What news outlet/resource informs, and doesn't try to influence?

So, you buy into the cultural narrative that you need the talking heads to tell you what opinions to have?

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You're a democrat not by your own volition, but because the networks and other outlets convince you to be? Just trying to understand your view.

You are likely right, in that some of what we view, no matter the source, is censored and filtered. I'll give you that. But, this doesn't mean that we give up trying to find that one sparkling gem in the dumpster. Have hope.

 

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The BBC. They are certainly trying to influence people in the UK, but their efforts aren't directed towards people in the US - and thus they don't work. (Different causes, political parties and topics.)

 

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You did not read my posts?

I will repeat - again - as repeated before:

memory is key (reality will diverge from propaganda); avoid video; doubt photography; rely more on text;

look to the foreign news, science journals, and US lefty bloggers with a good track record (check it, they have archives),

avoid subjecting oneself to repetition from any source caught in deception (especially, these days, the "bothsides" bs - but another good check is whether or not they pimped the Iraq War).

If in that search you can find a media talking head that is a lefty blogger with a good track record, deals mainly in text, doesn't bothside fraudulently, has done or now does actual journalism, attends to the scientific research relevant to their area, etc, send me the link and I will attend to them when they attempt to influence my opinions. Such influence is valuable - my opinions benefit from exposure to the opinions of people who know what they are talking about, and base their opinions on sound research into the reality involved. I haven't got the time to replicate their lifetime of effort.

Besides: that's not the "cultural narrative", that little rightwing meme. The deliberate confusion of talking heads and journalists, "media" and journalists, spin and journalism, etc, is the relevant modern cultural narrative - and it is one of those deceptions I recommend you not forgive, in your sources.

 

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They're pretty good on many issues. Foreign, as recommended.

This idea of "influence" is pretty vague, though.

For example: Like almost all foreigners (except black South Africans, for some reason) they have a blind spot around racial issues in the US. The firsthand legacy of slavery and Indian removal, the Civil War, is different from the Brit take - the BBC will bothside and downplay the racial bigotry at the core of the Republican Party, sell the "respect for both sides" line and the "Obama/Trump voter" line and the "bipartisan compromise" line, and so forth - the standard Republican schtick, in other words.

Whether the people who have bought into "talking heads telling you what opinion to have" bs think that counts as influence or not, I can't predict.

 

Horses and other livestock don't always communicate through their mouths.

Sometimes, if you want perspective, a bigger picture, or your news filtered through an informed mind, find a journalist, columnist or blogger who speaks your language.
I like Gwynne Dyer for world affairs

For general subjects, human affairs and culture, I like PBS; too bad so much of the interesting stuff is late at night.
For matters that more nearly affect me, Canadian and particularly Ontario content, I sometimes watch the the Agenda or some of the other public affairs programs on TVO, or watch the news on APTN.
For US news, CSpan with the sound turned off in various waiting rooms; at home, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert.

 

I like this, you've been helpful to me, here. I was hoping for this level of spoon-feeding detail, so thank you.

I'm truly seeking to gain a better understanding of current events, and politics, without the bells and whistles. I don't really like Fox News, for a number of reasons, not solely because it panders to the right, yet I'm not in love with CNN, either. I'm an Independent, and sometimes, I wonder if it was born from my dislike of how news coverage is delivered by networks and news outlets seeking to compete in the ratings game, pandering to repubs and democrats.

I need to find an outlet that supports the Independents. I've found a few Libertarian bloggers, but I don't identify with those views, really.

*Note, not to say I don't agree with some views on the repub or democrat side. I just don't embrace either party, as a whole enough to label myself a Democrat or Republican.

 

a news site that doesn't influence people doesn't stay in business.
it is a bit of a faux parr

i enjoy finding the Freudian slips and terrible grammar and poor type setting and lack of editing.
note i find BBC to be of the best quality editing. i rarely recall finding any grammar spelling or editing errors.

 

Fox and CNN are not opposites. Notice who hired people from Fox? They aren't opposites of Fox either. And nobody who ever hired this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Kristol is the opposite of Fox.

The entire body of mainstream US news and opinion media has adopted the framing of Fox News, essentially (when they take sides, the sides they take are as defined by Fox) - so much so that a center/right Eisenhower Republican like Rachel Maddow (that's her own description of her political position) is commonly presented as some kind of extreme leftwing viewpoint.

The pandering has been not to "Democrats" - and certainly not to lefties, who have been basically kicked to the curb - but to the Fox defined "center" where (in addition to political myths about the "center") most of the advertising is sold. That is, people with money to buy 50,000 dollar vehicles, thousand dollar phones, and the like. There's no money on the left. The "left" audience (the statistical majority of the US population) sells to advertisers and mailing lists and so forth at a discount.

The BBC supported the Iraq War more than any other major British news outlet, and - critically - far more than the facts indicated.
HIstory. When looking for bias, compare with reality - not other news sources at the present moment. They can be - and often are - all biased in the same direction with respect to the physical facts.

 

Who said or did what is hard news provided that it's actually known. Assigning guilt and responsibility (right and wrong in other words) is a matter of opinion, a value judgment. And it's usually very premature in the early stages of a breaking news event.

Yes. My example was an airliner crash. An actual physical event. The first stage of coverage will describe that and tell me what's initially known about the actual facts. Where it crashed, whose airliner it was, the aircraft make and model, how many people were aboard, how many of those survived, what it struck on the ground and so on.

From then on, what we will get is mostly people giving their own opinions about it. New hard information will appear at intervals, generated by investigators, such as voice and data recordings. And the arrival of these new puzzle pieces will probably have news stories devoted to them, with headlines alerting me to that fact.

Tuning out most of the opinions would seem to be a good place to start. Generally speaking, politics is nothing but opinions. We should support this. We should oppose that. A voter is good and one of us if they vote for this candidate. They are evil and one of them if they vote for that one. Little or no tangible fact there. Lots of value judgments.

Most political "news" isn't news at all in my opinion. It doesn't really provide us with tangible facts about the objective world around us. Instead it conveys other people's interpretations and value-judgments. It's rhetoric intended to influence people's voting behavior, more akin to propaganda.

I prefer to make my own judgments.

I think that I'm quite good at separating opinion from fact.

The headlines will typically alert me to which news stories contain new facts and are worth reading. Remember my data recorder example above. I don't imagine that you read every bit of "news" that comes your way either. I expect that you choose what to read based on the headline.

[Regarding CSPAN]

Yesterday, two of the things CSPAN covered were speeches delivered by Vice President Mike Pence and by Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris. If you want to hear what newsmakers actually say, without a gaggle of journalists appearing right afterward to deconstruct or spin it, and without just being shown selected snippets, removed from their original contexts and selected by journalistic supporters or opponents, CSPAN can be a good source of that kind of raw information.

If the committee is questioning a witness, you can listen for yourself to the questions asked and answers delivered. Certainly many congressmen will showboat and deliver little speeches in the guise of a question. They will ask leading questions. (Behavior that an attorney wouldn't/shouldn't get away with in a courtroom.) The advantage with CSPAN is that you can see all that and judge for yourself, instead of having to accept some journalist telling you what happened, what was significant about it and what it all means. It allows viewers themselves to be the jury.

How a particular event or statement fits into a larger narrative? (Typically a narrative of good and evil? A narrative favoring one political faction or another?) And who decides on and constructs that narrative? Journalists? Or us, the people?

Wegs started this thread by asking this question:

"I'm looking for a news outlet, either a network or online pub/website that offers information on various current events and political topics, but doesn't seek to influence towards one party side. Any suggestions?"

I suggested --

1. Paying more attention to breaking news coverage, which is typically delivered straight without all the spin in which journalists try to tell viewers what it all means (how it fits into their chosen narrative).

2. CSPAN, which typically covers speeches and hearings in their entirety (avoiding selective coverage and providing context) without all the subsequent spin.

Anyone who presumes to tell other people what to think is going to be a source of spin almost by definition. (You just argued for that yourself, up above. Somebody has to select your facts for you and decide for you on their meaning and significance.)

[On twitter]

If you want to know what a particular news maker thinks, you can see it right there in their own words. It's small snippets, but the writer chose what to show you, not somebody else. Certainly the twitter posts will reflect the biases and agendas of the writers (that's a given) but it's their biases and agendas, not a subsequent journalist's. If you want to know what X thinks, read what X says, not what Y (whose own agenda might be very different than X's) says X thinks. Then decide for yourself if you agree or disagree, don't let somebody else decide that for you.

But twitter is probably best for breaking non-political news. If a news event is going down, look at the twitter accounts of the local police, fire and emergency services. You will see what they are advising people to do, locations that are being evacuated and all kinds of interesting stuff like that. Straight from the source.

 

The entire topic of this thread is flawed and a serious problem with democracy today.

NEWS FROM ONE (1) RESOURCE OUTLET.

If the topic was what resource outlets (plural) then it would be much better for civilizations.

Going back 500 years you could likely steer many minds with single source news. A king could say that an army of 12 foot giants and dragons was marching towards their kingdom and every man, woman, and child would do their best to rally around and support their king and armies.

I attended a school named after "Joseph Howe" a Canadian who fought for freedom of the press. It is important.

Now if a King says an invasion of Hondurans is coming to rape and pillage your village you have a moral obligation to see if it is true or not.

So you should check other sources than Fox News and see if it is true. If you get the same information from The Hill, Al Jazeera, Politico, CNN, MSNBC, and your favorite Youtuber...
then maybe you better run or build a useless wall they could easily bypass with a $25 passport .. because.. You know... Hondurans can buy $25 passports and avoid dodging the border agents paraded on Fox and Friends. Fox and Friends likes to pretend Hondurans cannot access things like Disneyland and Los Vegas if they simply show their $25 passport.
JOKE:
How would a Republican sneak into Mexico? They would run through the desert in their underwear dodging border patrol stars from Fox and Friends.
How would a Democrat sneak into Mexico? They would simply get off their cruise ship in Acapulco and never return. Not so tough to bypass a wall.

It is understandable Republicans are uneducated clowns following their orange guru. He also gets news entirely from one source. His teeny-tiny brain.

James Bond could uncover a new plot to destroy mankind from Goldfinger himself and President Trump would never learn of it. James Bond reports to MI5 who would then report to the CIA and American Generals and such... Then they go to Trump... who KNOWS MORE THAN THEM ALREADY says his own claims.

Think of this incredulous IDIOCY.

DONALD TRUMP MORONIC AND DANGEROUS QUOTE - "I know more about ISIS than the generals do". He also applies that logic to every topic.

So why does the USA even have a CIA, FBI, or associates like "James Bond" (Being facetious, I know J.Bond is fictional)?

There is no purpose. They have all been castrated by Trumps inner "mind" going in circles. If A leader of a country does not listen to the TENS OF THOUSANDS of its version of the CIA and its 16 member intelligence agencies. Then they have no purpose.

The leader can invent and purport facts based solely upon his whims and brain-farts.

So the Press is important. If all Americans saw was Trumps tweets they would be marching upon Mexico rifles in hand. Eager to stop all the evil children seeking asylum.

There should never be ONE (1) source of news.

The republican party does not seem to have a single rational policy these days.

a) The GOP is keen to keep Gerrymandering
b) The GOP is keen to avoid legislation against election interference.
c) The GOP is keen to promote Fearmongering.
d) The GOP is keen to prevent Healthcare.

Healthcare should be a human right to all. Mexico has universal Healthcare. An uninsured bum on the street in Mexico city can be brought to any hospital and receive free xrays, medicines, and leave the hospital when he is fit as a fiddle. I am unsure why a Mexican would desire to live in America.

I have heard Republicans say "Why should I pay more to help someone else?". By that logic you could argue Men should pay less because its those dang women having babies all the dang time.

America may is already the last civilized country to not have Universal Healthcare. Every other G5 country has Free Healthcare.

Canadians live 3+ years longer than Americans on average. Canada has had entirely free healthcare for over HALF A CENTURY. Think on that for the next 50 years.

Some suggest we wait longer for treatments. Ummm. NO. We make doctor appointments and probably wait 15 minutes to see a doctor with an appointment or we have walk in clinics that are more like an hour or two wait.. as is the norm everywhere. We also have emergency rooms but treatments there are based on severity of injuries, they will take a bullet wound before someone with a bad cough.

But scaremonger, scaremonger, scaremonger. Removing the insurance companies so people cannot profit every time you break an arm is "socialism"... Ooooh. so scary. Medical care is a requirement in most lives. It should be run by the government.

Are schools socialist? Why not make it so you must pay an insurance company if you wish your kids to attend a school? The difference is everyone accepts children should be educated, not every American believes in healing the sick on their dime.

It's not that expensive. Canada has a good working model and you would likely pay less once the profits are taken away from insurance companies. Direct from factory care with subsidized (included in taxes) factory pricing.

NOTE: Canadians currently pay a few points more in taxes but we never have to pay for health insurance, etc. Not much... just a few percentage points more on average. We never hear one sob story about a child choosing between paying for college or paying for his moms operation (unless its written in he USA).

But.. if you listen to just me you would think Canada is awesome (it is). I suggest it is prudent to get all your news from several sources.

-------------------- One last thing about Republicans----

Republicans of today are the idiots of the world. Even with their sitcom based education strategies they should learn from movies like Dirty Dancing that banning abortion only causes rise to back street clinics that kill American daughters. Also.. Dirty Dancing was pre-internet and we now live in an age when any girl can google what herbs can cause a dangerous abortion in 3 minutes (if she types slow).

The CIA, FBI, EPA, DHS, IRS, and every American agency is currently headed by one man. Donald the dick Trump.

You hear from many news sources that Trump and his administration has caused this agency to go amuck and that agency to get crippled, and other agencies torturing infants. "Somali Pirates gave me Toothpaste and Soap" was a recent tweet.

This information leaks out slowley and suredly because if anyone in ANY of those agencies speaks out.. they will be unemployed. This is pretty much assured.
BUT... THINK ON THIS!

What will the reports look like once these people have a Democratic President? I bet EVERY AGENCY will have 100X the anti-trump sentiment coming out.

We will hear a stream of truths about corruptions inside the EPA, IRS and many institutions that are muffled today.

It may take a few Netflix movies to teach Moronic republicans the truth about their fears and the evils of Trump, but those Netflix movies will come.

Donald Trump Jr. has suggested he will run for president some day. I would wager when he and Ivanka get out of jail they will flee America. I think Trump will become an example for the world and be hated in his Homeland. Even his 40% base will say "Well I didn't know he did that" to half of his crap.

Anti-trump sentiment is even keeled.. for now. What will occur when the underlings in every agency including all the armed forces can speak without constraint?

What will American think when they learned he traded Nuclear Weapons technology so his son in law could get a Saudi loan? Probably not as impressed as when he tortures Honduran toddlers... They love that.

If News comes from just one or two sources then I would not trust it. 40% of America gets their education from sitcoms. It is a shame men died for their rights to vote. Fox news should be prosecuted for lies (Stating migrants are bring smallpox is obviously a lie to those of us aware smallpox no longer exists outside of labs)

 

Holy fuck. ^^

 

You have an issue there.

To see it illustrated, review the coverage of the Iraq War, especially the buildup to its launch.
Here's one item: That W&Cheney's administration lied, misrepresented the facts at hand, was actually known. That others continue to do so is also actually known. That is hard news now - and it was then, as well. Do you wish to claim that no value judgment attends such news?

So is lying about stuff. It is an actual physical event. It happens at a specific time and place, and is done by identified people.

If you are able to do that, straight from the raw data, providing the context and meaning from your own stock of experience and evidence, more power to you. Journalism is not something most people can do in their spare time with a little casual effort.

Most people who think that are wrong.
That is a finding of research - personal confidence in one's ability to spot lies and deception is negatively correlated with performance, according to researchers -
and by the evidence here, such as this wildly implausible assertion:

you have overestimated your abilities in that regard. Headlines? You do know who writes them, and why, don't you?

Sure. Especially if you are careless with your sources, and keep returning to bad water wells.
But that doesn't make it any easier to tell the difference.

In political news the straight stuff is usually what emerges after a few days of noise, and the mainstream media breaking coverage should be ignored. Example: the Mueller Report release - we are still not in possession of all the straight news about that report, and the breaking news coverage was junk, a hopeless mess, unless you were very selective about your sources (the lefty bloggers were good on that one, but that was because they based their coverage on their journalist's knowledge that William Barr was a hired fixer by profession - his entire career - whose only job in this case was suppressing and obscuring the findings of Mueller's investigation.
A straight news report, one that delivered the news without spin, would have automatically described him as such, in plain language. How did your sources measure up?

Reading, not hearing, works better. What "newsmakers" have done is critical to any evaluation what they say.

It does not provide context. That is subsequent, in the news (can be prior, if you have done all that homework).
Spin, meanwhile, is very often not "subsequent". Spotting it normally requires familiarity with context (anything any Republican Congressman says or asks or suggests about climate change, for example, will be an attempt at spin and little else - if you don't know that, you will not be able to evaluate CSPAN coverage of Congressional debate on many bills).
Are you sure you can reliably distinguish subsequent context from spin? You seem to be underestimating and misidentifying the sources of "spin".

Almost anyone who uses Republican media talking point language - "telling other people what to think" - to describe honest analysis and opinion even, let alone news coverage, has fallen victim to the propaganda operations that sold it. That kind of language prevents thought - its purpose.

But not the questions not asked, and the answers not provided. And not the context of fact and circumstance surrounding those questions and answers.

The viewers don't know what's going on. It's a jury that doesn't know what crime has been committed, or who is being accused, in a courtroom in which there is no judge, and no record of past testimony.

You appear to have confused my desire to know what informed, experienced, disinterested, and intelligent people select as significant, and what they think the meanings and significances are, with my having them "decide for me".
Is that assumption of puppet status in others a projection?

 

Trump has a hired staff of people providing advice, suggestions, and often the actual wording, of his tweets.
So do many wealthy and powerful people.
You do understand what that means, right?

A good journalist will provide context for the biases and agendas of the writers, thereby allowing one to evaluate them with some hope of not being an idiot.
Although following a politician's twitter feed for one's political news is maybe decisive in that regard.

A good journalist will provide what X says, and what Y says, in their own words - and, here's the kicker, some basis for agreeing with one or the other, some background for figuring out what they mean by what they say. Context.
That way, you won't ever find yourself in the position of having evaluated US foreign policy regarding Iran by what you have decided Trump's tweets show about his thinking.

 

I usually go to reuters.

 

the cotton picking news

 

I hadn't considered reuters, thanks!

 

Today when people talk about "news" they are largely talking about politics. It's hard to get news about politics that isn't political.

If you want to focus more on "news" then you should focus less on politics. Politicians are never going to be unbiased so what they say is pretty much not relevant.

You do need to have some basis for how the world works (knowledge) in order to get much from any news source. You can't just be an open book. That's relying too heavily on someone else.

If you study other countries more than your own, your will probably get closer to the truth. History is a good source for helping to interpret what is going on today as well.

It also depends on what you are trying to get out of the news. Is it just current events or is it trying to figure out what would be the best course of action for whatever our government is trying to do....fight wars, change tax policies, economic policies, trade, etc?

Maybe things are going well so people assume that things will always go well where ever they live. History will show them that Argentina used to be one of the richest countries on Earth and Japan was near the bottom of the heap.

Now, even with limited growth for the last 20 years Japan is still doing pretty well (if working 12 hours a day is good) and Argentina isn't. Peron happened in Argentina. Trump is happening in the US now. Chavez happened in Venezuela, Castro in Cuba, etc.

You still need to have a grasp of history regardless of your news source. You still need to understand that (so far) some form of capitalism has changed countries from everyone being poor being the standard to many people having some personal surpluses.

When people call certain Democratic thought "socialism" they are generally off base. Most of what they are talking about is still some form of capitalism. A government with high taxation that provides a lot of benefits to its citizens is still usually predominately capitalistic in nature.

When the market isn't directing things, that when things eventually go south and don't recover for decades or longer.

Not understanding that is more of a problem than just not getting the right news source. The problem is when you find that there is only one news source.

 

Those are good points ^^

Perhaps, one must allow for a little bias or opinion on the part of the networks, when it comes to politics. I just wish they weren't in the business of competing for ratings. Maybe it's not entirely their ''fault,'' though. We (our culture, in general) like to be entertained, and the networks' pandering tactics can definitely be entertaining. You might not glean factual information, but...

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When I was a kid the news divisions didn't necessarily make a profit but the rest of the entertainment company did and having the news division was required. That's not to say that there was no bias but compared to today there was little difference between the networks and there were just a few editorial news shows.

Today with 24 hour cable most "news" is entertainment and is actually an editorial program. There are still straight reporters but most of the ones you see on TV are doing editorial broadcasting.

 

The Republican Party repealed those laws and regulations, in order to establish rightwing corporate control over the news.

Markets cannot "direct" themselves.

Things go south when capital is not heavily regulated and heavily taxed - competitive markets do not persist unless defended by firm government regulation of the corporate rich, and too much economic inequality leads to ruin and despotism of one form or another.

You are mixing up rightwing coups and leftwing insurrections.

Note that Castro and Chavez did comparatively well for their countries despite living under constant attack and damaging sanctions imposed by the richest and most powerful country on earth - meanwhile, Peron and Montt and the rest (the many) brought their countries to the brink of ruin despite the benefits of friendly alliance with the richest and most powerful country on earth.