Media Reliability: Who can be trusted?

[micatala]

I originally made this post in the 2010 Election thread, but decided to spin it off into a new thread.

My only comment on the reliability of FOX, Michelle Maltkin, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Bachmann for now is that several people on FOX including Hannity and the latter two all claimed Obama was going to spending 200 million dollars a day and take a huge naval contingent with him on a trip to India.

Same with World Net Daily.


Not a shred of any of this was true, but of course, this did not matter one whit to any of these people. All they care about is whether they can fool enough of their audience and continue to brainwash them and reinforce their anti-Obama, anti-Liberal hysteria.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/11/02/india/

http://lonelyconservative.com/2010/11/o ... n-per-day/

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/us-to ... isit-64106

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=223365

http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=2111901

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201011030052



I humbly submit that any one who puts any trust in Hannity, Limbaugh, WND, or Maltkin to tell the truth knowing the above cannot be trusted to discern truth from falsity. I will give some leeway to FOX in general since I think there are actually a few people their who can discern truth from falsity and actually care to do so in most cases.


However, overall FOX has to be considered a propaganda machine. It is simply not a reliable news organization.

Today, CNN has a short article on the story.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/05/ ... tml?hpt=C1


Questions for debate:

Is signing on to or endorsing an egregiously false story like this once enough to call into question the credibility of an individual reporter, news host, commentator or pundit?


If one such instance is not enough, how much of a pattern or false reporting or reporting false stories as true because on does not do one's due diligence enough to warrant dismissal of the reporter as reliable?


Should reliability criterion, whatever they are, only be applied to individual reporters, hosts, shows, etc. or should they be applied to the larger organization, network, etc.?


And to get down to brass tacks, which of the following can be considered reliable in the sense that the public can be confident that factual statements which they make or report are actually true?


Rush Limbaugh
Glenn Beck
Sean Hannity
Keith Olbermann
Ken Schultz
Michelle Maltkin
Bill O'Reilley
Rachel Maddow
MSNBC
FOX News Network
Huffington Post
World Net Daily
The Drudge Report


Feel free to add others.


I would suggest whenever possible providing quotes from the networks or individuals in question.

For purposes of having a religious aspect to this thread, consider that dishonesty is considered a sin or at least a character flaw in most religions.

[McCulloch]

And Americans have stopped purchasing Supermarket Tabloids.

Which is evidence that Americans are able to distinguish between reliable and un-reliable news.

I forgot the sarcasm tags again.

William Randolph Hearst went broke peddling sensationalized stories of dubious veracity. What is that American expression about one born every minute? Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. H. L. Mencken.

How witty of H. L. Mencken. You and others can continue insulting American intelligence all you want, but can you honestly say that Canada is better off?

Nope. I am willing to admit that the Mencken comment applies to North America.

Personally, I trust CNN, The Drudge Report, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal.

Proving the point.

Why don't you also post the inaccuracies and contreversies of CNN and MSNBC as well?

Because I did not claim to trust them either. Everyone has an angle.

[micatala]

First to confess my own "sins." In the 2010 Election Thread, I cited the following, a few of these actually referenced from references in other threads.

CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-503544_162- ... z11ap4PrPP

The Daily Caller
a site founded by conservative Tucker Carlson and a Cheney operative.

Politico

Harry Ried's Campaing website.
http://www.harryreid.com/index.php/news ... ron_angle/

http://www.electoral-vote.com/


Another post of my own and ABC news.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... bag#328140

micatala wrote:

Once again, you ignore a case where a person has done exactly what you accuse them of not doing. I believe Obama has addressed this error, certainly his administration has.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch ... -year.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 738AA32ijJ

THe washington post
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/200 ... strat.html

















Sites that others cited:

as an example of a Christine O'Donnell ad by Lucia

In post #62, East of Eden provided a list of quotes.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... c&start=60
These were mostly from historic figures (e.g. Churchill) and were attributed to the original authors, but without an online link, which seems fine to me.

East of Eden (and probably others including me at least on other threads) cited wikipedia.

East of Eden cites the Hoover Institution.
and a book, providing an amazon link.

I came across this passage by Diana Schaub that seemed somehow relevant to this thread:

"Justice involves respect for legal ownership (your right to the bread you earn by the sweat of your brow). Social justice, however, is radically redistributive, it operates by the formula "You work, I'll eat" - a formula that Abraham Lincoln decried as the epitome of despotism, whether practiced by masters who live off the unrequited labor of slaves or by the many poor who expropriate the few rich through confiscatory taxation."

and the Wall Street Journal, certainly a highly reputable paper.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 24906.html



and some uncited quotes with which Wyvern took issue with.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... &start=100

East of Eden later provided this source, but Wyvern claimed this source did not include all of the previously cited quotes.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63313

I'll let others comment on the bias and factuality of this organization.






DeBunkem provides a cartoon without attribution.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... c&start=70

Obviously, as far as reliability, this is pretty low on the totem pole.


Winepusher cites wikipedia and a couple of blogs from Reuters.
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokou ... t-neutral/

http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... icits.html






grumpy cites the LA Times and NY Daily News

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... ?track=rss

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... nda_a.html


and the onion

http://www.theonion.com/articles/last-r ... uce=popbox






Winepusher and grumpy alluded to Christ Matthews and FOX respectively in negative terms. WP suggested Matthews interview of Michelle Bachmann was slanted and grumpy brought up the death panel issue as discussed on FOX.






This last illustrates a dynamic that does happen occasionally on the forum whereby an organization (like FOX) is not cited to support an argument in the positive, but rather as what might be called a "whipping boy" or "straw man."




That's one thread. We do have some what I think mos would agree are reliable and actually only a few instances of what might be termed highly biased or problematic organizations or individuals.

[Grumpy]

micatala

This last illustrates a dynamic that does happen occasionally on the forum whereby an organization (like FOX) is not cited to support an argument in the positive, but rather as what might be called a "whipping boy" or "straw man."

I do not accept that saying Fox lies is a "straw man". Fox, itself, says it is not breaking any laws when they distort or lie about the news....

"Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
By Mike Gaddy. Published Feb. 28, 2003
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, or slanted" story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows.
The court did not dispute the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers. Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news.

The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.
In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation. Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict. "

The decision is here

I actually agree with the decision, we must maintain media's right to present news free from government censorship. However, that does not change the fact that Fox News lies, repeatedly, daily and knowingly.

Fox News is not a news organization, it is a political one. They supported the Republicans, gave them free advertising, helped them raise money and distorted and lied about the Democrats. This goes far beyond just having a bias, that is "donation in kind" of free publicity, fundraising and demonizing of the opposition. This is POLITICAL activity.

Grumpy

[Goat]

If you're listening to Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann and expecting to hear the NEWS -- or, God knows, Jon Stewart -- I have some really bad news for you.

Jon Stewart performs a fantastic function.. he makes me laugh. Also, while he does not provide any NEWS himself, he does provide evidence of how the news is misrepresented by others.. admittedly with a liberal bias. He is more after a laugh than anything else... and I think the fact he DID criticize Olbermann shows he is willing to slap the hands of the liberals and the conservatives.

[cnorman18]

If you're listening to Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann and expecting to hear the NEWS -- or, God knows, Jon Stewart -- I have some really bad news for you.

Jon Stewart performs a fantastic function.. he makes me laugh. Also, while he does not provide any NEWS himself, he does provide evidence of how the news is misrepresented by others.. admittedly with a liberal bias. He is more after a laugh than anything else... and I think the fact he DID criticize Olbermann shows he is willing to slap the hands of the liberals and the conservatives.

I'm not crtiticizing Stewart, or Colbert either -- or Olbermann or Limbaugh, either, for that matter. I was a huge fan of SNL back when it was actually funny. I'm just saying that if one depends on editorialists or comedians for one's news, one is barking up the wrong TV tower.

[WinePusher]

31% of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41248.html

Whose fault is that? Must liberals consistently push the blame onto others? Maybe 31% of Americans think Obama's a muslim because he doesn't attend a Christian Church currently, and when he did attend church it was lead by a hateful pastor. Maybe, just maybe, it's a Public Relations problem on the part of the Obama admin.

Nealy half of Americans believe the health care bill has "death panels"

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/polit ... falsehood/

1) If the democrats had been more transperant like they promised, maybe it would be different.
2) The Death Panels are better known as End of Life Counseling.

The American people are smart enough to see what's true and what's false, and if a news network constantly pushes false stories they would lose ratings and views.

Again, the data indicates otherwise. FOX pushed the death panel lie and a lot of people have bought into it, despite the fact that it is false.

Please read the forbes article, you'll see that provisions in the Senate Bill allowed for end of life counseling. And if this is the road you want to go down:

• The Entire Media has been pushing that lie that the Tea Party yelled out racial slurs at John Lewis with NO tape or audio evidence.
  
  MSNBC pushed the false narrative that the Bush's primary goal in the Middle East was to recover oil.
  
  MSNBC said that white's with guns appeared at tea Party Protests when it was a Black man.

Btw, NPR's credibility as been thoroughly destroyed when they fired Juan Williams but kept Nina Tootenburg. They should be cut off from public funding, but then again, if that happened they would probably fail like Air America.

First, firing one guy for failing to follow policy and then making a sweeping claim about credibility is a bit unjustified.

Absolutely wrong. He made no claim, he expressed personal feelings as an analysts on how he felt about Muslims dressed in garb. In that same segment, he went on to defend muslims.

Secondly, you again confuse bias with lack of factual reporting. If we say the Williams firing is evidence of bias, for the sake of argument, that still does not mean NPR cannot be trusted to get the facts right.

This is wrong, in order for a report to be factual it should be objective (free from bias). If NPR fires anyone who dares to deviate from to liberal bias towards Islam, and collects money from George Soros, they should be cut off from public funds.

[nygreenguy]

This is wrong, in order for a report to be factual it should be objective (free from bias). If NPR fires anyone who dares to deviate from to liberal bias towards Islam, and collects money from George Soros, they should be cut off from public funds.

Williams had been toting the line for some time as both an journalist for NPR and an opinion guy on FOX. There had frequently been issues with his objectivity being blurred by his dual roles. The comment was simply the straw that broke the camels back.

And seriously, if this is the best example you have of how horrid NPR is.....

People like to CLAIM npr is liberal, even though their viewership is like split into thirds. Republican, independent and democrat.

And if you ever actually listen, they are the few people who still do in depth reporting. You get sound bites on Fox and CNN. You get the whole story with all sides on NPR.

[Wyvern]

31% of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41248.html

Whose fault is that? Must liberals consistently push the blame onto others? Maybe 31% of Americans think Obama's a muslim because he doesn't attend a Christian Church currently, and when he did attend church it was lead by a hateful pastor. Maybe, just maybe, it's a Public Relations problem on the part of the Obama admin.

If someone doesn't attend a christian church do you automatically assume that person is muslim? Would it not make more sense to say that it is the fault of those people that insisted on emphasizing Obama's middle name or his early life spent in a muslim country instead of saying it was his own fault.

Nealy half of Americans believe the health care bill has "death panels"

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/polit ... falsehood/

1) If the democrats had been more transperant like they promised, maybe it would be different.

Or maybe if the Republicans hadn't started a misinformation campaign due to pure partisanship it also would have been different.

2) The Death Panels are better known as End of Life Counseling.

That isn't what you people were calling death panels before. Before it passed I remember hearing the opposition saying that there would be panels that would determine whether you could have a particular procedure or not not as this is which is just a counseling session to get a persons medical ducks in a row near the end of their lives.

The American people are smart enough to see what's true and what's false, and if a news network constantly pushes false stories they would lose ratings and views.

Fox knows its viewers and as such they tailor their stories to their viewers tastes. In the fragmented media market of today people can pick and choose where they get their news and usually they will watch something which reinforces their worldview not challenge it.

[WinePusher]

If someone doesn't attend a christian church do you automatically assume that person is muslim?

Of course not. But if that person claims to be a Christian, and doesn't go to church, and also:

1) Takes a lenient stance towards terrorist interrogration and sentencing
2) Has a radical father who he identifies with.
3) Promotes the constitutional rights of terrorists and their right to the rule of law over national security.
4) Makes contreversial speeches on the Bible and Christianity.

Then of course people are going to call into question his patriotism and religious beliefs unless he actually has the audacity to explain this.

Would it not make more sense to say that it is the fault of those people that insisted on emphasizing Obama's middle name or his early life spent in a muslim country instead of saying it was his own fault.

Come On, who broke inaugural tradition by saying his first, middle and last name?

[Grumpy]

WinePusher

Come On, who broke inaugural tradition by saying his first, middle and last name?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt? George Herbert Walker Bush? Do you not know how ridiculous that question is.

But if that person claims to be a Christian, and doesn't go to church

Like Ronald Reagan? Funny you don't question his Christianity.

Has a radical father who he identifies with.

Who left the home and moved back to Kenya when Obama was 9 and who the President only met once in adulthood. Oh PLEEZE!

Takes a lenient stance towards terrorist interrogration and sentencingPromotes the constitutional rights of terrorists and their right to the rule of law over national security.

Which happens to be the exact procedures followed by George W. Bush?

Makes contreversial speeches on the Bible and Christianity.

Is he not entitled to his own opinion about what his Christianity means to him? I found nothing in that speech that was controversial, you are grabbing at straws trying to justify the unjustifiable hatred you have for the man.

micatala wrote:
31% of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41248.html

Whose fault is that? Must liberals consistently push the blame onto others?

It is the fault of the right wing propaganda machine AND NO ONE ELSE, as is the "birther" lies.

Americans think Obama's a muslim because he doesn't attend a Christian Church currently

Then they also think Reagan was a Muslim? Do you not see what non-sense you are posting? It was Drudge, Fox and Tea Party folks who tried to besmirch the President and tear down his reputation.

Maybe, just maybe, it's a Public Relations problem on the part of the Obama admin.

Nope, it was the lies and innuendo of Fox and the Right wing that is responsible. The very definition of the Big Lie. False witness, in Biblical terms, it's one of the top ten.

The Death Panels are better known as End of Life Counseling.

End of life counseling goes on every day in hospitals in the US. A doctor, nurse, my father's pastor and my brother and sister went through it when my father was on his death bed. There is no Death Panel refusing care, that is a Right Wing lie meant to scare old people, pure and simple. Bearing False Witness yet again.

in order for a report to be factual it should be objective (free from bias).

So, you are saying Fox News is not factual? They certainly are biased. Glad we finally got that admission from you.

Grumpy