Is CNN on a witch hunt?

Maplerock

Maplerock

Proud to be an American
5-Year Member
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Messages
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I like to look at three news outlets daily. BBC, FoxNews, and CNN. Considering myself an independent voter, I like to read and digest news from multiple sources and try to figure out the truth.

Fox News leans conservative. They print and broadcast lots of stories that they believe conservative viewers want to hear and see. They like to point out the race of criminals when it benefits their viewpoints. Fox News has focused upon illegal immigrants and their involvement in crimes. Fox likes to celebrate victories and progress made by the president and point out the shortcomings and mistakes of liberal lawmakers. Fox has often however, challenged republicans including the president. Make no mistake though, Fox is very conservative.

CNN is the opposite of Fox, but on steroids. You wont find any stories critical of immigration. CNN appears to have a team of editors and reporters assigned to ferret out any and all stories that can make the President sound or look bad. I recently read CNNs website when it had 12 (what I consider) to be negative pieces on the president. If you dont believe it, visit BBC news, Fox, and then CNN. You may find positive conservative news on the first two but I challenge you to find a positive piece about President Trump on CNN.

I'm venting here and wondering where one can find honest, unbiased news? I am sick of the lack of support in the media for our president, military funding, and the military in general.

I was not a fan of Donald Trump, but the day he was inaugurated he became our Commander in Chief. I will support him every day, all day long, just as I will when the next president is elected. There are no perfect men, and certainly no perfect presidents. CNN is making it their mission to tear him down.

How do you feel about it, and
where do you guys get your news?
 
The news is a business. It's about ratings and filling the 24 hr news cycle. Fox caters to some. CNN caters to others. Controversy sells. I do believe the political bent of the owners of various news sources is affecting journalistic integrity. I have a faint recollection that this has been an issue since the first cave paintings. Somebody once said, "If you want to really know what's going on in your country, read a foreign newspaper (I guess that would be a foreign website nowadays)."

I'm to the right of the John Birch Society and still don't watch much Fox News. Too much cheerleading. I only watch CNN if there's a terrorist attack or something where I just want to know what happened.
 
I've never been a fan of either CNN or Fox. While it is the media's job to question the government, I don't think either do a very good job at it. Fox News was built as a Republican organization and one of its imperatives is to support the GOP. That history is actually quite interesting. CNN on the other hand boasts of its supposedly unbiased crusade for the truth, when in reality like Fox and the other major media corporations, it's a business, so its priority is profit from advertisers, and so they aim to keep their ratings high and their sponsors happy. There are very real reasons to criticize Trump for his positions on taxes, the environment, foreign policy, etc., but tune into CNN and pretty much all you hear is Russia Russia Russia, followed by Stormy Daniels. It's okay to accept the president's legal authority and at the same time criticize him on issues of substance. I wish more of the press would do that instead of refusing to accept that the Democratic Party failed miserably in 2016. Personally I've just come not to have high expectations for corporate news, just taking everything with a grain of salt and trying to figure out what's going on.
 
Investors Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal and Newsmax....I get calls every now and then to subscribe to the local “mullet wrapper”.... I tell them it’s bigoted against my faith and hang up. The only coupons I need are from Harbor Freight Tools and they come via e-mail...

I like a few of the commentators on Fox, but like @Sledge, too much cheerleading and they tolerate that tool Shepherd Smith...
 
To me the difference is that Fox doesn’t deny it has a conservative bent while CNN denies it has a leftist bent and argue that they are completely impartial . To me the truth is that CNN and most of the other networks have been trying to defeat Trump since he got the Republican nomination
 
As someone who makes his living working for the various "3 letter" media outlets, I have to say they are all echo chambers.
They try to get as many eyeballs as they can by pandering to their viewers.
The professionals that work for these organizations often do not share the beliefs they espouse.
Do you know what the call what they read on air? A script.
 
There’s less news “reporting” and more commentating now, and the two are not the same.

It’s become difficult to watch, and often, read.
 
Maplerock said:
...I like to read and digest news from multiple sources and try to figure out the truth...
Click to expand...

Therein lies the problem. Reporters aren't encouraged to seek the truth anymore. They are paid to increase ratings share and get more advertising money.

When I was a kid, Walter Cronkite would come on TV and tell us the truth. Reporters were respected as being honest and intelligent. Today, they are about as trustworthy as a used car dealer. I'm talking about the used car dealer on the other side of the tracks who has an office in a trailer or an old gas station. The kind who will tell you anything you want to hear to sell you that car he paid $200 for. "I'm losing money here - but I can see you are a discerning used car buyer - so I'll let it go for $2,000"
Yeah, okay. No thanks.

For me, I can tell when the conservative-leaning news outlets cross over into the psychotic. And hoo-boy, they do.
With the liberal-leaning news outlets - it all sounds psychotic - all the time.

I appreciate your support of our President, Maplerock. I had no love for our last President, but I supported him because he was The President.
I never referred to him (or any of his predecessors) by his first or last name, and it pains me when people do. He is The President.
 
THParent said:
Therein lies the problem. Reporters aren't encouraged to seek the truth anymore. They are paid to increase ratings share and get more advertising money.

When I was a kid, Walter Cronkite would come on TV and tell us the truth. Reporters were respected as being honest and intelligent. Today, they are about as trustworthy as a used car dealer. I'm talking about the used car dealer on the other side of the tracks who has an office in a trailer or an old gas station. The kind who will tell you anything you want to hear to sell you that car he paid $200 for. "I'm losing money here - but I can see you are a discerning used car buyer - so I'll let it go for $2,000"
Yeah, okay. No thanks.

For me, I can tell when the conservative-leaning news outlets cross over into the psychotic. And hoo-boy, they do.
With the liberal-leaning news outlets - it all sounds psychotic - all the time.

I appreciate your support of our President, Maplerock. I had no love for our last President, but I supported him because he was The President.
I never referred to him (or any of his predecessors) by his first or last name, and it pains me when people do. He is The President.
Click to expand...

Per AP style, it would just be last name on second reference.
 
The news industry is in a hard place right now. Years ago the level of detail in a Cronkite report was pretty minimal. He only provided a few minutes of summary level fact and then rolled to the next story. Because the major network shows only had 22 or 45 minutes to get through everything, and because it was read live, there wasn't much room for anything that wasn't clear and unambiguous. Newspapers had more space and time for detail, but they were equally cautious about running anything that wasn't completely vetted.

That standard story of the decline of news standards usually goes like this: Since the advent of the internet and cable news there is a nearly infinite amount of bandwidth to fill and increasing desperation to fill it. In the beginning of CNN there wasn't nearly the political bent that there is today even in the moments when they were short of material. But they did pioneer the use of "breaking news" as a thin veneer of legitimacy for anything they could get on camera first. That put pressure on newspapers, nightly news shows and other cable news outlets. The introduction of internet news in the 90s just provided more demand for even more immediate content and further eroded standards for vetting and investigation. In this environment Fox News was created by Rupert Murdock purely as a money-making enterprise. He saw room to work as "news" with minimal investment and he pounced. The world hasn't been the same. The pressure on conservative news outlets (ie anyone with real standards, which is to say papers) has been killing, and other cable, network and internet outlets have been driven to follow or fold.

But another take on that tale could read this way: because we have infinite bandwidth to fill, stories come out so quickly that there's little call for Cronkite-level, detail free reporting. Anyone can do that in moments and just about any outlet will suffice. At this point every news outlet has a choice to make about where to focus their attention and effort. You can't go down every rabbit hole, investigate every story, or even know which ones might turn out most fruitful, so they have to choose based on something. They have to create some sort of identity that will catch and hold viewers, and make their outlet attractive to some profitable number of readers/viewers. Fox bagged the conservative eyeballs, MSNBC went liberal, old papers more or less had their roles assigned by their historical voices and internet outlets popped up in the gaps. But no one went for the neutral high quality spot and simply tried to produce straight news. The McNeil Lehrer Newshour used to do this, for example, but it was never a huge draw.

It seems like as much as the public *claims* to want clear, unbiased news, the fact is they actually want a more biased voice. I think that having your opinions reinforced (or at least not contradicted) makes for better viewing, so we're probably going to get more of this going forward. I guess the hope would be that these organizations would take the time to do high quality, well sourced investigation from whatever spot on the ideological spectrum they live. The Washington Post is starting to tread that line, for example, with mixed results. But as far as the source of the problem, I think the best diagnosis again lies in the mirror.
 
The BBC has been criticized for many years for liberal bias. Even UK soldiers in the field complained a number of years ago. I do check their stories each day since they have some good coverage of European stories.
 
My take is that it is your duty as a US citizen to read a cross section of news reports from the media. I force myself to read the NYT, CNN, Fox and Drudge. I enjoy the WSJ the most, but I take every tidbit of reporting with a grain of salt. If you only dig on one source, then your mind will lose the ability to think critically IMHO. I tend to not watch newscasts, and prefer to read. Rachel Maddow is so full of anger and hatred I cannot bear to watch her, and some of the far right talking heads are a little too ridiculous for my taste. The 60 Minutes interview last night with the prostitute subject and the gay male reporter who was weaned on his trust fund has no place in objective journalism, IMHO. Shock value does not equal facts, and quite often the appeal is to the emotions of the viewers. However, as we all know emotions don't create facts and hard facts and figures don't care about your feelings or the feelings of others. Hence, hard facts are often not presented because they often unsettle people too much, especially those people who do not want their emotionally based narrative disturbed by such pesky details.

Sadly, the ability to think critically is being lost. Using the recent DC anti-gun march as an example, the children marching want everyone to turn their guns in to the government, yet they claim our current President is a fascist. The disconnect of that "logic" astounds me.

My two cents.
 
StPaulDad said:
The news industry is in a hard place right now. Years ago the level of detail in a Cronkite report was pretty minimal. He only provided a few minutes of summary level fact and then rolled to the next story. Because the major network shows only had 22 or 45 minutes to get through everything, and because it was read live, there wasn't much room for anything that wasn't clear and unambiguous. Newspapers had more space and time for detail, but they were equally cautious about running anything that wasn't completely vetted.

That standard story of the decline of news standards usually goes like this: Since the advent of the internet and cable news there is a nearly infinite amount of bandwidth to fill and increasing desperation to fill it. In the beginning of CNN there wasn't nearly the political bent that there is today even in the moments when they were short of material. But they did pioneer the use of "breaking news" as a thin veneer of legitimacy for anything they could get on camera first. That put pressure on newspapers, nightly news shows and other cable news outlets. The introduction of internet news in the 90s just provided more demand for even more immediate content and further eroded standards for vetting and investigation. In this environment Fox News was created by Rupert Murdock purely as a money-making enterprise. He saw room to work as "news" with minimal investment and he pounced. The world hasn't been the same. The pressure on conservative news outlets (ie anyone with real standards, which is to say papers) has been killing, and other cable, network and internet outlets have been driven to follow or fold.

But another take on that tale could read this way: because we have infinite bandwidth to fill, stories come out so quickly that there's little call for Cronkite-level, detail free reporting. Anyone can do that in moments and just about any outlet will suffice. At this point every news outlet has a choice to make about where to focus their attention and effort. You can't go down every rabbit hole, investigate every story, or even know which ones might turn out most fruitful, so they have to choose based on something. They have to create some sort of identity that will catch and hold viewers, and make their outlet attractive to some profitable number of readers/viewers. Fox bagged the conservative eyeballs, MSNBC went liberal, old papers more or less had their roles assigned by their historical voices and internet outlets popped up in the gaps. But no one went for the neutral high quality spot and simply tried to produce straight news. The McNeil Lehrer Newshour used to do this, for example, but it was never a huge draw.

It seems like as much as the public *claims* to want clear, unbiased news, the fact is they actually want a more biased voice. I think that having your opinions reinforced (or at least not contradicted) makes for better viewing, so we're probably going to get more of this going forward. I guess the hope would be that these organizations would take the time to do high quality, well sourced investigation from whatever spot on the ideological spectrum they live. The Washington Post is starting to tread that line, for example, with mixed results. But as far as the source of the problem, I think the best diagnosis again lies in the mirror.
Click to expand...
I personally have no issue with bias, but if you have one , don’t deny it. Fox keeps getting accused of being an arm of the Republican Party and yet no one claims the same for CNN and MSNBC which they are
 
Quite a lot rides on how much effort goes into separating opinion from news. Much of Fox and all of Rachel Maddow are opinion, not reporting. Yet consumers and critics alike don't separate the products and end up arguing over the wrong stuff. If the reporting is good and I know how to skip the opinion I'll be happy. But when the two are irretrievably commingled then I can't really watch. Fox and Friends might be that channel's morning news show, but it isn't news. That line, if it exists and how effective it is, is how I judge a news source.
 
StPaulDad said:
Quite a lot rides on how much effort goes into separating opinion from news. Much of Fox and all of Rachel Maddow are opinion, not reporting. Yet consumers and critics alike don't separate the products and end up arguing over the wrong stuff. If the reporting is good and I know how to skip the opinion I'll be happy. But when the two are irretrievably commingled then I can't really watch. Fox and Friends might be that channel's morning news show, but it isn't news. That line, if it exists and how effective it is, is how I judge a news source.
Click to expand...

This is why dinosaurs like me, enjoy a good newspaper. The majority of newspapers clearly have a section called "opinion." You KNOW when you are in the opinion section and when you are on the front pages. I find out WHAT happened on the front page and what the editors and featured columnists THINK about things on the opinion pages.

I agree with @StPaulDad. The co-mingling of news and opinion is far more prominent in broadcast news these days and makes it difficult to digest. Even worse is the effect on what social media tries to pass as "news."
 
Jeepman said:
The 60 Minutes interview last night with the prostitute subject and the gay male reporter who was weaned on his trust fund has no place in objective journalism, IMHO.
Click to expand...
If a reporter being gay disqualifies them from being objective, what about all the reporters who are gay that you don't know are gay?
 
AJC said:
Jeepman said:
The 60 Minutes interview last night with the prostitute subject and the gay male reporter who was weaned on his trust fund has no place in objective journalism, IMHO.
Click to expand...
If a reporter being gay disqualifies them from being objective, what about all the reporters who are gay that you don't know are gay?
Click to expand...
Your question is not one that has relevance here, because it twists the point. Translation: I'm not taking the bait, sorry. I will say that taking a minority group (someone practicing the profession of prostitution) and have that person interviewed by another minority group (gay males, and in this one who has been sucking on a silver spoon since birth), does detract from the objectivity of the interview. And to clarify, I have no ill feeling toward prostitutes nor do I condemn the gay man. That is all the response you will get from me on your inquiry.
 
AROTC-dad said:
This is why dinosaurs like me, enjoy a good newspaper. The majority of newspapers clearly have a section called "opinion." You KNOW when you are in the opinion section and when you are on the front pages. I find out WHAT happened on the front page and what the editors and featured columnists THINK about things on the opinion pages.
Click to expand...

Part of the problem is that many people no longer "enjoy a good newspaper". There is a lot of in-depth reporting in papers like the Wall St. Journal and the NY Times, but most people no longer want to pay the $20-$30 per month subscription costs to get these papers. There are many free news related websites on the internet, but the old adage about getting what you pay for still holds true.
 
Jeepman said:
AJC said:
Jeepman said:
The 60 Minutes interview last night with the prostitute subject and the gay male reporter who was weaned on his trust fund has no place in objective journalism, IMHO.
Click to expand...
If a reporter being gay disqualifies them from being objective, what about all the reporters who are gay that you don't know are gay?
Click to expand...
Your question is not one that has relevance here, because it twists the point. Translation: I'm not taking the bait, sorry. I will say that

taking a minority group (someone practicing the profession of prostitution) and have that person interviewed by another minority group (gay males, and in this one who has been sucking on a silver spoon since birth), does detract from the objectivity of the interview.

And to clarify, I have no ill feeling toward prostitutes nor do I condemn the gay man. That is all the response you will get from me on your inquiry.
Click to expand...

Shirley, you can't be serious.
 
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