Fox News vs. mental stability

[orion]

"The more voices there are the more spin there is. The truth becomes that much harder to find. In the end its just all noise."

[LiamKerrington]

"The more voices there are the more spin there is. The truth becomes that much harder to find. In the end its just all noise."

Interesting. In Germany we have a saying: "The truth lies inbetween." But in contrary to our saying in with "lie" the sense of "alocate" the English version has a certain ambiguity, doesn't it? Awesome ...

Besides: Is all this a question about spreading the truth or about forming opinion or about both? Or from the perspective of the audience: expecting or accepting 'a' instead of 'the' truth or just opinions?
From another angle: What is the task of nems-services or media; and are they even capable of sueccessfully passing the challenge?

Journalists and their editors spread their information they have collected in the first place. And most information they extract from a huge variety of sources: statistics, interviews, informants, press-releases, hearsay, conclusions, bribery(?) etc, while it might be imortant to highlight that first-hand-information may play a rather small role all of this. Therefore the information provided by news-services/ media is by no means 'neutral' in the first place, although almost any information has a neutral core. Small example:
Two news-services report about a car-accident on a junction caused by a bloody young driver with no experience at all and a very old driver. Both news share the same core: there was a car-accident; but because both journalists have chosen to talk to different whitnesses and looked at different pictures about the scene, both news have different tendencies: the first one gives you the impression that the young driver might have underestimated the situation which might have caused the accident, while the second news tells you about danger of traffic by old people over-estimating their skills considering their loss of reaction-time, sight, etc.
Which news is a news?
This example you can extrapolate on many other news being reported.

All this being said: maybe news-services/ media are just intermediaries or multipliers for any kind of information. The tendentious work might be a problem for some people, because it does not correlate with their expectations or even acceptance, while again it suits the expectation of the other part of the audience.

My conclusion from this long and interesting discussion therefore is: For as long as news-services or media simply do not outright lie about things, anything may be possible, some things could be made better; but I don't see any case of misinformation or wrongful doings by the news-services or media - even if I don't like the tendentious work of at least some of those services.

I would be very glad, if someone challenges these thoughts, if there are major flaws in it I should have taken care off ...

All the best!
Liam

[reaper239]

I honestly read this far, stopped, shook my head, and stopped. Tell you what, you bring your gun, I'll bring my bomb, and we'll see which one of us was right. That's your argument. If this is your stance, please stop arguing the point.

but see, here you're advocating a showdown, and you're saying that in that showdown, you plan to employ force above and beyond what your adversary is equipped with. condor and i aren't, our point is, as you so entheusiastically pointed out previously, there are violent people, and in order to prepare to deal with that violence, we would like to carry force at least equal to what we are most likely to encounter in the execution of our daily lives. why can't we have the right to defend ourselves and our families the way we want, just as you have the same? you don't want to have a gun? that's fine, but why do you have to force your views on us?

[reaper239]

Is this misinformation, which would be bad? Or is this opinionated and tendentious journalism, which imho is not bad for as long as there are different opinion-poles available?

opinionated and tendentious journalism isn't news, it's opinion. news is facts, and if you want to broadcast the news, you should not be editing a story so you can point fingers at someone else and say "see? those are bad people." if you want to say your opinion, don't disguise it as news, because it's not. it's misinformation because it was never declared to be an opinion, it was presented as a fact.

[LiamKerrington]

opinionated and tendentious journalism isn't news, it's opinion. news is facts, and if you want to broadcast the news, you should not be editing a story so you can point fingers at someone else and say "see? those are bad people." if you want to say your opinion, don't disguise it as news, because it's not. it's misinformation because it was never declared to be an opinion, it was presented as a fact.

In theory I would agree with you, if news services and media were only about giving you the facts. I have doubts that you could boils down as easily. Just consider all the different topics, in which facts are anything but easily obtained. As I pointed out over my various walls of words news-services and media are actually everything else but limited to the presentation of facts only - especially since the sources they rely on do neither necessarily nor generally provide facts alone, but only parts of it at best. Here one major part of activity is to raise questions - as for example about he "why" or the "who else".

Since this thread started with one particular "weak" article by FOX-News, I would say: Even FOX News, although some of you have highlighted how important this news-service or the media-group of FOX, does not do simple reportings of facts alone. And in this FOX is no different then any other (mass)media or news-service.

And please consider that the selection of what news, even if it is only about simple facts alone, is already tendentious in itself. To stay with the gun-examples and look at the evening-prime-time news: 15 minutes only reports in which journalists only speak about people shooting other people - without asking how things evolved, why things happened, and without questioning the background. No. Facts alone, that alone is not what news-services are there for.

All the best!
Liam

[reaper239]

In theory I agree with you; but as I pointed out over my various walls of words news-services and media are actually everything else but limited to the presentation of facts only - especially since the sources they rely on do neither necessarily nor generally provide facts alone, but only parts of it at best.

which is a problem with the media. objective journalism is technically impossible, since it is impossible to completely remove your world view from a report, but does that then mean that it is acceptable to go to the extreme and make a story that only serves the purpose of creating bias? certainly not. there is a principle that arose, i believe, from the double slit experiment, that observing an event affects the outcome, but observing is not the same as interfereing directly. observation can certainly change the outcome of a heart surgery since the doctor now knows he is being watched and might be more carefull or his nerves make him more prone to mistakes, but that's a far cry from running into the OR and hitting the patient with a sledge hammer. and that's what that story is, taking a sledge hammer to objectivism, and then masquereding it as news. i'll go ahead and say it, the made a claim that was patently false: the man asked a question that everyone assumed was rhetorical and when it became clear that it was not, some in the crowd answered his question. the reporter and editor lied to their viewers.

[Cabbage Patch]

Interesting. In Germany we have a saying: "The truth lies inbetween."

You may have hit upon the true importance of Fox News to the American people, whether we appreciate it or not. Without Fox there is no "in between" in television news reporting. Getting that competing viewpoint, and the chance to find the truth inbetween is worth the occassional misinformed guest or confused host. And what does it say about the motives of those who are so hellbent on silencing Fox News, and thus the competing viewpoint?

[LiamKerrington]

which is a problem with the media. objective journalism is technically impossible, since it is impossible to completely remove your world view from a report, but does that then mean that it is acceptable to go to the extreme and make a story that only serves the purpose of creating bias? certainly not. there is a principle that arose, i believe, from the double slit experiment, that observing an event affects the outcome, but observing is not the same as interfereing directly. observation can certainly change the outcome of a heart surgery since the doctor now knows he is being watched and might be more carefull or his nerves make him more prone to mistakes, but that's a far cry from running into the OR and hitting the patient with a sledge hammer. and that's what that story is, taking a sledge hammer to objectivism, and then masquereding it as news. i'll go ahead and say it, the made a claim that was patently false: the man asked a question that everyone assumed was rhetorical and when it became clear that it was not, some in the crowd answered his question. the reporter and editor lied to their viewers.

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

[LiamKerrington]

You may have hit upon the true importance of Fox News to the American people, whether we appreciate it or not. Without Fox there is no "in between" in television news reporting. Getting that competing viewpoint, and the chance to find the truth inbetween is worth the occassional misinformed guest or confused host. And what does it say about the motives of those who are so hellbent on silencing Fox News, and thus the competing viewpoint?

This is a very good question. As a first reflex I would say: This is not good at all.

[Osiris]

but see, here you're advocating a showdown, and you're saying that in that showdown, you plan to employ force above and beyond what your adversary is equipped with. condor and i aren't, our point is, as you so entheusiastically pointed out previously, there are violent people, and in order to prepare to deal with that violence, we would like to carry force at least equal to what we are most likely to encounter in the execution of our daily lives. why can't we have the right to defend ourselves and our families the way we want, just as you have the same? you don't want to have a gun? that's fine, but

That isn't the argument. That's the place you want to take the argument to try and prove your point.

why do you have to force your views on us?

I've been asking you this since the beginning. This is what the argument has degraded into. You cannot answer the question without citing scenarios in which the only way out for you is a gun. Good job. Unless you come up with an answer to the question, move on.