The most informed voters are often the most badly misled

[boneyard bill]

The implications of this article are that the way to build an audience in the news business is to promote (or slant) news in ways that fit the biases of your target audience. Of course, Rush Limbaugh figured that out a long time ago. Fox News quickly followed. Today MSNBC is having some success with a very liberal bias while the very bland and more neutral-sounding CNN is heading for the dust bin.

But I can't think that is good news. The American media has never been free of bias, but now bias has become just about all we can expect. Personally, I don't think television news is worth watching and newspapers are scarcely better. I get my new almost entirely from internet. And, of course, I generally go to news sites that I expect to re-enforce my biases. However, I have also changed my views dramatically as a result of what I have learned on the internet. The difference is that on the internet the sites that re-enforce my biases are still nuanced in different ways and this leads me to looking into sites that I might have previously dismissed. It's sort of like all sites are losers but the they make it up in volume.

 

[rousseau]

The implications of this article are that the way to build an audience in the news business is to promote (or slant) news in ways that fit the biases of your target audience. Of course, Rush Limbaugh figured that out a long time ago. Fox News quickly followed. Today MSNBC is having some success with a very liberal bias while the very bland and more neutral-sounding CNN is heading for the dust bin.

But I can't think that is good news. The American media has never been free of bias, but now bias has become just about all we can expect. Personally, I don't think television news is worth watching and newspapers are scarcely better. I get my new almost entirely from internet. And, of course, I generally go to news sites that I expect to re-enforce my biases. However, I have also changed my views dramatically as a result of what I have learned on the internet. The difference is that on the internet the sites that re-enforce my biases are still nuanced in different ways and this leads me to looking into sites that I might have previously dismissed. It's sort of like all sites are losers but the they make it up in volume.

Typical news media as is known today is almost completely worthless, but as we are all aware most people don't know how to see through it, in addition to thinking that it's worthwhile at all.

I still consume news occasionally in the form of newspapers for pure entertainment value, but day to day what I'm usually looking out for are objective sources that combine data and knowledge into real insight, and not random sound-bytes about [x] thing happening.

 

[Perspicuo]

Rousseau, I find it hard to believe bias and hype can be avoided.

I believe that if you think you have been successful in avoiding it, you've been caught hook, line and sinker. I dont think one's skeptic "feeling" (not the same thing as skepticism; instead it's the basic stance that starts your rational thinking going) can rest, ever, with any sort of new information.

 

[fromderinside]

As Tina Turner famously said: "What does bias and hype have to do with it?" is critical to the question of what is news. To its nub news is anything that you didn't know that you now know and will operate on. All else is either entertainment or noise. You live your life around gossip essentially. That's important to this topic because that's how you live. All this other moral and ethical stuff? F'gitaboutit.

 

[rousseau]

Rousseau, I find it hard to believe bias and hype can be avoided.

I believe that if you think you have been successful in avoiding it, you've been caught hook, line and sinker. I dont think one's skeptic "feeling" (not the same thing as skepticism; instead it's the basic stance that starts your rational thinking going) can rest, ever, with any sort of new information.

Agreed.

I should have re-phrased my post. My comment was more alluding to that I like following people and media that provide analysis, rather than reports. But I am aware that there is always a slant, as is usually natural given that everyone has a political position.

All that said, FiveThirtyEight has some pretty unslanted insight, as far as media goes.

 

[fromderinside]

Rousseau, I find it hard to believe bias and hype can be avoided.

I believe that if you think you have been successful in avoiding it, you've been caught hook, line and sinker. I dont think one's skeptic "feeling" (not the same thing as skepticism; instead it's the basic stance that starts your rational thinking going) can rest, ever, with any sort of new information.

Agreed.

I should have re-phrased my post. My comment was more alluding to that I like following people and media that provide analysis, rather than reports. But I am aware that there is always a slant, as is usually natural given that everyone has a political position.

All that said, FiveThirtyEight has some pretty unslanted insight, as far as media goes.

So you take 'just so' from one who follows the numbers but other analyses are 'slanted'? Silver is gong to get the numbers right, but, do the numbers reveal attitudes or just trends? Remember he's the one following evidence of trends. Is slapping attitude on top of a recorded trend make it attitude?

 

[rousseau]

Agreed.

I should have re-phrased my post. My comment was more alluding to that I like following people and media that provide analysis, rather than reports. But I am aware that there is always a slant, as is usually natural given that everyone has a political position.

All that said, FiveThirtyEight has some pretty unslanted insight, as far as media goes.

So you take 'just so' from one who follows the numbers but other analyses are 'slanted'? Silver is gong to get the numbers right, but, do the numbers reveal attitudes or just trends? Remember he's the one following evidence of trends. Is slapping attitude on top of a recorded trend make it attitude?

That's an interesting take. I don't take 538 to be fully unslanted, but I trust them enough to reveal the numerical reality behind stuff. Deep down, they're just more news media, but they do seem to be setting the bar for where journalism should go.

Not sure I get your point about attitude, but what I like about 538 is that they're actually reporting real data, and trying to do it correctly. Tune into CNN and you get headlines like 'Robot kills Person', tune into 538 and you get articles like 'We just don't know the reality of [x] thing'. They're one of the only sources that I can read an article from and actually feel like I know something new, because they're trying to base their news on real numbers, and not whatever message the writer/editorial team wants to convey.

 

[fromderinside]

So you take 'just so' from one who follows the numbers but other analyses are 'slanted'? Silver is gong to get the numbers right, but, do the numbers reveal attitudes or just trends? Remember he's the one following evidence of trends. Is slapping attitude on top of a recorded trend make it attitude?

That's an interesting take. I don't take 538 to be fully unslanted, but I trust them enough to reveal the numerical reality behind stuff. Deep down, they're just more news media, but they do seem to be setting the bar for where journalism should go.

Not sure I get your point about attitude, but what I like about 538 is that they're actually reporting real data, and trying to do it correctly. Tune into CNN and you get headlines like 'Robot kills Person', tune into 538 and you get articles like 'We just don't know the reality of [x] thing'. They're one of the only sources that I can read an article from and actually feel like I know something new, because they're trying to base their news on real numbers, and not whatever message the writer/editorial team wants to convey.

Whenever you use words like 'correctly' you are making a political statement, usually of the correctness variety. Other than that you seem to be fairly well adjusted to what I mean by news.

 

[Derec]

Anything else falls short of democracy, by elevating the opinions of the enthusiasts above those of the apathetic majority.

If they can't be bothered to do (rather easy) task of voting without having their hand held every step of the way, do we really want them determining who will run the country?

There is also a definite party mismatch in the number of these people, which is why the automatic registration (and also opposition to voter id) is a Democratic issue. It is also the reason more "sexy" presidential elections get higher D turnout than more "boring" midterm or special local elections. I do not know why this enthusiasm gap exists. Anybody have any ideas?

 

[fromderinside]

Anything else falls short of democracy, by elevating the opinions of the enthusiasts above those of the apathetic majority.

If they can't be bothered to do (rather easy) task of voting without having their hand held every step of the way, do we really want them determining who will run the country?

There is also a definite party mismatch in the number of these people, which is why the automatic registration (and also opposition to voter id) is a Democratic issue. It is also the reason more "sexy" presidential elections get higher D turnout than more "boring" midterm or special local elections. I do not know why this enthusiasm gap exists. Anybody have any ideas?

Us/them we/they wtf. If humans aggregate into democratic systems the most democratic is the most dictatorial in participation requirement, everybody must play. Taking that position eliminates us and them/we and they and also activates participation.