Quote Originally Posted by LiamKerrington View Post
I highlighted a certain part of your posting. And I feel inclined to agree with you. And yet I am hesitant. Even if media objectives something, they do this on the ground of whatever acceptable or unacceptable moral ground - and if it only is about the cause to question something. Almost any moral or ethical point of view - although being highly subjective and thus anything else but objective in itself - is something the media can perform - even in the way of displaying their news.
The only thing I would not accept is, if a news service blatantly lies or acts against its better judgement by providing false information which can be easily falsified. I guess here things may become very problematic, because it may be very difficult to draw the line between extraordinarily exaggerated sensationalism on the one side and an outright lie on the other side. It is in the interest of any nes-service or media to keep straight enough, though, in order to keep a certain reputation. I think any news-service that would tell real lies and are proven having done this intentionally would cease to exist, because there would be no acceptance at all for them anymore.

As for the last part of your posting: The media certainly would have made a much better job, if they would have stressed the - I guess - fact that the griefing man did provoke certain reactions from the audience - if with or without intention, this, I think, does not matter at all. But the focus of the report was very different. The news-service emphasized that there was no agreement on what the man proposed or wished; and the media services simply "uncovered" that this was the case although children were killed, and thus the media raises the expectancy that things should be as simple as the griefing man demands. In order to give this - actually - fact about the conflict between a moral demand and the disagreement a certain inertia the media edited things in a sensationalist way. I guess this really is a question of interpretation of what the media did here. I don't see a "lie" or something over here (except for mentioning that the griefing man was interrupted; this was not true at all and should be challenged by any means possible); but as I said earlier I am biased about what the media did here, because the overall moral question simply exists, which the media highlighted.

This particluar example of MSNBC is at least as bad as the FOX-News provided in the starting article by YABC. I would like to raise the question, if things like this are plain and simple "normal" in any media in the USA (in Germany there is kind of a variety regarding the usage of neutrality as much as possible on the one extreme and full-blown "infotainment" or sensationalism on the other). And the follow-up question would be: Is there a certain balance in the media about it which may root in the competition of the media?

All the best!
Liam
but the media wasn't highlighting any moral question. this was immediately picked up by several politicians (and dropped almost as quickly) and sounded like a war cry that the "gun-lobby" has no respect for the dead or grieving. it was blatant and malicious. there is no need to highlight that there are different points of view on the matter, everyone in America has an opinion on it, that was a political ploy designed to garner favor on one side. and what's worse, no one holds these people accountable. there hasn't been, and prolly never will be, any sort of apology for this farce, it just gets swept back under the rug of failed media/political ploys that haven't worked, never to be heard from again. and fox news is just as guilty of throwing bs out there just to see if it sticks.