BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Dec 16 - 04:38 AM

So, what's so bad about the press? Think I should trust Facebook shares instead?

1. It's all in the article, Joe and 2. No.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Iains
Date: 21 Dec 16 - 04:23 AM

To trust or distrust the media rather depends upon what is the subject matter of the report.
A weather forecast can be given different degrees of trust, depending upon how far into the future it extends. Past experience suggests the confidence level drops as the forecast is extrapolated further into the futur.
Local events like birth, marriages and deaths can be trusted when reported, as can car crashes, bank robberies etc.
It all starts to fall apart when international events are covered.
All governments have an agenda and the population may or may not be party to them. For example project gladio was hidden from europeans for decades.
Anything reported to do with politics, terrorism, wars and going to war should be treated very carefully.It is fair to say that in these cases the presented narrative in many mainstream sources is that of the government. They endeavour to put their behaviour in the best possible light in order to carry the public with them. Whatever is presented in these circumstances should always be questioned. RT often provides an alternative narrative. No doubt the truth in somewhere between the two. To have the mindset that you trust one source implicitly plays right into the hands of government.
Far safer to ask Cui Bono? when making an analysis of news.

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 10:22 PM

here one of the nutters on the far right in our Parliament wanted to create a Patriotic Broadcasting Corporation to replace the government funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Senator Burston has told Parliament the public broadcaster is unfairly biased against conservatives and has been the victim of a "cultural Marxist takeover".

Another far right winger in our governing party, the Liberal Party has started his own grass roots protest group to take on the (left wing) Get-up - Conservatives hope the group will ultimately rival the progressive lobby group GetUp!, with Queensland MP George Christensen saying "if we do nothing, we will let the forces of socialism and globalism conquer".

The relative few far-right wingers in the ruling rightist Liberal Party have been responsible for a lot of reversals of progressive legislation or ideas. The cartoonists love these policy flip/flops!

GetUp! is a powerful campaigning community. By combining the sheer power of a million members, movement partners and a central team of expert strategists, we do what it takes to get things done.   

Conservatives too individualistic to emulate collective power of GetUp!

I get my news from selected newspapers & the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio stations & website as I don't have TV or use social media, apart from following a few political cartoonists on facebook & twitter! Every now & then a facebook message pops up saying join up so I say go away, or words to that effect, & I'm not eligible to join twitter as I don't have a mobile (cell) phone.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 10:05 PM

I live near two cities that have daily or near-daily newspapers, and I subscribe to them both. Auburn (12 miles away, population 10,000) reports very local news - I know a lot of the people reported on, and I know a lot of the newspaper staff and have been interviewed quite often. Sacramento (50 miles away, population 500,000) has the McClatchy Publications Sacramento Bee, which has the reputation of being a fairly good newspaper. I prefer the Bee, but both newspapers serve their purpose fairly well. The get things wrong occasionally, but generally they are fairly credible sources of news.

I guess my favorite newspaper is the New York Times. I have a high degree of trust in its accuracy.

And yes, I do like National Public Radio very much.

So, what's so bad about the press? Think I should trust Facebook shares instead?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 07:45 PM

I'm not prey to the misrepresentations and outright inventions of the gutter press.

I listen to NPR!

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 11:36 AM

+I've trusted The Guardian since I was 12.

Greg I think you read someone backwards by mistake. It happens to me sometimes.


CNN HAS talking heads who say things that are absent of fact , I think to create a controversy instead of news. Or they have awful live editors.

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 10:51 AM

So we should trust Farcebook and Breibart instead?

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 08:15 AM

It is quite relevant, Donuel. People seem to find it difficult to differentiate between factual reporting and editorial comment at times though. When the headlines seem to be more about editorial comment and the news story simply ammunition for that headline, it is certainly time to question the source.

Thanks

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 08:05 AM

Quite relevant Dave. Press that strives to create a reality from their reported perceptions by any means do succeed but not in the long run.

Press that reports the realities and allows readers to create their own perceptions are more trustworthy over time.

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 07:58 AM

Look it up yourself, Nigel. If it can be shown that OpenDemocracy is being manipulated by a media mogul for their own nefarious purposes then look for another source. If that source is found to be prone to the same thing then go to yet another. Common sense should be the watchword here and never rely on a single source!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: gillymor
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 07:37 AM

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed."

― Mark Twain

It's every man for himself but there are some interesting links to alternative sources near the end of the OP's linked article.

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 07:23 AM

The original link 'published' by OpenDemocracyUK.
By their online publication do they consider themselves to be outside of the very quotes they're giving.

While 'The Press' is usually associated with paper publications (from the printing presses), it is now more commonly used to include online news media as well.

So should we mistrust the message to mistrust the press?


Shades of "There is an exception to every rule (including this one)"

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Teribus
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 07:07 AM

I have always mistrusted the "Press".

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Iains
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 06:57 AM

Their revenues are declining, their staffing levels cut to the bone and they have turned into comics, relying on attention grabbing headlines to try and attract readership.
No longer does journalistic integrity exist(if ever it did).
They are all beholden to tools of government and fed a menu designed to cowe , manipulate and meld the population into becoming docile little sheeple, frightened to step outside the mainstream.
   Ramblings on farcebook and twitter ricochet around the world gathering huge audiences before anyone has the intelligence to query the veracity of the message.
   In this brave new world everything presented by the mainstream media has to have the requisite level of massage and spin applied prior to release.

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 06:55 AM

Just look at the number of links to articles in the gutter press provided by people on here to answer that question, Stanron :-)

Steve - When I was actively involved in running Swinton Folk Club we got that fed up with the local paper misquoting everything we started deliberately sending them the wrong information. I distinctly remember us advertising a young up and coming Guitarist called Marty Carthin :-D

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Stanron
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 06:39 AM

Do people still read newspapers? I used to get the Metro when it was free, but that was years ago and mainly for the puzzles. These days I get my news mainly from the TV. BBC News, BBC Parliament, Sky News and, occasionally for a laugh, RT. Channel 4 is a bit too republican and Five treats current affairs like a game show. I prefer BBC overall but that is mainly to do with it's having fewer adverts.

Subject: RE: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 06:20 AM

On a seemingly far more trivial and prosaic level, you can quickly learn not to trust the press when you read something in the paper about yourself. In 1972 my mum won two grand (a lot in those days) in the Manchester Evening News Spot The Ball competition. They came to interview her, but when she read the item in the next day's paper she found they'd made up everything she was supposed to have said. In 1996, aged 45, I sat the GCSE Music exam along with the pupils at the school I was teaching in. I got an A-star so the paper sent a photographer round to take my pic with some of the kids. Not only did they print a photo of me standing next to a pupil who had failed absolutely everything, "Mr Shaw with his fellow triumphant students," but they also made up a load of quotes for the article that I never uttered!

Subject: BS: Good reasons to mistrust the press
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 05:31 AM

Blue clicky

Worth a read. In my opinion. Certainly food for thought.

Cheers

DtG