Can the news media be trusted?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robert_Sock
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
R

Robert_Sock

Guest
The worse lies are those that are half true and half false.

Catholics are often critical of the media, but take the news as being 100% true. Something seems amiss here. How popular is news propaganda?

The older I get, I realize that the less of how much I know, especially the manipulation of the news media.

How do things really get attention as being “news worthy?” How much is left out?

How are we to know what to believe?

How much news are we not receiving?

Is the news media a part of national security?
 
Great questions Robert.

I always take news with a pinch of salt. When I realised that certain topics get more coverage than others, or that certain topics are avoided as much as possible, I lost my trust in the media. I think there is a lot we don’t hear, and what we do is edited to some degree. Plus, there is a question of interpretation and meaning. Things don’t exist in a vacuum and there is always an ideological slant to the story. One must be aware of that in order to decypher all the layers of what is being presented.
 
Read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. You well find out that our “free press” is controlled by a large extent by corporate and government influence
 
They can usually (Emphisis on “usually”) be trusted to be accurate on what they choose to report. But they don’t always report all the important stories. This is why it is important to go through multipile news stations to make sure you get a full picture.
 
Good answer, gricken. Also it pays to look at news from other countries as well to help evaluate what you are hearing.
 
blaskoman said:
Read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. You well find out that our “free press” is controlled by a large extent by corporate and government influence
Click to expand...
Right, Noam Chomsky is a terribly biased propagandist himself!

:rolleyes:
 
Robert_Sock said:
The worse lies are those that are half true and half false.

Catholics are often critical of the media, but take the news as being 100% true. Something seems amiss here. How popular is news propaganda?

The older I get, I realize that the less of how much I know, especially the manipulation of the news media.

How do things really get attention as being “news worthy?” How much is left out?

How are we to know what to believe?

How much news are we not receiving?

Is the news media a part of national security?
Click to expand...
Robert,

You are asking too many questions at once. Why not take them one at a time?
  1. How do you know Catholics take the news as 100% true? This would require facts.
  2. Is it difficult to discern how much of the news is propaganda. Some investigative work is required here. I’ve been studying the propaganda aspect for a while. You need credible sources.
  3. Of course the news is manipulated but to what degree requires research.
  4. What is considered news-worthy? That includes a number of factors but a rough sketch looks like this:
A) Go to any news site, or pick up a major newspaper. Both are sustained by advertising, not news. Look at the total percentage and break down what gets the most coverage and what gets the least. In fact, it would be good to look at a number of sources and compare.

B) The global media is controlled by 6 giant corporations. They can and do decide what is news-worthy.

C) What is left out can only be known by those who actually work at major media outlets. Based on my limited knowledge, the answer could be as simple as there was no room for the article, to the article was “killed” by the Editor of the outlet for any number of reasons, but usually to help keep an important person/event/action from becoming widely known.
  1. The news media has always been part of National Security. The military and intelligence community can always withhold or block certain pieces of information. Sometimes it can be to avoid embarrassment, to deny the enemy vital data, and to keep top secret things secret.
Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
Robert,

You are asking too many questions at once. Why not take them one at a time?
  1. How do you know Catholics take the news as 100% true? This would require facts.
  2. Is it difficult to discern how much of the news is propaganda. Some investigative work is required here. I’ve been studying the propaganda aspect for a while. You need credible sources.
  3. Of course the news is manipulated but to what degree requires research.
  4. What is considered news-worthy? That includes a number of factors but a rough sketch looks like this:
A) Go to any news site, or pick up a major newspaper. Both are sustained by advertising, not news. Look at the total percentage and break down what gets the most coverage and what gets the least. In fact, it would be good to look at a number of sources and compare.

B) The global media is controlled by 6 giant corporations. They can and do decide what is news-worthy.

C) What is left out can only be known by those who actually work at major media outlets. Based on my limited knowledge, the answer could be as simple as there was no room for the article, to the article was “killed” by the Editor of the outlet for any number of reasons, but usually to help keep an important person/event/action from becoming widely known.
  1. The news media has always been part of National Security. The military and intelligence community can always withhold or block certain pieces of information. Sometimes it can be to avoid embarrassment, to deny the enemy vital data, and to keep top secret things secret.
Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
Thanks Ed! 👍
*How do you know Catholics take the news as 100% true? *
Click to expand...
An overstatement on my behalf.
B) The global media is controlled by 6 giant corporations. They can and do decide what is news-worthy.*
Click to expand...
And these six corporations are probably unified within a higher echelon.
 
Look, news media are privately owned, and there is a blackout regarding certain topics that do not fit the stations]’ agendas. Westerners like to think that because there is freedom of speech in law, there is no such thing as media consolidation between owners. There are some facts you cannot say without being assaulted by the media, and most people follow the bias of attacking the messenger when the message is hard to swallow.

When you think about it it is quite absurd to let people in suits tell you what is true and what is false and call everything else a conspiracy theory.
 
Can the news media be trusted? Not at all. Maybe about 10% of what they report is truth. The rest is trying to manipulate public opinion with the Jedi Mind Trick.
 
That many people distrust the news media is evidenced by the growth of private newsletters and by the growth of internet news services.

Accuracy in Media has had a hard copy snail mail newsletter for decades. There are thousands of similar newsletters from Kiplinger to Access to Energy to Energy Advocate.

On the internet we have Drudge Report, instapundit, lucianne.com, and many many others.

AND, whereas AM radio was once moribund, it now thrives with talk radio.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top