partisan as the others.

Spot on Lancs. i watch all different countries newsfeeds and used to watch fox before and during the Obama period. Used to bet how long they took before Obama or derogatory dem remarks (note they were anti trump for the 2016 election) were made, normally 2 minutes max always good for a laugh. The rest of the media were mainly Obama lovies irrelevant of how many were being deported, split families, massive imprisonment of black teens in privatised prisons, destruction of syria and libya whilst arming terrorist groups etc.
CNBC sometimes take a minute or two before ridiculing trump and CNN have been frothing at the mouth continuously as their owner sees this anti trump game as the moneymaker.

The fact is that the bbc and sky have news sourcing agreements with cnn, cnbc, etc so we get their biased reporting.

Strange really as trump messes up so much you would think that they would just tell the truth but it does not feed their sponsors or advertising needs.

Same goes the other way with fox news but at least their crap is good for a laugh as its so far out there.