Commentary: "Competitors to Fox News have a very long way to go"

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Been watching OANN on Rumble, a lot
Mostly, I listen to Conservative podcasters (also, I am one), like Michael Knowles, Ben Shapiro, and Dan Bongino.
 
Ever since the election OAN has gone over to the dark side. They are practically all in for Trump now. Their reporting would lead one to believe that they are actually owned by Trump.
 
Oh, like the 99 other media outlets are in the bag for the other side and have been for years?

Why did Bernard Goldberg - liberal democrat - write the book BIAS, thereby losing his job? Is he now a “deplorable” liberal democrat?

Newsmax, OANN and SkyNewsAustralia only appear strange if one is on the left. To the rest of America the media bias is, and has been clear for decades.

 
It’s been a long time since I thought FoxNews was “fair & balanced”

& Newsmax is even worse. I get it, there needs to be something to offset the mainstream media, but I don’t think you can fight bias with bias, unless your ultimate aim is division.

The left & the right needs to come back to the Center, where I think most Americans are.
 
I have been keeping my eye on OAN for a year or more.

I have a degree in broadcast news, although I don’t work in it. So, my view is that they look like a college station where the professors have all left for the weekend.
 
Oh, like the 99 other media outlets are in the bag for the other side and have been for years?
The response to left wing bias should straightforward, honest reporting, not right wing bias.

If you’re driving and realize you’re drifting into opposing traffic, the answer is to get back in your lane, not overcompensate and go into a ditch.
 
The response to left wing bias should straightforward, honest reporting, not right wing bias
This is an effect of market forces on the news industry. Straight news is boring and doesn’t garner ratings. Also, we all have slightly differing opinions on what the reality is even even witnessing the same event. That’s a big lesson that CAF has taught me.

Oddly one of the closest to less biased news was Al Jazeera America for the short time they were on. Informative and low on the usual biases, but gosh darn was it dry and boring.
 
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Plus they don’t vet some of their news stories very well.
Weren’t they the ones who posted Dominion servers were being seized in Germany or was that
someone else? Which turned out to be false. Whoops double post
 
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Yeah I watch a little Newmax now and again. They’re pretty good for conservative news. I’m finished with Fox. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but the term “controlled opposition” springs to mind. The Newt Gingrich - George Soros thing was ultra-creepy.
I’m absolutely fine with news that is biased, so long as that bias is made clear up front. The problem is that most news laughably claim to be unbiased, and sadly a lot of people believe that.
I would love unbiased journalism to exist. But I’ve yet to see it. People are biased and it’s very hard to separate your worldview from your journalism, especially these days.
 
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The response to left wing bias should straightforward, honest reporting, not right wing bias.
Then one has to determine what is “straightforward, honest reporting”. Bias is almost inevitable, if for no other reason than that “reporting” is a short statement of an event, etc.

Take, for example, President Trump"s meetings revolving around NATO and the responses of the various leaders who responded. How much of that can even be reported within the time crunch that both radio and television have in which to report?

I suspect that the problem is that no one (including the discussion herein) is separating out news from editorial. On both sides of the media, we have commentators, who more appropriately should be called editorialists as they will lead off with a comment (news) and then take whichever side they prefer. I don’t consider most of the “talking heads” to be news reporters and I listen to hear more details they choose to expound upon; but I know that it is going well beyond “news”, Obviously, when one gets into greater depth of a matter, one chooses what details to provide and what to omit or downplay.

Having a left wing bias is appropriately countered by a right wing bias as neither qualify as “news” - both are editorializing. And this is not a recent phenomenon; it was the same when the only method we had of obtaining information was through newspapers, almost every last one of any significant size having bias. But in the past, bias was a bit more limited to the editorial pages. Not completely - a bit more. That is why often major cities had competing newspapers.
 
Bias is almost inevitable, if for no other reason than that “reporting” is a short statement of an event, etc.
It’s fair to point out some level of bias is inherent in any human reporting of an event, but it’s a question of degree. There’s a difference between a someone attempting to be fair minded and represent the other side fairly and someone openly carrying water for one side.

And you’re right, this problem isn’t that acute if we just recognize that most “journalists” are in fact commentators who aren’t pretending to be objective.

The issue is that for years the refrain from the right has been “CNN is garbage, it’s biased towards the Democrats”, the implication being that CNN is doing something improper and should be neutral. You can’t simultaneously argue that neutrality is the mark of quality reporting and watch One America or Newsmax.
 
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The issue is that for years the refrain from the right has been “CNN is garbage, it’s biased towards the Democrats”
I am not sure the comment was anywhere near that polite. Although I have not had a television for some 33 years, I have come across comments on CNN that were not just garbage; they were outright lies.
You can’t simultaneously argue that neutrality is the mark of quality reporting and watch One America or Newsmax.
Agreed. But then, there are few people who are paying any attention and are truly neutral. The Greeks had a phrase - and I have no idea how to type in Greek, but it said “like is to like a friend”. The vernacular when I was a kid was “birds of a feather flock together.”

And so it goes.

And there seems to be speculation that CNN is in for a major downfall. We shall see; instead of Trump being the whipping boy, it likely will be McConnell. Such is fame.
 
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Agreed. But then, there are few people who are paying any attention and are truly neutral.
Sure, but we’re not talking about the neutrality of the viewer. The viewer will obviously have opinions; one just hopes he or she isn’t only seeking out media that confirms what he or she already thinks. The broadcaster, being human, will also have biases, but has a greater obligation to try to be at least fair if not truly neutral. Or, option B is just make it plain that you’re a partisan editorialist and go nuts.
 
Of course they do. I remember having my high school wrestling coach basically admit this. At least he was honest and it’s one of the many reasons I respected him. Guy didn’t walk around with a facade of being fair and balanced and to be honest I like that better than guys who try to act like centrists. If you are conservative just be that way. It’s okay.
 
I find a lot of foreign news is a bit dry. But that’s not a bad thing.
 
Guy didn’t walk around with a facade of being fair and balanced and to be honest I like that better than guys who try to act like centrists. If you are conservative just be that way. It’s okay.
Which is fine, but if you’re going to be a conservative journalist, you should acknowledge that what you’re offering is editorializing, not straight reporting. You also can’t complain about left-wing bias in other journalists.

If you’re a conservative (or liberal) viewer and you’re intellectually honest, you should at least be getting information and perspective from a variety of sources, not just those that conform to what you already think. Living in an intellectual bubble is not the mark of an intelligent person.

If you’re a conservative and you’re going to restrict yourself to One America/Newsmax/Lou Dobbs, at least have the decency not to parrot stuff like “I don’t like CNN because they’re biased” when what you really mean is “I don’t like CNN because they don’t cater to my biases.”

Basically, don’t pretend you value objectivity if you don’t.

Finally, let’s remember that “fair and balanced” doesn’t have to mean “centrist.” It’s fine if you say that you have partisan opinions, but if you encounter someone from the other side you will at least give their views a fair hearing and consider their argument, as opposed to immediately shutting down because they’re from the other side.
 
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I certainly don’t restrict myself to Newsmax, but it should be pointed out that they frequently post articles that criticize Trump. Many of their articles on election fraud repeatedly used the term “baseless accusations” (though that seems to have toned down with all the evidence that has recently come out). That leads to another point, though, that the liberal media outlets simply don’t report what they don’t like. A few acquaintances and family members who exclusively watch CNN had absolutely no idea about the results of the forensic audit of Dominion voting machines. They also still believed the story that poll observers were never told to go home in GA, despite the fact that the video catches an audio announcement telling people to do just that. It goes even further than that, beyond the election. For example, most CNN/NBC viewers still have no idea that “Hands up don’t shoot” was a total lie and never happened.

The point is that bias in the media is dangerous and fuels, if not outright causes, many of our social problems. That’s not to say that the right is immune or innocent, but you’re more likely to see an article critical of republicans on The Blaze than you are to see any liberal outlet praising Trump or any conservatives.
 
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