Why I have lost a lot of trust in the media. (Warning highly politicial)

[noname223]

I have lost a lot of trust in the media. And I am someone who had more trust than other people. I am always a little bit too naive to trust in them.
I am leftwinger I want to add this at the beginning if you are annoyed by politics you probably should not read it.

It is a shame what the media often does. If they make a mistake about an incident and spread this kind of misinformation they barely correct it transparantly. I don't say all of them are fake news. But they should admit if they were wrong.They only do this when the pressure is high. It is very easy with their power to spread messages as big headlines and making huge stories. But if they are wrong about something they should openly admit it afterwards and don't pretend like it didn't happen.
There will be probably many answers that will say they do this on purpose. I am not sure to what a degree this is true or not. It probably depends on the news outlet and the issue.

For example in The Sun article about SS they smear this forum as death cult and pretend like the people here would sell mugs and T-shirts. This is a blatant obious and evil lie. This should support their narrative of this website as death cult. And they get away with it. There are absolutely no consequences. 98% of the readers won't question it. They should correct this lie and make at least a side note that this information was wrong. But they will never do that.

I think CNN/MSNB are cheerleaders for the Democratic party and Fox News/Newsmax the same on the Republican side. Critical and unbiased reporting is seldom. Often they are too scared to attack the powerful and instead report in their favor. I probably will also do a thread about Manufacturing consent in the future.

I personally dislike Donald Trump. I want to be upfront with it. However Russia gate was really a hoax by the media. It imploded. I would never vote Republican but I have to admit that. Trump never was Putin's puppet. They went with this narrative and still they are going with it despite the fact they barely have any evidence for it.

Here is another thing Republicans might like. I think the media has politicized the origin of the of the Covid pandemic. Still I am agnoistic about what is really the truth. But the media hated Trump so much that they made this question way too partisan. Democrats were in favor of the zoonosis theory and Republicans believed in the lab theory.

Okay after this remarks here my lefty worldview. The media is truely evil when it comes to health care. They support the pharma industry way too much. They only support corporate democrats who don't want to change anything. They only care about big donors and powerful lobbyists. It is ridiculous that the powerful can get away with it pretending they could not change the disaster of the health care system. Noone gives a fuck about the people who are dying because of that.

Yeah and I really dislike Fox News and Newsmax: Their reporting about homeless people is really disgusting. There are a lot of reports which I consider as dishonest.

It is a shame how they treated Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. Both are heroes. They want to kill Assange and the media just repeated the evil smearing of the the intelligence agencies. This is absolutely disgusting. He is innocent and they torture him in this embassy.

The media is way too obsessed by the culture war. I think it should distract us from more important issues. They get high ratings for talking about it. But the material well-being of people is way more important than this articificial dichotomy.

Yeah I will get a lot of hate for this. It is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with it.

 

[Sherri]

Shame we don't have the mugs, would def buy a few, also recommend hoodies, T-shirts, and sweat pants. Bloody hell that sun paper. Spreading lies since it open its doors. Don't believe you should get any hate for this, everything is so accurate.

 

[ImpulsiveFreak]

It sucks how much this site is demonized all over. It's such a welcoming community filled with so many good people who all understand pain. I also second the idea of t-shirts and mugs @Sherri. I'd be happy to buy it lol

 

[Nolan96]

Media makes me so miserable.
On the rare occasion I'm in someone else's house I ask them to turn off any news playing because I can't stand it.
I'm on the right and I don't necessarily hate anything you said.

 

[Smart No More]

With media being a business rather than a crusade for providing unbiased and useful info it is corrupt in its very business model. They're ruled by whoever is paying. Its so segregated down the chain that even people who go into journalism with honourable intentions will largely find themselves in a position where their job is at stake and will eventually have to succumb to the preasure from their employers that they have to either change career or eat their morals. Look at Vice for example. They attempted to stsrt out as hard hitting gripping and real journalism and in fairness they did a relatively good job, going into marginalised areas and managing to get to the root of some issues and give a voice to some that are rarely, if ever seen in mainstream media. Now though they're seen quoting the likes of buzzfeed and competing for clicks like everyone else. Their content has become diluted by sensationalistic topics and clickbaity titles in attempts to play to a different/larger audience and stay afloat as a company.
The need to generate a constant stream of entertainment and compete for clicks etc cause a system of shit to drown out the most useful info reported. It's a farce and has been for so long.
Then there's the corruption involving infiltration by various organisations that have vested interests in sullying names and pushing agendas etc. I have no respect for the Clinton's but they were targeted for a period of time to have their names sullied. They're war mongering profiteering assholes so I feel no sympathy for them but there are more innocent parties being targeted in similar ways to the point that the news is judt another pawn used in a larger game of tactics and manipulation.

 

[Chinaski]

I have lost a lot of trust in the media. And I am someone who had more trust than other people. I am always a little bit too naive to trust in them.
I am leftwinger I want to add this at the beginning if you are annoyed by politics you probably should not read it.

It is a shame what the media often does. If they make a mistake about an incident and spread this kind of misinformation they barely correct it transparantly. I don't say all of them are fake news. But they should admit if they were wrong.They only do this when the pressure is high. It is very easy with their power to spread messages as big headlines and making huge stories. But if they are wrong about something they should openly admit it afterwards and don't pretend like it didn't happen.
There will be probably many answers that will say they do this on purpose. I am not sure to what a degree this is true or not. It probably depends on the news outlet and the issue.

For example in The Sun article about SS they smear this forum as death cult and pretend like the people here would sell mugs and T-shirts. This is a blatant obious and evil lie. This should support their narrative of this website as death cult. And they get away with it. There are absolutely no consequences. 98% of the readers won't question it. They should correct this lie and make at least a side note that this information was wrong. But they will never do that.

I think CNN/MSNB are cheerleaders for the Democratic party and Fox News/Newsmax the same on the Republican side. Critical and unbiased reporting is seldom. Often they are too scared to attack the powerful and instead report in their favor. I probably will also do a thread about Manufacturing consent in the future.

I personally dislike Donald Trump. I want to be upfront with it. However Russia gate was really a hoax by the media. It imploded. I would never vote Republican but I have to admit that. Trump never was Putin's puppet. They went with this narrative and still they are going with it despite the fact they barely have any evidence for it.

Here is another thing Republicans might like. I think the media has politicized the origin of the of the Covid pandemic. Still I am agnoistic about what is really the truth. But the media hated Trump so much that they made this question way too partisan. Democrats were in favor of the zoonosis theory and Republicans believed in the lab theory.

Okay after this remarks here my lefty worldview. The media is truely evil when it comes to health care. They support the pharma industry way too much. They only support corporate democrats who don't want to change anything. They only care about big donors and powerful lobbyists. It is ridiculous that the powerful can get away with it pretending they could not change the disaster of the health care system. Noone gives a fuck about the people who are dying because of that.

Yeah and I really dislike Fox News and Newsmax: Their reporting about homeless people is really disgusting. There are a lot of reports which I consider as dishonest.

It is a shame how they treated Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. Both are heroes. They want to kill Assange and the media just repeated the evil smearing of the the intelligence agencies. This is absolutely disgusting. He is innocent and they torture him in this embassy.

The media is way too obsessed by the culture war. I think it should distract us from more important issues. They get high ratings for talking about it. But the material well-being of people is way more important than this articificial dichotomy.

Yeah I will get a lot of hate for this. It is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with it.

I too am a "left winger". I agree with the fundamental points you make but would like to extend upon this criticism of obviously right-wing, billionaire-owned media by adding an observation, an experience even, with both the Liberal and ostensibly "soft left" media.

For those not in the UK, I'll set the scene. In 2015 the Labour Party suffered its second successive election defeat. It had been a neoliberal, essentially corporate husk of its origins as a democratic socialist party and the parliamentary wing of the trade union movement, for decades and had fully embraced Thatcherism. Having suffered years of austerity measures following the 2008 crash the party members looked leftwards and elected a veteran left-wing backbencher as leader. I campaigned heavily for this and his landslide victory in the leadership election was the biggest advance for my politics in my lifetime. Obviously we knew the Murdoch press and the usual Tory rags would get the smears out, and they duly did. He was an IRA sympathiser, a Czech spy, he was going to behead the Queen, he would abolish the army, he would bankrupt the country, yada yada. So far, as expected.

In 2016 he was polling very badly and the party MPs tried to coup him. Again l campaigned to keep our democratically elected leader in place. Again a landslide. There was clearly enough support for a left wing agenda but it was difficult getting any message through the media. In 2017 the governing Tories called an election, we were twenty points behind in the polls, our own party MPs, corporate shills and hawks, attempting to wreck the leader and countless media smears had taken their toll. We had six weeks to address this. Nobody gave us a chance as several hundred thousand people took to the streets, campaigning hard on the most progressive manifesto seen since 1945. Election broadcast regulations stated that equal air time must be given to both parties. Corbyn, a genial and unassuming man with little media charisma, had to deliver. This man of immense courage and principle stood for what he believed, l spent ten hours per day chatting to voters as did many others. The policies trumped the smears. The party secured their highest vote in sixteen years, the biggest swing since 1945. A hung parliament. We were astonishingly close to power. I will always be proud of being part of this. The establishment collectively shit their pants. They doubled down.

In 2019 there was our next election and our media had learned their lesson, that the tabloid smears alone were not enough. Now it was the turn of The Guardian, The Observer, to stick the boot in. The BBC, that international bastion of impartiality, did more than their bit. Current affairs output zoned in exclusively on brexit, our relationship with a neoliberal trading bloc with a progressive veneer, and ensured this remained a wedge issue for the left. In refusing to stop Brexit, Corbyn was an enemy to the left, went the narrative. Then came antisemitism - a lifelong anti-racist was daily referred to as an anti semite, a reporter said on live radio that his election would lead to genocide, that Jews were unsafe in the UK, that his supporters were thugs intent on racist violence. His opponent, who referred to Muslim women as "letterboxes" and black children as "piccaninnies", was positioned as the anti racist candidate. The BBC reported that Corbyn supporters were assaulting Tory MPs, swiftly debunked by video evidence, whilst septagenarian socialists were hospitalised after being beaten on the campaign. I too experienced hairy moments. Our policy on subsidised broadband was declared "communism" by the BBC. A BBC journalist suggested we were going to nationalise sausages. A leaked document detailing the Tory sale of the NHS was dismissed as Russian interference. The media figures of the left, fearing for their careers, announced in turn that Corbyn was a bad man, a racist, a stalinist thug, a deserved hate figure, a middle class elitist who would savage the UK economy.

On polling day itself, the last minute news stories were all NEWS JUST IN: JEREMY CORBYN'S GOOD POLICIES ARE ACTUALLY BAD. The "equal scrutiny" during broadcasting was, this time, nullified completely - one example being the Tory PM being allowed to sidestep one to one interviews by the national broadcaster.

We lost, and we lost heavily. It hurt badly and still does. A wiser man than me once famously said "there is no final victory, nor a final defeat - just the same battles, fought over and over. So toughen up. Bloody toughen up". He's right of course, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a true and lasting change for the political course of the UK, and the entire media class stopped at practically nothing to prevent that from happening in order to protect the interests of their paymasters.

I'm loth to quote Hitler of all people, but he accurately stated that if democracy was truly exercised, it would "inevitably lead to Marxism" - the principle being there are more of us than there are of them, and we need to be persuaded away from acting in what is our best interests, politically. The 2019 general election was the starkest illustration of the accuracy of that statement I'll ever witness.

 

[Pluto]

The most important thing that is needed is the critical thinking skills to discern information from misinformation to the best of one's ability.

There are innumerable flaws in having private individuals - Rupert Murdoch being the most demonic villain of the present century in my personal view - own the media, be free to push their own agendas and then when the misled population vote, we call that 'democracy'.

However, the most disturbing trend of the more recent Brexit/Trump age is the notion of "mainstream media bad, therefore Facebook 'information' good". This has added a new dimension of obscenity to the rampant cesspool of manipulation of the population, with increasingly violent results.

In my personal view, if we are clear-headed and rational, what is needed is a hierarchy of prioritisation. The environment is by far the most important political issue, end of story. Containing the runaway wealth disparity and improving living conditions/health of the majority is the most important economic priority. Everything else that divides and distracts us - culture wars, outrage-biased reporting, dehumanising political opponents - is the foe of simply voting in our own interests.

 

[Chinaski]

However, the most disturbing trend of the more recent Brexit/Trump age is the notion of "mainstream media bad, therefore Facebook 'information' good". This has added a new dimension of obscenity to the rampant cesspool of manipulation of the population, with increasingly violent results.

I come in good faith here but l take strong issue with the above.

The "trump/brexit" axis is again a media fabrication, the crystallising of the media class' fear of "the rise of populism", not for any inherently political reason but because suddenly there were national conversations taking place which were not directly within their realms of influence, a result of political chat not being confined to the editorialising of pompous liberal blowhards or aggressive neocon propagandists. Corbyn was also included in this evil populist paranoia, on the basis that he came to threaten the UK establishment without any aid from the chattering classes and their public influence.

The reality is that both Trump and Brexit were media made. Trump was a high profile, box office media personality. So was Boris Johnson in that regard, and this afforded their more extreme political views to be whitewashed beneath a cosy media veneer. In presenting them in an uncritical way, the media legitimises them. Trump's pre-political career, much like that of Johnson, was media-propelled. With Brexit, the UK's main agitator for it was a hard rightist called Nigel Farage, a banker with a man-of-the-people blag which the media encouraged, hanging on his every line of right wing shit as he posed in quaint English pubs holding a pint of ale. In 2014 to 2015 he appeared, despite seeking parliamentary election three times and failing, and having zero parliamentary representation for his party of headbangers, on BBC Question Time a record 36 times. He was the talking head for hire on every media outlet. His slick rebranding of essentially BNP policies were box office, and without the media, Brexit wouldn't have happened.

None of the above is to say they were the desired outcome for the media class. Their purpose is to pin the Overton window right, and ultimately be beaten by someone else, someone controllable but less visceral. The liberal centre, being utterly bereft of ideology beyond maintaining the status quo and limited appeal to voters, requires a villain, an other, to be attractive. Its survival relies not on offering positive change, but on being a lesser evil. By 2015 nobody was going to fall for the Obama false promises, in the UK Tony Blair became a synonym for political dishonesty. The populist right were bad, but crucially you *knew where you stood*. The liberal media propelled them for a purpose and were then aghast to see them rise to prominence on the back of it, jettisoning unfriendly media who baulked remorsefully as fake news, shills, whatever. The media got complacent, just like they did in 2017 when Corbyn almost sneaked in. They addressed this in 2019 by presenting those of us who fought for a minimum wage increase, an end to profiteering from healthcare, a welfare state which was no longer punitive, rent caps, council housing, a national social care service for the elderly, hell even the outlawing of puppy farming, as racist authoritarian thugs who deserved to be assaulted in the street.

The media are hand in hand with the boss class, they are the legitimising agents of the ruling classes and the crucial information filter required to ensure the maintenance of the status quo. It is absolutely right that they are recognised as this, and whilst bad Facebook info is obviously a net negative, bad info being legitimised by the BBC is far more destructive, more damaging, to our society and our democracy.

 

[Divine Trinity]

I have lost a lot of trust in the media. And I am someone who had more trust than other people. I am always a little bit too naive to trust in them.
I am leftwinger I want to add this at the beginning if you are annoyed by politics you probably should not read it.

It is a shame what the media often does. If they make a mistake about an incident and spread this kind of misinformation they barely correct it transparantly. I don't say all of them are fake news. But they should admit if they were wrong.They only do this when the pressure is high. It is very easy with their power to spread messages as big headlines and making huge stories. But if they are wrong about something they should openly admit it afterwards and don't pretend like it didn't happen.
There will be probably many answers that will say they do this on purpose. I am not sure to what a degree this is true or not. It probably depends on the news outlet and the issue.

For example in The Sun article about SS they smear this forum as death cult and pretend like the people here would sell mugs and T-shirts. This is a blatant obious and evil lie. This should support their narrative of this website as death cult. And they get away with it. There are absolutely no consequences. 98% of the readers won't question it. They should correct this lie and make at least a side note that this information was wrong. But they will never do that.

I think CNN/MSNB are cheerleaders for the Democratic party and Fox News/Newsmax the same on the Republican side. Critical and unbiased reporting is seldom. Often they are too scared to attack the powerful and instead report in their favor. I probably will also do a thread about Manufacturing consent in the future.

I personally dislike Donald Trump. I want to be upfront with it. However Russia gate was really a hoax by the media. It imploded. I would never vote Republican but I have to admit that. Trump never was Putin's puppet. They went with this narrative and still they are going with it despite the fact they barely have any evidence for it.

Here is another thing Republicans might like. I think the media has politicized the origin of the of the Covid pandemic. Still I am agnoistic about what is really the truth. But the media hated Trump so much that they made this question way too partisan. Democrats were in favor of the zoonosis theory and Republicans believed in the lab theory.

Okay after this remarks here my lefty worldview. The media is truely evil when it comes to health care. They support the pharma industry way too much. They only support corporate democrats who don't want to change anything. They only care about big donors and powerful lobbyists. It is ridiculous that the powerful can get away with it pretending they could not change the disaster of the health care system. Noone gives a fuck about the people who are dying because of that.

Yeah and I really dislike Fox News and Newsmax: Their reporting about homeless people is really disgusting. There are a lot of reports which I consider as dishonest.

It is a shame how they treated Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. Both are heroes. They want to kill Assange and the media just repeated the evil smearing of the the intelligence agencies. This is absolutely disgusting. He is innocent and they torture him in this embassy.

The media is way too obsessed by the culture war. I think it should distract us from more important issues. They get high ratings for talking about it. But the material well-being of people is way more important than this articificial dichotomy.

Yeah I will get a lot of hate for this. It is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with it.

Understand that cable functions as state-run media, the "free press" functions to serve power not challenge it. MSNBC, FOX, CNN, CSPAN, Wa-Post, Buzzfeed, all of those "comedy/satire" nightly news shows, etc. are no different from RT, N. Korean state media, or Chinese media. They literally collaberate with Government and military agencies on their programs, not just as guest but upper and middle management.

We're given an illusion of choice and diversity but all news serve to dictate the parameters of debate on any given issue. There is no such thing as objectivity in journalism. However a professional with integrity will not mislead the public on the nature of any given topic just to support their biases.

Manufacturing Consent - N. Chomsky