What media sites are telling the truth?

[doubtingmerle]

On another thread I see what I consider a ridiculous claim, that right wing facebook sites are a good source of facts, while the mainstream media is full of liberal lies. I disagree. Although no source is perfect, mainstream sources like the major networks, major newpapers, and news magazines have a far greater regard for the truth then sites that I consider clearly biased. But frequently I get the argument that my site is more biased than theirs. And so, in an age where most anyone can set up a news blog, or start circulating stories on social media, and when there are so many sources of conflicting information, how do you know who is telling the truth? Who do you trust? Why? I want to pull together my thoughts on this, but first I want to see what others here have to say.

 

[NightHawkeye]

In truth, most of what passes for news is truthful to a large degree ... while conveniently omitting certain inconvenient truths. It's a problem nearly all media sources seem to have.

Anyone wanting the TRUTH, the whole truth, would do well to both seek news coming from multiple viewpoints and to earnestly attempt to understand what drives the underlying agendas.

That said, ABC News is the best of the alphabet networks (which is not saying much) and the Wall Street Journal may be the best of the print publications (it leans right in its editorial policy but leans left in its news coverage). Both outlets are necessarily stodgy and slow to cover developing stories though.

For breaking political news coverage, the Drudge Report is the only source. Drudge offers links to major news outlets worldwide, regardless of political leanings.

 

[dogs4thewin]

I am 24. I believe that usually the truth is somewhere in the middle.

 

[Sistrin]

Anyone wanting the TRUTH, the whole truth, would do well to both seek news coming from multiple viewpoints and to earnestly attempt to understand what drives the underlying agendas.

For many years a sizable percentage of the American left got their news from Comedy Central. I wish I had a thousand dollars for every time I saw either Stewart or Colbert cited as the primary source for a current news story. I could buy a new house.

However I am a firm believer in the adage any source is viable as a starting point. Sites such as the Huff-Po, Mother Jones, and Alex Jones all suffer from confirmation bias and being decidedly partisan, but at times they will cite something worth tracking down.

 

[MorkandMindy]

On another thread I see what I consider a ridiculous claim, that right wing facebook sites are a good source of facts, ... but first I want to see what others here have to say.

'Liberal' does not mean 'left' but educated. The more educated are often wealthier so have no desire to be far left, but being educated are not usually far right either, but if they are in with the billionaires they usually are far right and therefore called 'neoliberal'.

The mainsteam (traditional) media costs a lot to buy and is therefore expected to have an overall right wing bias, and it does, the entire US
media is off to the right, with the imported media like Huffington Post showing where the middle ground is in most countries.

Read some comments from 40 or more years ago to see how far the US has moved to the right, and been losing money and jobs. Ronald Reagan was considered way out on the right and his 'import led boom' was just another name for losing jobs and money to other countries, but even things he said would now be considered leftist.

You need to decide yourself where the middle between left and right really should be

 

[MorkandMindy]

For me the middle was defined by the political and economic arguments between Labour and Conservative in the 1960s.

Both wanted a majority of votes and therefore to capture the middle ground in addition to their own devotees.

The Conservatives wanted equality of opportunity, not of result, but recognised that many people would need help from the state to survive in our complex economy.

The Labour Party favoured more equality of wealth and income and at one point pushed the top tax rate beyond where the Conservatives wanted it, pushing it up to 97.5%. Under both parties it was pretty high, and the country as a whole did very well. Labour was not as far left as to want total equality of result as the Levelers had wanted.

So the Conservatives favoured equality of opportunity with some levelling of result, Labour a bit more leveling of result.

Equality of opportunity meant good government provided schools and free University tuition (almost) and grants to those who could not afford the living costs. Equality of opportunity would have given grants to all for living costs but in practice that was too expensive, the result of grants to those who could not afford it was effectively a tax on the wealthier.

With the midway position between Labour and Conservatives, that's about where Bernie Sanders is standing right now.

 

[MorkandMindy]

What media sites are telling the truth?

I don't watch the news or read a newspaper because I don't trust any of the content. I've been around long enough and heard the media version vs what actually ended up coming out, not to trust the media on anything.


There are rules about the media lying but these are easily circumvented by accurately quoting someone such as a spokesman or politician who is lying, and it is then just a matter of selecting whom to quote.

O'Reilly on Fox goes a step further by simply stating that 'I've also heard it said...' Just get someone in the backroom to make that statement and you can then broadcast the lie.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Don't rely on what makes sense, think tanks are all about coming up with convincing lies. I've found that once people understand a statement they generally also believe it to be true, and opinion polls have verified that.

Also don't rely on historical precedence because the officially sanctioned history books are pretty warped.

How will you find out what to believe? You have to take the hard route and investigate certain key points yourself.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Since the OP was 'What media sites are telling the truth' then I will reply that someone who has been debating and researching and does so free of charge, it is a lifelong passion of his and was his father's before him, if I need to know something then I start by listening to Noam Chomsky.

He was right about the Vietnam War back when he started political speaking and has been right about the Iraq War and many other key political events.

I also look things up in Wikipedia and if it is important, read the original documents myself, and usually come to very different conclusions than those who claim the documents say this or that.

Big problems to look for in the media if you do decide to pay any attention to it, are what is selected, what is emphasised, and how it is framed.

 

[The Cadet]

However I am a firm believer in the adage any source is viable as a starting point. Sites such as the Huff-Po, Mother Jones, and Alex Jones all suffer from confirmation bias and being decidedly partisan, but at times they will cite something worth tracking down.

I kind of have to disagree on this one. Well, okay, technically you're not wrong, but there's a slight issue here. See, if I hear a claim from, say, Alex Jones, I don't know whether or not to trust him. He's so constantly and consistently wrong that there's simply no reason to take anything he says seriously. I essentially am forced to cross-check every claim he makes to ensure that it's not a brazen lie. At that point, why bother reading their report at all? It'll take me more time to read and evaluate it than it would take me to look up each claim he makes from reliable sources. Also, if I can't find it from other, more legitimate sources, chances are good that it's not a real story.

In fact, I'll go one step further. Alex Jones is so bad, so consistently wrong about everything, that people citing him as a source just straight-up have no place in rational discussion. They shred their own credibility by reaching for that loon, because if they understood good sourcing, they would understand that Alex Jones is not a good source, and if their claim had any merit, they would find a real source that could support it. Here are some examples:

- Rense
- Whale.to
- Naturalnews
- Infowars
- WorldNetDaily
- PrisonPlanet
- BeforeItsNews
- Answers in Genesis
- Institute for Creation Research
- Anything with Glenn Beck's grubby fingers on it

Both outlets are necessarily stodgy and slow to cover developing stories though.

A lie is halfway across the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. It takes time to correctly and accurately cover a story. The National Enquirer is gonna be the first to break most stories, but good luck telling if the story is real or not.

Remember how, back in 2012, Fox ran a whole bunch of stories with wild claims about what happened at Benghazi? Man, after 7 different congressional inquiries that debunked just about all of their far-fetched claims, they sure have egg on their faces now. At least, they probably should.

 

[NightHawkeye]

- Anything with Glenn Beck's grubby fingers on it

Noting that Glenn Beck's track record may be the best of any major media figure. As the only person even talking about the coming of the Caliphate a few years ago, he has earned his place in the history books.

 

[Sistrin]

In fact, I'll go one step further. Alex Jones is so bad, so consistently wrong about everything, that people citing him as a source just straight-up have no place in rational discussion.

I understand and I agree. I would never cite Alex Jones as a primary source on anything. However to illustrate my point I will cite an example. One night I watched one of Jones' videos posted on Youtube concerning operation What-Ever-It-Was in Texas. Included in that video was imagery of US Army troops training for crowd control. They had hired civilians to act as unarmed opposition, protesters and such. The civilians had been told by whoever trained them for the exercise that when the soldiers approached to respond in a particular manner. That manner was to shout they were sovereign citizens of the United States and were not subject to military rule. At that point the soldiers rushed in to round up the dissidents/protesters. Jones asked the question why the exercise would be targeted against US citizens as opposed to a foreign threat.

As an Army veteran I remember training in crowd control. However in my day we never structured the training to be against US Citizens expressing their status as US Citizens.

I thought Jones' question legitimate. The point of my earlier post is if discussing the training exercise I would not cite Jones on the subject, but his question was a valid starting point for looking into the issue. I will also state that Mother Jones questioned what was going on during that operation as well.

 

[The Cadet]

Noting that Glenn Beck's track record may be the best of any major media figure.

Wat

Glenn Beck does the exact same thing Alex Jones does, just a little less crazy: make a ton of predictions, count the hits, and ignore the misses. So a prediction like this:

As the only person even talking about the coming of the Caliphate a few years ago, he has earned his place in the history books.

Is couched in countless other predictions that simply never happened. And of course, even then, his prediction didn't quite hit the mark. Or, you know, ever stand in the same room as the mark at one point. But who knows; maybe it just hasn't happened yet. After all, they're all so open-ended that it's impossible to ever definitively say that one has failed.

 

[The Cadet]

Noting that Glenn Beck's track record may be the best of any major media figure.

Bonus, thank you RWW for keeping track:

Let us remind Beck of his amazing record:

Remember when Beck repeatedly warned that President Obama was seeking to foment a race-based civil war? Or when he warned that the administration was trying to take away guns in order to impose slavery and carry out mass killings? Or when he told his audience to prepare because President Obama was about to snap and start putting them all in internment camps? Or when he told them to start hoarding cash because the government was going to seize their bank accounts, just like in Cyprus?

Remember when he warned that a shooting at the Dallas airport was almost certainly a false flag operation carried out by Occupy Wall Street to press for gun confiscation? Let's not forget his prediction that undocumented children crossing the southern border would lead to an Israel/Palestine-type conflict in America. What about the time Beck warned that military action in Syria was designed to create a one world government? Or his assertion that efforts were underway to outlaw homeschooling in America?

Anyone recall his theory that the missing Malaysian airplane had been hijacked so that it could be "cloaked" and then flown into the United States in a terrorist attack? Or his fears that supposedly missing planes in Libya would be used to destroy the global economy?

And who can forget the days after the Boston Marathon bombing that Beck spent explicitly asserting that one of the injured victims was, in fact, responsible for carrying out the attack, because of which statements he is now being sued for defamation?​

 

[NightHawkeye]

Let us remind Beck of his amazing record:

LOL, I would suggest you may not want to ever listen to Glenn Beck. It appears that he upsets you so.

I do have have to wonder exactly what it is you object to most. Is it his focus on libertarianism and commitment to personal responsibility? His disdain of Obama's heavy-handed actions? His focus on on God and doing the right thing? What?

 

[The Cadet]

LOL, I would suggest you may not want to ever listen to Glenn Beck. It appears that he upsets you so.

Oops, my bad, I didn't make it clear enough I was quoting an article.

I do have have to wonder exactly what it is you object to most. Is it his focus on libertarianism and commitment to personal responsibility? His disdain of Obama's heavy-handed actions? His focus on on God and doing the right thing? What?

What, the massive number of links in the last post weren't answer enough? If you want it more explicitly, what I object to is his extremely low standards of journalism and abuse of the texas sharpshooter fallacy, combined with a dishonest insistence that we ought to listen to him because he "keeps making accurate predictions". That, and the extreme speed to which he reaches to absurd conspiracy theories with little to no evidence (and I do mean absurd). Without looking at his personal politics, there are tons of reasons to dislike him simply because as a journalist, he's terrible at his job. Which makes sense when you realize that his job isn't "journalist", but rather polemicist, and that's something he's pretty darn good at.

I guess I'm kind of wondering, why wouldn't you object to that? Why would you buy the lie that his record is impressive?

 

[NightHawkeye]

Oops, my bad, I didn't make it clear enough I was quoting an article.

So, you've never listened to Glenn Beck?

What, the massive number of links in the last post weren't answer enough? If you want it more explicitly, what I object to is his extremely low standards of journalism and abuse of the texas sharpshooter fallacy, combined with a dishonest insistence that we ought to listen to him because he "keeps making accurate predictions". That, and the extreme speed to which he reaches to absurd conspiracy theories with little to no evidence (and I do mean absurd). Without looking at his personal politics, there are tons of reasons to dislike him simply because as a journalist, he's terrible at his job. Which makes sense when you realize that his job isn't "journalist", but rather polemicist, and that's something he's pretty darn good at.

I guess I'm kind of wondering, why wouldn't you object to that? Why would you buy the lie that his record is impressive?

In case I didn't make it clear enough I was asking you a direct question ... about your own personal opinion. You expressed a visceral dislike.

Either you've listened to him and have personal reasons to dislike him ... or you formed your opinion by listening to the words of others. Which is it? Just curious ...

 

[The Cadet]

In case I didn't make it clear enough I was asking you a direct question

Right, you asked me what I disliked about him most, and I answered that I most dislike his incredibly low-quality journalism and abuse of the texas sharpshooter fallacy.

So, you've never listened to Glenn Beck?

I've heard parts of a few segments. I turned it off pretty quickly once I realized what I was dealing with, and got most of the rest of my information from him from third parties, mostly through osmosis. Even if what I got was "the selected worst of Glenn Beck", the fact remains that his brand of pseudojournalism is a problem, and he's contributed significantly to the dumbing-down of the American discourse.

 

[stamperben]

Want to trust what's being reported, especially regarding what's going on in the US? Go foreign...

 

[cow451]

he has earned his place in the history books.

This one, most likely ...