Journalism These Days

**sunfighter** · 09-02-2011, 02:46 PM

This forum is for posting examples of major media stories that are examples of bad journalism. Do not post examples from blogs or opinion pieces.

Many of us old hippies long for the days when we could trust Walter Cronkite to tell us the truth on the nightly news. Today, pretty much all we get are sound bites and infotainment, and that's from the better sources. At worst, we get misleading distortions and lies from outlets pretending to be fair and balanced.

The giant media conglomerates that control the flow of news and information to the American people have abandoned their commitment to quality journalism. It's rare to find any investigations into corporate or political corruption or even policy issues. As an example, MSNBC the other day reported gravely on the shocking statistics on infant mortality in the US without even asking what the cause might be. No mention of the growing number of people without health insurance or the growing disparity between the rich and poor. Myself, I find that Al Jazeera is more balanced than CBS, NBC, ABC, or Fox. How often are candidates' statements even fact-checked?

The result: the American people are terribly misinformed on a whole range of major issues from health care to energy policy, and as a result, the US is in a state of decline.

**midgardsun** · 09-02-2011, 02:59 PM

my favourite

CNN Fake Newscast Best Quality - YouTube

**Cloaking Device** · 09-02-2011, 04:08 PM

British Channel 4 news is quite good

I think that a lot of the nostalgia about the old days is simply because we didn't have access to half of the information that we do now.
It was a nicer world back then for middle class people in the richest countries in the world but it wouldn't fly nowadays

I do wonder if this so called anti elitism that has sprung up is really any good at all. It's a bit like facebook. It actually limits people despite it's potential. Politics has in fact gone down the tubes with the opening up of communication. How did the ridiculous jump in our power to communicate and travel in the last 20 years make everything so limited?
We can see news anywhere in the world live as it happens and read posts about it from people who live there, and yet in America it is not out of the question that someone like Michelle Bachman (who said that the typhoon was because god was angry with liberals) could run for president

It isn't better

I hate people

**sunfighter** · 09-02-2011, 04:35 PM

All of the major US media outlets have slashed their international coverage and so have all the newspapers, not that anyone under the age of 50 still reads newspapers. So Americans really know little about the rest of the world.

**Meliai** · 09-02-2011, 05:51 PM

http://www.foxnews.com/

Just on the front page of foxnews.com -

-Fox News leads readers to believe the President completely controls our economy and therefore is at fault for everything and the only person responsible for saving it.

-a pregnant woman in Michigan turned up dead and for some reason, everyone in the country needs to know about this.

- half the page is about celebrities.

http://www.cnn.com/

And on CNN...

US warned to be vigalant on 9/11, because if US citizens aren't kept in constant fear it means the terrorists have won.

No jobs. Sad America.

and not much else of substance.

**Cloaking Device** · 09-03-2011, 03:03 AM

US Fox News scares me. It's basically a big advert for itself. Lots of Americans seem to take it seriously though, and this whole 'we are not the mainstream media' thing is just unbelievable, they manage to make disagreeing with them into some kind of conspiracy

To be honest I've never been to America but your culture just makes me despair. Most of the best scientists and artists (art in the sense of movies, music, etc as well) are from the US or choose to work in America but there is this incredibly stupid culture as well, just shouting in an angry voice seems to be enough to get people to follow you

**uglypuppy** · 09-03-2011, 04:08 AM

There was a local anti-homophobia rally/march. These are the newspaper articles on it:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_754466.html

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11237/1169798-100.stm

Was there any news coverage of the blatant, public act of homophobia? Fuck no. But they'll hate the fucking anarchists.

**sunfighter** · 09-03-2011, 04:34 PM

So, the other day, a very important wikileaks cable was released, which may have a big impact on our relations with Iraq

Quote:

As revealed by a State Department diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks last week, US forces committed a heinous war crime during a house raid in Iraq in 2006, wherein one man, four women, two children, and three infants were summarily executed.

Has this been covered by the major media outlets or is it being smothered? I'm looking ...

**sunfighter** · 09-03-2011, 04:49 PM

I just did a web search for that story and found mentions only in these outlets:

Huffington Post
NY Daily News
Associated Press
Washington Post
Islamic News Daily
Star Telegram (Dallas,Fort Worth)
Salon.com

**Blissfullyawareofitall** · 09-03-2011, 05:09 PM

Um... it's hard NOT to find examples of bad journalism...

Although it seems proffesional and very well done, the next week information usually comes out about how incredibly wrong and biased that source had been!

I find that CSPAN is the only "journalism", or source to the world that is unbiased... but that's fucking BORING.