After assessing feedback from both users and publishers, we’re making the Fact Check label in Google News available everywhere, and expanding it into Search globally in all languages. For the first time, when you conduct a search on Google that returns an authoritative result containing fact checks for one or more public claims, you will see that information clearly on the search results page. The snippet will display information on the claim, who made the claim, and the fact check of that particular claim.
This information won’t be available for every search result, and there may be search result pages where different publishers checked the same claim and reached different conclusions. These fact checks are not Google’s and are presented so people can make more informed judgements. Even though differing conclusions may be presented, we think it’s still helpful for people to understand the degree of consensus around a particular claim and have clear information on which sources agree. As we make fact checks more visible in Search results, we believe people will have an easier time reviewing and assessing these fact checks, and making their own informed opinions.
For publishers to be included in this feature, they must be using the Schema.org ClaimReview markup on the specific pages where they fact check public statements (documentation here), or they can use the Share the Facts widget developed by the Duke University Reporters Lab and Jigsaw. Only publishers that are algorithmically determined to be an authoritative source of information will qualify for inclusion. Finally, the content must adhere to the general policies that apply to all structured data markup, the Google News Publisher criteria for fact checks, and the standards for accountability and transparency, readability or proper site representation as articulated in our Google News General Guidelines. If a publisher or fact check claim does not meet these standards or honor these policies, we may, at our discretion, ignore that site's markup.
I have brought this topic up many times in the US Politics and the European Politics threads, so I thought this might be a good opportunity to create a new thread about international news media and journalism.
Fake news, propaganda, sensationalism ("tabloid news" and "yellow journalism") and whatnot are obviously not new issues, although I think their effectiveness over the past decade has magnified and the situation is really bad in some places. I think the most appalling thing that has happened in recent times is when the German magazine Bildcompletely fabricated a story in February 2017 about a Muslim rape mob marching across Frankfurt, sexually assaulting people in the streets. To this day there are still some extremist news sites that think this actually happened and there's a worldwide cover-up conspiracy, despite Bild having withdrawn the story completely.
So one might think that Google's effort to build-in a fact checking mechanism into their search engine is laudable. (I believe Facebook has also said they are working on a similar feature.) But I fear that it might backfire heavily and only embolden tabloid readers into believing that Google/Facebook/whomever are "in" on some globalist conspiracy to hide legitimate news that conflict with their agenda. Certainly I don't think those two corporations are all-benevolent entities, or that they are doing this for purely altruistic motives -- I in fact anticipate some distortions if it's profitable to them. That being said, clearly the current situation where anybody in any country can dump pure crap on the Internet at will and it's immediately propagated is really not satisfactory. There is no obvious and clean answer to the problem.
For my part, I'm going to list some fact-verifying websites that I rely on. Unfortunately these are mostly USA-based so they primarily cover stories in the American media, hopefully other TL posters can provide similar resources that are more focused on other countries. Now, I want to emphasize that of course, all of the following are run by human beings, who do err and have their own biases, but I think they're well-researched and mostly reliable: - Snopes - Fact Checker column in The Washington Post - PolitiFact - AP Fact Check - FactCheck.org - Reality Check by BBC (UK) - The Journal (Ireland)
Now, I also want to say that this thread is not going to exclusively be about fake news or blatant factual errors made by politicians. I also want to talk about biased news sources that selectively report in order to justify a narrative. This is a trickier problem to solve. More left-leaning people will say that this is Breitbart and the Daily Mail. Right-leaning people will say that this is MSNBC and The Huffington Post. Interestingly, BusinessInsider actually lists several news sources and how trusted they are by people according to their political affiliations: http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-most-and-least-trusted-news-outlets-in-america-2014-10
How do you solve that problem? It's well known that the human mind has a wide selection of cognitive biases which strongly result in people reading news that confirm their already-held beliefs. How do you go about convincing somebody not to believe what they see from what appears to be reputable news sources? I don't think it's controversial to say that usually, people will often choose to be misinformed (even when shown strong evidence against their beliefs) if it flies in face of their deeply held convictions.
I think the issues of 'fake news', sensationalist journalism, and biased propaganda-like news outlets are all interconnected. They all come down to where people place their trust. Lots of people uncritically believe nonsense circulated on Facebook; maybe a fact checker like Snopes will cure them of that. But when seemingly reputable, professional outlets peddle distortions or lies, it's hard to demonstrate how untrustworthy they are. Does anyone on TL have any experience in "de-brainwashing" somebody from only believing news that confirms their own biases? If so, please share.
All news in the US, particularly, is biased and pretty much 60% propaganda. Hell look at the morning shows on basic cable half of it is literally infomercials and them talking about where they shopped and ate last then having a "interview" with said employees/managers to advertise for the next ten minutes. That's not even taking account the war drums the media is ready to beat for anyone or anything.
It's all consumer bullshit. From the same networks that own pretty much every other thing in the country.
Absolutely a relevant topic. Even if I dont have high hopes for this thread, it might serve its purpose even if only as to remove the related discussions from the corresponding politics threads.
I agree that fake news is becoming more of a problem over the last decade. However, I believe that if one would take the average over the last century, it would still be below that. It's just that most of the fake news from earlier times is now called "propaganda". In the age of the internet, people have easier access to conflicting points of view, while in the age of one main tv channel per country (or before that, only access to a few newspapers), you might be getting fake news all along without even realizing it.
In this sense, I would like to see someone fact-check a "fake news is worse than ever"-claim.
On April 07 2017 23:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: All news in the US, particularly, is biased and pretty much 60% propaganda. Hell look at the morning shows on basic cable half of it is literally infomercials and them talking about where they shopped and ate last then having a "interview" with said employees/managers to advertise for the next ten minutes. That's not even taking account the war drums the media is ready to beat for anyone or anything.
It's all consumer bullshit. From the same networks that own pretty much every other thing in the country.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on that StealthBlue. Even when selecting on a very specific topic such as the elections, there's hardly anything relevant in the news. Based on the chart in the spoiler below, I'd say about 60 to 80% of news is designed to catch eyeballs and pretty much nothing else. Its a dangerous game, because people are unlikely to tune in specifically or that 20% of relevant news.
With news regarding wars: the media seems to love showing the kids in Syria being gassed, crying faces and all, which convinces people there must be a retaliation. But you barely get a look at Yemen where similar sympathy might get people upset at the prospect of bombing a country to hell. You can find news about Yemen, but it's nowhere near as brutally presented as the imagery from Syria, and often focuses on what the rebels are doing ("they launched a missile at an American ship!").
Same thing with Aleppo and Mosul - the evil Russians were bombing Aleppo and killing civilians, so show that constantly and make sure people feel upset with that. The western media even relied on people who were in the middle of the bombing effort, and showed the results of that bombing quite vigorously through the viewpoint of little kids. Now that its time for Mosul, its better if you don't show the atrocities as much because its the US and her allies bombing the place. RT shows some of the reverse of that in this report. The same thing happens everywhere - certain narratives are supported, others are censored and suppressed in various subtle ways.
I find it a little curious that despite the constant accusations that Russia and RT are responsible for spreading fake news, I remained blissfully unaware of most of the things listed in that The Guardian article linked above until I read about it in that very article a few months ago. Maybe its simply my lack of social media presence that stops me from hearing about these things.
Personally I find it more effective to follow specific reporters, rather than broadcast personalities. It is one of the real way twitter can assist getting a better idea of what is going on. Most of the NRP US politics team will tweet about events of the day, but also their impression on the mood in the room and how this are going on the capital. Also you get a better impression of the reporter, which I feel is critical to separate “News” from propaganda and garbage.
I also try to avoid articles that are written solely for the internet. Print media is generally a little slower than fast blow by blow internet, so the author has more time to collect their thoughts and try to draw together the relevant facts. The NYT and WSJ my two sources of print news.
24/7 networks are borderline propaganda at this point. Fox news does some reasonable on site reporting in their news sections. But any talking heads show is just shit.
On April 08 2017 01:53 Plansix wrote: Personally I find it more effective to follow specific reporters, rather than broadcast personalities. It is one of the real way twitter can assist getting a better idea of what is going on. Most of the NRP US politics team will tweet about events of the day, but also their impression on the mood in the room and how this are going on the capital. Also you get a better impression of the reporter, which I feel is critical to separate “News” from propaganda and garbage.
I also try to avoid articles that are written solely for the internet. Print media is generally a little slower than fast blow by blow internet, so the author has more time to collect their thoughts and try to draw together the relevant facts. The NYT and WSJ my two sources of print news.
24/7 networks are borderline propaganda at this point. Fox news does some reasonable on site reporting in their news sections. But any talking heads show is just shit.
They're not borderline. They crossed that border a few degrees of bias ago. All of the American 24/7 networks are incredibly pro-American on international matters, and then even more biased towards the party they support, if any. They desperately want people from that party to show up on their shows to get more eyeballs, and that won't happen unless those people feel they receive "fair" coverage. Same goes for the average American, who is less inclined to watch unless it confirms that "America is the greatest country on Earth". Trumps excruciatingly painful bias towards Fox News (which sometimes confirms that he is "a great president") is barely even an outlier.
And it's not like the problem of bias and propaganda is limited to the news networks specifically. There's whole groups of people who receive their daily conformation bias from TV like Seth Meyers (I literally saw a top comment on a YouTube clip that gleefully said "I get all of my political news from Seth!", upvoted like a thousand times), Trevor Noah, etc, and the way they spin their "news" is just awful at times due to the jokes. It is my belief that this is the sort of thing where the more-or-less braindead illiberals come from.
I used to be one of these people, basically only getting my American news from The Daily Show and Colbert Report. I've recently replaced my TV watching with similar infotainment shows on RT (such as Redacted Tonight, Keiser Report and Watching The Hawks - shows that more or less confirm my own biases), but over the years added a lot of reading such as The Guardian, Reuters, the NYT and Bloomberg to get a more realistic view.
On April 08 2017 01:49 LightSpectra wrote: What is the source for that chart flayer?
I edited my post to include the source of that chart. It came from an article posted by the Shorenstein Center. Reports from these sort of research centers are also a decent source of unbiased information, I think, although I don't really take the time to verify their methods and such. I doubt I'd have the knowledge/capability to do so, anyway.
I totally agree that most broadcast news networks are terrible. I am always reluctant to paint entire industries with that broad brush however. Because within those networks, there are people don't going work. Even Fox News has some stand out reporters and anchors. To move away from the confirmation bias based discussions that dominate news media, holding those professionals as examples of how it should be is really important.
After the election Sam Sanders of NPR said that he and his peers "...had to come to grips that we were only reaching 50% of the country at best. And as reporters that is unacceptable and a problem that they must solve."
So will now every multinational start up their own little fact-check firm, and try to get contracts from google/facebook/twitter/yahoo/cnn/etc? And these organizations will then get to decide that is a fact and what is not?
News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Fact checking and censorship doesn't fix the problem. Not only you'll have to deal with biased journalists who happen to be from the privileged camp but also with biased fact checkers and censors. Companies like Facebook or Google should be legally forbidden from interfering with news distribution.
Why? News stands all over the country were allowed to pick what they carried? Google can do whatever it wants with its news section and you are free to not use their service if you don’t like their editorial decisions.
People need to get used to the idea that being informed is not one stop shopping.
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
If you want more examples of bias and narratives in the media, it's quite easy to look things up on YouTube to get a bit of perspective on certain conflicts.
I saw these guys (Abdulkafi al-Hamdo and Bilal Abdul Kareem) from the YouTube channel "Middle East Eye" appear on MSNBC and CNN respectively. Both TV channels used these people as 'on-the-ground sources' for the atrocities committed by the Russians and Assads forces in their bombardment of Aleppo. Although one of the videos I linked wasn't played on western mainstream media. Can you guess which of the two videos they thought the western public wouldn't appreciate? They only showed the videos that supported the plight of the rebels in order to invoke their narrative of sympathy.
Similarly, you can find these kinds of on-the-ground video sources for the conflict in Ukraine/Donbass. Towards the end of this video, they interview people who are in the region, looking at the situation from their local perspective. Yet, the western media chooses to only talk about the "Russian invasion". Hundreds of Russian tanks invading Ukraine! I'm sure that it also true that Russia is supporting the insurgency, but that is hardly the whole story, now is it? And sure, just as Bilal Abdul Kareem was biased towards the plight of that suicide bomber fighting against Assad, this guy is biased towards the people of Donbass (he says so himself).
It really looks to me like deliberate choices are being made in western media to fit certain narratives, which is a little terrifying to be honest. Why not use on-the-ground sources in both of these conflicts, for both sides if possible? Why only use them in one instance?
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
Being one of those SJW types myself, I’m not really sure I see the problem. You don’t have to use Facebook if you don’t like their moderation. As long as they are providing evidence for their moderation and consistent, I don’t see a problem.
On April 08 2017 05:42 a_flayer wrote: If you want more examples of bias and narratives in the media, it's quite easy to look things up on YouTube to get a bit of perspective on certain conflicts.
I saw these guys (Abdulkafi al-Hamdo and Bilal Abdul Kareem) from the YouTube channel "Middle East Eye" appear on MSNBC and CNN respectively. They often used these people as 'on-the-ground sources' for the atrocities committed by the Russians and Assads forces in their bombardment of Aleppo. Although one of the videos I linked wasn't played on western mainstream media. Can you guess which of the two videos they thought the western public wouldn't appreciate?
Similarly, you can find these kinds of on-the-ground video sources for the conflict in Ukraine/Donbass. Towards the end of this video, they interview people who are in the region, looking at the situation from their local perspective. Yet, the western media chooses to only talk about the "Russian invasion". Hundreds of Russian tanks invading Ukraine! I'm sure that it also true that Russia is supporting the insurgency, but that is hardly the whole story, now is it? And sure, just as Bilal Abdul Kareem was biased towards the plight of that suicide bomber fighting against Assad, this guy is biased towards the people of Donbass (he says so himself).
It really looks to me like deliberate choices are being made in western media to fit certain narratives, which is a little terrifying to be honest.
I understand that part of the discussion, but unlimited, unmoderated or edited videos is not sustainable for Youtube. They have to comply with the laws and rules of every nation they exist in and are a for profit company. Youtube has reached the limits of how open their system can be and the system is being coming more closed by the day. Which was always going to happen.
I think the first problem is that people rely on youtube for its reach and low barrier to entry, but that comes at the price that they are in complete control. Someone making videos of the nature that you described is better served hosting the videos themselves.
On April 08 2017 04:58 Plansix wrote: Why? News stands all over the country were allowed to pick what they carried? Google can do whatever it wants with its news section and you are free to not use their service if you don’t like their editorial decisions.
People need to get used to the idea that being informed is not one stop shopping.
Because they have dominant positions on their respective markets and can exert undesirable influence on news distribution. I, as a consumer, am not "free" to use their service because both Facebook and Google control their markets. If I make an account on some Facebook alternative I won't be able to share articles I liked with my friends because my friends don't have accounts there. Facebook is not a public organisation, it doesn't have any obligation to be objective and we don't have any tools to make them objective. Would you still support Facebook censorship if the company was owned by Bannon instead of Zuckerberg?
On April 08 2017 05:42 a_flayer wrote: If you want more examples of bias and narratives in the media, it's quite easy to look things up on YouTube to get a bit of perspective on certain conflicts.
I saw these guys (Abdulkafi al-Hamdo and Bilal Abdul Kareem) from the YouTube channel "Middle East Eye" appear on MSNBC and CNN respectively. They often used these people as 'on-the-ground sources' for the atrocities committed by the Russians and Assads forces in their bombardment of Aleppo. Although one of the videos I linked wasn't played on western mainstream media. Can you guess which of the two videos they thought the western public wouldn't appreciate?
Similarly, you can find these kinds of on-the-ground video sources for the conflict in Ukraine/Donbass. Towards the end of this video, they interview people who are in the region, looking at the situation from their local perspective. Yet, the western media chooses to only talk about the "Russian invasion". Hundreds of Russian tanks invading Ukraine! I'm sure that it also true that Russia is supporting the insurgency, but that is hardly the whole story, now is it? And sure, just as Bilal Abdul Kareem was biased towards the plight of that suicide bomber fighting against Assad, this guy is biased towards the people of Donbass (he says so himself).
It really looks to me like deliberate choices are being made in western media to fit certain narratives, which is a little terrifying to be honest.
I understand that part of the discussion, but unlimited, unmoderated or edited videos is not sustainable for Youtube. They have to comply with the laws and rules of every nation they exist in and are a for profit company. Youtube has reached the limits of how open their system can be and the system is being coming more closed by the day. Which was always going to happen.
I think the first problem is that people rely on youtube for its reach and low barrier to entry, but that comes at the price that they are in complete control. Someone making videos of the nature that you described is better served hosting the videos themselves.
You seem to have missed my point entirely? It's not about YouTube. The problem is that western media picks and chooses which home-made videos from 'on-the-ground sources' they air, and they only pick those that fit a certain narrative. If the video doesn't fit their preferred narrative, they just don't bother showing it. Even if both videos basically have the same credibility of being "on the ground" and interviewing local people.
I've seen those 'on-the-ground' people in Aleppo appear on CNN and MSNBC, but nobody ever mentioned the suicide bombers amongst the rebels. I haven't seen anything at all from people on the ground in Donbass on CNN and MSNBC. All I've heard is that the Russians are invading Ukraine, and there's hundreds of Russians tanks. Why don't we hear from people on the ground in that region of the world? There are plenty of people reporting in on YouTube, just as those Middle East Eye guys did from Aleppo. I suspect we don't hear from them because they would not fit the narrative.
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
Being one of those SJW types myself, I’m not really sure I see the problem. You don’t have to use Facebook if you don’t like their moderation. As long as they are providing evidence for their moderation and consistent, I don’t see a problem.
Well, apparently you are not concerned with double standards. I guess fake news is only bad if it doesn't agree with your world view.
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
Being one of those SJW types myself, I’m not really sure I see the problem. You don’t have to use Facebook if you don’t like their moderation. As long as they are providing evidence for their moderation and consistent, I don’t see a problem.
Well, apparently you are not concerned with double standards. I guess fake news is only bad if it doesn't agree with your world view.
As I said, I have limited information on the issue. I also question the objectivity of someone who used SJW with a straight face.
On April 08 2017 04:58 Plansix wrote: Why? News stands all over the country were allowed to pick what they carried? Google can do whatever it wants with its news section and you are free to not use their service if you don’t like their editorial decisions.
People need to get used to the idea that being informed is not one stop shopping.
Because they have dominant positions on their respective markets and can exert undesirable influence on news distribution. I, as a consumer, am not "free" to use their service because both Facebook and Google control their markets. If I make an account on some Facebook alternative I won't be able to share articles I liked with my friends because my friends don't have accounts there. Facebook is not a public organisation, it doesn't have any obligation to be objective and we don't have any tools to make them objective. Would you still support Facebook censorship if the company was owned by Bannon instead of Zuckerberg?
I wouldn't use any service owned by Bannon, so the point is moot. I don’t currently support he company he owns and I’m happy to hear they are having trouble finding advertisers.
And you are totally able to not use Facebook. You can just email your friends the articles. Or use discord. There are plenty of services out there and there is no requirement that all media sharing must be done through facebook.
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
Being one of those SJW types myself, I’m not really sure I see the problem. You don’t have to use Facebook if you don’t like their moderation. As long as they are providing evidence for their moderation and consistent, I don’t see a problem.
Well, apparently you are not concerned with double standards. I guess fake news is only bad if it doesn't agree with your world view.
As I said, I have limited information on the issue. I also question the objectivity of someone who used SJW with a straight face.
SJW has a pretty good definition. Its a person who takes social justice to the extreme, and sees racism, sexism, all the other -isms, everywhere and has a notoriously weak skin about these things. Its like when there was a recent celebration at a university near where I am, Ottawa I think. Someone wanted to celebrate mexico on some international appreciation day by wearing a sombrero, and they were called racist. That's the extremism that people affiliate with the term "SJW".
Hopefully you don't agree with that stuff. But as you can see its more a matter of definition than it is assuming anyone who uses SJW has some nefarious reasons. There are some pretty scary "social justice" types out there if you read about events that have occurred over the past few years in the news. Its genuinely scary
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
Being one of those SJW types myself, I’m not really sure I see the problem. You don’t have to use Facebook if you don’t like their moderation. As long as they are providing evidence for their moderation and consistent, I don’t see a problem.
Well, apparently you are not concerned with double standards. I guess fake news is only bad if it doesn't agree with your world view.
As I said, I have limited information on the issue. I also question the objectivity of someone who used SJW with a straight face.
I meant people like these:
Are you one of those loonies who call anyone they disagree with a "nazi"?
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
Same in Germany. The Pro-Erdogan Neofascists are given free reign (you see, because they're Muslim they're automatically progressive, doesn't matter that they're supporting the creation of a dictatorial regime) whereas the German / European nationalist parties and news sites are under massive assault.
I've only really followed American news media after the Potus 43 elections, but here's what it looks like from afar.
Note: I read / listen to all of these.
Extreme fringes / no attempt to hide agenda, usually straight up misinformation, obvious pandering
Breitbart to the right, Mother Jones / HuffPo to the left
capitalist propaganda, looks very professional but has no journalistic integrity, basically media arms of their respective parties
MSNBC, Fox News
Hawkish, capitalist bias, close to the Democratic Party
New York Times, WaPo, Financial Times
Great journalism, progressive bias
Democracy Now!, The Intercept
_____
What I find remarkable:
1. Most media is liberal leaning on social issues but apologetic or protective of capitalism (or ignore it completely). 2. Because both parties are so far right of the population on economic issues, and the biggest media outlets are propaganda arms of those parties, it's hard to discern how the average American is represented at all.
That's quite scary. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Most people don't bother to look further than first page of Google, meaning their information is limited to whatever google adaptive search shows them - that's a control of information which we happily accept due to laziness. Basically no-one will bother to check whether fact-check is true - now that's a control of truth that we'll greet with open arms. The built-in fact checker defies the purpose of fact checking - taking your time and reading through different sources trying to discern whether something is true. But there is no brakes on this train and soon enough everything that will have a Google Check approval (provided by WeMakeUpFacts.com) will be accepted as gospel.
Then again, it's hardly different than what happens now and at least it will help to discern certain lies like pseudosceince. Hopefully.
McFanny, I wouldn't say The Intercept has any political affiliation, they are an old-school band of independent journalists that sniff out corruption and lies from just about everybody. Otherwise I would say your analysis is basically correct.
On April 10 2017 05:35 Ingvar wrote: That's quite scary. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Most people don't bother to look further than first page of Google, meaning their information is limited to whatever google adaptive search shows them - that's a control of information which we happily accept due to laziness. Basically no-one will bother to check whether fact-check is true - now that's a control of truth that we'll greet with open arms. The built-in fact checker defies the purpose of fact checking - taking your time and reading through different sources trying to discern whether something is true. But there is no brakes on this train and soon enough everything that will have a Google Check approval (provided by WeMakeUpFacts.com) will be accepted as gospel.
Then again, it's hardly different than what happens now and at least it will help to discern certain lies like pseudosceince. Hopefully.
Serious question, how are you supposed to fact check now? Maybe it's easy e.g. to just go to the Department of Labor's website and look up their unemployment stats to double-check what various politicians/outlets are proclaiming, but it's rarely that easy. Often journalists rely on anonymous leakers that they can verify but the public cannot. So to get real news you have to go to a media outlet one way or the other.
I'd seen this before, but I came across it again, and I think this is a good indication of this thing called "bias". It was one of the things that triggered me to investigate news from, shall we say, non-traditional sources.
America reports on "NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and two Russians"
Russia reports on "cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov, Andrei Borisenko and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough"
The discrepancy is of course easily 'justified' by citing the American publics lack of interest in foreigners. However, I believe that this sort of bias is incredibly widespread all across American media, and consequently leads towards something much more toxic. Especially when it comes to more important matters than just astronauts/cosmonauts launching into space.
On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote: News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
Being one of those SJW types myself, I’m not really sure I see the problem. You don’t have to use Facebook if you don’t like their moderation. As long as they are providing evidence for their moderation and consistent, I don’t see a problem.
Well, apparently you are not concerned with double standards. I guess fake news is only bad if it doesn't agree with your world view.
Bringing up the point of Who fact checks the fact-checkers (and I see it's already been brought up once)? It's the new(ish) realm of opinion journalism.
The bottom line, if you've been paying attention, is that American fact check websites rely on a left of center worldview to inform what's true but misleading and what's outright lies. I particularly like one blog's breakdown (second example) of everything that's been wrong, and is wrong with current websites. If you're associated with American-left realm of politics, you'll likely already believe that your political opponents don't have a truthful leg to stand on, so the abuses are already invisible from your ideology. I've found this to be true with people, including and well-exhibited by LightSpectra in the US Pol thread, countless times.
It's basically an extension of the same echo chamber that is populated by mainstream journalists. Favored stories that affirm established biases get forgiven their mistruths and excesses. Disfavored stories are rated 'fake news,' spun to be more false by invention, and generally rejected in partisan fashion. Faced with the opinion journalism masquerade, right-of-center folk have checked out of the smear attempts, further leading to fact checkers catering to their mostly leftist reading audience.
The entire fact-check sphere fits neatly into one side of the culture wars that declare the right is on the wrong side of history and devoid of fact-based argumentation. So it's almost a comical attempt, as previously noted by Poland Facebook here, to insert editorial bias into all internet consumption of news. I don't see a credible source among the listed few. Literally zero. Maybe the next generation can evolve to balance the ideological viewpoints of their staff (or something) to help with their unadmitted problem of leftward-slanted evaluation.
On April 11 2017 23:43 Danglars wrote: The bottom line, if you've been paying attention, is that American fact check websites rely on a left of center worldview to inform what's true but misleading and what's outright lies. I particularly like one blog's breakdown
First case from this one is all I read.
And if you just look at the actual number of reversals, not only is the Ninth Circuit the one with the highest number, it’s not even close.
Sure, but then:
The 9th Circuit is by far the largest circuit. In the 12 months leading up to March, 31, 2015, just under 12,000 cases were filed in the 9th Circuit — more than 4,000 more than the next-largest circuit, the 5th Circuit.
The manipulation is on your blogger's side, not the fact-checker. Try harder, please.
You don't understand, his feelings tell him the Blogger gotta be right because he is more in line with his worldview. Actual facts don't matter, its about "felt facts".
Yeah, I guess. But then, if the "felt facts" get even a little closer to the real facts, then it's worth it. Oh, and the Facebook Poland connections with socialist parties is bull. FB just removed the content that used radical nationalists' symbols, and rightfully so.
I really don't follow the logic here, "Politifact is [putatively] wrong about one thing" (it has already been admitted that fact checkers are not infallible), "ergo let's all drink the Breitbart/FOX News/the Blaze/WND kool-aid"?
On April 11 2017 07:47 a_flayer wrote: I'd seen this before, but I came across it again, and I think this is a good indication of this thing called "bias". It was one of the things that triggered me to investigate news from, shall we say, non-traditional sources.
America reports on "NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and two Russians"
Russia reports on "cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov, Andrei Borisenko and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough"
The discrepancy is of course easily 'justified' by citing the American publics lack of interest in foreigners. However, I believe that this sort of bias is incredibly widespread all across American media, and consequently leads towards something much more toxic. Especially when it comes to more important matters than just astronauts/cosmonauts launching into space.
Your comments are interesting
Obviously American media can't exactly be trusted without a thought or further reading.
However, you seem to be incredibly pro-Russian media, which begs the question: Why would you trust state sponsored media? Same goes for that Turkey comment earlier in the thread....
On April 11 2017 23:43 Danglars wrote: The bottom line, if you've been paying attention, is that American fact check websites rely on a left of center worldview to inform what's true but misleading and what's outright lies. I particularly like one blog's breakdown
The 9th Circuit is by far the largest circuit. In the 12 months leading up to March, 31, 2015, just under 12,000 cases were filed in the 9th Circuit — more than 4,000 more than the next-largest circuit, the 5th Circuit.
The manipulation is on your blogger's side, not the fact-checker. Try harder, please.
Sheer number of cases filed is not equatable with cases reviewed by the Supreme Court and then reversed or confirmed or other. 4,000 more than the next-largest circuit, the 5th, is much higher than the 77-27 (5th) or 77-28 (next highest, sixth). In any case, please tell me you comprehended the actual point. Any fact check on this issue should acknowledge the volume disparity before going on to discuss percentages if they want to earn the title of objective analysis. It actually truly is the more overturned court in the country, but not according to percentage, which any fact checked should print in its damn report. If you say Byun has won more tournament games, but it comes down to the fact he's played more tournament games total, you'd be remiss to not note the bulk wins before going on to address the percentages.
That is, unless your goal is also manipulation, or your opinion stems from ignorance.
There is no sense in which Hannity's claim that the 9th circuit is "the most overturned court in the country" is true. Neither by volume nor by percentage. Politifact was 100% right to call bullshit on it, you and the writers at the Federalist are making rather painfully-looking body contortions to make it seem otherwise.
Of course, even if by technicality you were barely right on this front, it doesn't mean Politifact has a systemic bias that makes it untrustworthy, that means it was barely wrong on one thing.
Politifact also provides citations to their reasoning, which people can review on their own and see if they agree with Politifact's conclusion. Which is more effort that most blogs put in.
On April 12 2017 01:04 Danglars wrote: Any fact check on this issue should acknowledge the volume disparity before going on to discuss percentages if they want to earn the title of objective analysis.
Yes, it would be better if they did.
It actually truly is the more overturned court in the country, but not according to percentage,
"the more overturned" does not by itself mean "by volume". It probably differs between individuals, but percentage differences are the first thing that comes to my mind. Besides, comparing volumes makes no sense when the circuits differ significantly in size (and I didn't even know that before so I felt manipulated after reading more).
It is the largest of all the Federal Appeals courts simply by the number of people that are under its jurisdiction. Which included the Philippines(Things I learned today, the Supreme court created that jurisdiction when congress refused to). Just looking into this, it appears that their reversal rate seems to be below national average. And they are also dealing with a larger variety of complex issues.
On April 12 2017 00:08 ZBiR wrote: Yeah, I guess. But then, if the "felt facts" get even a little closer to the real facts, then it's worth it. Oh, and the Facebook Poland connections with socialist parties is bull. FB just removed the content that used radical nationalists' symbols, and rightfully so.
You also forgot to mention that said symbol is recognized by the state, which does not consider it extremist. Effectively, Facebook banned the organizers of the Independence March for putting the logo of one of the involved organizations on a poster, as well as banned many people for simply sharing the poster... It also frequently bans Lemingopedia, Żelazna Logika, etc. for no reason whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that Facebook does absolutely nothing e.g. about Stalinist sites, which apparently do not break 'community standards'.
To reiterate, Facebook bans far-right and even center-right sites for using a logo or even no reason at all, yet is fine with whitewashing of Stalinist crimes. That is beyond messed up.
Edit: And here's an example of fake news produced by a leftist "satirical' page on Facebook:
The state does not, the facebook does. Their choice. Would you say it's not justified? Also, were plain people actually banned for that poster? I'd expect only the poster being removed, though it could just happen to be the last straw. Do you have any examples of stalinist sites that don't get persecuted? I've never heard of that.
Regarding sokzburaka, I don't have anything positive to say about them. I think I may have seen them state openly that they try to support PO, making them cetre-rightist, not leftist, and that they do get banned sometimes. I'd also say that the picture given is supposed to be a joke of some sort, as it's obvious it didn't happen in Poland - the policemen don't look like that, and it even says "Russia" in Cyrillic on their uniforms. I can't fathom how it could be considered funny though.
On April 12 2017 01:16 LightSpectra wrote: There is no sense in which Hannity's claim that the 9th circuit is "the most overturned court in the country" is true. Neither by volume nor by percentage. Politifact was 100% right to call bullshit on it, you and the writers at the Federalist are making rather painfully-looking body contortions to make it seem otherwise.
Of course, even if by technicality you were barely right on this front, it doesn't mean Politifact has a systemic bias that makes it untrustworthy, that means it was barely wrong on one thing.
You got some alternative facts on volume? Because the only bullshit I see is your statement contrary to fact. That and your absurd characterizations. And if you're arguing technicalities, perhaps you won't cherry pick out of my links just one point you wish to argue. It has a clear record of mistruth throughout its life. Nitpicking about one or another of the criticisms is to deny the body of criticisms and remind right-leaning citizens that this was never about truth in fact-checkers to begin with, just journalistic op-eds on events of the day.
On April 12 2017 01:04 Danglars wrote: Any fact check on this issue should acknowledge the volume disparity before going on to discuss percentages if they want to earn the title of objective analysis.
It actually truly is the more overturned court in the country, but not according to percentage,
"the more overturned" does not by itself mean "by volume". It probably differs between individuals, but percentage differences are the first thing that comes to my mind. Besides, comparing volumes makes no sense when the circuits differ significantly in size (and I didn't even know that before so I felt manipulated after reading more).
So clearly an unbiased rating system would have to discuss both before a conclusion. And an unambiguous conclusion would be akin to announcing the team that scored the most points in World Series is not the team that scored the most points in World Series; they've just played more games there. State clearly, discuss assumptions, conclude impartially ... all steps that would've helped the article not end up as a mess.
No reasonable person would read Hannity's statement and think that he is talking about volume and not proportion. He was painting the 9th circuit as some partisan radical/incompetent court whose decisions are always overturned.
Danglars, this really isn't the hill you want to die on. If you're going to prove that the fact checkers in the OP have a systemic bias, it's not going to be over Sean Hannity.
On April 12 2017 04:47 LightSpectra wrote: No reasonable person would read Hannity's statement and think that he is talking about volume and not proportion. He was painting the 9th circuit as some partisan radical/incompetent court whose decisions are always overturned.
Danglars, this really isn't the hill you want to die on. If you're going to prove that the fact checkers in the OP have a systemic bias, it's not going to be over Sean Hannity.
If they're the most overturned court, it doesn't matter if you think they're proportionally justified, it matters that you report both and decide on your rating. Failing to provide the context, not even dismissing it after discussion, is a failure of journalism.
It's kind of like taking an article providing four cases of bias and nitpicking on one is absolutely admitting you have no desire to investigate allegations of systematic bias. Oops. Hey, more power to you if you're a big fan. You wouldn't be the first on the left to ignore articles that conflict with your internally held biases. I'm absolutely not singling you out any more than being the author of this thread's OP; allies that behave like you number in the millions in the US alone.
I'm at risk of repeating the same ignored points that happened in the fake news reporting after Trump won. A little more self-reflection, a little more hiring of a diverse political writing team, and reporting the true/false breakdowns and none of these nonsense 'mostly false but technically true' BS. It remains that current-generation fact checks are probably too poisoned for use, and old school "read both sides" techniques ought to be used instead.
On April 11 2017 07:47 a_flayer wrote: I'd seen this before, but I came across it again, and I think this is a good indication of this thing called "bias". It was one of the things that triggered me to investigate news from, shall we say, non-traditional sources.
America reports on "NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and two Russians"
Russia reports on "cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov, Andrei Borisenko and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough"
The discrepancy is of course easily 'justified' by citing the American publics lack of interest in foreigners. However, I believe that this sort of bias is incredibly widespread all across American media, and consequently leads towards something much more toxic. Especially when it comes to more important matters than just astronauts/cosmonauts launching into space.
Your comments are interesting
Obviously American media can't exactly be trusted without a thought or further reading.
However, you seem to be incredibly pro-Russian media, which begs the question: Why would you trust state sponsored media? Same goes for that Turkey comment earlier in the thread....
I only come across as such because I deliberately take the opposite viewpoint in this environment where they are basically constantly bashed. I trust them to the same extent I trust the western media - to provide coverage of events from their perspective. And where many people hold the American perspective much higher than other perspectives, I do not. And quite frankly when either of these parties covers things said by any statesmen, I quickly turn on the scepticism.
In the case of RT America specifically, where as far as I can tell it's just American people covering events regarding America, I don't think they're any worse than the other western media (I'd even just count them amongst western media). Perhaps they are a bit younger and thus less refined in some ways, like any relatively young news organisation would be. I think they may even be a little better in terms of criticism, because they are not completely bought out by American corporations in the 'United Corporations of America'. People just think they are a 'Russian propaganda tool' because such criticism will cause dissent. There might be some truth to this in that RT America will specifically look to hire reporters & enlist pundits who will gladly dish out criticism, but then I will simply refer you to the idea of the 4th branch of government.
Which Turkey comment are you talking about?
On April 11 2017 22:12 LightSpectra wrote: And what do other countries (not USA or Russia) say? I would expect that kind of nationalist bias in most media sources.
Indeed. Even reading a few articles regarding Dutch history on wikipedia gave me a different perspective compared to reading my Dutch history books as a teenager. The point with the NASA vs Roscosmos report was to illustrate that it's entirely possible for Russia (or other non-western sources) to, on occasion, provide a more neutral viewpoint, or at least complete the viewpoint in case one part is left out for whatever reason. You will, inevitably, miss out on the complete picture by limiting yourself to just one side when reading about a war, for example (especially when it is an ongoing event).
People talk about green little men (aka Russian soldiers) crossing borders sometimes. I'd say that's definitely a thing. But, well, perhaps there are - and have been, in the past - certain orange Americans on the other side of this who like to label everything that opposes them as propaganda and falsehoods, or, as one might say, 'fake news'.
On April 12 2017 04:47 LightSpectra wrote: No reasonable person would read Hannity's statement and think that he is talking about volume and not proportion. He was painting the 9th circuit as some partisan radical/incompetent court whose decisions are always overturned.
Danglars, this really isn't the hill you want to die on. If you're going to prove that the fact checkers in the OP have a systemic bias, it's not going to be over Sean Hannity.
If they're the most overturned court, it doesn't matter if you think they're proportionally justified, it matters that you report both and decide on your rating. Failing to provide the context, not even dismissing it after discussion, is a failure of journalism.
It's kind of like taking an article providing four cases of bias and nitpicking on one is absolutely admitting you have no desire to investigate allegations of systematic bias. Oops. Hey, more power to you if you're a big fan. You wouldn't be the first on the left to ignore articles that conflict with your internally held biases. I'm absolutely not singling you out any more than being the author of this thread's OP; allies that behave like you number in the millions in the US alone.
I'm at risk of repeating the same ignored points that happened in the fake news reporting after Trump won. A little more self-reflection, a little more hiring of a diverse political writing team, and reporting the true/false breakdowns and none of these nonsense 'mostly false but technically true' BS. It remains that current-generation fact checks are probably too poisoned for use, and old school "read both sides" techniques ought to be used instead.
So context doesn’t matter? The 2nd district and the 9th district are exactly the same in population and scope of their jurisdiction? No differences at all?
On April 12 2017 04:47 LightSpectra wrote: No reasonable person would read Hannity's statement and think that he is talking about volume and not proportion. He was painting the 9th circuit as some partisan radical/incompetent court whose decisions are always overturned.
Danglars, this really isn't the hill you want to die on. If you're going to prove that the fact checkers in the OP have a systemic bias, it's not going to be over Sean Hannity.
If they're the most overturned court, it doesn't matter if you think they're proportionally justified, it matters that you report both and decide on your rating. Failing to provide the context, not even dismissing it after discussion, is a failure of journalism.
It's kind of like taking an article providing four cases of bias and nitpicking on one is absolutely admitting you have no desire to investigate allegations of systematic bias. Oops. Hey, more power to you if you're a big fan. You wouldn't be the first on the left to ignore articles that conflict with your internally held biases. I'm absolutely not singling you out any more than being the author of this thread's OP; allies that behave like you number in the millions in the US alone.
I'm at risk of repeating the same ignored points that happened in the fake news reporting after Trump won. A little more self-reflection, a little more hiring of a diverse political writing team, and reporting the true/false breakdowns and none of these nonsense 'mostly false but technically true' BS. It remains that current-generation fact checks are probably too poisoned for use, and old school "read both sides" techniques ought to be used instead.
So context doesn’t matter? The 2nd district and the 9th district are exactly the same in population and scope of their jurisdiction? No differences at all?
Let's separate out journalists refusing to state context on their articles and what the article did say and was right to say, shall we? When I said they failed to provide the context, I meant they failed to provide the context, not that context didn't matter. Surely even you can comprehend that point?
On April 12 2017 04:47 LightSpectra wrote: No reasonable person would read Hannity's statement and think that he is talking about volume and not proportion. He was painting the 9th circuit as some partisan radical/incompetent court whose decisions are always overturned.
Danglars, this really isn't the hill you want to die on. If you're going to prove that the fact checkers in the OP have a systemic bias, it's not going to be over Sean Hannity.
If they're the most overturned court, it doesn't matter if you think they're proportionally justified, it matters that you report both and decide on your rating. Failing to provide the context, not even dismissing it after discussion, is a failure of journalism.
It's kind of like taking an article providing four cases of bias and nitpicking on one is absolutely admitting you have no desire to investigate allegations of systematic bias. Oops. Hey, more power to you if you're a big fan. You wouldn't be the first on the left to ignore articles that conflict with your internally held biases. I'm absolutely not singling you out any more than being the author of this thread's OP; allies that behave like you number in the millions in the US alone.
I'm at risk of repeating the same ignored points that happened in the fake news reporting after Trump won. A little more self-reflection, a little more hiring of a diverse political writing team, and reporting the true/false breakdowns and none of these nonsense 'mostly false but technically true' BS. It remains that current-generation fact checks are probably too poisoned for use, and old school "read both sides" techniques ought to be used instead.
So context doesn’t matter? The 2nd district and the 9th district are exactly the same in population and scope of their jurisdiction? No differences at all?
Let's separate out journalists refusing to state context on their articles and what the article did say and was right to say, shall we? When I said they failed to provide the context, I meant they failed to provide the context, not that context didn't matter. Surely even you can comprehend that point?
On April 12 2017 04:47 LightSpectra wrote: No reasonable person would read Hannity's statement and think that he is talking about volume and not proportion. He was painting the 9th circuit as some partisan radical/incompetent court whose decisions are always overturned.
Danglars, this really isn't the hill you want to die on. If you're going to prove that the fact checkers in the OP have a systemic bias, it's not going to be over Sean Hannity.
If they're the most overturned court, it doesn't matter if you think they're proportionally justified, it matters that you report both and decide on your rating. Failing to provide the context, not even dismissing it after discussion, is a failure of journalism.
It's kind of like taking an article providing four cases of bias and nitpicking on one is absolutely admitting you have no desire to investigate allegations of systematic bias. Oops. Hey, more power to you if you're a big fan. You wouldn't be the first on the left to ignore articles that conflict with your internally held biases. I'm absolutely not singling you out any more than being the author of this thread's OP; allies that behave like you number in the millions in the US alone.
I'm at risk of repeating the same ignored points that happened in the fake news reporting after Trump won. A little more self-reflection, a little more hiring of a diverse political writing team, and reporting the true/false breakdowns and none of these nonsense 'mostly false but technically true' BS. It remains that current-generation fact checks are probably too poisoned for use, and old school "read both sides" techniques ought to be used instead.
So context doesn’t matter? The 2nd district and the 9th district are exactly the same in population and scope of their jurisdiction? No differences at all?
Let's separate out journalists refusing to state context on their articles and what the article did say and was right to say, shall we? When I said they failed to provide the context, I meant they failed to provide the context, not that context didn't matter. Surely even you can comprehend that point?
Why doesn’t context matter?
When I said they failed to provide the context, I meant they failed to provide the context, not that context didn't matter. Surely even you can comprehend that point?
You astound and amaze. PM me if you want to resume this discussion at a more opportune time.
On April 12 2017 04:47 LightSpectra wrote: No reasonable person would read Hannity's statement and think that he is talking about volume and not proportion. He was painting the 9th circuit as some partisan radical/incompetent court whose decisions are always overturned.
Danglars, this really isn't the hill you want to die on. If you're going to prove that the fact checkers in the OP have a systemic bias, it's not going to be over Sean Hannity.
If they're the most overturned court, it doesn't matter if you think they're proportionally justified, it matters that you report both and decide on your rating. Failing to provide the context, not even dismissing it after discussion, is a failure of journalism.
It's kind of like taking an article providing four cases of bias and nitpicking on one is absolutely admitting you have no desire to investigate allegations of systematic bias. Oops. Hey, more power to you if you're a big fan. You wouldn't be the first on the left to ignore articles that conflict with your internally held biases. I'm absolutely not singling you out any more than being the author of this thread's OP; allies that behave like you number in the millions in the US alone.
I'm at risk of repeating the same ignored points that happened in the fake news reporting after Trump won. A little more self-reflection, a little more hiring of a diverse political writing team, and reporting the true/false breakdowns and none of these nonsense 'mostly false but technically true' BS. It remains that current-generation fact checks are probably too poisoned for use, and old school "read both sides" techniques ought to be used instead.
So context doesn’t matter? The 2nd district and the 9th district are exactly the same in population and scope of their jurisdiction? No differences at all?
Let's separate out journalists refusing to state context on their articles and what the article did say and was right to say, shall we? When I said they failed to provide the context, I meant they failed to provide the context, not that context didn't matter. Surely even you can comprehend that point?
When I said they failed to provide the context, I meant they failed to provide the context, not that context didn't matter. Surely even you can comprehend that point?
You astound and amaze. PM me if you want to resume this discussion at a more opportune time.
I understood what you wrote. It just doesn’t line up with the reality of the discussion. Technically correct isn’t much of an argument. Especially when an 8th grade understanding of proportions and ratios undermines it.
On April 12 2017 03:24 ZBiR wrote: The state does not, the facebook does. Their choice. Would you say it's not justified? Also, were plain people actually banned for that poster? I'd expect only the poster being removed, though it could just happen to be the last straw. Do you have any examples of stalinist sites that don't get persecuted? I've never heard of that.
I would say Facebook has some terrible double standards. It bans for having a poster with a logo of an organization it doesn't like, but is perfectly okay with communist symbolism and Stalinist propaganda. Those are two communist pages I reported a year ago. According to Facebook, they do not break the 'community standards'.
And yes, Facebook also banned many regular people for simply sharing the poster. You can also check out the Twitter feed or Facebook history (if that is possible) of the Independence March Facebook page to see that, while some of their members might harbor real racist sentiments, you'll be hard pressed to find any such content on their social media. They are very cautious about it. All it comes down to is guilt by association.
If Facebook comes up with universal rules that will be applied across the board, the right and the left alike, I will be fine with that. Currently it gives the left a lot of leeway and turns a blind eye to actual "hate speech", while routinely harassing pages with viewpoints it disagrees with (it was especially bad last year).
Regarding sokzburaka, I don't have anything positive to say about them. I think I may have seen them state openly that they try to support PO, making them cetre-rightist, not leftist, and that they do get banned sometimes. I'd also say that the picture given is supposed to be a joke of some sort, as it's obvious it didn't happen in Poland - the policemen don't look like that, and it even says "Russia" in Cyrillic on their uniforms. I can't fathom how it could be considered funny though.
I did not know they openly stated that they support PO. Any source for that? Also, PO during its last four years in the government moved to center/center-left. Besides that, SokzBuraka is pro-abortion (I am not saying "pro-choice" because they showed support towards vulgar, militant feminism) and frequently attacks religion, which is why I called them "leftist".
I don't have any information about them getting banned by Facebook. Perhaps getting temporarily blocked, although I highly doubt that because I reported them several times for slanderous posts/"hate speech" and fake news, to no avail. They don't go beyond that so what would get them banned? Are you sure you're not confusing it with that one time when there were some technical difficulties and SokzBuraka was unavailable, and people thought it got banned?
You'd be surprised how gullible many of SokzBuraka's fans are. While the photo from Russia was pretty obvious, there are examples which are not. Other fake news include "240k people at KOD's march" (when in reality roughly 45-65k people attended), "PiS wants to ban abortion", fake quotes by members of PiS that make them look especially stupid (e.g. Beata Szydło advising homeless people to stay at home when it's very cold outside) and quotes taken completely out of context. They mix it with content that is factually correct and their fans simply buy all of it.
None of their content is supposed to be funny. It's supposed to rile people up against PiS. ASZDziennik actually tries to be funny and is doing a decent job, despite its obvious bias.
On April 12 2017 16:35 maybenexttime wrote: I would say Facebook has some terrible double standards. It bans for having a poster with a logo of an organization it doesn't like, but is perfectly okay with communist symbolism and Stalinist propaganda. Those are two communist pages I reported a year ago. According to Facebook, they do not break the 'community standards'.
Yeah, those indeed look ridiculous. I actually know one guy that follows the second one. Terrible.
I did not know they openly stated that they support PO. Any source for that? Also, PO during its last four years in the government moved to center/center-left. Besides that, SokzBuraka is pro-abortion (I am not saying "pro-choice" because they showed support towards vulgar, militant feminism) and frequently attacks religion, which is why I called them "leftist".
I don't have any information about them getting banned by Facebook. Perhaps getting temporarily blocked, although I highly doubt that because I reported them several times for slanderous posts/"hate speech" and fake news, to no avail. They don't go beyond that so what would get them banned? Are you sure you're not confusing it with that one time when there were some technical difficulties and SokzBuraka was unavailable, and people thought it got banned?
Here they say they support PO, but also N and KOD. I might have misremembered that, and bans probably were indeed only temporary. I'm pretty sure you can't report fanpages for fake news or slander against public figures unless it encourages violence, as this is how free speech works in the USA I guess. FB only offers you to hide their posts for you. I also disagree about PO becoming centre-left, but it's off topic here.
My point was that if it did not get banned for things I reported it for, then I find it unlikely they would ban it for anything, because it doesn't post anything worse than that.
Add to that the fact that Sylwia de Weydenthal, a pretty important figure in Polish Facebook (not sure what her position is called), is a fan of SokzBuraka, and that right-wind Facebook pages were all hyped when they thought SokzBuraka got banned (it was in fact a technical issue), I find it unlikely that the page was actually banned, because I think I would've heard about that.
On April 12 2017 04:59 Danglars wrote: I'm at risk of repeating the same ignored points that happened in the fake news reporting after Trump won. A little more self-reflection, a little more hiring of a diverse political writing team, and reporting the true/false breakdowns and none of these nonsense 'mostly false but technically true' BS. It remains that current-generation fact checks are probably too poisoned for use, and old school "read both sides" techniques ought to be used instead.
There's nothing demonstrably wrong with our current fact checkers (Snopes, Politifact, etc.) except people like you that try to paint them as the Pravda because you (putatively) found one tiny little error in them. Maybe if you had such harsh scrutiny for Breitbart/WND/FOX/the Blaze/et al. there wouldn't be such a problem with politicians and newscasters like Trump and Hannity lying their asses off without repercussions.
The problem with "read both sides" is that sometimes, one side is saying that there's a Muslim rape-mob crossing Frankfurt and molesting thousands of women, and then there's one side that says it's not happening. The partisan divide here is not microscopic.
On April 12 2017 18:52 maybenexttime wrote: My point was that if it did not get banned for things I reported it for, then I find it unlikely they would ban it for anything, because it doesn't post anything worse than that.
So what did you report them for? All I see is stuff like "life was better under Stalin than now", not that he did good killing 30 million people. Do you imagine the outrage if they banned Korwin-Mikke after he said that people had it better under Hitler than now?
Add to that the fact that Sylwia de Weydenthal, a pretty important figure in Polish Facebook (not sure what her position is called), is a fan of SokzBuraka,
How would you know that? You'd have to be her friend on FB to see her follow it, and there have been a lot of false accusations about her.
On April 12 2017 18:52 maybenexttime wrote: My point was that if it did not get banned for things I reported it for, then I find it unlikely they would ban it for anything, because it doesn't post anything worse than that.
So what did you report them for? All I see is stuff like "life was better under Stalin than now", not that he did good killing 30 million people. Do you imagine the outrage if they banned Korwin-Mikke after he said that people had it better under Hitler than now?
Add to that the fact that Sylwia de Weydenthal, a pretty important figure in Polish Facebook (not sure what her position is called), is a fan of SokzBuraka,
How would you know that? You'd have to be her friend on FB to see her follow it, and there have been a lot of false accusations about her.
I reported them for "hate speech", because if there's anything that should qualify as "hate speech" it's promoting such a hateful ideology as communism (especially of the Stalinist kind). On one hand you have Facebook banning the Independence March's page because it posted a poster with a logo Facebook apparently doesn't like, and on the other hand you have Facebook doing nothing about pages promoting a vile ideology responsible for millions of deaths.
What I'm saying is that Facebook is incredibly inconsistent. The moderators arbitrarily choose when to apply the rules and when to ignore them. Facebook banned Independence March because of what, according to the moderators, falanga (the symbol in question) stands for. The same apparently does not apply to the communist symbols, even though they stand for something much, much worse...
As for Sylwia de Weydenthal, I've seen her fraternize with PO and .N politicians, as well as with the KOD leadership (there are photos of that). I also read the interview (for Dziennik Gazeta Prawna) in which she explained why Facebook did not ban a page called "John Paul II raped children". Namely, because they assess whether the content of a given page is factually correct (sic!) and they could not tell whether that statement was untrue.
So while I can't know for sure whether the screeshot below is real, it is consistent with what I know about her. Whether she's a fan of SokzBuraka (she has the same political sympathies) is of secondary importance in my posts.
I tried to find out what happened with the chemical attack in Syria the other week and it is incredibly difficult for someone like myself to know what to trust. I have almost no ability to evaluate claims concerning specifics of warfare by various parties in Syria, and I'm completely at the mercy of experts.
Russia and the USA both have different stories as to what happened and Trump pretty much immediately acted when the first television images came in. There was no independent investigation, and I read so many contradictory statements about it that I still don't know which narrative to believe. It would be nice if, say, the NY Times would bother to not just report on government claims, but also take seriously alternative views. And if this really was a premeditated attack by Assad then prove it to me by systematically making the case and filling all the holes in the story. But I see almost no enthusiasm for this project in Western media, most of them seem to just reflexively go with the anti-Russia and pro-US government narrative.
It's important for journalists to report both sides of the story, but that doesn't mean doing so uncritically. Otherwise you'd have nonsense like half an article showcasing the putative evidence for a flat earth and whatnot.
How is flat earth even, albeit very slowly, becoming a thing? It seems the "critical thinking" has taken over a bit too much people. Theres a diffrence between being critical and being diffrent for the sake of it.
It's important for journalists to report both sides of the story, but that doesn't mean doing so uncritically. Otherwise you'd have nonsense like half an article showcasing the putative evidence for a flat earth and whatnot.
A Quick Turnaround Assessment of the White House Intelligence Report Issued on April 11, 2017
About the Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria.
Theodore A. Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dear Larry:
I am responding to your distribution of what I understand is a White House statement claiming intelligence findings about the nerve agent attack on April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria. My understanding from your note is that this White House intelligence summary was released to you sometime on April 11, 2017.
I have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7 a.m. on April 4, 2017.
In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document points to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of April 4.
This conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that source. My own assessment, is that the source was very likely tampered with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the photographs cited by the White House.
However, if one assumes, as does the White House, that the source of the sarin was from this location and that the location was not tampered with, the most plausible conclusion is that the sarin was dispensed by an improvised dispersal device made from a 122 mm section of rocket tube filled with sarin and capped on both sides.
The only undisputable facts stated in the White House report is the claim that a chemical attack using nerve agent occurred in Khan Shaykhun, Syria on that morning. Although the White House statement repeats this point in many places within its report, the report contains absolutely no evidence that this attack was the result of a munition being dropped from an aircraft. In fact, the report contains absolutely no evidence that would indicate who was the perpetrator of this atrocity.
The report instead repeats observations of physical effects suffered by victims that with very little doubt indicate nerve agent poisoning.
The only source the document cites as evidence that the attack was by the Syrian government is the crater it claims to have identified on a road in the North of Khan Shaykhun.
I have located this crater using Google Earth and there is absolutely no evidence that the crater was created by a munition designed to disperse sarin after it is dropped from an aircraft.
The Google Earth map shown in Figure 1 at the end of this text section shows the location of that crater on the road in the north of Khan Shaykhun, as described in the White House statement.
The data cited by the White House is more consistent with the possibility that the munition was placed on the ground rather than dropped from a plane. This conclusion assumes that the crater was not tampered with prior to the photographs. However, by referring to the munition in this crater, the White House is indicating that this is the erroneous source of the data it used to conclude that the munition came from a Syrian aircraft.
Analysis of the debris as shown in the photographs cited by the White House clearly indicates that the munition was almost certainly placed on the ground with an external detonating explosive on top of it that crushed the container so as to disperse the alleged load of sarin.
Since time appears to be of the essence here, I have put together the summary of the evidence I have that the White House report contains false and misleading conclusions in a series of figures that follow this discussion. Each of the figures has a description below it, but I will summarize these figures next and wait for further inquiries about the basis of the conclusions I am putting forward herein.
On April 20 2017 00:20 Velr wrote: How is flat earth even, albeit very slowly, becoming a thing? It seems the "critical thinking" has taken over a bit too much people. Theres a diffrence between being critical and being diffrent for the sake of it.
Is it really becoming a thing? Seems to me it is only being highlighted as "a thing" in order to lampoon it.
Flat earthism, like fake news, is a symptom of a culture that doesn't trust its regular news outlets and continually fears "the establishment" is a gigantic conspiracy of malevolent Orwellians.
On April 20 2017 00:20 Velr wrote: How is flat earth even, albeit very slowly, becoming a thing? It seems the "critical thinking" has taken over a bit too much people. Theres a diffrence between being critical and being diffrent for the sake of it.
I remember reading once that 7-8% of the population have always bought into the flat earth theory. I don’t know if that has risen or if we are just more aware of it because of the internet.
The fact is that the internet as a whole is a wonderful tool to spread conspiracy theories and discredit real science. The democratization of publishing tools, auto formatting of webpages and a lack of human quality control has made it easy to pump any crack pot theory into anyones house.
Of course the internet is an amazing tool. Don’t get me wrong. But it is also something right out of a Brave New world or some cyberpunk story. It is no longer the scrappy underdog taking on the main stream media. It is the main stream media’s peer.
On April 20 2017 00:25 LightSpectra wrote: Flat earthism, like fake news, is a symptom of a culture that doesn't trust its regular news outlets and continually fears "the establishment" is a gigantic conspiracy of malevolent Orwellians.
That is my favorite part about all of this. The use of “establishment” and “main stream” to attack the WSJ or NYTs, while the alternative news sites use Facebook and Google to be beamed into everyones home
I just hear it mentionned more and more over the last few years, mainöy from US sources but well... I tought the stupid ended with "scientific creationism", turns out those guys now seem surprisingly sane.
On April 20 2017 00:33 Velr wrote: I just hear it mentionned more and more over the last few years, mainöy from US sources but well... I tought the stupid ended with "scientific creationism", turns out those guys now seem surprisingly sane.
If you're a fundamentalist Christian/Muslim and you have an unnuanced view of the Bible/Qur'an that essentially requires a textualist, contemporaneously-applicable interpretation of every sentence therein, then it logically follows that the earth is only thousands of years old, and that any person who tells you otherwise is either a brainwasher or brainwashed antitheist.
So if you distrust the mainstream scientific community on biology, there's no particular reason to believe them about climate change, the shape of the earth, the relationship between skin color and moral behavior, etc.
Then there's also non-Christians/Muslims that have hopped onto the movement simply because believing in a conspiracy theory requires one to believe that they are inherently more intelligent/educated/wise than their peers, and thus it strokes their ego.
I kinda can respect the "cause god did it" but i have giant issue when they start to science it up, thats a whole other level of (or just actual) dishonesty.
I also think there is a generational gap. Our current generation is not used to combating the prevalence of conspiracy theories or distrust of science. And non-scientific groups have co-opted the language and evidence driven arguments(even those their evidence does not meet scientific muster). That is why you see so many arguments that lean on “you are irrational” and flat out dismissal, which doesn’t do anything to stop the propagation of the misinformation.
Here's some crazy conspiracy-level anti-Russian propaganda for you: Rachel Maddow. The news agency funded by ex-KGB thug Vladimir Putin suggested that MSNBC has modified their business-model to be more like that of Alex Jones in order to compete with him. Just peddle crazy sensationalist conspiracy shit because it gets eyeballs and thus revenue. Clearly this is just Russia attempting to sow discontent and distrust in the mainstream media, right?
The following is an excerpt from an article in The Intercept about The Rachel Maddow Show:
MSNBC, the country’s most prominent liberal media outlet, has played a key role in stoking the frenzy over Trump’s alleged involvement with Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential race — in lock step with the Democratic Party’s most avid partisans.
Jennifer Palmieri, a senior member of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, captured the prevailing mentality when she recently urged party members to talk about the Russian “attack on our republic” — and to do so “relentlessly and above all else.”
And no leading media figuwhole hysteria in the media. Partly it’s the media’s fault. I believe partly, media, just like, in order to get a lot of views, a lotre has done so more than Maddow. In the period since Election Day, “The Rachel Maddow Show” has covered “The Russia Connection” — and Russia, generally — more than it has any other issue.
The Intercept conducted a quantitative study of all 28 TRMS episodes in the six-week period between February 20 and March 31. Russia-focused segments accounted for 53 percent of these broadcasts.
That figure is conservative, excluding segments where Russia was discussed, but was not the overarching topic.
Maddow’s Russia coverage has dwarfed the time devoted to other top issues, including Trump’s escalating crackdown on undocumented immigrants (1.3 percent of coverage); Obamacare repeal (3.8 percent); the legal battle over Trump’s Muslim ban (5.6 percent), a surge of anti-GOP activism and town halls since Trump took office (5.8 percent), and Trump administration scandals and stumbles (11 percent).
Maybe the Kremlin-backed TV channel has a point? I thought it was especially interesting how there seems to be a significant lack of coverage on Carter Page and Paul Manafort, who are clearly the two most damaging persons when it comes to tying the Trump campaign to Russia and their 'twitter-bot circlejerk campaign', or whatever it was that they did that actually changed people's mind on voting.
Continuing our theme on anti-Russian coverage in the media, how does this impact the thought processes of people who consume this media on a daily basis? Maybe some parallels can be drawn between Muslims and Russians in the media? The anti-Muslim rhetoric you see on the far-right is certainly a nasty thing. It is commonly accepted that this is fuelled by extended coverage of Islamic-inspired violence in the media. But it is not really any better to be xenophobic towards Russians, now is it?
Diplomats and bankers are getting most of the attention in the showdown over Russia. Email hackers too, of course. But in Washington’s Russian and Russian-American community, which is not enormous, there are also teachers and truck drivers, hairdressers and hockey stars. Now, even they are starting to hear questions.
Lily Rozhkova was a journalist in Russia before she moved to the United States in 1999. Most of her friends in Washington are Russian, and the relationship between the two countries has become the first thing they talk about when they all get together.
“We do worry about this,” she says. “We’re just trying to stay optimistic and hope that they just work on the situation and don’t make our worst fears happen.”
Rozhkova, 44, is a green-card holder who works at a real estate office in Virginia. She remembers that when President Barack Obama booted out 35 Russian diplomats and their families in December as a penalty for Russian interference in the election she heard jokes from American friends and colleagues.
“They said, ‘Are you a spy? Do you work with KGB?’ And I told them there’s been no KGB for years,” she said, with a laugh. “They were just making a joke, but that was all.”
As the news churns and allegations grow, however, Rozhkova says the talk is occasionally more serious.
“I would say they are starting to mention Russia more in the past couple of months,” she says. “Before the election, it was more of a joke, but right now the more they hear from TV and media, it’s like this joke, they’re starting to believe it might be true.”
Next up, Glenn Greenwald interviewed a Russian who worked on the Obama and Sanders political campaigns. He seems to agree there is something hysterical about way the Trump-Russia connection is being pursued.
Glenn Greenwald: As a Russian liberal or somebody in the circles of Russian liberalism, and somebody who has worked against the Kremlin and the Putin government, for their opposition, what is your view of, of what has happened in the United States as it concerns Russia? The way Russia has sort of taken center stage in American discourse, the focus on Putin and the Kremlin as kind of the cause or explanation behind many bad things, including the election of Trump?
As somebody who has been in the United States for awhile, has focused on US politics, what has this change been, and how do you view it?
Vitali Shkliarov: I believe it’s really bad right now. It’s the whole hysteria in the media. Partly it’s the media’s fault. I believe partly, media, just like, in order to get a lot of views, a lot of attention and audience, like trying to ride this horse and trying to play this card.
Partly I believe the Democratic establishment is a little bit at fault, has fault in all this rhetoric. I mean, it’s true that probably – even though it’s not, there’s no like real facts on the table – but partly the media says that Russian intervention in the highest of American culture, in the American Elections, and that this is a bad thing. Sure.
But, for instance, America does the same. Every country does the same. Like, we all know from the latest from Snowden that everybody does the espionage and it’s part of the job. So, so let’s not go crazy about it. To use Russia as a justification for bad and misery in Election, from the Democratic side, I believe it’s, it’s really dangerous, because, what’s happened if you’re starting to shake this board, like, you can shake it like to a certain degree, and, and at some point it’s going to turn around, and you’re going to sink.
GG: What do you mean by that?
VS: I believe that – look, the situation with Russia is really dangerous, first of all. So we, kind of are like in the Cold War 2.0 or 3.0 right now, because neither of the sides trust each other, so we don’t communicate. I mean like, Americans and Russians do not communicate anymore. So we cannot get rid of this 60, 70 years-old politics, of, like, that mutual deterrence, you know? That started actually with Truman, and it was probably really important back then, in 48 or like in 5os, but I will be living in the 21st century right now, and then so much has changed.
And I believe, instead of having, continuing trying to establish the politics of distrust, and this mutual deterrence, Russia and America should calm down and start to talk, because that’s, those are two major nations in the world. Sure. America has 27 percent of world GDP, and Russia has just, fairly two percent. Sure, they’re economically unequal but based on nuclear weapons, based on ego alone, politically like, those are two major countries, and I believe if this hysteria doesn’t stop, it’s going to lead to some bad events.
Partly because Russia is in the corner. Partly because Russia is economically, because of sanctions, because of political instability, in a country, on the knees, and in the corner, and Russia doesn’t have much to lose, and that’s what the American politicians underestimate: I believe the Russian mentality, when, when you look throughout the history, is, is shaped by all these losses, all these wars. And they are like more capable of taking a lot of pain, and a lot of like, sacrifice, and once, even as a little, teeny tiny cute dog, if you push them in the corner, you gonna start to bark and you gonna start to bite back, you know?
And I believe like, economically, in the media and in the perception, Russia is like, pushed in the corner right now.
It's important for journalists to report both sides of the story, but that doesn't mean doing so uncritically. Otherwise you'd have nonsense like half an article showcasing the putative evidence for a flat earth and whatnot.
A Quick Turnaround Assessment of the White House Intelligence Report Issued on April 11, 2017
About the Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria.
Theodore A. Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dear Larry:
I am responding to your distribution of what I understand is a White House statement claiming intelligence findings about the nerve agent attack on April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria. My understanding from your note is that this White House intelligence summary was released to you sometime on April 11, 2017.
I have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7 a.m. on April 4, 2017.
In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document points to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of April 4.
This conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that source. My own assessment, is that the source was very likely tampered with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the photographs cited by the White House.
However, if one assumes, as does the White House, that the source of the sarin was from this location and that the location was not tampered with, the most plausible conclusion is that the sarin was dispensed by an improvised dispersal device made from a 122 mm section of rocket tube filled with sarin and capped on both sides.
The only undisputable facts stated in the White House report is the claim that a chemical attack using nerve agent occurred in Khan Shaykhun, Syria on that morning. Although the White House statement repeats this point in many places within its report, the report contains absolutely no evidence that this attack was the result of a munition being dropped from an aircraft. In fact, the report contains absolutely no evidence that would indicate who was the perpetrator of this atrocity.
The report instead repeats observations of physical effects suffered by victims that with very little doubt indicate nerve agent poisoning.
The only source the document cites as evidence that the attack was by the Syrian government is the crater it claims to have identified on a road in the North of Khan Shaykhun.
I have located this crater using Google Earth and there is absolutely no evidence that the crater was created by a munition designed to disperse sarin after it is dropped from an aircraft.
The Google Earth map shown in Figure 1 at the end of this text section shows the location of that crater on the road in the north of Khan Shaykhun, as described in the White House statement.
The data cited by the White House is more consistent with the possibility that the munition was placed on the ground rather than dropped from a plane. This conclusion assumes that the crater was not tampered with prior to the photographs. However, by referring to the munition in this crater, the White House is indicating that this is the erroneous source of the data it used to conclude that the munition came from a Syrian aircraft.
Analysis of the debris as shown in the photographs cited by the White House clearly indicates that the munition was almost certainly placed on the ground with an external detonating explosive on top of it that crushed the container so as to disperse the alleged load of sarin.
Since time appears to be of the essence here, I have put together the summary of the evidence I have that the White House report contains false and misleading conclusions in a series of figures that follow this discussion. Each of the figures has a description below it, but I will summarize these figures next and wait for further inquiries about the basis of the conclusions I am putting forward herein.
Careful, I saw Theodore Postol appear on RT. He's probably just a Russian agent! Fake news! Fake news!
Anyway, don't be ridiculous. Clearly, it is not the job of the media to critically assess information coming out of the FBI/CIA and other government institutions. They should merely report on the information presented by those factions and help distribute it so every American and world citizen is informed of the correct stance to have on matters.
Like MSNBC who got David Ignatius to comment on the bombing of Syria. You can only agree, right? It is as Joe says at 9:15 in the spoilered Russian propaganda video, no need to criticize! + Show Spoiler +
News is biased by nature,i don't think that will ever disappear. Google fact checking="facts" approved by google,it might give the illusion of real facts but it will be google who controls the facts/ truth then. News is also not only about facts,a lot is about the interpretation of facts and about weighing the importance of facts.
Here's an interesting piece on the US media reporting on the weapons deal that the US made with the Saudis. By and large, the US media reported not independently on what the weapons will be used for, but only repeated the US government propaganda regarding this deal. Quoting about the first half of the article, all of the dates mentioned are links to sources in the original article:
The Trump administration wrapped up a weapons deal with the Saudi Arabian government this week that will be worth up to $350 billion over the next ten years. News of the deal came as Trump visited Riyadh and paid fealty to one of the United States’ most enduring allies in the Middle East.
The vast majority of the reports on the topic, however, omitted a rather key piece of context—namely, whom the weapons will be used to kill.
The famine and brutal two-year-long war in Yemen being waged by the Saudis that has killed over 10,000 civilians wasn’t mentioned once in reports of the $300 billion deal to Saudi Arabia by CNN (5/19/17, 5/20/17), Washington Post (5/19/17), The Independent (5/19/17), New York Daily News (5/20/17), CNBC (5/20/17, 5/22/17), CBS News (5/20/17), Business Insider (5/20/17), Time (5/20/17), Fox News (5/20/17), Reuters (5/20/17), ABC News (5/20/17), Fortune Magazine (5/20/17) or Chicago Tribune (5/20/17).
The arms deal was typically framed in vague “security” terms, with an emphasis on Saudi Arabia’s role in fighting “terrorism” (e.g., “The White House says the package includes defense equipment… to help the Arab nation and the rest of the Gulf region fight against terrorism”—Fox News, 5/20/17), despite the fact that the bulk of its military activity is focused on bombing Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen that have nothing to do with terrorism as such.
Indeed, the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed earlier this month his forces were “fighting alongside” the Saudi-backed Yemeni government. This detail was also omitted from reports on the arms deal, presumably because it would messy up the “Saudi Arabia–as–partner–in–War on Terror” narrative the press was uncritically echoing.
In his report on the arms deal, the Washington Post’s Steven Mufson (5/21/17) got quotes from the CEO of Lockheed Martin and reps from General Electric and private-equity firm Blackstone, but found no time to interview a human rights expert or aid worker or victim of Saudi bombing of Yemen; indeed, that bombing wasn’t even mentioned. Likewise, CNBC (5/22/17) issued a sexed-up press release Monday morning about how “defense stocks soar to all-time highs on $110 billion US/Saudi Arabia weapons deal”—with no mention of whom, exactly, said weapons were killing.
Many outlets went with the “jobs” frame, echoing the White House narrative that the selling of arms to a dictatorship waging a brutal war on a neighboring country was, in fact, good because it “created jobs.”
To me, this is an extended part of the problem with regards to my previous example of NASA only reporting on the names of the US astronauts. The US media ignores the foreigners who will be suffering at the hands of these weapons, and focuses instead on reporting the US government spin of the deal and how it benefits Americans (that these people will be suffering, starving and dying). I think it also serves as an example how the US media is essentially in bed with the US military-industrial complex with their focus on the positive economic aspects+ Show Spoiler +
speaking of corporate fascism, people are dying here, Plansix
.
In the spoiler below is an interesting interview on Democracy Now with Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill regarding the way the media reports on casualties in the West versus the Middle East. You can add this on top of the problem of omitting reports of human rights violations in Yemen. I know it is easily justified by saying that the victims in our own hemisphere are more important to people and are therefore reported on in greater detail, but that doesn't take away from the problem existing as it does.
The whole interview is pretty good, but one quote in particular stood out to me. I think it highlights how there is in fact a double standard in the media when it comes to reporting on the US compared to adversaries like Russia:
Glenn Greenwald: What's so strange about this is, in our own personal lives, if we have friends or family members who compulsively blame other people and look for fault in other people and never accept responsibility for their own actions and the way that it contributes to problems, we say "This is a real pathology, you need to start thinking about how it is that your own actions contribute to problems."
And yet the number one rule of media discourse, is that whenever there's violence or attacks, the one thing that we don't want to do is think about the role we played in provoking it. And what's particularly ironic about it, is that when it comes to other countries, we're really good at doing that. For example, if ISIS shoots down a Russian plane or someone inspired by ISIS kills a Russian ambassador in Turkey, instantly, overnight, every pundit, every media outlet blames the Russian foreign policy. They say the reason this happened is the Russians are bombing Syria, or because the Russians have provoked ISIS around the world.
We make that causal connection when it comes to our enemies, but to make that causal connection when it comes to ourselves... Uhm, you know, there are warnings that if the UK invaded Iraq, or if the UK began bombing in Syria they would have exactly the kind of terrorist attacks that just happened in Manchester. But to talk about the causal connection there becomes instantly taboo. And what that means is that we just don't examine the policies that are invoked in the name of stopping terrorism, but are actually doing more to fuel and provoke terrorism more than any other single factor.
Also, Eric Prince (8:34) sounds like a frightening individual.
The situation should be better in a decade.Hard to see blatant propaganda outlets like The Guardian surviving much longer when they're losing over 100 million a year.CNN won't be around in a decade either and nothing has dropped more in circulation than the LA Times the past 25 years.
People are voting with their wallets and their TV remotes and what is termed mainstream media these days is increasingly not.Time for the dinosaur media to finally die off.
On May 28 2017 17:13 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: The situation should be better in a decade.Hard to see blatant propaganda outlets like The Guardian surviving much longer when they're losing over 100 million a year.CNN won't be around in a decade either and nothing has dropped more in circulation than the LA Times the past 25 years.
People are voting with their wallets and their TV remotes and what is termed mainstream media these days is increasingly not.Time for the dinosaur media to finally die off.
The Guardian wasn't mentioned in the article I quoted, but their report on the Saudi-US arms deal (which was published a week or so in advance and somewhat underestimated the scope of the deal, iirc) did mention the war crimes of the Saudi regime in Yemen. As did the New York Times. The problem of western propaganda isn't that there aren't good sources of information, it's that those comprehensive sources are overshadowed by a bulk of corporate outlets that echo state lies.
I don't think CNN is going anywhere. Rather, I think the level of propaganda from corporate media such as CNN will increase over then next few years, based on a few things: 1) Laws passed by the Obama administration to specifically allow state-driven narratives to spread through (social) media. 2) Trump's desire to change libel laws, which will help corporations and the state to place pressure on the free press. 3) The Republicans goal of stopping government leaks in general since they are in power right now. 4) The CIA director has, very disturbingly, expressed wishes to prosecute Assange as a foreign spy. 5) The Democrats misguided anger towards Wikileaks for losing them the elections. 6) The way much of the corporate media seems to support the two previously listed points of view.
I have an eerie feeling that over the next 10-20 years all these things will work in tandem with the expansive monitoring & surveillance systems that are already in place to suppress views that do not align with the goals of the state.
I don't think Wikileaks is doing a good job at all. They quite clearly have an agenda, and even if they don't (which I doubt), they are being played like patsies by people who do have a political agenda. Because while they have "wiki" in their name, they are nothing like wikipedia in that they are NOT an open platform. They are a closed platform where Assange and his friends decide (curate) what is published and what isn't. This can be great, but whoever leaks the "secret" information to them has an agenda (which can be "for the good of the world", or it can be "to advance my own career"). During the US election, wikileaks' agenda was quite clearly anti-DNC, so I don't think the DNC's anger at wikileaks is misguided.
I do think it is futile: at the end of the day, it's not much more than an anonymous pastebin. The same data could be released in torrents (like Snowden did) with the same effect. The problem quite clearly wasn't Wikileaks, it was whoever hacked/phished the DNC emails in the first place. A broader and more overarching problem is the changing dynamics of what should be public and what should be private, and how to balance transparency of public institutions with the need for secrets (such as in diplomatic communication), and the right to privacy of the humans who make up the institution. Just because you happen to be called John Podesta doesn't make it so the public has a right to read your private emails about lasagna recipes. On the other hand, the DNC was accused of foul play, and their lack of transparency exacerbated the issue.
Now this isn't to say that fake news should be allowed, but isn't more of the problem that "people" can't critically think or appraise what they are reading?
On May 30 2017 02:07 MoonfireSpam wrote: Now this isn't to say that fake news should be allowed, but isn't more of the problem that "people" can't critically think or appraise what they are reading?
Its pointless to complain about things you can't control or change.
On May 30 2017 02:07 MoonfireSpam wrote: Now this isn't to say that fake news should be allowed, but isn't more of the problem that "people" can't critically think or appraise what they are reading?
Its pointless to complain about things you can't control or change.
Generally it's pointless to complain. However we can recognize that education in the U.S. and the U.K. is woeful and that we can do something about that. We can vote for parties that will tax the rich and invest in good public schooling.
As a follow up for the poles who were discussing facebook moderation above:
Fake news had other names in the past, like propaganda. The US and other countries had greater control of their media post WW2 due to the impact that Nazi propaganda. One of the things we don't talk about in US history is that Nazism was growing in popularity in the US up until the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It had not become a full political party, but the threat was real.
We are all susceptible to manipulation by media. It is the root of advertising and the why we build casinos. The general public has a limited ability to deal with mass propaganda and attempts as manipulation on a large scale. There is only so much critical thinking can accomplish. It is easy to view Facebook and Google as systems we control and what we find there to be our own choice. But that isn't reality. We don't control what appears on the news sections of google and facebook. The disturbing part of these site isn't the 1984 total control of media we feared post WW2. It is that they could become the opposite through a lack of control, allowing unlimited disinformation at all times and no ability to fact check.
And yet, the current system is working hard at whitewashing the war crimes caused by weapons sold by the United States. I'd say that mass propaganda seems to be happening right now due to the fact that there's just a few media conglomerates that exert at least some level of top-down control over their messaging. Messaging that largely forgoes criticism towards the state foreign policy and large corporations due to the few wealthy people with that top-down control that are profiting from it all in various ways (ad-money, stock options, etc). You can argue that there are a few outlets that do speak honestly about these things, but the simple fact is that many people do not get exposed to this kind of thing because of the masses of mainstream media that leave out details such as the war crimes in Yemen, which perpetuates the murders & rampant inequality due to lack of outrage.
Not to mention that these same media conglomerates have played their part in the scaremongering with regards to terrorism (and thus essentially working side-by-side with the terrorists, and instilling fear of immigrants in the population).
But, you know, Hitler, so we better keep it the way it is now. Close the thread people, we're done.
On May 30 2017 18:51 a_flayer wrote: And yet, the current system is working hard at whitewashing the war crimes caused by weapons sold by the United States. I'd say that mass propaganda seems to be happening right now due to the fact that there's just a few media conglomerates that exert at least some level of top-down control over their messaging. Messaging that largely forgoes criticism towards the state foreign policy and large corporations due to the few wealthy people with that top-down control that are profiting from it all in various ways (ad-money, stock options, etc). You can argue that there are a few outlets that do speak honestly about these things, but the simple fact is that many people do not get exposed to this kind of thing because of the masses of mainstream media that leave out details such as the war crimes in Yemen, which perpetuates the murders & rampant inequality due to lack of outrage.
Not to mention that these same media conglomerates have played their part in the scaremongering with regards to terrorism (and thus essentially working side-by-side with the terrorists, and instilling fear of immigrants in the population).
But, you know, Hitler, so we better keep it the way it is now. Close the thread people, we're done.
Godwin’s law really shouldn’t apply in a thread about propaganda, since Nazi Germany is a case study in the power of state media propaganda. But you are 100% correct that the fear mongering about terrorism has only fed the flames of violence.
On May 30 2017 18:51 a_flayer wrote: And yet, the current system is working hard at whitewashing the war crimes caused by weapons sold by the United States. I'd say that mass propaganda seems to be happening right now due to the fact that there's just a few media conglomerates that exert at least some level of top-down control over their messaging. Messaging that largely forgoes criticism towards the state foreign policy and large corporations due to the few wealthy people with that top-down control that are profiting from it all in various ways (ad-money, stock options, etc). You can argue that there are a few outlets that do speak honestly about these things, but the simple fact is that many people do not get exposed to this kind of thing because of the masses of mainstream media that leave out details such as the war crimes in Yemen, which perpetuates the murders & rampant inequality due to lack of outrage.
Not to mention that these same media conglomerates have played their part in the scaremongering with regards to terrorism (and thus essentially working side-by-side with the terrorists, and instilling fear of immigrants in the population).
But, you know, Hitler, so we better keep it the way it is now. Close the thread people, we're done.
Because it's the Corporate world that sells the Weapons. That is Plutocracy 101.
Would you say you grow dumber or smarter by reading disinformation? If you read something and then go see if other outlets are reporting the same thing and compare the stories, are you becoming smarter or dumber? Maybe there's a term or subject you didn't know about recently and disinformation brought it to the fore? Is that bad or good? I'm not talking about believing the story.
I'd imagine if you believe the fake news, you'll be dumber, but if you practice good fact-checking and refute it, you'll be smarter. Depends on how you handle being told things.
On May 30 2017 18:51 a_flayer wrote: And yet, the current system is working hard at whitewashing the war crimes caused by weapons sold by the United States. I'd say that mass propaganda seems to be happening right now due to the fact that there's just a few media conglomerates that exert at least some level of top-down control over their messaging. Messaging that largely forgoes criticism towards the state foreign policy and large corporations due to the few wealthy people with that top-down control that are profiting from it all in various ways (ad-money, stock options, etc). You can argue that there are a few outlets that do speak honestly about these things, but the simple fact is that many people do not get exposed to this kind of thing because of the masses of mainstream media that leave out details such as the war crimes in Yemen, which perpetuates the murders & rampant inequality due to lack of outrage.
Not to mention that these same media conglomerates have played their part in the scaremongering with regards to terrorism (and thus essentially working side-by-side with the terrorists, and instilling fear of immigrants in the population).
But, you know, Hitler, so we better keep it the way it is now. Close the thread people, we're done.
Godwin’s law really shouldn’t apply in a thread about propaganda, since Nazi Germany is a case study in the power of state media propaganda. But you are 100% correct that the fear mongering about terrorism has only fed the flames of violence.
The problem here, is that it was the US and Woodrow Wilson (re: Bernays and Lippman) that created the modern idea of propaganda (an idea which was borrowed by Hitler and Nazi Germany), not Nazi Germany. If you have any finger to point you need to point it at progressive icon Woodrow Wilson and the US.
The President says that the CBO produces Fake News and his cultists and a huge Conservatainment propaganda industry repeat it. The CBO isn't some New Organization with an axe to grind. They are the last vestige of professional economics analysis in government. They still get called Fake News and a huge amount of people believe it. We can yammer about media bias all we want but we need to acknowledge the yawning asymmetry as to what people of different political persuasions consider to be Fake News.
EDIT: to be explicit:
What is fake news to Libs / Evidence based reality community: Hannity, FOX commentators, Breitbart, Trump, Sinclair Broadcasting Network, literally everything Pence says about reality (check it out, he is opposite man).
What is fake news to Cons / Cultists: everything that isn't wholly devoted to Trump and within the Conservative Entertainment industry. Literally all of it. And any evidence that might go against Dear Leader.
On July 16 2017 12:42 Wulfey_LA wrote: The President says that the CBO produces Fake News and his cultists and a huge Conservatainment propaganda industry repeat it. The CBO isn't some New Organization with an axe to grind. They are the last vestige of professional economics analysis in government. They still get called Fake News and a huge amount of people believe it. We can yammer about media bias all we want but we need to acknowledge the yawning asymmetry as to what people of different political persuasions consider to be Fake News.
EDIT: to be explicit:
What is fake news to Libs / Evidence based reality community: Hannity, FOX commentators, Breitbart, Trump, Sinclair Broadcasting Network, literally everything Pence says about reality (check it out, he is opposite man).
What is fake news to Cons / Cultists: everything that isn't wholly devoted to Trump and within the Conservative Entertainment industry. Literally all of it. And any evidence that might go against Dear Leader.
Yeah... the whole Trump thing really undermines any legitimate criticism that may be leveled against mainstream news sources other than Fox & co. It's problematic.
On July 16 2017 12:42 Wulfey_LA wrote: What is fake news to Libs / Evidence based reality community: Hannity, FOX commentators, Breitbart, Trump, Sinclair Broadcasting Network, literally everything Pence says about reality (check it out, he is opposite man).
What is fake news to Cons / Cultists: everything that isn't wholly devoted to Trump and within the Conservative Entertainment industry. Literally all of it. And any evidence that might go against Dear Leader.
Liberals do not have a monopoly on "evidence-based reality".
On July 16 2017 12:42 Wulfey_LA wrote: The President says that the CBO produces Fake News and his cultists and a huge Conservatainment propaganda industry repeat it. The CBO isn't some New Organization with an axe to grind. They are the last vestige of professional economics analysis in government. They still get called Fake News and a huge amount of people believe it. We can yammer about media bias all we want but we need to acknowledge the yawning asymmetry as to what people of different political persuasions consider to be Fake News.
EDIT: to be explicit:
What is fake news to Libs / Evidence based reality community: Hannity, FOX commentators, Breitbart, Trump, Sinclair Broadcasting Network, literally everything Pence says about reality (check it out, he is opposite man).
What is fake news to Cons / Cultists: everything that isn't wholly devoted to Trump and within the Conservative Entertainment industry. Literally all of it. And any evidence that might go against Dear Leader.
To be fair, even a number of Fox News commentators have stopped straddling the Trump train in recent days. Shepard Smith in particular has really changed his tune as of late.
On July 16 2017 12:42 Wulfey_LA wrote: What is fake news to Libs / Evidence based reality community: Hannity, FOX commentators, Breitbart, Trump, Sinclair Broadcasting Network, literally everything Pence says about reality (check it out, he is opposite man).
What is fake news to Cons / Cultists: everything that isn't wholly devoted to Trump and within the Conservative Entertainment industry. Literally all of it. And any evidence that might go against Dear Leader.
Liberals do not have a monopoly on "evidence-based reality".
I don't think most liberals are happy that most conservatives don't give a shit about evidence or reality, but in terms of which group is known for lying and fearmongering and hatemongering a hundred times to one, the conservatives pretty much have no dog in the fight for truth and facts. Currently. It'd be great if they could be intellectually honest someday.
On April 07 2017 23:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: All news in the US, particularly, is biased and pretty much 60% propaganda. Hell look at the morning shows on basic cable half of it is literally infomercials and them talking about where they shopped and ate last then having a "interview" with said employees/managers to advertise for the next ten minutes. That's not even taking account the war drums the media is ready to beat for anyone or anything.
It's all consumer bullshit. From the same networks that own pretty much every other thing in the country.
It's disheartening to find such an irresponsible statement by a moderator. It's both false and feeds people's perception that their biased media is acceptable because all media is biased.
On July 16 2017 23:03 CUTtheCBC wrote: what's a good way to objectively analyze a news site for bias ?
i was thinking like, scrape their results and do sentiment analysis? check out the images they use via google image?? any suggestions?
I think fact-checking major claims against other/ original sources and being able to analyze the way certain things are worded are useful tools to address bias.
It's also important to point out that bias doesn't equal incorrect. Bias could simply be focusing more on one topic than another. For example, a news network might be biased if it covers (truthfully) a genocide in one area of the world but ignores a genocide in another. That might mean bias (or just a lack of time for a segment). On the other hand, a news network could be unbiased and just do really bad reporting all across the board: dishonest and making bad inferences, but relatively unbiased in terms of who it covers and what it says.
Or you could have sources like Fox News or InfoWars, who are both biased and generally incorrect. I'm sure we're all aware by now the multiple studies that have shown that Fox News viewers are, on average, less informed about the news than not just other news viewers, but people who don't watch any news at all! And nobody would say that Fox News doesn't have a biased, conservative, anti-progressive agenda.
I agree that those sources are good and fair, especially NPR. CNN sensationalizes mundane shit a lot to try and boost ratings (as do many networks), but at least it's still got journalistic integrity and accuracy in the actual reporting.
Washington Post prohibits social media criticism of advertisers
The Washington Post will now prohibit social media activity that “adversely affects” the newspaper’s advertisers or partners, according to a Washingtonian report.
The new policy states that employees of The Post must not conduct themselves on social media in a way that “adversely affects The Post’s customers, advertisers, subscribers, vendors, suppliers, or partners.” A breach of the policy could result in disciplinary action “up to and including termination of employment.”
A bulletin sent out Sunday night by The Post’s guild protested the company-wide action. The policy, put into effect on May 1, encourages employees not to disparage the paper’s partners on social media, to not use social media during the workday unless vital to one’s job and to contact human services if someone suspects another employee of violating the policy.
Deputy Managing Editor Tracy Grant sent out a note to the paper’s employees on May 30 to remind them of their “obligations under the newsroom’s social media policy,” which warns journalists not to “place tokens, badges, or virtual gifts from political or partisan causes on pages or sites.”
The Washingtonian pointed out similarities of the guideline to a policy at The Los Angeles Times, which says “don’t write or post anything that would embarrass the LAT or compromise your ability to do your job."
The guild is reportedly seeking to remove these controversial parts of the policy in a new labor agreement with The Post.
I'm reminded of this song. You just have to replace a few words to modernize it.
I'm the boss of the BBC Washington Post I'm the monkey at the top of the media tree Your version of the riots in Cape Town Occupy Wallstreet Comes second-hand from me Chewing and spewing this revolution For popular TV All your opinions are carefully chosen By what we'll let you see Televised crap dressed up as fact Your soap reality We only want a chance to show the Editor's side Of struggle in the news Closer and closer to the State's eye view Corporate view And further from the truth Push a microphone to the mouth of this youth Bewildered and confused Misreported, distorted, misquoted A ready-made victim to be used Quote you on things that you never said Put this pencil to your head Kill your revolution dead TV tells us what to be and what to say and what to do How to act and how to lie but never question why Fighting to stop this mass-deception Fighting to scrap the pass-laws Fighting to end misuse of land Fighting to close down diamond mines Fighting to feed their hungry mouths Fighting to change the world And here, we sit on a fence Built by distance and enforced by lies Is a full stomach all it takes To keep us pacified
And it's not just the Post and this particular instance of serving their corporate masters in social media. All the major media corporations do this sort of thing on behalf of the people that give them ad-money while at the same just hyping up inconsequential crap or focusing on shit like terrorism to keep the viewer base despite the abysmal reporting (or significant lack of exposure on issues that reflect negatively on their masters). I'm fairly sure this happens at all levels of publishing media in a corporate structure - from the daily breaking news on CNN to the last page of the Washington Post.
When people in this thread and elsewhere dismiss the protests of Occupy Wallstreet as "kooky nuts without anything better to do" or whatever, all I hear is corporate drones echoing what they heard on television or read in a paper that was fueled by exactly this kind of corporate influence in the media.
Look at it this way: there was plenty of support in the liberal media for protests against Trump. There was plenty of mocking those same protesters against Trump in conservative media (picking out the kookiest ones to mock, obviously). But where was this balance when it came to Occupy Wallstreet? It wasn't there because those people were protesting the bottom-line of the very corporations that sponsor the media. Oh wait, it was there, but it was called "Russian propaganda".
And yes, "Russian propaganda" pointed out the fact that the Washington Post was pushing this on their employees. I had to dig through a bunch of "alternative news sites" in the Google results before I found a "credible" source reporting on the notion that this had happened at all.
A lot of professional work places aren't media which has a vital function in a healthy democracy. In effect the policy states that their reporters must not give negative coverage to the company's advertisers. Do you truly not see a problem with that?
The new policy states that employees of The Post must not conduct themselves on social media in a way that “adversely affects The Post’s customers, advertisers, subscribers, vendors, suppliers, or partners.” A breach of the policy could result in disciplinary action “up to and including termination of employment.”
That is the section I am referring to. That seems like standard practice from my perspective. If what they are truly trying to push is to not call out bad practices and the like on social media from their handlers, then yes, that is a problem. But the section I quoted doesn't seem to be that bad in and of itself.
The new policy states that employees of The Post must not conduct themselves on social media in a way that “adversely affects The Post’s customers, advertisers, subscribers, vendors, suppliers, or partners.” A breach of the policy could result in disciplinary action “up to and including termination of employment.”
That is the section I am referring to. That seems like standard practice from my perspective. If what they are truly trying to push is to not call out bad practices and the like on social media from their handlers, then yes, that is a problem. But the section I quoted doesn't seem to be that bad in and of itself.
Beyond their social media policy, it probably goes like this:
Journalist files scathing report about a corporate sponsor -> editor modifies it to play down the lack of integrity in the corporate sponsor -> paper is published with the report somewhere at the back, or you know, behind an obscure click-through link rather than the front page of the website or something. If it gets published at all.
And now the journalist can't even talk about it on social media without fear of getting fired, so how such a report going to get any exposure at all?
The same methods they've always used. Hand it to another paper and let them publish it. You can still keep integrity without sacrificing your income. Passing along information to another person to release isn't illegal and wouldn't cost them much if they covered their tracks.
Where it goes into the same mill... Unless you take an independent publisher and are potentially labeled as fake news and/or don't receive nearly as much exposure as you would in one of the few big media corporations. Which, once again, is all to the benefit of the corporate sponsor.
And do journalists even own the things they write for a paper, or it is like SC2 where the corporation owns the map/report? I know, it probably depends on the agreements/contracts/whatever, right?
Either way, this kind of thing very quickly becomes a huge systematic problem when you only have a few massive media corporations who all have the same sponsors and similar processes of essentially suppressing exposure to reports like this (even if they publish them). Which is why we need independent media outlets and which is why being able to access the whole world of information through the internet is a good thing despite all the horrors it has brought on us.
On April 11 2017 22:12 LightSpectra wrote: And what do other countries (not USA or Russia) say? I would expect that kind of nationalist bias in most media sources.
Literally "two russians and an american launched to ISS"
On April 11 2017 22:12 LightSpectra wrote: And what do other countries (not USA or Russia) say? I would expect that kind of nationalist bias in most media sources.
Literally "two russians and an american launched to ISS"
So you're entirely correct, it's completely normal.
The notion of whether its normal or not isn't in question here. The point is that there is an inherit bias in news reports, and that this bias extends from basic things like launching astronauts into space all the way to the most significant geopolitical events. I think that it is important to keep that in mind when looking at events as they take place. A lot of people and news organizations seem to be woefully incapable of doing that. For all its superiority in personal freedoms, freedom of press, etc, "the West" is not above this problem.
In the example I gave, the Russian news report DID in fact mention all the names and not just the Russians. They overcame that inherit nationalistic bias in this particular report, which is commendable (as far as that goes on such an insignificant matter - don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm treating it as a sign that they are the most neutral source of news across the board, that would be a ridiculous conclusion based on just this). The fact that a German source didn't mention any names and just listed nationalities of both parties is also very impartial on the face of it (they treated everyone in the same way), but does not give us anything when it comes to determining whether or not a nationalistic bias was present in that news report because there were no German astronauts to potentially be listed.
Challenge to a_flayer: Find a single story covered by Russian media that (a) in hindsight turned out to be true (b) was of international importance and (c) was not covered at the same time (let's allow a couple of days) by reputable/mainstream Western media sources (to make it a bit easier, I will restrict this to sources in English). If you can do this, you will have convinced me of the value of following Russian media sources (beyond insights into how Russian propaganda works). This experiment might fail because even with hindsight, we will not be able to agree on what is truthful but let's see.
Conversely, if you cannot do this and I find stories of importance to Russia that were not factually covered at the time by (English language) Russian media but were covered by Western media, will I have convinced you of anything?
EDIT: To make a hypothetical example of what I am thinking about: If it had turned out that MH-17 was downed by an air to air missile (as was suggested in Russian media) then that would probably fit the criteria, as no reputable Western source, as far as I remember, reported this as true (it was reported that Russia alleged this, which is different).
On July 17 2017 03:27 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: I generally stick to NPR for my news. I might check out CNN, WaPo, NYT, BBC from time to time to corroborate.
The best news sites have at least 2 dissenting opinions in the article. It's called research and they try to get both sides into the story somehow.
That's how our school paper does it. For example, there's a section where an issue or topic is presented and we have two writers, one "liberal" and one "conservative," publish their opinions on the matter. Usually I find myself agreeing with the liberal more and think the conservative is an idiot, but even once in a while I find the conservative makes some good points on certain issues and agree with him there.
On July 30 2017 19:24 silynxer wrote: Challenge to a_flayer: Find a single story covered by Russian media that (a) in hindsight turned out to be true (b) was of international importance and (c) was not covered at the same time (let's allow a couple of days) by reputable/mainstream Western media sources (to make it a bit easier, I will restrict this to sources in English). If you can do this, you will have convinced me of the value of following Russian media sources (beyond insights into how Russian propaganda works). This experiment might fail because even with hindsight, we will not be able to agree on what is truthful but let's see.
Conversely, if you cannot do this and I find stories of importance to Russia that were not factually covered at the time by (English language) Russian media but were covered by Western media, will I have convinced you of anything?
EDIT: To make a hypothetical example of what I am thinking about: If it had turned out that MH-17 was downed by an air to air missile (as was suggested in Russian media) then that would probably fit the criteria, as no reputable Western source, as far as I remember, reported this as true (it was reported that Russia alleged this, which is different).
It's a bit more complicated than that. What if a "Moscow Times" story was offered up? Or, for example, Echo Moscow, before it was taken under Kremlin's wing. I agree with your sentiment, though.
Mostly read the economist. Fair, balanced, transparent on it's biases. Also the only way to hear alot of actual news that i don't really think any other publication covers properly (global news, BRICs etc.)
On July 30 2017 19:24 silynxer wrote: Challenge to a_flayer: Find a single story covered by Russian media that (a) in hindsight turned out to be true (b) was of international importance and (c) was not covered at the same time (let's allow a couple of days) by reputable/mainstream Western media sources (to make it a bit easier, I will restrict this to sources in English). If you can do this, you will have convinced me of the value of following Russian media sources (beyond insights into how Russian propaganda works). This experiment might fail because even with hindsight, we will not be able to agree on what is truthful but let's see.
Conversely, if you cannot do this and I find stories of importance to Russia that were not factually covered at the time by (English language) Russian media but were covered by Western media, will I have convinced you of anything?
EDIT: To make a hypothetical example of what I am thinking about: If it had turned out that MH-17 was downed by an air to air missile (as was suggested in Russian media) then that would probably fit the criteria, as no reputable Western source, as far as I remember, reported this as true (it was reported that Russia alleged this, which is different).
None of this has anything to do with what I've said or my views on the matter of bias/propaganda/lies in the news.
Russian media in the west (RT) focuses on dissent and protests that align loosely with the goals of the Kremlin. This is the way in which the majority of their "propaganda" takes root, and it is largely a matter of exposure. Their focus is on giving people in the west who support these goals more exposure, which increases the attention they receive, and thus emboldening the movements that organize these protests. Beyond that, they will also occasionally report on whatever the Kremlin says as if it is an indisputable fact of life (which is obviously bullshit just like the Pentagon reporting on the amount of civilians they kill is clearly bullshit).
It's not that western media don't report on these things, but in many cases these things receive much less exposure due to various reasons. See my post about the Washington Post on how this is achieved. I wouldn't have known about the Washington Post social media policy if I hadn't been watching some comedy show on RT America because that particular tidbit of news hadn't seen a lot of exposure on other western sources that I frequent.
Beyond the exposure problem, it's also not that one thing is said in one news source, and another thing is said in another source. It's a matter of the way things are worded (which adjectives are used to describe an event, etc). It's also about a focus on one particular perspective versus another perspective (which is where the astronauts come in).
What you're asking me to do is something that is completely irrelevant to the point that I am trying to make.
On July 30 2017 19:24 silynxer wrote: Challenge to a_flayer: Find a single story covered by Russian media that (a) in hindsight turned out to be true (b) was of international importance and (c) was not covered at the same time (let's allow a couple of days) by reputable/mainstream Western media sources (to make it a bit easier, I will restrict this to sources in English). If you can do this, you will have convinced me of the value of following Russian media sources (beyond insights into how Russian propaganda works). This experiment might fail because even with hindsight, we will not be able to agree on what is truthful but let's see.
Conversely, if you cannot do this and I find stories of importance to Russia that were not factually covered at the time by (English language) Russian media but were covered by Western media, will I have convinced you of anything?
EDIT: To make a hypothetical example of what I am thinking about: If it had turned out that MH-17 was downed by an air to air missile (as was suggested in Russian media) then that would probably fit the criteria, as no reputable Western source, as far as I remember, reported this as true (it was reported that Russia alleged this, which is different).
None of this has anything to do with what I've said or my views on the matter of bias/propaganda/lies in the news.
I feel it has very much to do with:
The point with the NASA vs Roscosmos report was to illustrate that it's entirely possible for Russia (or other non-western sources) to, on occasion, provide a more neutral viewpoint, or at least complete the viewpoint in case one part is left out for whatever reason. You will, inevitably, miss out on the complete picture by limiting yourself to just one side when reading about a war, for example (especially when it is an ongoing event).
So show me where I am missing out if I don't follow Russian sources. Obviously you will find Russian sources that give a more accurate or complete view than a single English source. But show me the systemic blindspot where all Western media fails to report something of importance that I can only get from following Russian media. Or is there no such blindspot? I have had the impression that you argued there was.
@Ghanburighan: You are right of course but I would hope that any story by real Russian journalists would be quickly picked up in the West as well. Maybe I am too confident though.
On July 30 2017 19:24 silynxer wrote: Challenge to a_flayer: Find a single story covered by Russian media that (a) in hindsight turned out to be true (b) was of international importance and (c) was not covered at the same time (let's allow a couple of days) by reputable/mainstream Western media sources (to make it a bit easier, I will restrict this to sources in English). If you can do this, you will have convinced me of the value of following Russian media sources (beyond insights into how Russian propaganda works). This experiment might fail because even with hindsight, we will not be able to agree on what is truthful but let's see.
Conversely, if you cannot do this and I find stories of importance to Russia that were not factually covered at the time by (English language) Russian media but were covered by Western media, will I have convinced you of anything?
EDIT: To make a hypothetical example of what I am thinking about: If it had turned out that MH-17 was downed by an air to air missile (as was suggested in Russian media) then that would probably fit the criteria, as no reputable Western source, as far as I remember, reported this as true (it was reported that Russia alleged this, which is different).
None of this has anything to do with what I've said or my views on the matter of bias/propaganda/lies in the news.
The point with the NASA vs Roscosmos report was to illustrate that it's entirely possible for Russia (or other non-western sources) to, on occasion, provide a more neutral viewpoint, or at least complete the viewpoint in case one part is left out for whatever reason. You will, inevitably, miss out on the complete picture by limiting yourself to just one side when reading about a war, for example (especially when it is an ongoing event).
So show me where I am missing out if I don't follow Russian sources. Obviously you will find Russian sources that give a more accurate or complete view than a single English source. But show me the systemic blindspot where all Western media fails to report something of importance that I can only get from following Russian media. Or is there no such blindspot? I have had the impression that you argued there was.
@Ghanburighan: You are right of course but I would hope that any story by real Russian journalists would be quickly picked up in the West as well. Maybe I am too confident though.
Well, in that particular case you wouldn't have known the Russian cosmonaut names, would you? How is that not obvious? And it's not super important in that case, because the whole thing (about the astronauts) is not very important, but this blindspot thing does extend far beyond just reporting on astronauts, I hope you can understand that.
On July 30 2017 19:24 silynxer wrote: Challenge to a_flayer: Find a single story covered by Russian media that (a) in hindsight turned out to be true (b) was of international importance and (c) was not covered at the same time (let's allow a couple of days) by reputable/mainstream Western media sources (to make it a bit easier, I will restrict this to sources in English). If you can do this, you will have convinced me of the value of following Russian media sources (beyond insights into how Russian propaganda works). This experiment might fail because even with hindsight, we will not be able to agree on what is truthful but let's see.
Conversely, if you cannot do this and I find stories of importance to Russia that were not factually covered at the time by (English language) Russian media but were covered by Western media, will I have convinced you of anything?
EDIT: To make a hypothetical example of what I am thinking about: If it had turned out that MH-17 was downed by an air to air missile (as was suggested in Russian media) then that would probably fit the criteria, as no reputable Western source, as far as I remember, reported this as true (it was reported that Russia alleged this, which is different).
None of this has anything to do with what I've said or my views on the matter of bias/propaganda/lies in the news.
I feel it has very much to do with:
The point with the NASA vs Roscosmos report was to illustrate that it's entirely possible for Russia (or other non-western sources) to, on occasion, provide a more neutral viewpoint, or at least complete the viewpoint in case one part is left out for whatever reason. You will, inevitably, miss out on the complete picture by limiting yourself to just one side when reading about a war, for example (especially when it is an ongoing event).
So show me where I am missing out if I don't follow Russian sources. Obviously you will find Russian sources that give a more accurate or complete view than a single English source. But show me the systemic blindspot where all Western media fails to report something of importance that I can only get from following Russian media. Or is there no such blindspot? I have had the impression that you argued there was.
@Ghanburighan: You are right of course but I would hope that any story by real Russian journalists would be quickly picked up in the West as well. Maybe I am too confident though.
Well, in that particular case you wouldn't have known the Russian cosmonaut names, would you? How is that not obvious? And it's not super important in that case, because the whole thing (about the astronauts) is not very important, but this blindspot thing does extend far beyond just reporting on astronauts, I hope you can understand that.
Are you challenging me to find an English source with the names? Or are you not understanding what I mean with systemic? In case you couldn't infer this: I am arguing there are glaring blindpsots in Russian reporting that simply do not exist in the same way in Western reporting (because Western media is fairly free and somewhat heterogeneous). This is despite all the problems individual Western media organizations have.
You are of the opinion that there is a specific value in following Russian sources, no? So what is the value if I can get the same news from Western sources?
The value of watching/reading RT is found in their increased willingness to expose dissenting views. Like, you can read the Washington Post, but you can't realistically read all of their articles. So what you're more likely to be exposed to is the front page news articles, even if they report on such a dissenting view. There's a good chance they won't like to expose their own sponsors as corporate thugs, so you're less likely to see negative news about them on the front page, unless you really dig through it you're not going to see it. And thus, technically they may be reporting on it, but it's not brought to light in the same way as news about things that don't risk negatively impacting their bottom line.
The same goes for watching, for example, MSNBC. They're going to be less willing to expose corruption in Democrats because they largely support that political party, and the party supports them (by appearing on the channel to catch eyeballs, advertisement money, etc). They'll be willing to give a lot of exposure to corruption amongst Republicans, though. Conversely, if you watch Fox News, you're less likely to catch news that puts Republicans in a bad light (even if it might be posted somewhere on an obscure Fox News website behind a few click-through links, which means they have technically reported on it).
For an example akin to what you're looking for, I seem to recall reading about the water protesters on RT a few days before I saw it appear on any other news site. Despite that, I'm sure you can find some western news source reporting on it at the same time if you dig hard enough (maybe Democracy Now?). But since RT was more willing to give them exposure because of their bottom line ("dividing the west") I saw it on there first rather than on the classical western sources that I frequented at the time.
I wasn't talking about the Dublin water protests, but OK.
Still, even if some western source did report on the Native American water protesters in the US before RT did that doesn't take away from the fact that I saw it on RT first despite frequenting the Guardian as well. You can ALWAYS find some source, mainstream or otherwise, that will report on things. RT can't compete against the whole breadth of western media. It would ridiculous to hold RT against the whole of western media and then proclaim "see, RT leaves blindspots as well!" or "RT doesn't give more exposure to things since X source reported on it as well!". RT is just one tiny organization, while western media as a whole consist of many many organizations.
I personally see The Guardian as a much better and comprehensive source than RT as well. Still doesn't undermine the point that I am making.
On April 11 2017 22:12 LightSpectra wrote: And what do other countries (not USA or Russia) say? I would expect that kind of nationalist bias in most media sources.
Literally "two russians and an american launched to ISS"
So you're entirely correct, it's completely normal.
The notion of whether its normal or not isn't in question here. The point is that there is an inherit bias in news reports, and that this bias extends from basic things like launching astronauts into space all the way to the most significant geopolitical events. I think that it is important to keep that in mind when looking at events as they take place. A lot of people and news organizations seem to be woefully incapable of doing that. For all its superiority in personal freedoms, freedom of press, etc, "the West" is not above this problem.
You do realise that neither NASA nor Roscosmos are "news agencies", regardless of how often you repeat that, no? NASA certainly did name the cosmonauts in their actual article on nasa.gov, as was pointed out by people in the reddit thread that you borrowed this from already.
Of course media is biased. Everywhere in the world, btw. RT is far from the exception, and quite possibly the worst "but they're better" example that you could've picked. Even Al Jazeera would've been better to make a point.
Why are you now talking about RT's blindspots? The argument was that you ought to watch RT to gain access to news that you can't access elsewhere. You then failed to demonstrate which news one cannot access using Western media. Your argument has then devolved into: RT is just another news channel. But it clearly isn't. It's filled with propaganda and lies, serving the interests of the leaders of one country (notice, I don't think it serves Russia). So your burden of proof is higher: you should show why we ought to expose ourselves to the mental and emotional strain of propaganda if we can access the same news stories using media sources in the free world.
Most of the "you can't see this in the West" articles from RT I've read are pretty sloppy yet spun reposts of stuff from hot press sites like Daily Beast or Mediaite.
FakeCheck’s selection bias is therefore not its biggest sin. The bigger problem is that it mixes dubious fact checks among the legitimate ones, leading to unproven or poorly sourced conclusions.
That's on RTs fakechecker. To be clear, i'm not saying they're worse than others, but i certainly am saying that if you're trying to paint them "better" than others, you completely missed the plot.
I'm talking about blindspots because someone (maybe not you) brought up the notion that RT leaves a giant blindspot when it comes to reporting (probably they meant critical reporting on Russia, which is obviously true).
What I have been arguing in this thread regarding my perceptions about the exposure on articles regarding certain subjects and so on is very hard (impossible) to prove without thorough empirical research, so I will be unable to back up my point by simply looking into one news article or another seeing if it has been reported on. The notion that you can get the same news without watching RT isn't an argument against my perceptions regarding exposure and bias. To resolve this discussion, we would require thorough statistics about exposure of certain news and statistics about the bias of phrasing in articles and the like.
And no, I don't think RT is "better". I don't think I've ever tried to make that case. I'd put them at about the same level as CNN, though. They're both crap compared to news sources like The Guardian and The New York Times.
And no, I don't think RT is "better". I don't think I've ever tried to make that case. I'd put them at about the same level as CNN, though. They're crap compared to news sources like The Guardian and The New York Times.
That one sounds considerably better, this wasn't clear by skimming through the thread.
Sidenote, i do read The Guardian and Spiegel (which is [certainly was, no idea about nowadays] the pinnacle of investigative journalism).
I was not talking about RT alone but all of Russian media. I would make my challenge even easier for you if you'd like: I restrict myself to either reputable American media or British media or German media, you decide (sorry, my languages are limited). Though please note that the event must then be of some relevance to the respective country. That you found something first on RT tells us more about you than it does about the state of the media in the West. You are right that you shouldn't rely on CNN though... However:
On July 30 2017 21:54 a_flayer wrote: And no, I don't think RT is "better". I don't think I've ever tried to make that case. I'd put them at about the same level as CNN, though. They're both crap compared to news sources like The Guardian and The New York Times.
This is exactly the kind of equivocation that drives me nuts. Yes, CNN is awful and RT is certainly awful but for very different reasons: CNN is awful because it puts revenue before facts and analysis. A consequence for international news is that a point of view consistent with the largest part of their viewership is taken (pro-American). RT is literal Russian state propaganda. This does not mean they are fake news (though fake news stories have been propagated on RT) or even wrong news stories. But state propaganda is very different from the biases that plague commercial news organizations in the way that it is singularily directed. The bias in CNN is much more organic so to speak. To illustrate this I invite you to another challenge: I bet that I can find many more and much harsher criticism of any recent president/American foreign policy on CNN than you can of Putin/Russian foreign policy on RT.
A_flayer, you seem to try to hide behind a lack of empirical research being available. Yet, there has been research into this for years (RT is really RIA Novosti, an old propaganda channel created for Russian elections to make sure Medvedev got to be a placeholder and it played an important role in generating fake news on the Georgian conflict).
Placing CNN and RT on the same level does a disservice to all readers. I'm the first to criticize CNN, but it's full of actual journalists with no governmental oversight. While the are biased and often superficial, their bias is in-house and bias is healthy in a diverse media environment. RT doesn't have a bias, they write whatever they are told to write by the FSB. In fact, the worst aspect about them is that they mix in real journalism with the fake articles, making it more difficult to understand what is real and what is not. And this leads to people like you comparing it to other media, which reduces people's trust in the media as a whole. The effect of having RT around is that it sows confusion and distrust, undermining democracy, just like the authoritarian leader of Russia wants.
A case in point, when CNN found out a Trump story had no evidence, they retracted the story. This of course meant that many people, including Trump, started equivocating them with Fake News like RT. But the very fact that they retracted their story shows that they are not fake news. On the other hand, RT never seems to retract their fake news. For example, they still have this piece up suggesting a Ukrainian fighter shot down MH17. No clarification or modification 2 years later.
This would be addable to the list as well. The english wiki page doesn't have the bit in regards to russian media, so use google translate for the german one.
edit: though that'd be more "local news" i guess, didn't stop RT etc.
On July 30 2017 22:45 silynxer wrote: I was not talking about RT alone but all of Russian media. I would make my challenge even easier for you if you'd like: I restrict myself to either reputable American media or British media or German media, you decide (sorry, my languages are limited). Though please note that the event must then be of some relevance to the respective country. That you found something first on RT tells us more about you than it does about the state of the media in the West. You are right that you shouldn't rely on CNN though... However:
On July 30 2017 21:54 a_flayer wrote: And no, I don't think RT is "better". I don't think I've ever tried to make that case. I'd put them at about the same level as CNN, though. They're both crap compared to news sources like The Guardian and The New York Times.
This is exactly the kind of equivocation that drives me nuts. Yes, CNN is awful and RT is certainly awful but for very different reasons: CNN is awful because it puts revenue before facts and analysis. A consequence for international news is that a point of view consistent with the largest part of their viewership is taken (pro-American). RT is literal Russian state propaganda. This does not mean they are fake news (though fake news stories have been propagated on RT) or even wrong news stories. But state propaganda is very different from the biases that plague commercial news organizations in the way that it is singularily directed. The bias in CNN is much more organic so to speak. To illustrate this I invite you to another challenge: I bet that I can find many more and much harsher criticism of any recent president/American foreign policy on CNN than you can of Putin/Russian foreign policy on RT.
I don't see how you can say CNN has an "organic" bias, when they most likely use the same techniques as RT when it comes to their operational processes. CNN wants reporters who feed into their bottom line and are obedient to their corporate sponsors. They get people who worked in Washington to share their "opinions" which just happen to support the US government (you know, the Corporate States of America) on international matters or even simply repeat government statements on air. Similarly, RT does this from the opposite position. There's nothing organic about it in either of these cases. It's all very deliberately manufactured. And yeah, they're both awful for different reasons as well (on top of all this underlying operational stuff) which makes comparisons more difficult in those areas.
On July 30 2017 22:51 Ghanburighan wrote: RT doesn't have a bias, they write whatever they are told to write by the FSB.
That's just not true. I seem to recall Liz Wahl (an RT America reporter who quit in protest over RTs reporting on Crimea) saying that was specifically not the case when Stephen Colbert asked her that directly after she had quit RT America. I mean, you're really being either incredibly naive or just hypersensationalistic when you state that so matter-of-factly. What RT does in terms of propaganda is far more nuanced than that (it starts with hiring only reporters who want to be critical of "the establishment" and they go from there using the same techniques I've described before in this thread [except I said it about the WaPos agenda to protect its corporate sponsors, but obviously it will apply to any organization that has an agenda] - prominently displaying some reports, omitting others, etc). Add in some 'reporting' (eg uncritically copying statements) on what Russian government officials say and you'll have rounded out the "propaganda" aspect of RT quite well, I think.
Anyway, if it is available, show me the research that looks into how prominently the Washington Post displays criticisms about their corporate sponsors and how the way they phrase their reports about Russia are steeped in neutrality and then compares that to all the other news organizations taking into account the bias of each organization. Show me the readily available research that confirms that RT did indeed blatantly spread propaganda about Macron rather than just report on his person and his campaign like CNN did or all the other things that people claim RT is doing. Show it to me.
Something like this that I saw on Fair.org (which was on the specific subject of reporting on an American arms deal):
The Trump administration wrapped up a weapons deal with the Saudi Arabian government this week that will be worth up to $350 billion over the next ten years. News of the deal came as Trump visited Riyadh and paid fealty to one of the United States’ most enduring allies in the Middle East.
The vast majority of the reports on the topic, however, omitted a rather key piece of context—namely, whom the weapons will be used to kill.
I'd love to see something like that on the subject I've been talking about regarding a comparison of exposure of certain news reports and articles from specific sources and so forth, but much more comprehensive and expansive than the above report. Something which also includes all the reports from certain news sources, divided by subjects, comparing news reports about the same subject and even compilations of phrases & adjectives used to support one agenda or another, etc.
The notion that RT doesn't bother correcting articles when they've been debunked is one of my biggest criticisms towards them as well, yes. Beyond the obvious omissions of critical reporting on Russia (but I mean, really, do we need another news source that does that? Can't you just unplug your ears for a nanosecond and be instantly overwhelmed by that sort of news?).
That's just not true. I seem to recall Liz Wahl (an RT America reporter who quit in protest over RTs reporting on Crimea) saying that was specifically not the case when Stephen Colbert asked her that directly after she had quit RT America. I mean, you're really being either incredibly naive or just hypersensationalistic when you state that so matter-of-factly
"In 2009, Luke Harding (then Moscow correspondent for The Guardian) described RT's advertising campaign in the United Kingdom as an "ambitious attempt to create a new post-Soviet global propaganda empire."
Former KGB officer turned political refugee, Konstantin Preobrazhensky, criticized RT as "a part of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation".
An 2013 article in Der Spiegel noted that RT "uses a chaotic mixture of conspiracy theories and crude propaganda", referring to a program which linked the Boston Marathon bombings to a U.S. government conspiracy.
Sorry, you don't have a point because a reporter said it's not the case. A reporter/newsreader has zero connection to the issue that is pointed out, if anything, it'd be the editors.
Put this way, you're arguing that western media have conflicts of interests because of the way they're funded etc. That's a fair assessment, and i'm inclined to agree. Protect your interests, manipulate others.
We know who funds RT. To assume that it'd be any different there, is naive at best.
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to portrait RT as, or why you're so hung up on it, or why "RT bias is different/better" than "CNN bias", or why people now have to bring you "proof" etc in regards to how often the WaPo does X.
That's just not true. I seem to recall Liz Wahl (an RT America reporter who quit in protest over RTs reporting on Crimea) saying that was specifically not the case when Stephen Colbert asked her that directly after she had quit RT America. I mean, you're really being either incredibly naive or just hypersensationalistic when you state that so matter-of-factly
"In 2009, Luke Harding (then Moscow correspondent for The Guardian) described RT's advertising campaign in the United Kingdom as an "ambitious attempt to create a new post-Soviet global propaganda empire."
Former KGB officer turned political refugee, Konstantin Preobrazhensky, criticized RT as "a part of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation".
An 2013 article in Der Spiegel noted that RT "uses a chaotic mixture of conspiracy theories and crude propaganda", referring to a program which linked the Boston Marathon bombings to a U.S. government conspiracy.
Sorry, you don't have a point because a reporter said it's not the case. A reporter/newsreader has zero connection to the issue that is pointed out, if anything, it'd be the editors.
Put this way, you're arguing that western media have conflicts of interests because of the way they're funded etc. That's a fair assessment, and i'm inclined to agree. Protect your interests, manipulate others.
We know who funds RT. To assume that it'd be any different there, is naive at best.
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to portrait RT as, or why you're so hung up on it, or why "RT bias is different/better" than "CNN bias", or why people now have to bring you "proof" etc in regards to how often the WaPo does X.
None of those quotes say that RT reporters write whatever they are told to write by the FSB (and how would the people you quoted know?). Undoubtedly some of that 'FSB' stuff bleeds into the RT news cycle, but I'd argue that's mostly by their uncritical reporting on statements by Russian officials, rather than by the FSB blatantly telling them to do one thing or another. There's also plenty of people who appear on RT that freely speak their mind or write what they want to write about (specifically hired because they have that critical attitude towards the US). And yes, once the editor comes in for written pieces, just as with the WaPo and CNN, they will add modifications to suit the agenda they've been assigned.
I also don't think it's different in the sense of that they don't have an agenda, it's just a different agenda. I don't think RT bias is different/better, either, on the whole of it. It just, in part, suits my own agenda better than CNN and the like. I'm hung up about it because of the (in my view 'promotional', but unfortunately that's not how other people see it) ODNI report which was largely about RT:
In the runup to the 2012 US presidential election in November, English-language channel RT America -- created and financed by the Russian Government and part of Russian Government-sponsored RT TV (see textbox 1) -- intensified its usually critical coverage of the United States. The channel portrayed the US electoral process as undemocratic and featured calls by US protesters for the public to rise up and "take this government back."
RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against "the ruling class" and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations. RT advertising for the documentary featured Occupy movement calls to "take back" the government. The documentary claimed that the US system cannot be changed democratically, but only through "revolution." After the 6 November US presidential election, RT aired a documentary called "Cultures of Protest," about active and often violent political resistance (RT, 1-10 November).
If people agree with those kind of sentiments (calling for a revolution and claiming that the two party system along with the electoral college is undemocratic == propaganda), how will there ever be any chance of change in American politics? How will the next Bernie (who called for a revolution, the dirty Russian propagandist that he is) ever get elected if everything that he stands for is constantly dismissed as "propaganda".
I am talking about the Washington Post because I see them (and their obvious attempt at curbing criticism towards their corporate sponsors, as I pointed out a few posts ago) as part of the problem of corporate media that cast Occupy Wallstreet in the mainstream media as some kind of kooky ridiculous pointless uninformed protest rather than the call for revolution that it was. RT did not do that because they have a different agenda (and no corporate sponsors to protect, which I believe prevented some other mainstream news organizations to look at this in the same way as I did). Our goals are somewhat aligned in that sense. I may disagree with them on some subjects, but we share a common enemy so to speak. Different aims, different means, different methods, with some common ground in between.
So when the whole of RT is dismissed as utter trash and propaganda, that doesn't sit well with me, especially if some of the people who appear on there are people who align with my views on some subject matters.
Also, for the person who asked for an example of someone being critical about Russia on RT (not that it matters this exists, of course - feel free to point out the obvious here if you wish to do so, I certainly can't be arsed to write it out again):
On July 31 2017 01:21 Ghanburighan wrote: Don't have the time to respond to all of that, but a few points:
Pomerantsev is an excellent source where to start, you should read some of his latest work on the issue.
Secondly, if the propaganda of an authoritarian state run by its secret service "suits [your] own agenda better", I'd rethink my life.
Aight, I'll start supporting the American oligarchy from now on.
From Wikipedia:
RT America focuses on covering news in the United States from an alternative perspective. Programs are hosted by American journalists. Similarly, most guests are American (and sometimes Canadian) activists, academics, speakers and analysts with alternative perspectives on "mainstream" issues. The channel covers issues that see lesser coverage in the mainstream media, such as using non-GMO ingredients in foods, corporatism, growing wealth inequality, corruption in politics, peace and environmental issues. It maintains a separate schedule of programs each weekday from 4 p.m. to 12 midnight Eastern Time, and like its counterpart in the UK, it simulcasts RT International at all other times.
Do I really need to rethink my life because I support coverage of those things that I highlighted? You're just being insulting, just like that German dude who puts words in my mouth.
If more people had the sense to listen to this kind of "Russian propaganda", we wouldn't have been stuck with Trump right now.
On July 30 2017 21:42 farvacola wrote: Most of the "you can't see this in the West" articles from RT I've read are pretty sloppy yet spun reposts of stuff from hot press sites like Daily Beast or Mediaite.
You'd be much better off looking at BBC or Al-Jazeera, to get outside news.
There are a lot of media-outlets that Americans can access to get outside news. For obscure, internal news on subjects like GMOs, again, there are a lot of media outlets around the world that actually have credibility/
But, yeah, watch RT and Sputnik instead! ::rolls my eyes so hard they hurt::
edit: You posted Abby Martin as an example of someone on RT speaking out against Russia -- Dude, she left RT almost immediately after that happened.
Trump winning the election because not enough people watch RT America is not a very tenable argument, though pointing to a general lack of media literacy certainly would be. There's a pretty big gap between those two.
Since you're already on Wikipedia, do me a favour please. Read up on RIA Novosti, who it was and what it is now (hint, has to do with sputnik and RT, and then briefly read this). edit: important to note, i had written up something in regards to agendas of news networks (Murdoch, Daily Mail etc). Can't be arsed doing it again, you might see the implication.
Then, because you linked that video which couldn't be less proof of your argument even if you tried, google Abby Martin. Then ask yourself why a 9/11 truther, Occupist, anti-establishment dreamer has a show on RT in the first place.
And then, most important of them all, ask yourself why she needs an auto-cue/teleprompter for that "spontaneous" outburst and wonder why the cameras are still rolling at that point.
Lastly, you do know that RT released a statement a day later, including the announcement that she'll go to crimea to "educate herself on the subject", which she then denied.
I mean.. It's funny that you quote RT UK in your last post, because the Ofcom (UK media watchdog) already sanctioned them.
It's sad to see this thread that 100% has merit devolve into an argument as to why RT is generally better a news source than western media.
In fact it's not sad, it's retarded.
So when the whole of RT is dismissed as utter trash and propaganda, that doesn't sit well with me, especially if some of the people who appear on there are people who align with my views on some subject matters.
That by itself should give you a queue, if people who are in line with your views tell you that it's trash.
On July 30 2017 21:42 farvacola wrote: Most of the "you can't see this in the West" articles from RT I've read are pretty sloppy yet spun reposts of stuff from hot press sites like Daily Beast or Mediaite.
You'd be much better off looking at BBC or Al-Jazeera, to get outside news.
There are a lot of media-outlets that Americans can access to get outside news. For obscure, internal news on subjects like GMOs, again, there are a lot of media outlets around the world that actually have credibility/
But, yeah, watch RT and Sputnik instead! ::rolls my eyes so hard they hurt::
edit: You posted Abby Martin as an example of someone on RT speaking out against Russia -- Dude, she left RT almost immediately after that happened.
Great example. :rolls eyes even harder::
Oh, I didn't know you spend some time inside her brain and found out why she left? Tell us more. How did you learn to read brains, I didn't know you could do that?
Anyway, I believe there was almost a year between her on-air statement and her leaving RT, but I'm sure the two events were related. That can be the only reason, right?
On July 31 2017 01:45 m4ini wrote: Then, because you linked that video which couldn't be less proof of your argument even if you tried, google Abby Martin. Then ask yourself why a 9/11 truther, Occupist, anti-establishment dreamer has a show on RT in the first place.
And then, most important of them all, ask yourself why she needs an auto-cue/teleprompter for that "spontaneous" outburst and wonder why the cameras are still rolling at that point.
Lastly, you do know that RT released a statement a day later, including the announcement that she'll go to crimea to "educate herself on the subject", which she then denied.
Yes, and I've repeatedly stated that those are the kind of people they hire because it suits their agenda. Also, I believe she was offered to do that, but declined because she had other plans and started working on The Empire Files.
On July 31 2017 01:45 m4ini wrote: It's sad to see this thread that 100% has merit devolve into an argument as to why RT is generally better a news source than western media.
In fact it's not sad, it's retarded.
I have never once said that, overall, RT is a better news source than western media. Stop putting fucking words in my goddamn mouth. It is incredibly frustrating. The only people who have ever made statements like that are the people who are strawmanning that I am saying that.
So when the whole of RT is dismissed as utter trash and propaganda, that doesn't sit well with me, especially if some of the people who appear on there are people who align with my views on some subject matters.
That by itself should give you a queue, if people who are in line with your views tell you that it's trash.
I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying with that sentence. What I mean to say is that some of the Americans who appear on RT and profess their views are the ones that I agree with. If everyone else (like here) are dismissing those people because they appeared on RT, then that goes against my goals.
I have never once said that, overall, RT is a better news source than western media. Stop putting fucking words in my goddamn mouth. It is incredibly frustrating.
So what are we arguing then? "Equally shit, but different"? "Suits my personal agenda better than other news networks"?
Both of which are arguments that have zero merit if we want to have an argument about lies, bias and fake in news networks.
edit:
Also, I believe she was offered to do that, but declined because she had other plans and started working on The Empire Files
Wrong. The Empire Files started when she left RT roughly a year after. The "she goes to crimea" statement was made the day after that stunt.
Yes, and I've repeatedly stated that those are the kind of people they hire because it suits their agenda.
You didn't address the point that she's reading off a teleprompter, making this (and more importantly, RTs reaction to it the day after) a staged event.
Also, you mean clue, not queue.
Actually i meant cue. A word that is phonetically the same. But thanks.
Maybe she wrote the speech herself, but was using the teleprompter as a back-up. That's how I do my own speeches. I write them and then I keep them with me during the presentation so I don't fuck up what I'm trying to say even though I wrote the whole thing myself. The only thing the teleprompter use proves is that her statement wasn't disapproved by RT editors or whoever is in charge of what appears on the teleprompter. It's still entirely possible it's her own views she is professing, and I'd say very likely.
And maybe, just maybe, it takes a while to set up and record shows before they are sold to TeleSUR where they are broadcasted and that's why there was a gap between her statement (March 2014), the end of Breaking the Set (Feb 2015) and the start of the Empire Files (August 2015). The fact that she didn't go to Crimea after RT published their statement the day after the show just means they probably hadn't talked to her about it before that statement, and she just declined the offer to go to Crimea when she was offered as such shortly after the statement was made.
Finally, this is ALL about bias, propaganda and lies. I don't know why it devolved into some discussion about RT when I pointed out the fact that Washington Post journalists are gagged from talking in a negative manner about their corporate sponsors. I don't want that discussion either, but people keep making the most extreme statements about it. I just want people to recognize that corporate media is in the service of the American oligarchy.
Not sure if anyone refuted that. Most of what i've read is "yeah, but RT isn't better". Almost always you then go off at "yeah they're not, i'm not saying that, but.".
The only thing the teleprompter use proves is that her statement wasn't disapproved by RT editors or whoever is in charge of what appears on the teleprompter. It's still entirely possible it's her own views she is professing, and I'd say very likely.
It's a propaganda statement handed on a plate. Look at it this way. Multiple times she made clear that she knows she doesn't know much. RT went ahead and said "see, she's entirely wrong, Russia not bad, we send her to crimea to see what it's actually like" implying that her whole rant is actually just bullshit. But, and here's the important part, while saying that the entire statement doesn't mean dogshit, she was still allowed to say it, so RT = good guys.
I mean. Come on.
edit: to be clear
It's still entirely possible it's her own views she is professing, and I'd say very likely.
That wouldn't change anything either way. It might very well be her view, i don't know her personally. But the reason it was aired wasn't to give her a platform to criticise russia, but the opposite. To make clear that everything she said, she's allowed to say, even though it's all bullshit (and that's pretty much a paraphrase of the RT statement).
Meaning, no negative publicity for russia because statement was crap, but positive light on RT because they didn't prevent this from being aired. I don't see that as complicated or even "outlandish", RT is not alone in that procedure.
On July 31 2017 00:07 a_flayer wrote: I don't see how you can say CNN has an "organic" bias, when they most likely use the same techniques as RT when it comes to their operational processes. CNN wants reporters who feed into their bottom line and are obedient to their corporate sponsors. They get people who worked in Washington to share their "opinions" which just happen to support the US government (you know, the Corporate States of America) on international matters or even simply repeat government statements on air. Similarly, RT does this from the opposite position. There's nothing organic about it in either of these cases. It's all very deliberately manufactured. And yeah, they're both awful for different reasons as well (on top of all this underlying operational stuff) which makes comparisons more difficult in those areas.
Ok so from what you wrote here and the article from fair.org you posted I inferred that you think CNN wouldn't report on this specific context of the Saudi arms deal. I will apologize for being snide but I will ask very specifically: Who are the corporate sponsors of CNN and what do they not want CNN to report? What does the government not want to be reported by CNN? Be specific. If I can find examples of whatever you will reply, will that change your opinion? And lastly, does the fact that CNN did report on the situation in Yemen in context of the deal change your view at all? Similar questions are easily answerable for RT by the way.
More generally I strongly disagree that the way CNN works and editorializes is comparable to RT. From your word choice I guess you are aluding to Chomskys Manufactoring Consent? It has been a while but I have read it as well and remember being generally in agreement. However, the reason Chomsky had to write a whole book on the subject is, because the way consent is manufactured in America is much more complicated than state propaganda. Different from RT there is not a specific company wide agenda. I guess you believe there is, right? What is it? Be specific. And no "making money" does not count as an agenda here because it does not to the same degree shape which information cannot be displayed. Secondly, a media company not being critical of a handful of sponsoring companies is something very different from not being critical of a very aggressive state. The amount of criticism should be to some extent proportional to the amount of actual power.
Btw is that video the strongest criticism of Russia you could find? Because it's laughably timid . "I admittedly don't know as much as I should about the Ukrainian history,...", "the media coverage from all sides is full of misinformation", basically every other sentence is relativizing or pushing the broader RT narrative of man-who-can-even-know-what's-true. Will it change your opinion on anything if I find more and much stronger criticism of American foreign policy on CNN?
Also as a final word because I can somewhat understand where you are coming from. I suppose you are fairly left, right? You won't believe it but I am as well. It is your duty to choose your associations carefully if you want to be part of a succsessful movement. It is unfair but the right does tolerate association with the worst human beings as long as it is their side and the left doesn't. If you choose your allies unwise you weaken the whole movement (a classic example would be Venezuela, where surprise, surprise, Abby Martin is right now taking the side of the authoritaritan governmen).
My thoughts on this all, perhaps helpful for those who want one of those real Russians to weigh in.
RT is kind of a pretty mediocre news source. I don't use it regularly but I do scan it from time to time. It's something of a foreign-funded tabloid than a special source of propaganda, in that it doesn't really take itself fully seriously all the time. It broadcasts in Russian as well and it's considered to be fairly propagandist there as well. I think some of their articles are good but for the lack of credibility it is fair not to trust them. They, along with Sputnik, do have pretty good production values though, so occasionally you will find widespread uses for the videos they publish.
The pickings of Russia news in the West are kind of slim. I'd recommend looking at RBTH if you want some form of Russian-derived discussion about Russian political matters. It's kind of boring for non-Russians but it is decent. The most level-headed Western sources would be Bloomberg, WSJ, The Diplomat, and NYT. They each have their own biases but they are less likely than someone like CNN or Fox to release horrible pointless crap just because they have zero journalistic integrity. I would say that part of what explains RT's relative prominence is not so much that it's pro-Russia as it is that it does a good job of weaving a fairly accurate anti-American narrative. That kind of hostile reporting does sell well.
Russian media is fairly government controlled by most standards, but I don't see that as a problem. They have a tendency to push a government friendly narrative but are also fairly capable of criticizing policy they don't like. You do have to search a fair bit of independent journalism for a more critical and complete perspective, but that's honestly just the lay of the land. I think it a more workable system than one where the priority is to make money off of news. I prefer subtle government propaganda to CNN bashing its guts out criticizing Trump fairly and unfairly while still pushing an agenda of their own despite not being directly government owned. BBC is government owned and very good for example.
Most of the Russian sources promoted by outsiders tend to be trash. Novaya Gazeta is an "intriguing" news source but also fairly trashy. Navalny tends to go full blown conspiratard once in a while. They are their own worst enemies, but the West supports them uncritically in the few cases where they even care about Russian news. I have plenty of qualms with Russian news and propaganda but most criticisms are kind of misguided and borne of an ignorance of the state of affairs there that comes from not actually reading news in Russian.
Regarding NASA vs Roscosmos reporting, that's a cultural difference. Russians tend to report on other countries and their individuals much more freely than the US. Same goes for Russian vs American Olympic coverage. Roscosmos also has far better production values than NASA, which is easily seen by comparing their YouTube channels. I don't think it's a matter of propaganda as much as it is just a difference in how the audiences are expected to perceive certain events. Though it is clear that Russians are far happier with their space and Olympic coverage; I remember quite clearly how much flak NBC got last time for being garbage at covering the Olympics whereas no such widespread disapproval could be seen in Russia.
I see a lot of Occam's Razor here. Less conspiracy than just for-profit news catering to the lowest common denominator of a country in which there is widespread apathy with regards to learning about other countries and cultures.
On July 31 2017 00:07 a_flayer wrote: I don't see how you can say CNN has an "organic" bias, when they most likely use the same techniques as RT when it comes to their operational processes. CNN wants reporters who feed into their bottom line and are obedient to their corporate sponsors. They get people who worked in Washington to share their "opinions" which just happen to support the US government (you know, the Corporate States of America) on international matters or even simply repeat government statements on air. Similarly, RT does this from the opposite position. There's nothing organic about it in either of these cases. It's all very deliberately manufactured. And yeah, they're both awful for different reasons as well (on top of all this underlying operational stuff) which makes comparisons more difficult in those areas.
Ok so from what you wrote here and the article from fair.org you posted I inferred that you think CNN wouldn't report on this specific context of the Saudi arms deal. I will apologize for being snide but I will ask very specifically: Who are the corporate sponsors of CNN and what do they not want CNN to report? What does the government not want to be reported by CNN? Be specific. If I can find examples of whatever you will reply, will that change your opinion? And lastly, does the fact that CNN did report on the situation in Yemen in context of the deal change your view at all? Similar questions are easily answerable for RT by the way.
More generally I strongly disagree that the way CNN works and editorializes is comparable to RT. From your word choice I guess you are aluding to Chomskys Manufactoring Consent? It has been a while but I have read it as well and remember being generally in agreement. However, the reason Chomsky had to write a whole book on the subject is, because the way consent is manufactured in America is much more complicated than state propaganda. Different from RT there is not a specific company wide agenda. I guess you believe there is, right? What is it? Be specific. And no "making money" does not count as an agenda here because it does not to the same degree shape which information cannot be displayed. Secondly, a media company not being critical of a handful of sponsoring companies is something very different from not being critical of a very aggressive state. The amount of criticism should be to some extent proportional to the amount of actual power.
Btw is that video the strongest criticism of Russia you could find? Because it's laughably timid . "I admittedly don't know as much as I should about the Ukrainian history,...", "the media coverage from all sides is full of misinformation", basically every other sentence is relativizing or pushing the broader RT narrative of man-who-can-even-know-what's-true. Will it change your opinion on anything if I find more and much stronger criticism of American foreign policy on CNN?
Also as a final word because I can somewhat understand where you are coming from. I suppose you are fairly left, right? You won't believe it but I am as well. It is your duty to choose your associations carefully if you want to be part of a succsessful movement. It is unfair but the right does tolerate association with the worst human beings as long as it is their side and the left doesn't. If you choose your allies unwise you weaken the whole movement (a classic example would be Venezuela, where surprise, surprise, Abby Martin is right now taking the side of the authoritaritan governmen).
It's not as clear cut as you are making it seem with your questions, silynx. I am indeed a Chomsky fan and that's is certainly part of how I look at the problem. I can't put it to words as neatly as Chomsky could, and you could indeed write books about it, but here's my primitive high-school drop-out take on it:
It's not that CNN and others wouldn't report on it. They would, and they have. It is a matter of the exposure they give such news, the distribution of it, and the associations they make within specific articles. Within the articles that were written about the arms deal (as listed on Fair.org), many sources did not even mention the fact these weapons would be used to murder and brutalize Yemeni civilians. Instead, they reported on how this would be beneficial to the market and they gave the lines of the American government as to why the Saudis needed these weapons ("they have to fight terrorism!"). This, to me, is blatantly propagating US government propaganda and serving corporate interests. However, I certainly recognize that that is not all they do. In other cases, they also genuinely report on news in a fair manner.
And it's not the one report about an Islamic terrorist that made half the population of the US Islamophobic to the point where they'd vote for Trump. It's the constant screaming about it in the news, constantly referring back to one event or another. Why not scream in that same way about the violence perpetrated by the Saudis or the Americans who are literally dying as a result of the extended consequences of the American oligarchy? Why not link that in with every article where it's possible? Obviously a large part of that is due to the notion of sensationalism and a desire to catch eyeballs (eg more war == more money!!!), but I also think there's more to it than JUST that.
I think there is, just like what we saw revealed in the leaked DNC e-mails, an internal top-down organization with regards to this type of messaging. The people at the top are the rich bastards who have the stocks in Wallstreet and links with corporations that sponsor their organization through ads who prefer to see reporting that isn't detrimental to their own personal bottom line. It's not that they are willing or capable to prevent ANY reporting on it, but you do get to a situation where CNN anchors spend their time mocking Occupy Wallstreet protesters, rather than taking it seriously. The people at the top give some instructions to the managers they employ, who dutifully draft some guidelines that are used by the people who write the news. The bit about the Washington Post that I posted which sparked off this whole discussion is a very clear example of this type of top-down organization in action. I hope you can see that?
Maybe you can look at it this way: there was plenty of support in the liberal media for Women's march against Trump (they showed the scale of it, act all serious about it). At the same time, there was plenty of mocking those same protesters against Trump in conservative media (picking out the kookiest ones to mock, obviously, saying "look at them, they're all confused about what they're protesting!"). But where was this balance when it came to Occupy Wallstreet protests? It wasn't there because those people were protesting the bottom-line of the very corporations that sponsor the media. Some of the media that did take it seriously were a certain other group that have another agenda which is largely free of corporate interests because it is sponsored by another nation that wants to sow dissent and the view on it that THEY highlighted was summarily labeled as propaganda by that ODNI report despite being (in my opinion) an accurate depiction.
The links between the corporate media and their sponsors aren't open for me to see as far as I know, so its very difficult to be specific, but I suspect it looks a lot like what you can see on OpenSecrets.org where those same corporations donate to buy politicians and exert a similar influence on them. Except instead of donations it's advertisement money, the owners having stocks, etc. It's not even that the owners of the corporate media serve specific corporations, they just prevent fair criticism towards any part of the oligarchy through the same means like what happened at the Washington Post.
It's not limited to the people who write the reports, of course, it's also about what is aired, how it is published on the website (front page or some back story), it's about how the headline is written, it's about what you see in the "related: " box. There dozens of points where these little tweaks can be done, and each of those tweaks having at least a hint of modifying the way a story is presented, how far of an audience it reaches, etc. And at all of these points the guidelines as provided by the upper class within the company work towards those same goals (sensationalism & protecting the corporations in order to maximize profits).
It's not JUST a top-down problem either. Many reporters and people who write for or are involved large organizations like that or appear on TV as anchors or analysts are relatively rich white-collar snobs who haven't seen the inside of a factory in their lives aside from on TV or from pictures. Some of them are playing their role knowingly voluntarily, just as many RT reporters voluntarily have their critical attitude of the US. Others don't think about it much, just follow the guidelines they are given, etc, or aren't even part of the process in such a way that it would be obvious that see what they are doing. It's part of the hiring process, where guidelines are set in similar way as that example of the Washington Post (the bosses go "hire people with X, Y and Z qualities, but not A, B and C").
All of what I've listed above fosters a culture (and not just at CNN, this kind of culture-building happens in all major corporations) where (in the case of media corporations) criticism towards the oligarchy is downplayed to such an extent that people are willing to vote for the likes of Trump (who, I hope you'll agree) represent the clearest example of the American oligarchy as it has exists in Washington.
It's funny that you said "the amount of criticism should be to some extent proportional to the amount of actual power." How much criticism does RT get, exactly, and how many people do they reach? How much power do they hold, really? I'd say their level of influence is very insignificant compared to CNN and the rest of the western corporate media, and yet people bash it into the ground as "Russian propaganda" from all sides. Constantly. Regardless of who is talking or what is said by people on the channel. Like, when people say Assange was working for the Russians when he produced that 10 episode TV show, which was made independently and then sold for syndication on RT. Or Chris Hedges who has a show that's broadcast on RT. His fifteen years of working at the New York Times are worth nothing, and now he's just a Russian propagandist? I think not, mate.
And your criticism of Martin's statement has some value, but how would you have worded it if you were in her position? Would you have been fine making absolutist statements about something that you don't know everything about? I'm sure it was editorialized to some extent, but to claim that it's so much worse than the way that CNN editorializes their news seems absurd to me if its even true that it wasn't her own words. What should she have done to convince you it was her speaking and not the FSB? Should she have echoed the American governments position, which was unlikely going to be her view and thus would have been a lie anyway? Where would the line have been between "Russian propaganda" and "not Russian propaganda" in your view?
Those articles where RT facilitates a denial of Russia's involvement in certain events by highlighting some kooky theory are clearly agenda driven (and could be called propaganda). But that's a very small part of what RT does. The much bigger part that they play in "propaganda" is that same fostering of a culture that CNN does - except they have a much different agenda than CNN in that case. Before I'd be willing to cast the whole media outlet as "Russian propaganda" I'd like to see some statistics on how many articles and reports actually do that kind of thing, versus their normal kind of reporting.
How would you characterize the use of that little Syrian girl's twitter account that CNN repeatedly highlighted in their news about the Syrian civil war? I'd say that's an appeal to emotion that essentially attempts to get the viewer to support the US agenda which included giving weapons that would often end up in the hands of fundamental islamists or even straight-up suicide-bombing terrorists and were in some cases actually used to fight soldiers in the American-led coalition that was fighting ISIS. I'd say that can also be very easily be characterized as propaganda. But, like with RT and their nonsense to avoid placing an appropriate amount of blame on Russia for certain events, it is only a small part of what CNN does.
Based on that, would it be appropriate to call CNN US government propaganda considering the amount of power they hold in the news business? That particular propaganda effort (and it was not just them, Fox and MSNBC also did this) probably reached a lot further than anything RT has ever done. Or do you genuinely think that the use of that little girl can't be called propaganda?
Also, I don't remember who linked that Sputnik article about Macron, but what I see there is a French guy from an opposition party talking about Macron, and some commentary from a reporter around it with - as far as I can tell - facts. Sure, the phrasing of the commentary has been colored to suit Sputniks agenda, but there's nothing particularly fake about it. There's dumbass allegations made by the French dude based on practically nothing, and that's pretty clear from the article itself. This is, once again, the same kind of stuff that I'd complain about on CNN, where they give equal credence to climate change deniers and such (which suits their agenda of having empathic discussions about nothing). It's the same level of nonsense and fake news, just about a different subject. I don't see what the point of linking that was.
On July 31 2017 02:40 LegalLord wrote: My thoughts on this all, perhaps helpful for those who want one of those real Russians to weigh in.
RT is kind of a pretty mediocre news source. I don't use it regularly but I do scan it from time to time. It's something of a foreign-funded tabloid than a special source of propaganda, in that it doesn't really take itself fully seriously all the time. It broadcasts in Russian as well and it's considered to be fairly propagandist there as well. I think some of their articles are good but for the lack of credibility it is fair not to trust them. They, along with Sputnik, do have pretty good production values though, so occasionally you will find widespread uses for the videos they publish.
The pickings of Russia news in the West are kind of slim. I'd recommend looking at RBTH if you want some form of Russian-derived discussion about Russian political matters. It's kind of boring for non-Russians but it is decent. The most level-headed Western sources would be Bloomberg, WSJ, The Diplomat, and NYT. They each have their own biases but they are less likely than someone like CNN or Fox to release horrible pointless crap just because they have zero journalistic integrity. I would say that part of what explains RT's relative prominence is not so much that it's pro-Russia as it is that it does a good job of weaving a fairly accurate anti-American narrative. That kind of hostile reporting does sell well.
Russian media is fairly government controlled by most standards, but I don't see that as a problem. They have a tendency to push a government friendly narrative but are also fairly capable of criticizing policy they don't like. You do have to search a fair bit of independent journalism for a more critical and complete perspective, but that's honestly just the lay of the land. I think it a more workable system than one where the priority is to make money off of news. I prefer subtle government propaganda to CNN bashing its guts out criticizing Trump fairly and unfairly while still pushing an agenda of their own despite not being directly government owned. BBC is government owned and very good for example.
Most of the Russian sources promoted by outsiders tend to be trash. Novaya Gazeta is an "intriguing" news source but also fairly trashy. Navalny tends to go full blown conspiratard once in a while. They are their own worst enemies, but the West supports them uncritically in the few cases where they even care about Russian news. I have plenty of qualms with Russian news and propaganda but most criticisms are kind of misguided and borne of an ignorance of the state of affairs there that comes from not actually reading news in Russian.
Regarding NASA vs Roscosmos reporting, that's a cultural difference. Russians tend to report on other countries and their individuals much more freely than the US. Same goes for Russian vs American Olympic coverage. Roscosmos also has far better production values than NASA, which is easily seen by comparing their YouTube channels. I don't think it's a matter of propaganda as much as it is just a difference in how the audiences are expected to perceive certain events. Though it is clear that Russians are far happier with their space and Olympic coverage; I remember quite clearly how much flak NBC got last time for being garbage at covering the Olympics whereas no such widespread disapproval could be seen in Russia.
I see a lot of Occam's Razor here. Less conspiracy than just for-profit news catering to the lowest common denominator of a country in which there is widespread apathy with regards to learning about other countries and cultures.
This is worth a read. I might not agree with everything, but it is generally correct.
Constructive stuff: I'd add a few sources to the list of respected news sources: Financial Times in the UK (See the interesting graph below), FAZ in Germany, Helsingin Sanomat in Finland, to name a few.
My long-standing debate with Legallord rears its ugly head when he says he is OK with government controlled media. While the BBC might be funded from the UK's budget, it's independent. Something you cannot say about the discussed parts of the Russian media that has well-documented but covert oversight. There are now a large number of people who have resigned over this oversight and their accounts are public (see example 1) It boils down to this, why would one read something that has a reputation for being a mouthpiece, unless you wanted to know what the mouth was saying?
P.S. I'm pretty certain that Novaya Gazeta switched to a more Kremliny line a year or two back. Can't remember the details though. In my mind, it hasn't been relevant since 2015.
The Cold War is a long series of events caused by two economic powers expecting the the worst of each other at all times. We are reverting back to that dynamic. Neither side has any reason to believe the other will back down.
However the Cold War wasn't cold at all! It was fought on the backs of 3rd world countries, because for the first time in history those in power would have actually been affected (by nukes)...and rulers don't wanna die... Instead they send their soldiers elsewhere to fight for their ideology... They should put "Thank you for your service, you died for nothing!" on every soldier's tombstone, because that's the ugly truth...
edit: ...and just a heads up: don't gimme that "revolutionary war freedom" nonsense, what freedom do we really have? Buying stuff and voting for some jackass to cash in on that big lobbyist money on capitol hill?...yeah, that's really worth dying for... Don't get me wrong I respect every soldier for their service it just makes me sad, they have to put themselves in danger for oil and other nonsense...ugh I'm rambling and it's not even past my bedtime..
It's kinda' hilarious to read and hear young Americans question the value of freedom. This has even led to poll results showing that young people in Western countries prefer authoritarian political systems to democratic ones.
For someone born in the cruel and miserable Soviet Union, this always sounds funny and sad at the same time. Ignorance has taken over in just two decades. Despite the fact that you could look at more than half the countries of the world to see why democratic liberties are important.
I think you entirely missed my point here. 4,424 US soldiers died in "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and they were sent there based on a lie! So they did in fact die for nothing! 58,220 US soldiers lost their lifes in Vietnam for another war in the so called "name of freedom". Soldiers die for the agenda of the ruling class! Imagine a world, where not a single soldier shows up for war and those in power had to actually fight for themselves! Let them put their lives on the line, not some 20 year old kids, who know little to nothing about the real reasons why these wars are fought! So yes, I stand by my first statement, I've had family members who actually died for nothing overseas! I love my country but I'll callout bullshit when I see it.
Ghanburighan: you are sort of missing the point on that one. Democracy is the system of disapproval. It is how it functions. We have to critique it and demand its flaws be addressed, because that is how we assure it works. The only way this entire system functions is a health amount of self loathing and distrust of democracy.
Wanted to respond to this but I was on the road and this takes a while.
On July 31 2017 03:58 Ghanburighan wrote: Constructive stuff: I'd add a few sources to the list of respected news sources: Financial Times in the UK (See the interesting graph below), FAZ in Germany, Helsingin Sanomat in Finland, to name a few.
I don't speak German or Finnish so I don't think I'm in any position to comment on the latter two. FTimes though, I will say this: my experience with "business news" is that they are generally good on reporting on issues of economics, unreliable on issues of politics. I only very occasionally read FTimes because paywalls are annoying, but they do have some stuff that is very good. My general criticism applies to them as well though.
On July 31 2017 03:58 Ghanburighan wrote:
I'm not sure that "being at the center" is any particularly good indicator of the goodness or lack thereof of a news source. I think it's not indicative of anything but political leanings.
On July 31 2017 03:58 Ghanburighan wrote: My long-standing debate with Legallord rears its ugly head when he says he is OK with government controlled media. While the BBC might be funded from the UK's budget, it's independent. Something you cannot say about the discussed parts of the Russian media that has well-documented but covert oversight.
Major news sources having ties to the government is nothing special. It happens in every country ever. And they're usually "covert but well-documented" as well. Like most countries, Russia has a situation in which the news is influenced such that it's not that they don't criticize the government at all or extremely lightly, but that it tends to be targeted towards issues that said government is much more willing to be flexible about. Few countries have a flexible foreign policy for example - and the news reflects a far more sympathetic outlook towards the overall FP strategy. The BBC and every other major news organization I've ever seen tends to be notably short on scathing criticism thereof. It's not that you can't find good, pointed criticism, it's just that you have to be actively interested in finding it in order to get anything good because it tends to be sidelined.
But on the other hand, what government-funded/controlled media does well is to make the focus of reporting less on the matter of making money, which is done best by catering to the lowest common denominator with yellow press journalism and entertainment masquerading as news, and more on reporting the kinds of stories that you would expect in the news. Government operated media tends to be factual - and though they tend to spin the events in such a way to put the government in a positive light, that's hardly unique to explicitly government news sources. The for-profiteers tend to be just as much of shills for the government for those core topics. While being overall worse for news where propaganda isn't even a relevant question.
On July 31 2017 03:58 Ghanburighan wrote: There are now a large number of people who have resigned over this oversight and their accounts are public (see example 1) It boils down to this, why would one read something that has a reputation for being a mouthpiece, unless you wanted to know what the mouth was saying?
I'm sure plenty of people who worked at RT weren't happy with it. If you take a quick look at, for example, their Glassdoor review page, you might get something of an idea why. Seems to be managed in a manner that you might expect for a company in the US: get eager younguns and reel 'em in with a decent starting salary, ignore the depth of cronyism in upper management, and make a fairly sloppy product that still has some value. That's basically the Silicon Valley model, only with funding from a foreign government. But making a fuss of the company as you leave? That's generally more of a "someone paid me to do this" or a "I'm a millennial who doesn't get business professionalism" issue, and frankly neither of those are particularly meaningful.
An old 90's adage from Russia goes like this: "everything they told us about communism was a lie - but unfortunately everything they told us about capitalism was the truth." RT almost lives by this adage, in that it's not really about Russia at all; it's primarily an anti-US (and to a lesser extent anti-UK) news source. It very often serves as a very convenient and useful mouthpiece to those who may not be all that sympathetic to Russia, but who don't like the US very much. Far too many people are not all that predisposed to like or even care about Russia itself, but in the context of US bashing, Russia starts to be painted in something of a more positive light. Yes, RT does fudge details on Russia stories, but that's not even the main purpose of its existence. And the anti-US stuff tends to be pointed in a way that is both true and insightful. It certainly is unfortunate that the most prominent Russian-owned sources that broadcast in the West are so cynical in their coverage, that much is fair to note. But that is not without reason. Probably not the right thread to get into the politics of that but that's the entire purpose of what RT is about. And it doesn't hurt that deep animosity towards the US by others is well-founded and long-standing.
In any case, it's not as much a mouthpiece as it is agenda-driven reporting that leans fairly heavily on its staff of younguns. The agenda is to shit on the US as thoroughly as possible. I've seen plenty of the reverse (news existing almost exclusively to shit on Russia) so there's no point in talking about fairness or lack thereof. P6 is kind of right that this is about being as uncharitable as one possibly could be to the other nation - but where his point proves insufficient is that this works in the context of a much larger and deeper web of interests and hatreds. RT is ultimately one of the many manifestations of an aggressively cynical, though not particularly misguided, campaign to cause people to look at US-centric alliances with a greater degree of skepticism.
All that said, it's perfectly understandable if you don't like RT all that much. I don't either; its news coverage is definitely not what I am looking for. It's kind of Russian propaganda but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have some pointed and interesting coverage. It absolutely has a credibility issue though. You might find interesting things in the mix, but you should double-check your facts if you look at it. For lack of good sources of Russian-derived news that is in not-Russian, RT may have something to share. But it definitely isn't what one might call credible.
On July 31 2017 03:58 Ghanburighan wrote: P.S. I'm pretty certain that Novaya Gazeta switched to a more Kremliny line a year or two back. Can't remember the details though. In my mind, it hasn't been relevant since 2015.
They accepted government money at some point in the recent past because they were going broke; that might be why. But their coverage was crap and still is crap, the only real arguments I ever heard for watching them is "they're edgy" and "they're anti-Putin," neither of which is a particularly meaningful selling point for news. It's pretty much a tabloid that said mean things about Putin.
Better anti-government arguments come mostly from the blogging community. There's a fair number of independent reporters with some meaningful input in that regard. That tends to be more genuine and less influenced by foreigners, so it has a habit of being better news.
I feel we are moving very far away from the point I want to make so excuse me if I don't go point by point. If there anything that you feel I still need to adress please let me know.
To put simply the difference between RT and CNN that I try to make clear for you is that RT is entirely agenda driven and CNN is not. What I mean by that is that I can give specific points of agenda for RT and make accurate predictions based on them and with CNN this is simply not possible. I am not an avid watcher of RT and I have not spend too much time on this but let me try so you have an example. Some main agenda points by RT: 1. Show western states (in particular the US) as oppressors of their own citizens. 2. Show western states (in particular the US) as aggressors internationally. 3. Show Russia(ns) as victim(s). There are some other points I considered (for example "Western European values failing (the Muslim hordes invade!!!!)") but for simplicity let's stay with these. From a propaganda point it is clear what the objective of the points is, I hope I don't have to explain. This does not mean that there aren't tons of stories on RT which are not related to this agenda but it means there will not be stories seriously challenging these points on RT (and no one announcer giving a scripted speech in the closing segment of her show is not the same as an article nor was that particular speech seriously challenging anything). This is a propaganda model for RT. Look how simple it is! But although I just needed a paragraph to write it, I can already make specific, accurate predictions based on my model, even though I don't even watch RT (that's how blatant state propaganda is). For example: I predict that the repeated violation of Swedish airspace by Russian fighter planes will not be reported on RT because that would go against 3 (what I mean is the fact that these happen, there might be a report where airspace violations are denied by Russian officials). Much less commented on as aggression.*
Now compare this to CNN. Even with all the words you wrote, you couldn't even define a clear agenda. The reason for this is because there is no clear agenda CNN is pushing in the same way. You could come up with very abstract things like a. Protect the ruling class. b. Support US foreign policy. But the predictions possible with such a model are much weaker: As you admitted yourself, I can easily find articles that directly go against a. or b. on CNN. Your argument becomes then that these articles are not prominently enough displayed. Which is a far cry from not displayed at all. What also becomes more difficult is to explain why the stories are not displayed more prominently. In RTs case it is easy: The organization was consciously structured in such a way as to serve the agenda (whatever the mechanisms of compliance are in detail). With CNN it is a lot more diluted. Maybe some editor has strong political leanings. Maybe a higher-up exerts pressure on behalf of an ad company. Maybe CNNs strategy is to keep access to government sources by being soft (that does not seem to be the case company wide though). Maybe quoting government officials verbatim (which is also not done company wide) is just cheaper than doing actual reporting. Maybe there are systemic problems like: News are getting more and more compartmentalized (I would assume because of economic pressure). That means an arms deal is first of all business news. Things unrelated to business will be cut out of business news. Reporting something in context is much more complicated to write and to read. Such an article will take longer and has no frontpage appeal at all.
If you want to convince me that CNN and RT are from a propaganda point of view equivalent, you have to show me either that RT does not follow an agenda like the one I posted above, or show me a specific agenda that CNN follows in the same way. The reason it has to be specific is because otherwise it wouldn't be equivalent.
*If you can show me such an article I will be genuinely surprised. It will not quite convince me that CNN and RT are equivalent but it would make me actually research RT in earnest.
I enjoyed The Intercept a lot, especially on issues of surveillance and cyber security. I actually had a lot of respect Jeremy until he decided he wouldn't attend Real Time because Milo was on it. Seriously...
I unsubscribed the moment they hired Mehdi Hassan. As much as I loved their dismantling of Trump policies and character, I just can't take seriously anyone who, on the record, stated he literally believes that Mohammed flew to the moon on a winged horse.
How dare they call Trump a moron / baffoon after that?
On August 06 2017 07:25 Six.Strings wrote: I enjoyed The Intercept a lot, especially on issues of surveillance and cyber security. I actually had a lot of respect Jeremy until he decided he wouldn't attend Real Time because Milo was on it. Seriously...
I unsubscribed the moment they hired Mehdi Hassan. As much as I loved their dismantling of Trump policies and character, I just can't take seriously anyone who, on the record, stated he literally believes that Mohammed flew to the moon on a winged horse.
How dare they call Trump a moron / baffoon after that?
In his defense, you can get a lot of incredibly intelligent people to admit that they believe that a talking snake convinced a woman to eat a piece of fruit that was just asking to be eaten. I personally dislike Mehdi Hassan a lot, but people should not discredit him because of a 5 second clip that is more comical than anything.
On April 11 2017 07:47 a_flayer wrote: I'd seen this before, but I came across it again, and I think this is a good indication of this thing called "bias". It was one of the things that triggered me to investigate news from, shall we say, non-traditional sources.
America reports on "NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and two Russians"
Russia reports on "cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov, Andrei Borisenko and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough"
The discrepancy is of course easily 'justified' by citing the American publics lack of interest in foreigners. However, I believe that this sort of bias is incredibly widespread all across American media, and consequently leads towards something much more toxic. Especially when it comes to more important matters than just astronauts/cosmonauts launching into space.
I was paging through the Syria & Iraq thread a few days ago, when I saw someone post this NPR article. I followed it up with a Guardian article for comparison:
NPR article At a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday, Russia has vetoed a resolution on Syria drafted by the United States on the latest apparent chemical weapons attack, at a time when President Trump is considering launching new military action.
As NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, the U.S.-drafted resolution would have demanded access to the scene of the reported attack in Douma, a rebel-held area in the Damascus suburbs, and "would also create a new investigative mechanism to look into chemical weapons attacks in Syria and determine who is responsible."
The Guardian article An attempt to stave off a military confrontation in Syria failed in the UN security council on Tuesday evening, with Russia and western allies unable to compromise on a concerted international response to the use of chemical weapons.
Each side voted against the other’s proposals for setting up a body dedicated to investigating repeated poison gas use in Syria. The US delegation said it had done “everything possible” to accommodate Russian views and that the abortive council session marked a “decisive moment”. Russia said the issue was being used by the US and its allies as a “pretext” to attack Syria.
These are about the same UN meeting, but the reports are worlds apart. Over at the NPR, Russia simply vetoed the US resolution and that was it. There was no mention of any Russian proposals at all as far as I could tell. At the Guardian, Russia and the US vetoed each other's attempts at a resolution. You could make arguments about how the Russian proposal wasn't good enough, but is that reason to be so selective in reporting about the actual events that took place?
On April 11 2017 07:47 a_flayer wrote: I'd seen this before, but I came across it again, and I think this is a good indication of this thing called "bias". It was one of the things that triggered me to investigate news from, shall we say, non-traditional sources.
America reports on "NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and two Russians"
Russia reports on "cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov, Andrei Borisenko and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough"
The discrepancy is of course easily 'justified' by citing the American publics lack of interest in foreigners. However, I believe that this sort of bias is incredibly widespread all across American media, and consequently leads towards something much more toxic. Especially when it comes to more important matters than just astronauts/cosmonauts launching into space.
I was paging through the Syria & Iraq thread a few days ago, when I saw someone post this NPR article. I followed it up with a Guardian article for comparison:
NPR article At a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday, Russia has vetoed a resolution on Syria drafted by the United States on the latest apparent chemical weapons attack, at a time when President Trump is considering launching new military action.
As NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, the U.S.-drafted resolution would have demanded access to the scene of the reported attack in Douma, a rebel-held area in the Damascus suburbs, and "would also create a new investigative mechanism to look into chemical weapons attacks in Syria and determine who is responsible."
The Guardian article An attempt to stave off a military confrontation in Syria failed in the UN security council on Tuesday evening, with Russia and western allies unable to compromise on a concerted international response to the use of chemical weapons.
Each side voted against the other’s proposals for setting up a body dedicated to investigating repeated poison gas use in Syria. The US delegation said it had done “everything possible” to accommodate Russian views and that the abortive council session marked a “decisive moment”. Russia said the issue was being used by the US and its allies as a “pretext” to attack Syria.
These are about the same UN meeting, but the reports are worlds apart. Over at the NPR, Russia simply vetoed the US resolution and that was it. There was no mention of any Russian proposals at all as far as I could tell. At the Guardian, Russia and the US vetoed each other's attempts at a resolution. You could make arguments about how the Russian proposal wasn't good enough, but is that reason to be so selective in reporting about the actual events that took place?
There is a difference though. The US proposal got the votes to pass (12 for, 2 against, 1 abstention), but was vetod by Russia. The Russian proposal didn't even get the votes (5 for, 4 against and 6 abstentions).
The US-sponsored resolution has received 12 votes in favor, two against and one abstention. As Russia used its veto right, the resolution was not adopted. The first Russian-sponsored resolution did not get the minimum nine votes needed to pass, with six votes for, seven against and two abstentions.
Russia then proposed another resolution, based on an earlier draft by Sweden, which voices support for the new OPCW probe into the Douma incident. The UNSC meeting was suspended for consultations on Sweden's request, before putting the resolution to vote. The subsequent vote garnered five votes in support of the resolution (Russia, China, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Bolivia), four votes against (the US, the UK, France and Poland) and six abstentions. A resolution requires at least nine votes, with no vetoes from Russia, China, the UK, France or the US, to pass.
I feel the NPR might put too much emphasis on Russia's use of the veto, but while RT mentions it, it is de-emphasized in the middle of a paragraph on all the many proposals that didn't pass. The guardian is, surprisingly, probably the worst of the lot, by not even mentioning the qualitative difference between failing a vote and passing the vote but getting vetod, but we should probably not consider any of these 3 as good examples of propaganda: they are news reports intended to emphasize the growing conflict between Russia and the US over what to do with Syria, and while the journalists all have their own style, I don't really see any of them twisting the facts in order to fit a narrative. Different people emphasize different aspects of the same event. Also, grass is green
Seems like an opinion piece. Maybe someone reporting very selectively on the opinions of local people. Perhaps emphasizing a certain opinionated view of a certain event, yes?
Also, I never claimed the NPR article was "a good example of propaganda". The point is that it shows a bias. The thread is called "discerning bias, propaganda and lies" after all. People keep dismissing this kind of bias in the way that you do as if it does not matter (grass is green! nothing to see here let me put some more smilies to emphasize how non-serious this is ). But if this shit is consistent (and it is) then people will - over time and collectively - get very skewed views of certain matters.
Seems like an opinion piece. Maybe someone reporting very selectively on the opinions of local people. Perhaps emphasizing a certain opinionated view of a certain event, yes?
It's not an op ed. It's reported as news. It's not, it's quite literally, fake news. A false narrative pushed by a combination of selectively reporting on only some evidence, and outright lying about other things (e.g. there are no eyewitnesses of the chemical attack)
While I would indeed classify that as propaganda, it is quite obviously different: this is simply an interview with a 7-yo girl who is giving her (probably canned) responses to the questions CNN is asking. At worst, you could say that the girl is being manipulated to represent CNN's narrative rather than her own opinion, but that probably isn't true: she probably agrees with what she says, insofar as the opinion of a 7-yo matters at all. In either case, it is quite obviously "opinion": it isn't somebody claiming to report on what happened, but rather an interview asking for an opinion about what happened. It's still emotional manipulation, and I will quite happily agree with you that CNN is generally pretty shit.
Also, I never claimed the NPR article was "a good example of propaganda". The point is that it shows a bias. The thread is called "discerning bias, propaganda and lies" after all. People keep dismissing this kind of bias in the way that you do as if it does not matter (grass is green! nothing to see here let me put some more smilies to emphasize how non-serious this is ). But if this shit is consistent (and it is) then people will - over time and collectively - get very skewed views of certain matters.
I don't disagree with you that the NPR report shows a bias. I just disagree with you that it is in some way insidious. Everybody *is* biased. It's just a fact of life that if 3 people view the same event, you will get 3 different accounts of the event, probably even mutually conflicting. But there's a difference between reporting the news to the best of your abilities (including bias), and reporting lies as if it were actually news.
How do you mean "it is not insidious". I'm not suggesting that NPR is collectively sitting around a table going "how can we screw the Russians" I am suggesting that is dangerous to - for years - feed entire nations incredibly biased views like this. Kind of like how feeding Russians homophobic stories about Europe and how the US is full of corruption is unnecessarily skewing them against 'the West' (even tho we are super friendly towards the gays and the US is in fact full of corruption).
I don't see a lot of lies in that RT report. Can you tell me the lies, specifically? I see a lot of opinions by people who genuinely seem to hold those opinions. I might disagree with those opinions, but that doesn't make it so they don't exist. Lets pull the "article" apart in an attempt to find all the lies:
RT’s Murad Gazdiev highlights a number of eyewitness accounts from Douma
So, he's saying he's going to highlight a number of eyewitness accounts, effectively admitting his report might be biased? Is that a lie?
Amid growing suspicions that the “chemical attack” in Douma was actually staged,
Not necessarily a lie, maybe just some empty suggestion that suspicions were growing (I don't know how to measure that).
Gazdiev looked into some of the remarkable statements made by local residents and Western journalists who travelled to the war-ravaged area.
I'd definitely say some of the statements made by citizens and western journalists were remarkable.
People directly involved in the notorious “chemical attack” video actually had no idea about the alleged use of chemicals there.
Are those people lying about being involved in the events but not knowing about a chemical attack? It's possible, but I don't know how you could possibly discern that.
The claims range from the whole thing being set up by Islamic State to it being completely staged.
This is not what those people were claiming?
“It’s remarkable how these scenes convinced three countries to launch cruise missiles at Syria,” Gazdiev said, referring to footage of the alleged attack, as doubts linger.
The western response was remarkable, and that is not a lie.
It is clear from the start of the article that these are the views of a select number of locals. Hence, none of this is a lie, even if the opinions those people give are trash. Nowhere in that article are the reporters spouting lies. They are even being fairly upfront about their selective approach, which is obviously used to further an agenda, just like that Syrian girl on CNN. By calling it lies you are utterly misrepresenting the way that RT propagandizes for Russia.
Also, can I cry whataboutism about your linking to RT? Your comments about RT are very different from the problem that I highlighted in my original post. Why are you making me defend a horrendous "article" with holocaust denying comments at the bottom?
Also, Acrofales, if you look at a_flayer's account, you'll notice he doesn't care about Starcraft at all. He's probably the poor sod who gets paid to post about politics on TL.
On the topic of bias in the news media, there definitely seems to be more overtly religious biases in the media in this day & age. I guess in some way what is going on in the media is a reflection of what is going on in the national psyche. I think it's somewhat general knowledge that WSJ leans Republican and the New York Times leans liberal to some degree. That being said, they do make at least a token effort to seem like they are neutral parties that are just reporting what is going on in the world at large that exists around them.
This article seems exceptionally focused on promoting "public displays of religion" in general, and I guess I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Technically, in the United States, the majority of the people who live there describe themselves as believing in God, so, maybe that is to be expected. In Europe that is not the case these days and there are a great number of atheists who say that they do not believe in any organized religion of any kind. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/philadelphia-eagles-win-god-loves-them-us-all/
On April 26 2018 10:23 Ghanburighan wrote: He's probably the poor sod who gets paid to post about politics on TL.
Since you're not banned yet despite your blatant personal attack: I wish. Steady job, half-decent pay AND working for the good wholesome goal of bringing down the American Empire? I'd take that job. But, alas, no, I am not paid to post here. I came here in about 2008 just after Jaedong-Fantasy.
Quite frankly, after being proud of being accused of a Russian troll once or twice, I've become a bit annoyed by that the CIA/FBI line that they keep selling to the media "Russian collusion, Russian trolls!". It is making it so hard to argue against the American Empire online. People keep calling me out as a Russian troll. I've literally had to adjust my strategies to get exposure on imgur and reddit. I see that I must do so here as well. Sigh.
On April 26 2018 10:23 Ghanburighan wrote: A necro, really?
Also, Acrofales, if you look at a_flayer's account, you'll notice he doesn't care about Starcraft at all. He's probably the poor sod who gets paid to post about politics on TL.
Lol. Sounds just like the sad cunts who yell "shill" on Reddit in literally every. Single. Thread.
If someone disagrees, they must be paid by George Soros or Vladimir Putin!
I was watching this show by John Oliver and noticed something peculiar:
At about five minutes into the clip, they show a video of the the Iranian leader saying the following:
"By God's favor and grace, nothing called the Zionist regime will exist in the region by 25 years from now".
A statement I can agree with at face value, considering how the Zionist regime in Israel treats half of its inhabitants and the way that it has occupied part of Syria and bombs other parts. It's not a nice nation, and for the sake of reducing human suffering, I would dearly like to see comprehensive political change in Israel as much as I would like to see it in Russia, US or Iran.
But what does Oliver say?
"It's not the most important part here, but the country's name is Israel, not the Zionist regime."
Now, is it just me or is Oliver effectively saying here that all Israelis must be Zionists? The Iranian leader is basically being more diligent about his chosen words than I typically am, but Oliver just blatantly ignores that and lobs everything together as if it is nothing. But I think there's quite a few Israelis who aren't Zionists. I also don't think that Iran would oppose Israel quite as much if those non-Zionist people were in charge of the country.
That's the subtle part that bothered me slightly, which seems very similar to how American media covers North Korea and Russia. There's always these subtle ways of phrasing things and little bits left out or tacked on for some reason.
But what's absolutely sickening to see is the overt kind of anti-Iran propaganda as what he highlights on his show about 9 minutes into the video by showing an American commercial. That's basically terrorism, scaremongering people into certain political positions -- no different than those horribly offensive NRA commercials.
And, I mean, for fucks sake, your news networks are literally being paid to air anti-Iran commercials. You can't trust them on anything they say about Iran.
I can't watch the video, probably due to my locked down browser, but in the article they highlight a lot of this subtle manipulation of the facts that I'm talking about. And, also, assuming Ben Norton is right, how the fuck does Vox make a video about "the Middle East Cold War" and fails to even mention Israel. I don't even know what to say this point. I mean, come on, you're kidding me, right?
Watch the last 2-3 minutes of this video and excuse me while I take a wide step around American mainstream corporate media concerning issues surrounding US foreign relations. And I do love how the session ends without answering that last question.
On May 27 2018 19:45 a_flayer wrote: Watch the last 2-3 minutes of this video and excuse me while I take a wide step around American mainstream corporate media concerning issues surrounding US foreign relations. And I do love how the session ends without answering that last question.
If taken charitably, I don't think his statement about "creating a narrative" is all so bad. Even the most objective historians have to choose what information to emphasize and what to omit, because you can't possibly include it all. So if you want something that is readable, you are crafting a narrative by necessity, and objectivity is achieved in varying degrees but never completely.
About propaganda, of course anyone who watches mainstream corporate media critically can see them engaging heavily in it. And like you say, it is particularly bad in the area of foreign relations. I get upset in particular by their silence on important events that are happening internationally. Usually the news is all USA and includes so much stupid and trivial things even when very important stuff is happening worldwide.
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