Is the Media Trustworthy?

[Raskana]

Depends what country you are talking about.

True, but in general, most media leans either partially or completely to the right.

Not where I live, though, if you are looking from the perspective of a Communist/Syndicalist, I can see your point.

[Khardsland]

The media has never been trustworthy, but it doesn't tell only lies, it has agenda, biases, and actual hard news/facts mixed in.

Don't forget their "opinions"

[Khardsland]

True, but in general, most media leans either partially or completely to the right.

Not where I live, though, if you are looking from the perspective of a Communist/Syndicalist, I can see your point.

My definition of whether a news outlet leans left or right is based on how they react to workers. CNN is often called leftist but the way they demonized the railway workers that went on strike because they were not given even a single sick day shows that they lean more right to me.

[Raskana]

Not where I live, though, if you are looking from the perspective of a Communist/Syndicalist, I can see your point.

My definition of whether a news outlet leans left or right is based on how they react to workers. CNN is often called leftist but the way they demonized the railway workers that went on strike because they were not given even a single sick day shows that they lean more right to me.

Really?, well I do not live in the USA, but that is kinda messed up.

[Nastorordia]

Hell no.

You should always take what you see on the news with a grain of salt and do your own research afterwards. More often than not they either alter or omit some details just to make a more interesting headline or in some cases completely make up facts to fit their (usually right-wing) agenda.

I'm not from the United States or the UK, but I've seen some news articles from Fox News and CNN respectively and the things that they can get away with saying are absurd.

[Khardsland]

Hell no.

You should always take what you see on the news with a grain of salt and do your own research afterwards. More often than not they either alter or omit some details just to make a more interesting headline or in some cases completely make up facts to fit their (usually right-wing) agenda.

I'm not from the United States or the UK, but I've seen some news articles from Fox News and CNN respectively and the things that they can get away with saying are absurd.

Unfortunately true.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Larger media companies are businesses and so their takes will tend to reflect a "pro-business" outlook as an unconscious bias. Many of them are owned by individuals or small groups of people who will have gone into the media to push their own political views. Smaller independent outlets are often motivated by a desire to correct biases from larger outlets, and so will often default to a contrarian position.

Profitability also depends on achieving certain indices of success in order to secure and revenue etc - whether that be physical units of newspapers sold, TV audience, online watchtime or clicks. Generally speaking people pay attention most when they feel like they understand the topic at the end but also when they come away feeling the can blame/praise for what's happened. This creates a tendency towards populism because generally things are much more complicated than can be understood in a short piece and there's often complex impersonal forces acting to constrain the participants.

In short you can't really trust them but if you want to understand what's going on and you can't personally be at all the events you want to understand your views will have to be interpolated through some third party reporting and then using your own biases to choose which bits you believe.

[Dtn]

The most important thing to remember when reading or watching the news is that you aren't trustworthy.

[Raskana]

The most important thing to remember when reading or watching the news is that you aren't trustworthy.

Definitely true.

[El Lazaro]

My favorite media outlet tells me the other ones are liars, so I would say most of them are completely fake, but a few of them of them are always honest.

[Big Bad Blue]

The owner and talking heads of Fox "News" just basically admitted they knowingly lied to their audience. So the exception that tests the rule.

[Major-Tom]

It's a loaded question, because the media isn't a monolith.

I think there are a lot of biased or slanted sources that still accurately report the facts; just in a partisan way. And there are others that hide the truth and distort the facts to present their viewpoint. Even some supposedly neutral news organizations are sometimes guilty of presenting a pro-establishmentarian view above all others and omitting stories that aren't of interest to their upper-middle-class readers (see the BBC), or you'll have supposedly high-brow newspapers like the NYT peddling absolute garbage in the form of Op-Eds.

But, I digress, because without a free press, we can't have free people; full stop. Much as I complain about all the news sites and organizations out there, we need a diversity of opinions in the news choices we can pick from - even if that sometimes leads to media groups peddling their own views.

[-Astoria-]

The owner and talking heads of Fox "News" just basically admitted they knowingly lied to their audience. So the exception that tests the rule.

I mean, was it not ruled before that it (or its hosts) were of an enternainment fashion as opposed to factual programming?

[The Black Forrest]

The owner and talking heads of Fox "News" just basically admitted they knowingly lied to their audience. So the exception that tests the rule.

Well fox is part of the propaganda wings so the fact they lied? Not suprised.

Let’s through out Routers and the AP? Where have they lied?