I am interested in seeing what people here think makes a person well informed politically, in regard to what kind of media we consume. Not all media offers the same news, and they usually all have political agenda that they embed in their news, but the media seems to be the biggest source of information that is available to form our perceptions of the political landscape from. Since not all media has the same political agenda, I am interested in seeing what folks here would view as the best way to be the most informed.
I went ahead and put my vote for both, since I have been preaching this in some of the threads here already.
No votes for lefty media only yet, but I can see by the number of views for this poll that lefties have seen this poll. I am trying to picture what I would vote for if I was a lefty who only consumed lefty media...
We mostly watch CNN, FOX, some MSNBC and BBC. Our favorite lately, is a weekly gem called The McGlaughlin Group on PBS. I heartily recommend it for balance. They have two from each side of the isle, with an outstanding moderator(McGlaughlin). And they all pretty much get along and are very smart, experienced and have been around awhile too. It is probably the best out there.
Best option is to peruse both lefty and righty media. I'm a fan of NPR--it's news is fairly balanced (it's editorials fairly left wing).
NPR is the benchmark of lefty biased media, but I still listen to it. There are only 5 or 6 people in the world who are further right than me, but since I like being well informed, I listen to the super lefty NPR just as readily as I listen to Savage. The NPR atmosphere is certainly warm and cozy...
From my perspective picking only one represents box thinking. I use a number of news sources from Fox News to the Huff Post and many in between. Being informed requires seeing from both perspectives. I find that for the most part news sources do a good jod reporting the news, but where things get a bit partisan is in the commentary.
I like to figure out what each news source omits from their broadcast. After I watch a Hannity and a Chris Mathews back to back, I can see what each omitted to see where I need to look deeper.
The poll question asks "Which gives the most knowledge?" While the opinions provided by the media may be based on some factual evidence, I usually find that it takes much effort and observation to acquire something resembling the truth, and that can vary greatly resulting in there not being any single answer acceptable/applicable to each and every similar instance.
What objective measure would one use to assess "most"? If I were to force to pick a "most" the only way I could objectively do it is assess which news source I view the most thus that news source would be where I get "most" of my knowledge from. But as I jump from one source to the next I cannot determine which news source I get the most knowledge from. Actualy most of my knowledge comes from vetting sources as I have found that claims made in the news often are not a parity of the base source.
Hmmm, the best information comes from the 1787 constitution. The rest of it is a matter of determining the lessor of evils which can almost be done by examining the vitriolic surrounding the covert agents activity on the forum.
The BBC is always portrayed as a lefty organization so I guess that my political knowledge is based on that.
I'm a Liberal, and I quit listening to NPR for anything other than a few of its shows like Prairie Home Companion and Wait Wait Don't' tell Me, Click and Clack reruns, etc. because it became extremely biased, as are all of its 'news' commentators and readers. You can easily bias news just by omission of 'negative' stories, using certain buzz words constantly, all that stuff. Same with the PBS World channel, which has become almost a 24 hour propaganda tabloid. I prefer reading my 'news' rather than getting it from TV, YouTube, and the other crap, preferably from real journalists as opposed to spin doctors, but those are extremely rare since the 1980's, so I read both 'left' and 'right' materials and magazines, the Economist, and other international written media these days, as one is pretty much left with that now; they both give the dirt on each other, so you can at least get some idea of who is lying and who isn't, and come to some sort of idea of what is going on. Even agencies like AP and most certainly Reuters will slant their 'raw reports' to other news outlets to suit their biases. Reuters is so notorious in its dishonest reporting I don't even bother with stories from them any more, as they are below even supermarket tabloid standards of 'reporting'. Any story from the likes of Salon, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, for instance are going to be worthless as 'news'. Many stories aren't going to be really known for months or even years after the initial reports to boot. I'm skeptical of calling that 'well informed' though; only the insiders know what is being spun and slanted for the most part, and the actual participants in any story, so we just have to go with our own judgment most of the time. Younger people are the most clueless in sorting through the BS, as they haven't been reading long enough to have the right experience over time, but they get so much emphasis on their' self-esteem' in the education system they believe they're 'smarter and more knowledgeable' just by being young, for some reason.
Real news reporting should be completely devoid of 'perspectives', and be focused on completeness of information. Otherwise they aren't news stories, they're just editorials and/or propaganda.
I don't believe that even slightly works when the issues are important or contested. Take the issues of water in CA or fracking, or homelessness, or health care, or just about anything else. They all require analysis from different perspectives to give any kind of understanding of what a proposed change might mean. In fact, we don't have enough of that today. We have politicians who say things like "drop the health care mandate" or Trump's "stop letting water reach the ocean" or whatever, but our news today fails to tell the full story on what these directions actually mean in terms of how much they benefit different constituencies, whether related policies are impacted, etc. So, we hear Trump suggest dropping the ACA mandate. But, where are we hearing about what that means for insurance companies? After all, the mandate was added because insurance companies successfully argued that it was an absolute requirement for the ACA. Where are we seeing the analysis from the insurance company perspective? And, if you think we should get enough info for us to figure that out, exactly what info would THAT be??? I think this idea that we don't need analysis comes from a combination of total disrespect for science (as it applies to insurance, business, environment, decision making, etc.) combined with an overly simplistic view of the issues we face.
It's the only way real and meaningful analysis can work at all. I'll ignore the rest of the editorial 'perspectives', as they have nothing to do with news reporting and getting all the facts out there, i.e. my post you're citing. I'm not the least interested in some journalism major's personal beliefs or spin on anything, I just want the news and accurate data and reporting from alleged news agencies and reporters. I don't need some spin artist and agenda peddler to tell me what and how I should view or think about anything. That's what simpletons want, not me. I can do my own homework from there, thank you very much.
You're begging for nothing BUT spin. Every single person who writes articles for news outlets is making decisions about what you are going to get to hear. And, they sure has heck are NOT going to give you the data, because a big element of their job is entertainment. They get paid for eyes, not data. Most "news" today is short takes written as an entertaining slant on an event or on analysis done by someone - in other words, pretty much ALL about what you should think and NOTHING about data. The only hope is to find the analysis upon which the writer based their article, and then look for other analyses as a verification or refutation.
lol ... blah blah blah ... I already laid it out clearly; nowhere did I say I cared about these silly attempts at semantics. Just say you hate anything that doesn't stroke your own biases and fantasies; no need to keep babbling on and on about your need for biased gibberish. We get it; you don't even understand the point.
