Thread: The Media

I think it's been a while since we've had this topic, so I thought I'd bring it up again.

We're all familiar with the accusations of 'FoxNews being one-sided, or plain false' and the 'drive by media on to a mission to install communism in America'. If that's your thing just be assured that your guy is the good one and the other is the bad one, please don't try to convince us, and find some other place to contribute.

What I am more interested in is do you think the media has any more responsibility to not be a propaganda machine, than the people have a responsibility to not fall for it and be proactive in educating themselves?

It's pretty much the same as the argument about the majority of mass entertainment being garbage because that's what is offered, or because of what is sought.

And to make it personal, do you 'buy' the news that you get daily? How often do you actually look for a well reasoned opposing view? (All conspiracy theorists, this may be a good moment to tell us what the real truth is )

i get all my news from the conversation forum.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

i get all my news from the conversation forum.

Both fair and balanced!

When I was a kid most of the media was small companies and usually family owned, they had a reputation in the community to protect. Now the media is owned by nameless/faceless corporations and those who pull the strings within those corporations and have no loyalties to anyone but themselves.They are there to make money and peddle influence, it has been so long since I have seen anything that was objective I probably would not know what it was when I saw it. I think todays media is run by the few for the sake of the few. I think the onslaught of partisan polotics in the media simply divides the public making them more easily manipulated, divided they are conquered and led in any direction the leaders want, while the sheep are too busy bickering and pointing fingers amongst themselves as to whose fault it is that they are being led to slaughter.

I can explain media bias quite easily.

1. all people are biased. some more than others, but everyone is a little biased, at least.
2. media corporations are run by and made up of PEOPLE. see 1.
3. for reasons of getting along, people with similar biases to those making hiring decisions tend to get hired. thus, you usually get a pretty homogenous set of biases in a given workplace. (in my experience anyway)
4. when a large group of people all feel the same way, they tend to make decisions more harmoniously.
5. due to 4. (groupthink) that selfsame group will develop cultural blind spots if there are no dissidents (or if they are overwhelmingly drowned out by a loud majority)
6. due to 5. these groups will tend to display self-reinforcing behavior when it comes to exhibiting bias.

Originally Posted by gugi

What I am more interested in is do you think the media has any more responsibility to not be a propaganda machine, than the people have a responsibility to not fall for it and be proactive in educating themselves?

Imo, yes. News media have an important role in society, and they should not spread lies because they are the basis for people's opinions. They are in a position of trust.

only in a perfect world Gugi
and if people could self regulate that well, then we wouldn't need exposes

I had just accepted that Fox was radical right, till one day I saw Juan Williams on.

everyone leans

I rather like the McLaughlin Group because at least you know who leans which way.
and John writes the questions


I've seen some things he did one religion, questioning bible scholars and it was exemplary.
Very well thought out and well informed questions.

Very good question, Ivan. In an idealistic way, I do think the media has a responsibility to provide unbiased information. Being a realist, however, I think it's ridiculous for any of us to waste even a bit of mental energy trusting that media information is unbiased and equally ridiculous to complain that one facet of the media versus another is biased.

From this point in time and onward into the future I believe the media is manipulation and is no longer unbiased. Those days are gone gone gone. Rather than waste any energy and be ridiculous, I've long since entrenched myself and view "the media" with more skepticism that I can even describe bordering on complete disbelief.

Part and parcel with my belief, I stopped watching network news years ago and rarely read the paper. NPR hurts my head with its pablum. Consequently I feel much less manipulated.

It's our responsibility to wake up or get what we get.

Chris L

I think it would be good for there to be "unbiased" media, and, in an ideal world, I think the media should be "unbiased." I'm choosing to use the " " there because I agree with Jockeys that all people have some bias, so "unbiased" would really be minimally biased.

That said, in this less than ideal world, my take is that people have a responsibility to learn how to view, read, and think critically and, at the very minimum, identify the biases of various media sources (i.e. a given newspaper is liberal or a given TV show is conservative) and take that into account.

In germany we have different kinds. Biased ones and unbiased ones for whom its downright forbidden to involve any kind of personal opinion in what they report about. Unfortunately these news are so boring and hard to understand for quite a lot of people even, that the audience is actually rather limited and those people who can't understand a sentence with more than five words or concentrate longer than five minutes have to listen to the sensation focussed / american style / biased kind.
Makes quite a difference between people.
---> You're watching what? Tagesschau?!!! Eeeew! *runs*<----

In my opinion there should be unbiased news for any group of population but thats probably asking a bit too much.
Of course people have to take care of themselves and learn how to read, write, listen, etc but news media should always try to reach most of them with quality news.