How much do you trust the media?

I think that the media has always been manipulated. I don't think that it is any worse now than through other presidencies. It is up to each individual to see through the spin, and horseshit, and attempt to figure out the truth.

I dunno whether it is more or less manipulated now, but I've known since college to read between the lines as Phoenix says.

Trust the media? Trust the media??



I agree on both counts, that it's hardly new, but it's pretty dang bad just now.

What percentage of the public would you say even suspects that they are being misled?

It's much worse than it used to be, by light years. We now have a highly concentrated (in a few hands) and activist media -- probably broadcast media are far worse in this respect than newspapers which retain a gloss of impartiality -- something amounting to lipservice. A lot has to do with the unabashed right wing capitalism of the media; some of it has to come from the journalism schools. I say this because, after a long absence from this country, I noticed much more editorializing within reports than I'd ever seen before. I sometimes want to blue pencil whole areas of front page stories in the NYTimes (which is the paper I read daily) and send them back to the editor. Good reporters aren't supposed to do this, but they do -- left and right.

Unfortunately, IMO the majority of people believe what they read in the paper and hear on the news. It's too difficult for them to comprehend otherwise, having had no personal experience with the media. But once you tell your story to a reporter and then not even recognize that story once its printed, that's when it hits like a brick. The spin is real.

There's also a need to believe -- a need to be part of the majority -- a need to not think too deeply...

Yes, years ago EOE, I was part of a magazine article with quotes I didn't recognize. Have also, over the years, watched the media lying their pants off -- using archival footage for "today's news," for example, or reporting a bombing which took place in a hotel I was staying in and.... no bombing. etc. etc. And yes, it hits like a brick and the scars remain even after thirty years...

Tartarin is quite right in drawing attention to consolidation of ownership of media outlets. Under FCC Chairman Powell, the trend is toward more of this. Radio, as some of us knew it just a few decades ago (I'm not talking about The Shadow and Fred Allen here), has been taken over by a couple of corporations. Here in Seattle, for instance, two stations are duking it out on who has the more outspoken right-wing yakkers. I guess that counts for competition these days...

I trust the media I select as trustworthy. It's become apparent to me that "media" is not intrinsically an authority - one must confer that status and respect.

But how do you know whom to trust? It seems as if everyone in any form of "authority" has an ulterior motive of some kind, their own personal agenda, and it usually boils down to cashmoney.

I sometimes think, eoe, that who we trust = who we agree with. I worry about that myself sometimes...

But I particularly distrust those who are getting rich from espousing their hard-core views. Take Michael Savage and Ann Coulter, please. These two (and others) say and write the most extreme and inflammatory stuff, knowing it will help ratings and sell books.

I suppose the same charge can be leveled against Michael Moore, I don't know. I don't read any of these people...

A lie is a lie is a lie'

Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
By Mike Gaddy
Published 02. 28. 03 at 19:31 Sierra Time

On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, or slanted" story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows. The court did not dispute the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers.

Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.

In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.

Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict.

© 2003 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted)
Your Feedback.....Forward This Article...Print Friendly Version..

I think the real answer is, Don't trust the media. Drop TV news from your intake. Read only stuff in which the advertising doesn't outweigh the substance. Take everything with a grain of salt. Read several columns of any op-ed columnist -- get a feeling for the writer -- before you start leaning in their direction. Verify where possible. Look for reporters and commentators who make it easy for you to verify, not the ones (many of them live in your TV screen) who want you to take it as they give it, unquestioningly. If they yell (in print, on the radio, or -- god help you -- on TV), don't believe a word they say. As for reporters, look at how they describe things: do they make value judgements? (dump them), when they describe something you know about, from a section of town to a group of people, ask yourself if their description reads true (if so, they're probably pretty accurate about most other stuff). Does the interviewer ask the questions you'd ask? Oh, and reporters/commentators who write and speak clearly tend to think clearly. The more attitude you notice, the less information you're getting.

I don't trust them at all. I refuse to turn on the TV except for the Lehrer News Hour and the International News/BBC News. I Never watch the major network news or any of the shows other than PBS. Too much editorializing on the mainline news. I do listen to NPR radio (the right wing would say that it was slanted far left, but I disagree). I have on occasion listened to Rush Limbaugh...even painted a fence listening to him. He is a farce! To think of the number of people that listen to him or watch the O'Reilly types and think they are getting the news.

I do remember getting a lot more international news years ago. Today, if you do not watch Lehrer or the BBC, forget it. No wonder most Americans have no interest in international news.

Do agree with Tartarin, the printed media is more to be trusted, but again we must read, read, and verify. I try to read a wide range of material, but I do draw the line at reading the New York Post! I like the Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, and even the Washington Times will sometimes have a balanced article or two.

The following vignette has nothing to do with news, but it does point to my real dislike of my TV:

I do not allow my granddaughter to watch commercial TV; she is allowed to watch PBS educational programs. One day she was watching what I thought was Sesame Street with the numbers and letters routines. Glancing up at the screen, there was a young man with a uniform that came on to tell the children that "This war in Iraq was a good war just like the war against Hitler in Germany!" Imagine! 4 to 6 yr olds were being told that this was a good war! Horrified, I grabbed the remote to find out that I had the fundamentalist Christian station in my area. I turned it off immediately.

Take a look at this:

http://www.gvnews.net/html/DailyNews/alert4324.html

I just read the article mentioned in the GVNews in the Times, Tartarin. I wonder if anything will be done at the NYTimes about this. What did she get the Pulitzer for? I guess I should go googling. I want to say that I was expecting something like this, but I am still stunned.

I just read her bio on Google...no wonder the right is crowing. This certainly smells.

I really wonder about all this (and only know the little I've read) -- in part because Miller has done such good stuff in the past.