Bias In Media

[David.]

Which debate are you referring to? I don't think I posted anything substantive on this thread outside the "Disagree" stuff.

AZ asked me "what about". You asked kyrie his opinion on the media. I responded that it's all biased, including Fox news which has the largest viewership of all of them. I literally said they were all biased.

To finish that point, people are being radicalized. We had this conversation literally months ago in qtips thread. So this is a conversation for people who are obviously late to the party. They're old, Busch league discussions. 10 million people aren't much to worry about. They don't decide elections. The middle does. So if you're watching cnn or Fox news, you don't really matter anyways. So these people are sunk costs, they're not abundant and there isn't really much to worry about.

 

[Sebastian]

AZ asked me "what about". You asked kyrie his opinion on the media. I responded that it's all biased, including Fox news which has the largest viewership of all of them. I literally said they were all biased.

To finish that point, people are being radicalized. We had this conversation literally months ago in qtips thread. So this is a conversation for people who are obviously late to the party. They're old, Busch league discussions. 10 million people aren't much to worry about. They don't decide elections. The middle does. So if you're watching cnn or Fox news, you don't really matter anyways. So these people are sunk costs, they're not abundant and there isn't really much to worry about.

This is true.

When I am less busy I think I will speak more to the psychological effect modern media (that is after 1999) has had on partisan attitudes. It is a very different world than it was before W.

In many cases the media is both a symptom and cause of many of the less desirable things we see in the current political landscape.

 

[David.]

This is true.

When I am less busy I think I will speak more to the psychological effect modern media (that is after 1999) has had on partisan attitudes. It is a very different world than it was before W.

In many cases the media is both a symptom and cause of many of the less desirable things we see in the current political landscape.

It's all of it man. The right has just recently caught up on the tactics. "look how awful THEY are. This is all of them. Can you believe this shit?" it's all strawmen, ridicule, exposure of the worst of the "others".

No one genuinely engaging with any other ideas. Everyone thinking anyone who disagrees with them is evil and or stupid. Can't even write a negative thing about cnn after 3 pages of shit about the right, without being reprimanded for not saying anything about the right.

 

[Sebastian]

It's all of it man. The right has just recently caught up on the tactics. "look how awful THEY are. This is all of them. Can you believe this shit?" it's all strawmen, ridicule, exposure of the worst of the "others".

I don't think the Right caught up. They invented the zero-sum approach to perception of the media.

Media has always been biased, generally to the Left since the time of LBJ (it was very much pro-Conservative following WWII and through the first half of LBJ's administration), but the approach taken by folks like Limbaugh and Ailes during the Clinton Administration basically through out the rules of journalism and began substituting substantive news stories with pure opinion. The Left has tried to emulate this approach but has never been very successful. The best they can do is ramp up the bias a bit but it hasn't had the effect on Democratic voters the way Right-Wing Media has on the GOP base.

Moreover, I would add that analysis of the media in the Age of Trump is nearly useless because Trump is such a singular phenomenon, such a vortex of ultra-news saturation, that it is difficult to gauge what is being jerry-rigged and what isn't Trump himself throwing gasoline on everything.

 

[gourimoko]

the alt right has nothing to do with the media being delegitimized. its silly its being discussed in this thread.

You need to actually make this point rather than simply asserting it.

isnt it sort of obvious if people said 'cnn is fake news' they would then be able to look at cnn, see its being honest, and then the claim that theyre fake news would immediately collapse? yes. and thats not whats happening. cnn is doing it to themselves, theyre obviously not the cleanest game in town, and people see it.

I think the problem here is, again, the delegitimization and devaluation of objective reality by creating a false equivalence with "fake news" and what we would consider "real" or traditional / mainstream news outlets...

We see a stark ideological divide with respect to the mainstream media and "alternative" news sources:

http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/

Note the placement of Fox, singularly, and then the placement of what amounts to nothing more than propaganda outlets.

While we can complain about CNN, there's no comparison between CNN and Breitbart, the Rush Limbaugh Show, The Blaze, or Sean Hannity... So hopefully this helps illustrate why we see why these patterns of behavior manifest themselves.

 

[David.]

You need to actually make this point rather than simply asserting it.



I think the problem here is, again, the delegitimization and devaluation of objective reality by creating a false equivalence with "fake news" and what we would consider "real" or traditional / mainstream news outlets...

We see a stark ideological divide with respect to the mainstream media and "alternative" news sources:

http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/

Note the placement of Fox, singularly, and then the placement of what amounts to nothing more than propaganda outlets.

While we can complain about CNN, there's no comparison between CNN and Breitbart, the Rush Limbaugh Show, The Blaze, or Sean Hannity... So hopefully this helps illustrate why we see why these patterns of behavior manifest themselves.

I'll just address the first point because you never stop responding, which is why I don't start with you. There is never any concession of any point, so it's as useful as banging your head into the wall with all due respect.

Besides the fact that you can't prove a negative so the premise youre suggesting is absurd, YOU made the claim that the alt right was a media strategy.. Or something.. So the burden to prove that is yours. Not mine to disprove it. You haven't sufficiently done that, so no, I don't have to do anything.

The alt right is an identitarian political movement. It's not.. media?

Floor is yours, if you wish to have it. Night dude.

 

[gourimoko]

I'll just address the first point because you never stop responding, which is why I don't start with you. There is never any concession of any point, so it's as useful as banging your head into the wall with all due respect.

Huh? What point do you think I should be conceding right now?

What point has been made?

I mean Dave; I'm honestly, not trying to be argumentative... It seemed a few of the more right-wing members on the forum wanted to contribute to this thread, to offer their opinions. This is a topic I actually have some interest in, so.. it might be interesting to actually have a real rational, objective debate since we're talking about rationality and objectivity in the media, right?

Besides the fact that you can't prove a negative so the premise youre suggesting is absurd,

Dave... honestly.. what are you talking about?

I asked you to demonstrate the ethical equivalence of racism and egalitarianism; you could choose to say those things are not equivalent, but no one is asking you to "prove a negative."

If you're saying here that you agree these two things are not ethically equivalent, and if you agree with me that the alt-right is indeed racist; even if you disagree about progressivism and egalitarianism (to which, I have no idea how that's possible, but this can be resolved); then it should be quite obvious why this question is being asked. Because if you can be brought to understand progressivism as entailing egalitarianism, then you'd see that progressivism is not equivalent to alt-right White Identitarian ideology.

YOU made the claim that the alt right was a media strategy..

I didn't claim that the "alt right was a media strategy."

Or something..

Right.... or something.

So the burden to prove that is yours. Not mine to disprove it. You haven't sufficiently done that, so no, I don't have to do anything.

I never said any burden of proof rested with you... Where is this coming from? I asked you a very simple question, you could just politely decline to answer it, or agree with me that the two concepts aren't equivalent and we could continue the conversation.

Do you want me to try a different form of reasoning this out with you here??

The alt right is an identitarian political movement.

We've already agreed upon this.

It's not.. media?

No one said the alt-right is "media."

Floor is yours, if you wish to have it. Night dude.

Err... can we establish that progressivism/"leftism" as you put it and the alt-right are not simply two sides of a coin or somehow "equivalent?" I think we need to establish some basis in reality first, since the original point was that the entire rationale for delegitimizing news outlets in the first place was to create a false equivalence between "fake news" and traditional / mainstream news.

That's.. how we got here... and so that we don't have a circular argument, perhaps you can try to entertain this one question that I have with respect to the moral, ethical, logical equivalence between the progressive movement and the alt-right?

 

[Sebastian]

You need to actually make this point rather than simply asserting it.



I think the problem here is, again, the delegitimization and devaluation of objective reality by creating a false equivalence with "fake news" and what we would consider "real" or traditional / mainstream news outlets...

We see a stark ideological divide with respect to the mainstream media and "alternative" news sources:

http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/

Note the placement of Fox, singularly, and then the placement of what amounts to nothing more than propaganda outlets.

While we can complain about CNN, there's no comparison between CNN and Breitbart, the Rush Limbaugh Show, The Blaze, or Sean Hannity... So hopefully this helps illustrate why we see why these patterns of behavior manifest themselves.

That graphic can basically replace this thread.

 

[gourimoko]

That graphic can basically replace this thread.

My thoughts exactly...

It, rather succintly, demonstrates the need on the right for an anti-intellectual narrative that can delegitimize any and all fact-based journalism. In essence, it's unfortunately become the ultra right-wing versus "the media," and "academia," and "medicine" and "science" and .. well .. reality.

This allows for argument from belief, rather than argument from reason or rationality grounded in empirical reality. See our discussions about healthcare as a prime example of arguments from "belief" even if they fly in the face of any and all empirical evidence.

 

[gourimoko]

This is true.

When I am less busy I think I will speak more to the psychological effect modern media (that is after 1999) has had on partisan attitudes. It is a very different world than it was before W.

In many cases the media is both a symptom and cause of many of the less desirable things we see in the current political landscape.

The bolded....

It's insane how far we've come in just a short period... things really were quite different. I was just telling someone about this today...

Really goes to show how close we always have been to ... a collapse of the bedrock of our democratic society.

 

[Sebastian]

My thoughts exactly...

It, rather succintly, demonstrates the need on the right for an anti-intellectual narrative that can delegitimize any and all fact-based journalism. In essence, it's unfortunately become the ultra right-wing versus "the media," and "academia," and "medicine" and "science" and .. well .. reality.

This allows for argument from belief, rather than argument from reason or rationality grounded in empirical reality. See our discussions about healthcare as a prime example of arguments from "belief" even if they fly in the face of any and all empirical evidence.

I also think it demonstrates a paucity of more mainstream or less Far-Right media outlets for those on the Right.

There is Fox News, which has been slowly been moving toward more objectivity, and shouldn't be lumped together with the others, and then there is... nothing until one enters the realm of Far-Right, straight-up propaganda (though I wouldn't put Glenn Beck there with Breitbart or InfoWars).

There is a lack of variety within the Conservative sphere in terms of the type of media one gets to consume. There is a lack of a variety of viewpoints and explains why the narrative emanating from the GOP, as well as its more Right leaning members, is always in lockstep as if everyone was given the same talking-points every morning. In way they are because there is a lack of diversity in Conservative thinking these days. That isn't healthy for the ideology of the movement.

One thing this graphic doesn't put across is the impact of the media outlets. The Right-Wing media, as lacking as it is in choices, has a FAR greater impact on its consumers than those on the Left. Far fewer Democrats watch CNN, or read the HuffPo than Republicans watch Fox News or visit Breitbart. I think this is why in the debates on this board that GOPers always say that people are just parroting CNN talking-points or regurgitating MSNBC. The truth is few Democrats watch any of those outlets, or even care about them, in the numbers or religiosity that Republicans hold for their handful of news sources.

And again, I think Trump throws a monkey-wrench in all these studies. Being forced to defend Trump's latest unprecedented act of _______ has warped many Republicans relationship with all media; including their own.

 

[David.]

I also think it demonstrates a paucity of more mainstream or less Far-Right media outlets.

There is Fox News, which has been slowly been moving toward more objectivity, and shouldn't be lumped together with the others, and then there is... nothing until one enters the realm of Far-Right, straight-up propaganda (though I wouldn't put Glenn Beck there with Breitbart of InfoWars).

There is a lack of variety within the Conservative sphere in terms of the type of media one gets to consume. There is a lack of a variety of viewpoints and explains why the narrative emanating from the GOP, as well as its more Right leaning members, is always in lockstep as if everyone was given the same talking-points every morning. In way they are because there is a lack of diversity in Conservative thinking these days. That isn't healthy for the ideology of the movement.

One thing this graphic doesn't put across is the impact of the media outlets. The Right-Wing media, as lacking as it is in choices, has a FAR greater impact on its consumers than those on the Left. Far fewer Democrats watch CNN, or read the HuffPo than Republicans watch Fox News or visit Breitbart. I think this is why in the debates on this board that GOPers always say that people are just parroting CNN talking-points or regurgitating MSNBC. The truth is few Democrats watch any of those outlets, or even care about them, in the numbers or religiosity that Republicans hold for their handful of news sources.

And again, I think Trump throws a monkey-wrench in all these studies. Being forced to defend Trump's latest unprecedented act of _______ has warped many Republicans relationship with all media; including their own.

Fox news has less viewership than the other leftist media sources combined, so it wouldn't be fair to assert fox and brietbart reach more than the lefts outlets. The lefts outlets are just diversified. Brietbart is also down 53% in readership since November, not exactly a behemoth.


Here you go AZ. A list with 50 cnn lies, linked to the evidence. Dare ya to read instead of fallaciously discrediting it based on the source.

Https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5y7lko/i_wanted_to_compile_every_cnn_fake_news_story/

This objective truth to which you guys keep referring.. I don't think you understand what that means? Gour, hopefully this helps illustrate how illogical your argument is about fact based journalism.

 

[Sebastian]

Fox news has less viewership than the other leftist media sources combined, so it wouldn't be fair to assert fox and brietbart reach more than the lefts outlets. The lefts outlets are just diversified. Brietbart is also down 53% in readership since November, not exactly a behemoth.


Here you go AZ. A list with 50 cnn lies, linked to the evidence. Dare ya to read instead of fallaciously discrediting it based on the source.

Https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5y7lko/i_wanted_to_compile_every_cnn_fake_news_story/

This objective truth to which you guys keep referring.. I don't think you understand what that means?

I wasn't referring to viewership or ratings, but influence over their audience. I dare say Fox News and Breitbart have far more influence over their viewers/readers than say CNN or MSNBC. Indeed, I can think of one particular viewer that sets US policy based on what Fox and Friends are saying in the morning.

Re: The link. A list aggregated by a poster whose handle is Pepe the Frog. I read the list. But, I am going to sit back and watch the fireworks from here.

 

[David.]

Re: The link. A list aggregated by a poster whose handle is Pepe the Frog. I read the list. But, I am going to sit back and watch the fireworks from here.

I won't put words in your mouth. What is your point, and how does that address the actual merit of the list?

And how do you quantify fox having more influence? Statistical evidence? Outside of the guy in office who is learning how to do politics by watching fox, how are you substantiatibg that claim?

 

[Sebastian]

I won't put words in your mouth. What is your point, and how does that address the actual merit of the list?

Pepe the Frog has been used in Alt Right circles. Often. This is undeniable. Therefore it is tainted and it isn't unreasonable to associate Pepe with the Alt Right. And I had no idea Clinton had anything to do with it until you mentioned it. The thought of Hillary Clinton explaining Pepe to an arena full of Baby-Boomers makes me cringe. It is like Ted Stevens explaining the internet...

I didn't discredit the post. I read it and made the observation that the poster's handle is likely to spark controversy. I made no judgements of the material. I was attempting to articulate that I was going to enjoy the reactions to the post, not its validity.

And it isn't an ad hominem. I didn't attack you.