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Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke

By olldflame
Registration Days Posts
#605151
I couldn't find an existing thread where this really fit, and rather than devoting one to this story, I thought it would be good to have a more general discussion on the topic of what has happened to "journalism" in America.

Breaking news. James Murdoch leaving News Corp, the parent company of Fox.

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By thepostman
Registration Days Posts
#605154
James has been known to be more to the left which many, at least behind the scenes, blame the more centric coverage as of late. Sounds like he was tired of the contant fight.

Cable news as a whole is a complete joke but some of Fox's true news staff are some of the best in the business. When you can make conservatives and liberals happy in your reporting, you are doing something right in my opinion. Sadly they are over shadowed by the Tuckers and Hannity's of the world

Fox really has an opportunity to be a truly fair and balaced news source but it looks like that may not be in the cards.

I visit Allsides daily to get a well rounded picture because journalism in America is just so partisan, it is insane.
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By TH Spangler
Registration Days Posts
#605155
Out of 5 or 6 fox is the only one that treats conservatives like anything other than deplorables. They are fair and balanced enough. :lol:
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By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#605157
thepostman wrote: August 1st, 2020, 7:20 pm James has been known to be more to the left which many, at least behind the scenes, blame the more centric coverage as of late. Sounds like he was tired of the contant fight.

Cable news as a whole is a complete joke but some of Fox's true news staff are some of the best in the business. When you can make conservatives and liberals happy in your reporting, you are doing something right in my opinion. Sadly they are over shadowed by the Tuckers and Hannity's of the world

Fox really has an opportunity to be a truly fair and balaced news source but it looks like that may not be in the cards.

I visit Allsides daily to get a well rounded picture because journalism in America is just so partisan, it is insane.
To pull a Sly, the people I know who work/ed at Fox told me this years ago. I knew and Alyson were flaming liberals, but you’d never have known that in their Straight News segments. It used to be that you really couldn’t tell who was on what side of the aisle until after 6 pm. Now, not so much.
One thing that Fox does (or did, can’t speak to it over the last few years) was actually have both sides or at least several sides on as guests. So while their hosts are decidedly slanted they do get more views than the others. CNN is unwatchable with their panel of 10 people. One of which is probably a never Trumper. MSNBC jumped the shark when reporting that the protests in Portland were peaceful while there were buildings burning in the background
I’ve given up on every commentary show. Just watch “news as it happens” I’m old enough to watch the events unfold and draw my own conclusions. Be it a trump speech or a congressional hearing
By olldflame
Registration Days Posts
#605162
Jonathan Carone wrote: August 1st, 2020, 9:06 pm When the “news” became personality and commentary based, that’s when things went downhill.
There is certainly a place for commentary, and it can be as over the top and biased as they want it to be, as long as it is presented as such. What irks me is when CNN "journalists" like Cuomo, Lemon and Stelter insist they are objective/unbiased and any idiot can see they are totally narrative driven. MSNBC and the NYT don't even pretend, which I actually respect more, although IMHO it's sad to see what has happened at the "Paper of Record".
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By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#605165
olldflame wrote: August 1st, 2020, 9:25 pm
Jonathan Carone wrote: August 1st, 2020, 9:06 pm When the “news” became personality and commentary based, that’s when things went downhill.
There is certainly a place for commentary, and it can be as over the top and biased as they want it to be, as long as it is presented as such. What irks me is when CNN "journalists" like Cuomo, Lemon and Stelter insist they are objective/unbiased and any idiot can see they are totally narrative driven. MSNBC and the NYT don't even pretend, which I actually respect more, although IMHO it's sad to see what has happened at the "Paper of Record".
When Reporters / Journalists became the story or part of the story it’s bad
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By Jonathan Carone
Posts
#605166
And if we’re going to mention the CNN guys on the left we also have to mention the Rush’s and Hannity’s on the right.

Editorializing is a legitimate form of journalism, but it goes alongside the reporting of the news. We have lost the reporting and only have editorializing.
By olldflame
Registration Days Posts
#605167
Jonathan Carone wrote: August 1st, 2020, 10:44 pm And if we’re going to mention the CNN guys on the left we also have to mention the Rush’s and Hannity’s on the right.

Editorializing is a legitimate form of journalism, but it goes alongside the reporting of the news. We have lost the reporting and only have editorializing.
Hannity and Limbaugh don't claim to be reporters. They do commentary. At CNN, even their "hard news"guys like Cooper and Blitzer no longer make any effort to be objective. When you consider how lopsided it is, with ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN now all totally committed to a left wing narrative, someone needs to be presenting other perspectives. Fox was starting to cave a bit IMHO, but hopefully this change will help get them back on track. I do like the fact that the hard news guys at Fox like Hume and Wallace, while they may lean somewhat to the right, are certainly more objective than anyone at CNN.
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By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#605169
Jonathan Carone wrote: August 2nd, 2020, 9:14 am Chris Wallace is probably the best we have. We need more of him.
He’s my second favorite behind Britt Hume.
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By Ill flame
Posts
#605174
Chris Wallace is actually a registered democrat but he's a moderate. He's the type of reporter that should be the standard rather than the exception. I believe the rhetoric in this country would be much better on both sides if we had more people like him
thepostman, alabama24 liked this
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By thepostman
Registration Days Posts
#605175
Agreed @Ill flame there is certinaly a place for editorial content but the lines have blurred so much over the past 20 years or so that it is often hard to tell.

But people like it. Just look at the nightly cable TV ratings, aside from sports, the top 5 programs are almost always news programs and that is all that matters. I get it, these companies are in it to make money but it is too bad it has moved into hard news programs as well.

It is a shame but we have gone too far at this point for the news corporations to turn back now.
Purple Haize liked this
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By Sly Fox
Registration Days Posts
#605210
I spent nearly two decades in newsrooms, so I have some skin in the game. All the cable new outlets are much more relatable when you recognize they are infotainment. The news content on nearly every one of these channels regardless of perspective is limited to just 2-3 minutes an hour. The rest is all entertianment. The frustration for most is that the nets are not being intellectually honest in how they present themselves.

I am old enough to remember working for a Fox O&O the day they launched FNC. After the Gulf Wars, CNN & Headline News were practically unwatchable. MSNBC was a voice in the wildrness not heard by many at all. Murdoch and my bosses at Fox recognized the opportunity to take his Fleet Street successes in print online and the success happened nearly overnight. The Clinton scandals helped but it was editorialization and ensuing entertainment that drove the network to leapfrog CNN in just a few years. CNN stayed dug into their supposed impartiality far too long until they were such a distant second that they were battling obscurity. The fact they still pretend to be the unbiased voice of news is to their own detriment.

Bias has been present in TV news since its outset at both the national and local levels. The national evening news showed their tendencies before the locals. But both can't help but be biased by two factors: The personal perspectives of the journalists/producers and the selection process of stories. The journalists themselves were usually easy for me to identify from my earliest days in newsroom. Most reporters came from wealthy families because they were the only ones who could afford to work several years below minimum wage in starter markets. These reporters were used to rubbing shoulders with people of influence and this was as close as thy coud get to being in the mix of big events as possible. Then there were the grinders with a purpose who were often cultural warriors who often fit certain demographic backgrounds. Both groups tended to lean hard to the left based on life experience. Then these same journalists along with the assignment desk folks would get together in daily scheduled meetings to determine what stories would get covered that day. Ideas that connected with the personal biases of those at the meeting weere elevated while stories that didn't fit their narrative regardless of neews value were dismissed. The same decisions are made everyday in every newsroom with predictable results.

Even before the editorialization of cable TV news, I used to live in Cincinnati as a kid. WLWT-5 (NBC) was the distant #3 in the market behind Al Schottelkotte's WCPO-9 (CBS) that was used by Ted Turner as the template for CNN & Headline News and WKRC-12 (ABC) anchored by George Clooney's dad Nick that was the unquestioned #1 for several decades. So WLWT hired a former mayor who was kicked out of office after he used a city check to pay a prostitute across the river in Kentucky. That failed politician started a 5-minute commentary at the end of every newscast that lifted it from dead last to battling for #1 in the market in just a few months. The move didn't go unnoticed as that former politician would up adding a regionally syndicated talk show replacing my grandmother's heartthrob Bob Braun before it quickly went national. That washed up politician's name who changed TV news forever? Jerry Springer. And as Paul Harvey would say, "And now you know the rest of the story."
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By RubberMallet
Registration Days Posts
#605245
I also feel like that CNN has become a branch of the intelligence community when it comes to misinformation. They bring in ex fbi/cia/nsa guys at a much larger clip than any other news outlet and its almost ridiculous.

I just watch business news nothing else. I like watching bloomberg in the late evening when its daybreak middle east/asia. they recap the financial day. Fox business is basically political.

The big thing that was surprising was that Fox is even winning in the 18-54 demo. I think lots of people dislike trump but I think people don't want to hear about it all day long. i fish with a lot of anti trump guys and they are like we are done watching news channels.
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By cruzan_flame13
Posts
#605256
RubberMallet wrote:
I just watch business news nothing else. I like watching bloomberg in the late evening when its daybreak middle east/asia. they recap the financial day. Fox business is basically political.

The big thing that was surprising was that Fox is even winning in the 18-54 demo. I think lots of people dislike trump but I think people don't want to hear about it all day long. i fish with a lot of anti trump guys and they are like we are done watching news channels.
CNN or any news organization has always been in the hands of intelligence when CBS and Warner made negotiations deals in the late 40's . So yes they're agents of mis information. If you think Anderson Cooper just took an internship at the CIA, then I'm not sure what to tell yah(also to note that he's heir to the Vandibilt estate. Coincidence? No.). And so it continues.
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By SumItUp
Registration Days Posts
#605264
https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbc-pro ... ary-letter

A former MSNBC producer wrote a scathing open letter explaining why she recently left the cable news network.
"I’ve even heard producers deny their role as journalists. A very capable senior producer once said: 'Our viewers don’t really consider us the news. They come to us for comfort,'" Pekary wrote. "Now maybe we can’t really change the inherently broken structure of broadcast news, but I know for certain that it won’t change unless we actually face it, in public, and at least try to change it."
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By jinxy
Registration Days Posts
#605273
That was a good read. Its basically reality TV. The plot that gets the most attention is chosen and then you continue to script events and coverage to prove the point no matter how ludicrous the thought is.

The ratings really tell you all you need to know about how the public by in large view the media.
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