Comment by cmroanirgo
6 years ago
And there's the rub. What is "quality investigative reporting" in an objective sense, when most of the MSM outlets are owned by oligarchs, or simply "toe the line"?
In theory I would gladly support the theory of "quality investigative reporting", but the reality is a propagandist machine where opinion pieces replaces actual unbiased, adjective-free objective news.
Some examples of "oligarch news": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwA4k0E51Oo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI
As a former developer who worked closely on Thomson Reuters News feed (in the 00's), I've seen how there is almost zero fact checking for the information that appears on news feeds. Instead, news outlets trust the 'upstream' feeds and then quote the reports verbatim.
To be fair, there are those who are really awesome at doing research and releasing information that are part of the MSM. Unfortunately, there are plenty others who are not affiliated with MSM news outlets and hence aren't regarded as "reporters" per-se. These latter ones are regularly attacked via "fact checking" websites as a way to discredit them.
An article on the latter is here: https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-381-who-will-fact-chec...
In short, there's a bunch of information out there and without each and every news report clearly citing original sources, then MSM or not, it must be regarded as suspect.
So for "quality investigative reporting", the actual reports must rigorously cite objective sources.
I find it mildly ironic that you link to a clip from the PBS NewsHour while, from my reading, you also imply that objective reporting or investigative reporting don't exist or are dwindling. There are clearly some sources left that are worth their salt.
In the US, I've found most PBS/NPR news broadcasts fairly objective, and the various NPR podcasts sometimes chart into investigative territory but there are other sources I rely on for this (e.g. ProPublica) which I don't expect to be just objective.
I'm not sure I understood exactly what you meant about quality investigative journalism, so forgive me if I misread. I generally agree with your comment.
> PBS/NPR news broadcasts fairly objective
For example, listen for ", without providing evidence" in NPR broadcasts. Notice how selectively it is used.
I consider Media Bias/Fact Check fairly objective and they rate NPR as having left-center bias.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Bias/Fact_Check:
> The Columbia Journalism Review describes Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst."[3] The Poynter Institute notes, "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."[4]
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Having a bias doesn't in itself imply lack of objectivity, in relation to what we call 'facts' and 'truth'. It would seem somewhat of a coincidence if 'center' (politically) is right where that lies.
Not that I'm saying that 'reality has a liberal bias', as some would. I personally think it has a left bias, but I'm not nearly certain enough of my opinions to make that claim!
NPR isn't explicitly biased, but it does lean left. A recent example:
> Even In A Pandemic, WHO Believes That Public Protests Are Important
> June 8, 2020 5:40 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/08/8724198...
14 minutes later
> Trump To Restart Political Rallies This Month Despite Coronavirus Pandemic
> June 8, 2020 5:54 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
"Unbiased" or "factual" does not mean "we take both sides' opinions and put them next to each other without comment" - that's what the BBC does and it gives extremist, dangerous viewpoints far more legitimacy than they're worth. The fact that coronavirus got caught up in a bunch of political nonsense does not change that.
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I don't think that's fair. The first article explains the WHO position, it does not endorse it.
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It's not really inconsistent to believe fighting against racial injustice is more important than the reelection of a specific president?
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> What is "quality investigative reporting" in an objective sense, when most of the MSM outlets are owned by oligarchs, or simply "toe the line"?
I don't think better ownership changes anything. The Guardian is owned by a trust, yet falsely reported Mark Duggan was unarmed in a front page headline (if you're unaware, this was false and the Gruan had to retract the claim after a PCC ruling).
Not sure why you're being downvoted. The biggest German left-wing newspaper (taz) is owned by a cooperative. If anything, I find it more annoyingly partisan than other newspapers. It's a hard problem.
The problem isn't bias/partisanship. You can't have any one source be truly unbiased and if you're aware of the politics behind any given source you can neutralise it and temper it with multiple sources from opposite camps.
The problem is that we're not being delivered news-as-information, we're sold news-as-entertainment.
In some parts of tech people treat politics as a team sport, so criticism of their 'team' (even pointing out mistakes acknowledged by the publications) is considered to be punishable.
Indeed. The Guardian Trust has also ruled in editorial complaints that factual inaccuracies in the opinion section are fine, which seems to be to be incredibly irresponsible.
IMO we need some kind of data driven media/data driven reporting/data driven newspaper type thing.
Then we can have reporting/debate/conversation on the meaning of the data but without the filters we use to have in place all reporting has essentially become meaningless, untrustworthy, opinion pieces.