Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Berkut]

I am once again just fascinated by the level of cognitive dissonance people I know are bright, reasonable people can display.

[Eddie Teach]

I think one could be forgiven for concluding CNN and its ilk represent the authoritative strain of journalism in this country.

[viper37]

But he is correct.  Just not in the way he thinks.  There are the right wing media outlets who make no bones about outright lying and when challenged in court say they are only entertainers that no reasonable person would take seriously.  And then there are the serious media outlets who, by definition, are to the left of the right wing media simply by the fact that they do not intentionally lie.

it's not exclusive to right wing media outlets.  Although Fox News and OAN always come first in mind, for which I am unaware of an equivalent on the left, there are a number of tv&radio shows solidly tilted to the left who will not shy at spouting nonsense for all their duration.  And there's a lot of newspapers/online medias skewed to the left who don't exactly bother with the truth.

La Presse.ca and the Globe&Mail may be generally factual in their reporting (same for Fox News), but when it comes to opinion pieces, it's hardly "neutral" or even "factual" most of the time.  They publish what their readers want to see.  For the G&M, that includes a good dose of Quebec bashing, just like the National Post, facts be damned. With La Presse you can have really insane, near conspiracy theory leftwing bias in their columns, and these journalists will often resort to the same tacticts they decy in their opponents.

But they are usually saved by a few, honest, good working and intelligent journalists that do really fact-check everything.  I whish there were more of them.

[Syt]

[Razgovory]

Murray Rothbard is dead...

[Habbaku]

That's Murray American Flag Emoji. They're easy to confuse.

[Syt]

Murray Rothbard is dead...

He should be if he's born in 1776.

[Josquius]

Again its funny as from all I've heard the indoctrination that does happen is far more in the direction they approve of.

[Valmy]

The problem with "the MSM have a liberal bias" argument is that it is defended using the "No True Scotsman" fallacy (see, for example, pretty much any Beeb post on the issue).

Indeed. There are massive right wing media entities out there but I guess they aren't main stream for some reason. If you just identify only the liberal biased news sources to be main stream, then I guess it will always have a liberal bias.

[Jacob]

To me it looks like this: right wing media isn't "main stream" because it is so obviously partisan and - often - brazenly dishonest. So there's no expectation that right wing media is supposed to be anything other than propaganda, and attempts at holding it to any sort of standard is cast as an attack on free speech.

Any media that's not explicitly right wing is considered "main stream" and anytime there is a lack of support for right wing bias it's decried as evidence of unfair "liberal bias". No matter how much "main stream" media provides space for right wing voices, no matter how much they attempt to show "both sides", it is always insufficient and proof of "liberal bias".

[Barrister]

To me it looks like this: right wing media isn't "main stream" because it is so obviously partisan and - often - brazenly dishonest. So there's no expectation that right wing media is supposed to be anything other than propaganda, and attempts at holding it to any sort of standard is cast as an attack on free speech.

Any media that's not explicitly right wing is considered "main stream" and anytime there is a lack of support for right wing bias it's decried as evidence of unfair "liberal bias". No matter how much "main stream" media provides space for right wing voices, no matter how much they attempt to show "both sides", it is always insufficient and proof of "liberal bias".

There are obviously partisan left-wing media sources.  Jacobin, rabble.ca, Daily Kos, Mother Jones, etc.

You can have partisan news sources - nothing wrong with that.  Where the criticism comes from is these large national media companies that claim to not have any inherent political bias, but many perceive them to have such a bias.

[Razgovory]

We can't do anything about what people "perceive" especially when they are told to perceive it.

[crazy canuck]

We can't do anything about what people "perceive" especially when they are told to perceive it.

Exactly so.  BB's "many perceive" is code for many on the right who don't like their ideological and policy shortcomings to be questioned.  Anytime a journalist asks hard questions of a right wing politician cries of media bias are sure to follow.

[Jacob]

There are obviously partisan left-wing media sources.  Jacobin, rabble.ca, Daily Kos, Mother Jones, etc.

Definitely.

You can have partisan news sources - nothing wrong with that.  Where the criticism comes from is these large national media companies that claim to not have any inherent political bias, but many perceive them to have such a bias.

Definitely, but the perception of bias depends on where you sit. There are also perceptions that the mainstream media has a right-wing, conservative (small c), anti-left wing bias.

And thus, there are plenty of people who can absolutely - and in good faith - deny that the mainstream media has a liberal bias.

[crazy canuck]

There are obviously partisan left-wing media sources.  Jacobin, rabble.ca, Daily Kos, Mother Jones, etc.

Definitely.

You can have partisan news sources - nothing wrong with that.  Where the criticism comes from is these large national media companies that claim to not have any inherent political bias, but many perceive them to have such a bias.

Definitely, but the perception of bias depends on where you sit. There are also perceptions that the mainstream media has a right-wing, conservative (small c), anti-left wing bias.

And thus, there are plenty of people who can absolutely - and in good faith - deny that the mainstream media has a liberal bias.

Lets not start misusing the word liberal the same way the Americans do. 

media as we know it exists because we and other liberal democracies have, well, liberal democratic forms of government. The fact that people on both the right and left can think the media is biased toward the other side is because they both see their side being questioned - if the media is WAD.  When politicians get an easy ride then the case for bias is stronger and when media turns into a cheering section then the bias is clear.

I think the case for right wing media bias is strong.  Until recently most media outlets had adopted the fiscal conservative speaking points.  Hell most parties of the left did so as well until recently. Now even parties on the right are backing away from what had become economic orthodoxy.  It  will be interesting to see how reporting changes over the next few years in light of those changes.