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S. Smith Moderator
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I received this suggestion from mstone: Here's a thought... during postings on the Duke Lacrosse forum, we kinda got off the subject of Duke and onto the subject of "News media bias". Lots of good conversation, so I'm wondering... Where do people go to get unbiased, honest-to-goodness, real news. How do we keep informed without being misinformed? |
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mstone Member
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It's the age of 24 hour "news", but how in the heck do we know what's fact and what's not. I remember as a kid seeing the reports of casualties from Vietnam each night. Uncle Walter dutifully read the thousands of VC killed and a handful of Americans. Something didn't seem right to me - even back then in the 3 channel days. Now it seems that blogs have just a much information (and disinformation) as the media giants. For me, I have to read about the same story on 3-4 different websites, magazines, or papers just to start to understand and filter the news. Man, that's time consuming. Every news channel spends untold millions advertising why you should get your news from them. In reality, I think people are looking for something that even starts to appear to be different. CNN started the ball rolling when they went 24/7. It was different, it was edgier, it was more in-depth. People went there to get what the networks wouldn't provide. FoxNews grew out of that same mentality. They aren't necessarily "Fair and Balanced", but they are absolutely different from the rest of the media stream. Different might not be right, but it offers an alternative and a chance to see another perspective - a chance to think. Even local media is hard to filter. Todays N&R had this headline: "Guns Easy to Obtain for Teens". That's scary, but the article lists several statistics and facts that teen gun crime is dropping like a rock. One fact they burried in the article is that there's been an 88% drop in gun crimes in the Guilford County Schools in the past 10 years. With headlines and reporting that conflicts like that - where do you go for unbiased news (other than the NWO)? I don't know if there's a single source for unbiased news. Anybody else? I'm wondering if there's a best website, best magazine, best paper (again, other than the NWO), and best network for news. |
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S. Smith Moderator
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That's a good question (thanks for the kudos to the NWO. We try our best to be fair and balanced, but unfortunately not everyone shares your viewpoint). I know what you mean about misleading headlines, and I personally try to write headlines that accurately describe what's in the article (and fits in 1-2 lines!). At the big papers, they have people who have the job of writing nothing but headlines. Unfortunately, and maybe because of 24-hr. news access, you need to write something that quickly grabs attention. If you write, "Access to Guns Drops Like a Rock in Schools," lots of people aren't going to read any further. If you write "Guns Easily Accessed by Teens," that does a lot more to grab attention. Does that get somebody to at least read part of the article, so therefore these people can say they're just doing this jobs? Yes. Is it sensationalizing or just downright purposely misleading? You tell me what you think. I'm personally irritated when I read an article and then think, "That's not what the headline said this was about at all." I feel like I've been hoodwinked, or either some headline writer didn't even read enough of the article to know what it was really about. |
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Waytago Member 
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mstone wrote: Now it seems that blogs have just a much information (and disinformation) as the media giants. For me, I have to read about the same story on 3-4 different websites, magazines, or papers just to start to understand and filter the news. Man, that's time consuming. I agree with this comment completely. My method of "reading the news" is to go to CNN.com, Time.com, WXII.com, WFMYNews2.com, to compare the common stories, and see which facts seem to be consistent. One glaring example this week was the shooting at 4 Seasons Mall. It went from murder, to one person accidentally shooting theirself with minor injuries, to two persons in a dispute with one winding up in critical condition. I have no idea which one is true anymore. Haven't found the consistent story. S. Smith wrote: Is it sensationalizing or just downright purposely misleading? You tell me what you think. Agreed Sandra. To me, it's kind of like the Car Sales Ads, some guy screaming at you No Money Down, 0% financing, No Reasonable Offers Refused. Then on TV there's fine print you can't read, or on radio it's a 2minutedisclaimerin10secondsnobodycanunderstand. It's skewing the facts enough to still claim to be on the bubble of truth, but any reasonable person is going to misunderstand the intention of the comment. |
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mstone Member
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Talk about hoodwinked... I tried a google search for "unbiased news" and the top pick is "JohnDoeNews.com" Their tag line is "Because not all news can be trusted." The comical part of this "unbiased news" is that there are categories to select from - Liberal news, Conservative news, Christian news, Jew news, ect. So instead of being unbiased, they are merely a smorgasboard of links to all of the biased news there is out there. I totally understand what you mean about the headlines. I really wanted to write a story about the clean up at the old Union Cemetery with the headline in bold letters: "Numerous Graves Uncovered in Oak Ridge".  |
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mstone Member
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Excellent point, Waytago. In their rush to be "first on the scene" with the "exclusive" report, the media simply reports what they know and fills in the rest to make the story. The 4 Seasons thing is a perfect example. If they would have reported the news, it would have gone something like this: "We at the 4 Seasons mall where there is a report of a shooting inside the mall. Back to you in the studio." |
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FatPappy Member 
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That is a good question to ponder. What is real and how do you know? On the one hand, the fact that a reporter or news organization picks a particular event to report on instead of all the millions of other happenings in the world inserts a form of bias from the beginning. Do they, for example, give emphasis to the big wildfire for which there is a plethora of dramatic footage or to the resignation of the Secretary of Defense? Then on the other hand, some people are going to see what they want to see in any presentation or choice of "facts". I think many people like questions that fit the answers they have already formed based on their personal prejudices. I reckon about all we can do is maintain a healthy scepticism while weighing the individual reporter's and their news organization's judgements based on their reputations and past performance. Also maintaining a varied diet of news outlets seems to me a very good thing. |
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Waytago Member
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Agreed mstone. Walter Cronkite had news fed into him from the field. It seemed at the time the news was "vetted" before Walter would speak it. He didn't "fill in the gaps" if he didn't know. You were hearing about the past 24 hours events. Today, these news outfits are just filling air time. It's more important to babble, then to speak with accuracy. I recall a CNN show a few weeks back, a reporter was standing in the street babbling about something, had to pause while a fire truck screamed by......the anchor immediately started asking questions about the fire, ie "any idea to the cause, any idea if people are trapped inside?". It wasn't even confirmed if the fire truck was headed to a fire. Dumb !!! Good Job NWO. Regardless of what others think, I think you guys rock !! |
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macca Member 
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FatPappy wrote:That is a good question to ponder. What is real and how do you know? Excellent points all, Pappy!! (As usual!) I heard a story on NPR recently about this kind of thing. Someone had researched it regarding local newspapers. Determined that the mindset of the area where the newspaper is published had more to do with the slant of the news than the personal views of the publisher. ♥♥♥ Last edited on Dec 26th, 2006 08:52 pm by macca |
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FatPappy Member
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macca wrote:I heard a story on NPR recently about this kind of thing. Someone had researched it regarding local newspapers. Determined that the mindset of the area where the newspaper is published had more to do with the slant of the news than the personal views of the publisher. ♥♥♥ Interestin', Macca! Well, I think the NWO does an excellent job. Pappy was at a certain meetin' one time an' the coverage of it in the NWO compared with that other paper was noticeably different. The NWO had the points of the meetin' fairly well covered I thought, while the other one seemed to be talkin' 'bout a entirely differ'nt meetin'. Weird. |
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Vicki White-Lawrence Member 
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I heard that report, too, macca and I tried to apply it to our paper. I like to think we try to remain neutral when presenting news. I have to add something about the press and what some will do to get a story. I heard from a very reliable source that a reporter (I don't know which one) from Fox8 News went to the home of Nick Gibbs' father and stepmother before his father had received the official notification from the military sources. His ex-wife had called him after she got the visit, but they had not actually come to his home when Fox8 came to get his reaction to the news.... Of course, he had nothing to say to them then or later. I couldn't help but notice in all of the stories written about Nick that none of them had any direct comments from the family. I think there has to be a time when you respect what the PEOPLE are having to endure and that is more important than letting others know how they are handling it or trying to get them to make some statement about it. I also understand that Nick had told his family that if he was injured they would get a call, but if he was dead they would get an actual knock on their door. Can you imagine how you would feel to open the door and see these military personnel standing there? And his dad knew they were coming, but here are these reporters arriving before he has been officially notified that his son is dead. |
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mstone Member
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What the Gibbs family had to endure by the news media is offensive. As I posted earlier, all they are trying to do is "scoop" the competition. They really don't care about the family, the pain, or even if they are getting accurate information out there - just get it out there fast. I have to wonder would anyone think less of Fox8 or any other media outlet if they simply waited for "official" notification. The reporter obviously got a hot tip from someone that apparently didn't consider the feelings of this family. And true to nature, the media jumps all over it. When you say of the NWO, "we try to remain neutral" what you're really saying is that we don't have an agenda going in. As Grandma said, "we ain't got a dog in this fight". We talk to folks on both sides of the issue and report the pertinent facts. The information may not be what each person expects to read about since we all come to the table with preconceived notions, but the articles do present both sides of the issue. Oh, if we could only get state, national, and international news in such a manner. |
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rasin Guest
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I get my news from many sources, a primary one is NPR but I back that up with quite a number of sources both on the internet and in print. I find that NPR covers a story pretty completely. Some will say NPR is biased and I won’t disagree but I think that NPR is more “liberal” in their selection of a topic then in their coverage of the topic. Once they pick a topic I think both sides get a fair chance to state their case. I do watch Fox News from time to time but I find their bias is so complete to one side it is rare that they cover a topic from both sides. A very telling survey asked people if they believed several misconceptions about the war in Iraq. 80% of Fox News watchers believed at least 1 of the misconceptions while only 23% of NPR listeners did. The three major networks did better than Fox News but nothing to brag about. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php?nid=&id=&pnt=102&lb=brusc For the most part I think the three major networks suffer more from lack of time applied to a story. The time shortage results in the short and attention getting snippets that give an incorrect impression of a story. |
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mstone Member
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I knew you'd spice up the conversation! I totally agree that the networks simply don't spend enough time to present whatever story they are covering. Is that a reflection on our society. Do we have to have our news in 30 second blurbs? Networks seem to want to cover everything in 30 minutes (actually less with commercials). Why not report the real news and have another program for all the cutesy human interest stuff? As for the information you sourced, that's a perfect example of what this forum is trying to get at. The Program on International Policy and Attitudes is a liberal think tank with a sole purpose of gathering opinion polls and disseminating it to the public in a form that shapes the attitudes and perceptions of their readers. Their personnel are chocked full of journalist, professors, writers, and marketing strategists. This doesn't sound like the kind of folks that are going to go into anything with much of an open mind. One promiment employee is Mary Speck, a former reporter for NPR and CBS news. I wonder if that had any influence on the NPR part of the report?KnowledgeNetworks.com is simply a polling agency, so what on earth do they know. When did we start living by poll numbers anyway? It seems that politics is no longer about doing what's right, but doing whatever the poll numbers tell you. It's easy to go with the flow - ya know. Whew! That was fun.  |
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S. Smith Moderator
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mstone wrote: I totally understand what you mean about the headlines. I really wanted to write a story about the clean up at the old Union Cemetery with the headline in bold letters: "Numerous Graves Uncovered in Oak Ridge". Before the Summerfield park opened, they had a problem with beavers. I'm not quite sure what happened, but one day some went down there and one of the big, male beavers was dead. Mayor Mark Brown, in his official capacity, got the job of burying the dead beaver. I had to fight hard to resist the urge to write a story with the headline "Mayor Seen Burying Dead Body in Park." |
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mstone Member
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Too Funny!!! That's the sort of stuff that'll sell papers. Perhaps this is the angle you ought to take on all your headlines. When the Boy Scouts sell Christmas trees next year try this: "Trees cut down and sold along Hwy 68 in Oak Ridge" That will put the tree ordinance people in high gear really quick. S. Smith wrote: Before the Summerfield park opened, they had a problem with beavers. I'm not quite sure what happened, but one day some went down there and one of the big, male beavers was dead. Mayor Mark Brown, in his official capacity, got the job of burying the dead beaver. |
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rasin Guest
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Your rebuttal is more of a diversion from the point, been watching O’Reilly Factor too much…. That a Polling organization is liberal or conservative does not immediately taint their conclusion. If you can find significant flaws in their polling process I will reconsider their conclusions. That they did the poll to prove or disprove their opinion of Fox News does not by itself say the Poll is invalid. All research starts with a premise or theory and then research either proves or disproves it. In the case of this type of information about the only way to determine how a news organization is delivering the news is to test the information people retain. The results of this test were Fox News does a poor job of delivering the news in a “fair and balanced” manner. There are a number of other sources that have analyzed Fox News and found it lopsidedly biased. I would mention journalism.com and its study (not a poll) that found Fox News included personal opinion in 68% of their stories versus 27% for MSNBC and 4% for CNN, but the word journalism is in the website address…. That many of these may be perceived as liberal is logical, conservative think tanks likely do not want to bite the hand that feeds them. |
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FatPappy Member
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S. Smith wrote:I had to fight hard to resist the urge to write a story with the headline "Mayor Seen Burying Dead Body in Park." Hee hee! |
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DToney Member 
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Media bias? How about the bias of the News & Record... from what I can see with this mess at the police department... it looks like some of the reporters & editors have "issues"!! |
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WHE Member 
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S. Smith wrote: It was a dark and stormy night in Winterfield, NC. Only the cold wind whipping through the kudzu-covered pines could be heard as fear gripped this once quiet community. Wild rumors, flowing like the muddy waters of the Mississippi, touched them all. The mayor, after all, had been a friend, trusted by those who knew him. Until now, no one suspected him as the killer, but it was his shadow, his profile, that finally brought him down. You see, there was a full moon that night, and Mrs. Twigby had just returned from the Food Lion when she saw what appeared to be the silhouette of a man in the distance, beating a brown furry object with a newspaper. Could it be the mayor? She couldn't tell for sure. Over and over he flailed, finally noticing that he was being watched. Mrs. Twigby ran to the house, spilling groceries along the way and slamming the door. Suddenly, the darkened figure grabbed a shovel and began digging a grave for the critter, which by now had been identified as a beaver. After digging frantically, with dirt flying in all directions for several minutes, the figure at last stopped to toss the beaver in the hole, and quickly began to cover him up. A passing car briefly illuminated the area, but sped away when the figure stopped and looked up with a stare that surely meant trouble. Several hours went by, and the figure had long since disappeared into the woods, as attested by the howl of underfed hounds. The neighbors, by now hidden behind locked doors, dared not to wander outside alone, exposing themselves to the vile beaver-murderer who had earlier ravaged the town. No one knew where in the darkness he would next appear as the figure stalked what surely would be his next victim, Mr. squirrel. |
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Steve Adkins Member 
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WHE wrote: The mayor, after all, had been a friend, trusted by those who knew him. Until now, no one suspected him as the killer, but it was his shadow, his profile, that finally brought him down. A few more postings like these, and this forum will have to be renamed the "National Enquirer Forum". In the space of a few postings, the mayor went from a nice guy doing a good deed to a sinister character killing poor little defenseless beavers". Mark, we know you're a nice guy !! Let's get back to Sandra's original question - where do you get unbiased news? how do you get informed without being mis-informed? |
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FatPappy Member
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Mayor Brown is a nice guy an' a good hand with a shovel too! Hee hee! Save that headline, Sandra. You still might find some use fer it. Meanwhile, does it seem like all these avenues o' news are bringin' us together or widenin' the gap? |
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Jim Flynt Member
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Edited by Poster. Last edited on Aug 5th, 2007 11:36 am by Jim Flynt |
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WHE Member
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Pappy, how about few other potential headlines: Or, perhaps..."Beaver Found Dead; Could Wally Be Next?" |
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Aberystwyth Member 
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A meaningful and amusing thread. Thanks, all. I am new to these forums, but I do have something small-but-wordy to add to this discussion. My first reaction to the original question was, well, I like the Economist magazine for news. Mostly because it does not have an entirely American focus, and I get to see what others think, and can compare with domestic news sources, e.g., newspapers, news magazines, TV news. But even the Economist is biased, it’s just that I believe they are more objective and somewhat less biased than most, or maybe just biased in more subtle ways, or maybe, if I am really honest, just biased in some of the same ways I am biased. My second reaction to the original question was, well, gee, we are human, therefore we are biased. We all have values, principles, etc. which bias how we perceive things, how we interpret things, what we believe. News reporters are, apparently, quite human. Not necessarily, and not generally, any more or less biased than the rest of us. What I appreciate, are those who see and tell all apparent sides of a story without favoring one over the other, and reporters who TRY to be objective. I am reminded that many “think” that scientists are objective and unbiased, but in my experience in science, they are no more objective and no less biased than anyone else, they are simply more “educated” in their field than other people are. There are some scientists, as there are some reporters, and some people, who are simply more intellectually honest than others. Although, having said that, and having spent some years trying to be objective, I must admit that maybe I am not being wholly intellectually honest either. I merely “think” and “believe” that I am honest. Which means that the best we can be is merely sincere? |
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