Can we trust the media?

hislegacy said:

CBS uses fake Corona Virus Video

Among the cacophony of errors and lies of omission is one crowning jewel of potential prevarication: Footage of coronavirus patients used in the story to whip up hysteria about the situation in New York is actually from Italy.
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How does anyone believe them anymore (the media)

Remember this beauty?

ABC Apologizes for Showing Video From U.S. Gun Range in Report on Syria

Click to expand...

Do you trust the media which tells you not to trust other media? Perhaps it's the federalist we shouldn't trust.

Should you trust your president.

Even his supporters infer a no
Yet they do.

Three points:

1. Media is a plural word. Since it covers national broadcasters, local TV and radio stations, newspapers and journals (international, national, regional and local), and a plethora of on-line news sites and blogs, there is no single, simple answer.
2. The media are run by human beings. Human beings make mistakes. Concluding that "the media" are not to be trusted based on a random sampling of mistakes is precipitate.
3. All important news announcements should be treated with a degree of scepticism. Check the story against multiple sources. Take into account the style and emphasis of the news outlet. Don't abrogate your own responsibility in the matter.

Best to have some skepticism and critical thinking.

I so admire the high school debate students. They can argue both sides of a debate. And challenge sources.

Ophiolite said:

Three points:

1. Media is a plural word. Since it covers national broadcasters, local TV and radio stations, newspapers and journals (international, national, regional and local), and a plethora of on-line news sites and blogs, there is no single, simple answer.
2. The media are run by human beings. Human beings make mistakes. Concluding that "the media" are not to be trusted based on a random sampling of mistakes is precipitate.
3. All important news announcements should be treated with a degree of scepticism. Check the story against multiple sources. Take into account the style and emphasis of the news outlet. Don't abrogate your own responsibility in the matter.

Click to expand...

Somewhat good response with many valid points. . Just missing some things from my perspective. In number two, humans don't only make mistakes humans also purposely mislead. Humans also act in their own perceived self interest and when they are media humans they will sensationalize in order to gain a larger audience. That being the case, not trusting the media is not based solely or even mainly upon mistakes those in media make . It is based to a much greater degree upon past experience of both dishonesty and purposeful exaggeration. In number three, I would remove the word important from the first sentence.

Akita Suggagaki said:

Best to have some skepticism and critical thinking.

I so admire the high school debate students. They can argue both sides of a debate. And challenge sources.

Click to expand...

I agree that the best course to take whenever one is told anything by anyone, media or otherwise, that purports to be a fact is to employ critical thinking and remain skeptical until one can verify that which they have been told.

I trust media more then the current President of USA. Media make mistake , and often they go after most divisive news.. but I can always compare their reports with other media to find the accurate information.

"Can we trust the media?"

Easily more than I trust the president ...

Ophiolite said:

Three points:

1. Media is a plural word. Since it covers national broadcasters, local TV and radio stations, newspapers and journals (international, national, regional and local), and a plethora of on-line news sites and blogs, there is no single, simple answer.
2. The media are run by human beings. Human beings make mistakes. Concluding that "the media" are not to be trusted based on a random sampling of mistakes is precipitate.
3. All important news announcements should be treated with a degree of scepticism. Check the story against multiple sources. Take into account the style and emphasis of the news outlet. Don't abrogate your own responsibility in the matter.

Click to expand...

The media are rather similar to peer review. Though nowhere near as rigorous of a process to get published, once a story is out there one can be sure that other members of the media will vet it and comment about it. The more sensational a story is the sooner any flaws inn it will be found and published.

The media are as a result generally very trustworthy. Lying or misrepresenting stories can end a career or start a new one (Alex Jones).

CBS, CNN and Fox aren't worth watching - really, it's all just a load of rubbish. Same with The Sun, The Daily Star and the BBC over here.

I think it pays to do your own independent digging. More often than not, if it finds YOU, it probably needs to be swallowed down with a kilo of salt. I'm trying hard to stick to the official sources for once and dismissing 95% of what I see in the papers.

Hi HL,

Your poll needs just a bit of quantification as to what is meant by 'media'. I think most of us believe that we can trust some and not others. So answering such a closed ended question becomes difficult at best, if not impossible.

Having said that, I believe that, yes, we can trust most of the major news outlets, and I use the word news over media because media encompasses so much more than what I think you're getting at. All the billboards around my state with some girls rear end pushed out standing in a pair of Calvin Klein jeans is 'media'. Can I trust that every girl wearing Calvin Klein jeans is going to have that same appearance? No!

However, let me be clear, that doesn't mean that they never get anything wrong. I'm a human being that does believe that we all make mistakes. Even with the best of intentions, mistakes are inevitable. The news journalist does have to depend somewhat on whether his source information is correct, and sometimes, rarely, that isn't the case. This is why most upstanding news reporting organizations have a second source verification process before issuing a news article. Of course, that doesn't apply when one is reporting on current events such as a speech that was made in public.

I believe that a news organization can have a bias. Especially in response to political issues. Although these should usually be held to the op-ed pages where bias can be freely expressed and is to be expected. Hence the word 'opinion'. But yes, I do understand, especially with the political leadership that we have today, that there is a nature to make an idiot look like an idiot.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

When the media puts forth opinion or jumps to conclusions rather than simply putting forth the facts, they can no longer be trusted.

We rarely get the who, what, when, where and why in order to draw our own conclusions because the media survives on giving us opinions of what to think. Pundits do the thinking for us so we may take sides instead of discern for ourselves. They finding it easier to feed us a diet of news releases which sell an idea from biased sources and pass it off as investigative journalism. Facts no longer matter and any simple news item is presented in a way that serves the varying personal agendas of many types while the original truth or person involved becomes of no importance.

grasping the after wind said:

Somewhat good response with many valid points. . Just missing some things from my perspective. In number two, humans don't only make mistakes humans also purposely mislead. Humans also act in their own perceived self interest and when they are media humans they will sensationalize in order to gain a larger audience. That being the case, not trusting the media is not based solely or even mainly upon mistakes those in media make . It is based to a much greater degree upon past experience of both dishonesty and purposeful exaggeration. In number three, I would remove the word important from the first sentence.

Click to expand...

I agree completely with the highlighted sentence. The idea of purposeful misleading was implicit in my phrase "the style and emphasis of the news outlet". I was avoiding words like bias and lying and agenda in order to reduce the risk of knee-jerk responses.

I completely discount the "headline grabbing". It goes with the territory. I know an advert for a washing powder or car will not tell me anything negative about the product. In the same way I know any news article will be slanted in such a way as to try to capture my interest. I ignore that and concentrate on the facts it contains.

I would keep the word important in there. I have no real interest in whether or not a report on a theft of cabbages from an allotment in Wolverhampton is accurate or not.

ReesePiece23 said:

CBS, CNN and Fox aren't worth watching - really, it's all just a load of rubbish. Same with The Sun, The Daily Star and the BBC over here.

I think it pays to do your own independent digging. More often than not, if it finds YOU, it probably needs to be swallowed down with a kilo of salt. I'm trying hard to stick to the official sources for once and dismissing 95% of what I see in the papers.

Click to expand...

Putting the BBC in the same category as the The Sun and the Daily Star is ludicrous. Thank you for making me aware of your "interesting" worldview. Forewarned is forearmed.

hislegacy said:

CBS uses fake Corona Virus Video

Among the cacophony of errors and lies of omission is one crowning jewel of potential prevarication: Footage of coronavirus patients used in the story to whip up hysteria about the situation in New York is actually from Italy.
​

How does anyone believe them anymore (the media)

Remember this beauty?

ABC Apologizes for Showing Video From U.S. Gun Range in Report on Syria

Click to expand...

I believe Fox News is trustworthy. Not so much for CNN and MSNBC.

Ophiolite said:

I agree completely with the highlighted sentence. The idea of purposeful misleading was implicit in my phrase "the style and emphasis of the news outlet". I was avoiding words like bias and lying and agenda in order to reduce the risk of knee-jerk responses.

I completely discount the "headline grabbing". It goes with the territory. I know an advert for a washing powder or car will not tell me anything negative about the product. In the same way I know any news article will be slanted in such a way as to try to capture my interest. I ignore that and concentrate on the facts it contains.

Click to expand...

I also like to consider what facts it might be ignoring.

"All important news announcements should be treated with a degree of scepticism. Check the story against multiple sources. Take into account the style and emphasis of the news outlet. Don't abrogate your own responsibility in the matter."

Discard the above advice. Substitute post #15 by the same writer.

Big Boo said:

I believe Fox News is trustworthy. Not so much for CNN and MSNBC.

Click to expand...

If a person bases their viewing habits upon political allegiance (regardless of which side), then they aren't interested in real news, but only in having their ears tickled.

It might be interesting to find out what people here think is an example of a news source that is genuinely unbiased.

Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single one, even though most CF members seem to think the ones that each of them favors meets the definition.