Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Zoupa]

So if I understand correctly, BB said the MSM has a liberal bias, and this caused cc and Berkut to explode?

Everybody on the planet is biased, that's human nature. IMO, the bias from the MSM is pretty obviously left leaning, even in their non-editorial content. I'd argue it's a slight bias though, and does not distract or distort the actual facts. You still get the news.

I'm not sure why what BB said makes him the devil 

[crazy canuck]

So if I understand correctly, BB said the MSM has a liberal bias, and this caused cc and Berkut to explode?

Everybody on the planet is biased, that's human nature. IMO, the bias from the MSM is pretty obviously left leaning, even in their non-editorial content. I'd argue it's a slight bias though, and does not distract or distort the actual facts. You still get the news.

I'm not sure why what BB said makes him the devil 

Not the devil, just your ordinary garden variety right winger who bites on right wing speaking points once in a while and then tells people to fuck off when he gets called on it.

[viper37]

I'd argue it's a slight bias though, and does not distract or distort the actual facts. You still get the news.

I'm not sure why what BB said makes him the devil 

La Presse has shifted pretty much to the left in the last few years, with their new columnists.  Plus the usual suspects.  Well, they follow the shift in the LPQ, I guess.  As Anglade will be gone and forgotten by this time next year, I guess the paper will recenter itself.

As for the news, it affects the news presented, the click-bait title and its initial placement on the web page.  Sometimes, well, often, some misleading stats are used.  I don't think it's deliberate, more a problem with the human science faculties from where all these journalists come from. But when you recruit from the same pool of people over & over again, it only perpetuates these kind of mistakes.

[viper37]

Not the devil, just your ordinary garden variety right winger who bites on right wing speaking points once in a while and then tells people to fuck off when he gets called on it.

You basically called him an anti-intellectual moron.  Don't be surprised he's reacting defensively.

[Razgovory]

I'm not getting why Barrister is getting the abuse here.

[Barrister]

Thank you Raz, Viper and Zoupa.

All I said was that I agreed with the notion there is a left of centre bias in the hard-to-define-but-definitely-real mainstream media.  And why shouldn't there be - everyone has their biases, and journalists are no exception.  I don't have any solution I was calling for other than basic media literacy.

I didn't call anything fake news, I certainly didn't encourage anyone to watch Fox News.  Why would I I've never watched it myself - I don't believe it's even available (google suggests you can get it on satellite only).  My record on Trump and Trumpism is by now I think quite clear.

Hell as a Canadian I was more concerned about the (to me) fairly obvious left-of-centre bias of the CBC.

Obviously no one has to agree with me, but this is hardly some wild and radical opinion to have.


Personally on my own media diet I like to check not only more mainstream sites, but I do regularly check a few obvious right-wing AND left-wing sites just so I get a sense of what different sides are talking about.  I check CBC News quite regularly (despite it's left-of-centre bias) because there's no paywall and the reporters know their jobs - I just am quite conscious of what stories they select to cover, and which they don't.

[garbon]

I'm not getting why Barrister is getting the abuse here.

Because he's the one acting like a crybaby?

[Razgovory]

I disagree with Barrister, but I don't think we need to be spiteful about it.  In the US a lot of us are angry, because our democracy is being subverted before our very eyes.  So we are sorta on edge.

[Jacob]

... I do regularly check a few obvious right-wing AND left-wing sites just so I get a sense of what different sides are talking about.

Anything you can recommend (right and left)?

[Barrister]

... I do regularly check a few obvious right-wing AND left-wing sites just so I get a sense of what different sides are talking about.

Anything you can recommend (right and left)?

There's a real lack of decent Canadian right or left sites - if you have any please suggest.

On the right, National Review is about as pro-Trumpy as I can take.  Bulwark and Dispatch are anti-Trump conservative.

On the left I'll check out Salon, Slate or maybe Jezebel/The Root.

I do read more on the right than the left, but I do check out the left as well.

[Malthus]

In the US, the disease infecting the Republican Party is so severe that it is now impossible to be equal-handed with right and left, and have any credibility.

There are some respectable, I-disagree-with-them-but-I-can-still-respect-them types on the right - but only those who are willing to publicly denounce Trumpism, which makes them pariahs among their own "side". For example, David Frum.

[The Brain]

Yeah, in the US every news outlet that supports democracy is by definition left-wing.

[grumbler]

Yeah, in the US every news outlet that supports democracy is by definition left-wing.

This is so unfortunately true. 

Pretty much every dystopian nightmare issue that I claimed two years ago could not happen has happened.

[Berkut]

Thank you Raz, Viper and Zoupa.

All I said was that I agreed with the notion there is a left of centre bias in the hard-to-define-but-definitely-real mainstream media.  And why shouldn't there be - everyone has their biases, and journalists are no exception.  I don't have any solution I was calling for other than basic media literacy.

I didn't call anything fake news, I certainly didn't encourage anyone to watch Fox News.  Why would I I've never watched it myself - I don't believe it's even available (google suggests you can get it on satellite only).  My record on Trump and Trumpism is by now I think quite clear.

Hell as a Canadian I was more concerned about the (to me) fairly obvious left-of-centre bias of the CBC.

Obviously no one has to agree with me, but this is hardly some wild and radical opinion to have.


Personally on my own media diet I like to check not only more mainstream sites, but I do regularly check a few obvious right-wing AND left-wing sites just so I get a sense of what different sides are talking about.  I check CBC News quite regularly (despite it's left-of-centre bias) because there's no paywall and the reporters know their jobs - I just am quite conscious of what stories they select to cover, and which they don't.

What you said was that it cannot be denied that the mainstream media has and continues to have (so in the past, and in the present so NOT the result of anything recent, persumably) a "liberal bias". And that it was "getting worse".

You did not say anything as tepid as "left of center". You directly parroted the Rush Limbaugh/Fox News narrative, almost word for word.

Then you start cursing at me for pointing out that in fact, that simply is not true in any real sense.

Then you had Zoupa swoop in and ask why Berkut "exploded". Which is interesting, since I don't recall cursing at you at all. Odd.

I simply posted a link to an actual respected, objective site that shows that the radical right wing screeches of "mainstream media liberal bias" is basically bullshit - it is a lie. It is not true. There are plenty of mainstream media that are not liberal, and are in fact right of center, to use your words. Funny though - nobody bandies about "conservative mainstream media bias" to describe and bemoan the several mainstream media sources that are right of center. Funny that.

[Berkut]

In the US, the disease infecting the Republican Party is so severe that it is now impossible to be equal-handed with right and left, and have any credibility.

There are some respectable, I-disagree-with-them-but-I-can-still-respect-them types on the right - but only those who are willing to publicly denounce Trumpism, which makes them pariahs among their own "side". For example, David Frum.

What I am not willing to do, which is apparently unacceptable, is to separate support for a dishonest narrative with those who crafted that narrative for a very specific purpose, and that purpose, IMO, has rather clearly and obviously led to exactly what we have today - Trumpism and all the odious, anti-democracy baggage it has collected.

The modern GOP did not spring out, fully formed, from the ether. It was carefully crafted and managed by its own actual right wing media over decades. And their first task, which they succeeded at brilliantly, was to convince a lot of people that the non-right wing media (code word: the "mainstream media") was biased against them, and hence could not be trusted.

Beebs can throw a tantrum if he likes, but when I talk to my sister about why she won't get vaccinated, it is because the "mainstream media is all liberals" and hence are probably lying about death rates and covering up the dangers of the untested vaccine.

When she complains about the stolen election, and I point out that there is actually NO evidence it was stolen, she can dismiss it because everyone knows the media is biased towards the liberals, and hence are just covering up all the evidence that is plain to see on  the REAL news.

This story, this narrative, this LIE about how the mainstream media has a *meaningful* liberal bias is the foundational myth of the modern GOP. It is an absolutely necessary condition for all that has come after it's acceptance by the right, and even now its acceptance by everyone. It is the shining example of the Goebbels propaganda law "Repeat a lie often enough and it will become the truth". And all the better if there is some tiny little kernel of truth buried in your lie....