What political ideology are you and why?

[Larry of the Lawn]

No that's not what I mean by biases "I don't agree with this version of reality.", your description of what Fox news is what I mean.

And, I can't understand why you would have to be biased at any point. The job of a journalist is to present "FACTS" to the public. Whether you like those facts or not is irrelevant. I just don't want the facts twisted and distorted to further the agenda of said journalist.

But journalists are still human. You can just present facts, but then the questions are: What story did you choose to cover? What facts did you choose to present? What facts did you not deem worthy, or did your editor cut out? What was considered too flimsy to run? It's a nice sentiment, but impossible in practice. Kind of like when people say "the only problem is that no one has common sense anymore." Well wtf is common sense?

[sologdin]

goodness, where is unbiased? and does it really matter? it's not 'biased' simply because one disagrees with its conclusions, and something can be 100% biased and still be 100% correct.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Bias, like measure, is unceasing, MSJ.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Yes, I understand and I see your point. Because its biased doesn't mean its wrong, never said that. Just regardless of political stance, I can't understand why News can't be given in a unbiased nature. Sure, the views of the person giving the news will come through, its human nature. To me, its just a major turn off when I'm watching a news channel that leans one way or the other, and they have a guest who leans the other way. They then really don't give a shit what that guest says, are even combative with them in many instances. Its like the bring them on to mock them, and gang pile on them. That's what frustrating to me.

[eyenon15]

I think there's bias if the network campaigns for particular politicians or political philosophies. I think they all do this on some level. Political/social commentary is a different thing than journalism.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I think there's bias if the network campaigns for particular politicians or political philosophies. I think they all do this on some level. Political/social commentary is a different thing than journalism.

There you go, my point exactly.

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

"Unbiased" news is pretty useless.

The job of a journalist is to provide background and collect sources, cross-check those sources, and then make it understandable to the general audience. It's impossible to be free of biases at every step of the process.

I also suspect that a lot of what gets called "biases" are atually short-hand for "I don't agree with this version of reality."

For instance, in report the news on fracking for natural gas, it's hard not to come across as "biased" against big energy companies because they are using obsfucation and legal strong-arming to get their way. If you report the truth, it will come across as a condemnation of these companies' tactics. That's not a "bias." That's just reality.

The trick to consuming news is to know that all of them have biases, but some are more up-front and transparent about it, and they make the effort to fully disclose and/or to offer countervening viewpoints.

The sin of Fox news outlets isn't that they have biases. Rather, it is that they distort, miss-represent, and outright lie, consistently in favor of the GOP, in their presentations.

Msnbc is renowned for doing the type of things you accuse Fox of doing. You're showing your bias TP. The main difference between Fox and Msnbc are the number of viewers and ratings. Check and cross check those numbers. You may be surprised. And Maddow wants to be Jon Stewart so bad it's upsetting.

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

*cough* imma leave this right here...http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6398220

[sologdin]

why do you think that ratings are relevant?

(did TP shill for msnbc in that quoted bit, incidentally?)

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

why do you think that ratings are relevant?

(did TP shill for msnbc in that quoted bit, incidentally?)

Why else would they be broadcasting if not to reach viewers? Ratings reflect those viewers. Or in this case, lack of viewers. If no one's watching, that would indicate a failed message. Some of you posters always try to spin the ratings and the reasoning, but you can spin the numbers.

As to your second question, TP took another silly swipe at Fox. But failed to mention the many examples of NBC's doctored clips and edited national anthems. If TP is anything, it's objective

[The Fallen]

Why else would they be broadcasting if not to reach viewers? Ratings reflect those viewers. Or in this case, lack of viewers. If no one's watching, that would indicate a failed message. Some of you posters always try to spin the ratings and the reasoning, but you can spin the numbers.

As to your second question, TP took another silly swipe at Fox. But failed to mention the many examples of NBC's doctored clips and edited national anthems. If TP is anything, it's objective

What's Fox News's message?

I wonder what the ratings would be if there was only one liberal news channel?

[eyenon15]

There's not enough news to interest viewers 24/7. my local news has the most fair I've seen, it's short and sweet 30 minutes. a few seconds on each topic, if the topic interests me I'll do further research. They don't have the burden of filling up the rest of the day with opinion stuff and blaming liberals or blaming conservatives.

there's even probably bias in my local news, but it's short and sweet bias.

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

What's Fox News's message?

I wonder what the ratings would be if there was only one liberal news channel?

If you're unsure of their message, why would you bash them?

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I'm sorry I didn't mean to start an uproar. :blushing: @Eyenon15 made a great point about local news. Its to the point, you get the facts, end of discussion. What gets me upset is like I said, bringing a Republican on MSNBC and basically their just there so MSNBC looks fair and balanced. Their opinion doesn't matter, their interrupted and treated with disdain openly. Fox does it too. CNN too. I just don't see the point in it. Its blatant, and if you watch carefully, most involved know its a sham and seem a bit embarrassed.

ETA: I used Fox as my initial example, because, well, I've seen them do it more than anyone else. Everytime they cover something about Obama, they have a token Democrat and they tear them to shreds and they get about 5 words in. I've seen others do it too, Fox should put a patent on that shit.

[Salafi Stannis]

Anything that ends with "ist".

[sologdin]

Why else would they be broadcasting if not to reach viewers? Ratings reflect those viewers. Or in this case, lack of viewers. If no one's watching, that would indicate a failed message. Some of you posters always try to spin the ratings and the reasoning, but you can spin the numbers.

As to your second question, TP took another silly swipe at Fox. But failed to mention the many examples of NBC's doctored clips and edited national anthems. If TP is anything, it's objective

how is that relevant to the discussion that we were having regarding 'biased' and 'unbiased' journalism? if anything, these ratings numbers signify that more people prefer to be flattered than challenged regarding their xenophobia, traditionalism, anti-intellectualism, and so on. that does not dispute an allegation of 'bias,' but rather confirms one.

not enough news to interest viewers 24/7

given an audience with sufficiently narrow interests, as curtailed perhaps by a know-nothing national press that is interested in simply conveying private and public PR from press releases and press conferences, sans any investigation or independence, at low cost and high advertising revenue, surely. it is nevertheless a large world, and not many audiences are aptly described, supra.

[Frey Filet]

Why else would they be broadcasting if not to reach viewers? Ratings reflect those viewers. Or in this case, lack of viewers. If no one's watching, that would indicate a failed message. Some of you posters always try to spin the ratings and the reasoning, but you can spin the numbers.

As to your second question, TP took another silly swipe at Fox. But failed to mention the many examples of NBC's doctored clips and edited national anthems. If TP is anything, it's objective

Oh no you didn't!! Let the lynching begin..

[The Fallen]

If you're unsure of their message, why would you bash them?

But why would a news channel have to sell a message? The news is the news. Unless by message you mean the ideology of the Republican party.

[Wicked Woodpecker of West]

Catholic Imperialism.

[TerraPrime]

Yes, I understand and I see your point. Because its biased doesn't mean its wrong, never said that. Just regardless of political stance, I can't understand why News can't be given in a unbiased nature. Sure, the views of the person giving the news will come through, its human nature. To me, its just a major turn off when I'm watching a news channel that leans one way or the other, and they have a guest who leans the other way. They then really don't give a shit what that guest says, are even combative with them in many instances. Its like the bring them on to mock them, and gang pile on them. That's what frustrating to me.

There is a point to be made here about the difference between news reporting, and news commentary.

Bill O'Reily's show, for instance, is commentary. As such, he has no ethical standards to be unbiased or neutral. We would, ideally, want political commentary to be fact-based and such, but the standard is lower for political commentaries than it is for actual reporting. The same difference is seen in newspapers. For instance, Billy Krystal or Jonah Goldberg can write any number of numb-skulled comments about Iran peace talk based on only soundbites and half-tuths, and WSJ or NYT will publish them. At the same time, when it's actual reporting of the events of the peace talk written by reporters of the newspapers, the material is vetted more heavily by copy-editors and editors and fact-checkers. Doesn't guarantee that it's free of errors or biases, but at least the reporting has a higher standard to meet than the opinion piece.

So to be clear, my annoyance with Fox is not the political commentary portion - that's their job to pander to a demographic and get them to tune it. My annoyance and criticism is on the portion of the shows that are, nominally, news reporting, that is inexcusably biased and manipulative. Practices like leading news stories with biased headlines "Is Obama the worst president ever?" or as they often do, label a Republican under investigation as a Democrat "by mistake," to completely inaccurate bar graphs. All of these things are part of the reporting component, not the commentary part.