The American Media

What the hell happened to the American media groups in the last 15 years? Anyone remember when they actually did real news in a politically neutral manner? There are no stations without bias, with MSNBC being incredibly liberally biased, and Fox being ultra conservative. Instead of trying to get accurate pictures of a story, or presenting both sides, news groups will deliberately withhold information from their stories to make those who don't match their view look bad, and sometimes they will just make **** up. When they do interviews, they ask questions with the aim to embarrass their subject, not in an attempt to actually obtain information. Furthermore, the stories they do are almost always designed to either anger or scare the general populous, rather than simply inform them.

Is anyone else disgusted by stuff like this?

In my opinion, interviewers' questions should usually be held to one of the following standards:
A - Is it something the public is actually wondering?
B - Might the answer be useful to decisions that the public makes?

I would be, but I am largely unaware of it. I live in New Zealand, and the majority of our 'common media' television news is considered world class for it's authentic unbias approach. Although, being down here, there isnt that much to be bias about.

I have only ever seen a few snippets of Fox News. Am I missing much?

Well they know they're biased, so they keep up the image for ratings. Keep the liberals watching MSNBC and the conservatives watching Fox and people who want to watch other people reading twitter watching CNN. What's nice about Comedy Central is all they need to do to make money is crack jokes, so you just make fun of everybody equally.

Originally Posted by Hyperactivity

I have only ever seen a few snippets of Fox News. Am I missing much?

Well, you miss stuff like this.

It's why I watch Comedy Central. To them, everything's fair game to make fun of. Though I tend to watch CNN whenever they start using hollograms.

Use the internet. Or, watch FOX and then MSNBC.

Watching two biased sources won't help you any.

I feel your pain, I try to watch CNN because it seems the least biased but it's pretty damn boring

Read BBC. Then you'll realize how stupid your country is.

Even better as BBC never ever stop for a ad break, as they dont ever have them, which makes watching there news all the better and free of corporate ties.

Yes, it does anger me.

That is why I watch the news from both sides and make sense of it all somewhere in the middle.

In a perfect world, there would be a news source that only stated the facts, and kept opinions and unfair edits out. Oh and that also did not focus on celebrity news. For the unth time, I don't give a **** why, how or even that MJ died.

Originally Posted by Avalanchemike

Read BBC. Then you'll realize how stupid your country is.

I can figure that out without help from the BBC.

Originally Posted by TalAarahk

Watching two biased sources won't help you any.

Of course it does, it allows you to view the two sides of the issue currently prevalent in the country. People shouldn't make their opinions from just the news. After finding out the main issues and the main sides, they should go a layer deeper.

Why do people bother with media anyway? Why not just use the internet? It can get you virtually every bit of information you could ever want, and with almost no bull****.

The internet is a form of media. ;P Also, it's a form of media that gets most of its information from what people see on the TV or newspapers.

Yeah, the American TV news system is messed up pretty bad, and a lot of people realize that, which is why polls suggest that the most trusted name in news is Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, the "watcher of the watchmen" who points out all the hypocrisy in the media that he sees (which keeps him quite busy).

The US media is in quite a sad state when the most comprehensive and unbiased assessments of current events are produced by the comedy shows The Daily Show and South Park.

Originally Posted by Cody

The internet is a form of media. ;P Also, it's a form of media that gets most of its information from what people see on the TV or newspapers.

Whoops, should've said televised media. Also, it may get most of it's information from TV, but it's much eaiser to do independent research browsing the web than it is watching TV. With TV you have to take what is said at face value, with the internet you can go and see for yourself if what is said is true or not.

If you read the Economist (which is British) it is reasonably unbiased.

Most news organizations seem to be fine when it comes to issues not readily associated with any political party, like plane crashes or something. But, when you listen to something about politics, especially the president, make sure to do extra digging.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't there used to be a law that required American news groups to report both sides of political issues?