Jump to content

How do you know what media/sources to trust?


Recommended Posts

also   the Feds are hiring news media truth monitors including a panel led by ex-Toronto Star VP.  Funny thing tho, newspapers are exempt from government fact checking.. hmmm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a Republican cousin whose evidence that the MSM is all lies is the fact that her Facebook feeds contradict it. She insists that the Mueller investigation is a bunch of sore loser Hillary supporters making things up, that Benghazi was practically orchestrated by Hillary herself, et cetera, et cetera. There is no reasoning with people who refuse to allow their beliefs to be swayed by evidence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Do you still have a TV-licence which you can refuse to pay? We used to have it but now the state-propaganda is funded straight from taxation. 

In this age of the internet many people would stop paying for being brainwashed. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

Do you still have a TV-licence which you can refuse to pay? We used to have it but now the state-propaganda is funded straight from taxation. 

In this age of the internet many people would stop paying for being brainwashed. 

England is the only nation I know that requires a license for TV watching. But the Internet is actually helping with the brain washing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I listen to a variety of medio sources,more on the right but also some on the left. It's often interesting to note that some stories will get many mentions from some sources but nothing from the other side. To cite just one example,recently I heard about some possible campaign finance irregularities from media darling Ocasio-Cortez. A quick check on the MSNBC website about this story brings up nothing.

News is news and in a perfect world , these big stories wouldn't be overblown or completely filtered out like they seem to be now.So called journalists put their own spin on the facts and we have to sort through all of it.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, ironstone said:

I listen to a variety of medio sources,more on the right but also some on the left. It's often interesting to note that some stories will get many mentions from some sources but nothing from the other side. To cite just one example,recently I heard about some possible campaign finance irregularities from media darling Ocasio-Cortez. A quick check on the MSNBC website about this story brings up nothing. 

Yes like - often when a member of Trump's inner circle is sentenced to jail - FOX will be talking about a parrot that can snowboard or something.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/14/2018 at 2:19 PM, JamesHackerMP said:

It's difficult these days to know what sources of media to trust. Some other threads have been started on particular genres of news--the main stream media, or particular sources--but the bigger question is HOW do you know what or whom to trust? What makes a source trustworthy, anyway? It's easy to say "oh, because they're telling the truth." But how can you tell? We sit here at our computers, isolated from the world at large, and a small cadre of journalists (or other nefarious persons) are making the decisions for us of what "truth" actually is.

Part of the problem, of course, is that people don't always want to believe the truth, they want to hear what they want to hear or read what they want to read. It's so easy to deceive. And we all do that, even if some of us would like to think that we happen to be the smartest person in the room; the one person among many capable of actually seeing through the bullshit. But that is unlikely, as there are so few people like that. At the end of the day we're all equally vulnerable to bullshit.

So how can you tell who is reputable and who isn't? Whom--and what--can we trust, and how do we know?

To be honest, I think that most people know when they're being lied to quite often, they just choose to go along with the story just like they follow along with the script in a Harry Potter movie even though they know he can't cast spells. People suspend their sense of disbelief at will, especially when they get a chance to act like SJWs when they do it.

After more than 2 years of collusion investigation by Mueller, with CNN talking heads constantly going on about "impeachment just around the corner" while they were playing clips of Adam Schiff's version of "the sky is falling", Mueller finally concluded that they didn't have any evidence of Trump's team colluding with Russians despite the fact that they received several invitations from them. Now that we know Hillary already paid Russian spies for intel (through another foreign agent Christopher Steele) the fact that offers of help were coming out of the blue takes on a whole new meaning. 

Maybe they should have a show or two dedicated to "how did we get it so wrong, twenty times per hour, 24 hours a day, for over 800 days? That's about 380,000 times. Should we issue one apology? HAHAHAHAHAHA they either don't know or they don't care."

We all saw Trump say "MS-13 are animals." We all saw Nancy Pelosi twist that into "Trump said that all immigrants are animals." We all saw what networks let that quote get out there without questioning it or correcting it.

We saw the networks act like Trump was the first President to ever separate children and adults at the border. The pictures that they used when they broke the story were actually taken when Obama was Prez. That didn't stop them from running a whole "Trump is doing something unthinkable" routine on it. We all know that was bullshit.

Back when Obama was still president we saw a guy go into a nightclub shouting about Allah, killing people, and they let their guests go on and on about "Republican hatred of gays" as a lead factor. Anyone who didn't know that was bullshit is a total waste of oxygen.

I watched CTV show a video of Jeff Sessions saying: "I never talked to any Russian Governement officials or agents about colluding in the election" and Lisa LaFake poured on an extra-thick helping of insinuation behind her comment "but he was caught in a recording talking to a member of the Russian government". And....... they talked about....... c'mon say it....... Russian collusion? Nope. So why the insinuation?

Lisa LaFake was calling comment by the Conservatives "character assassination" when they were talking about Lavscam. Really? For 3 years Duffygate was the most important thing on the planet to LaFake and the rest of the bought-and-paid-for-flunkies at CTV. Did she ever characterize a comment about Harper as an attempt at character assassination? It's a huge joke. 

Honestly just try to catch whomever you're watching lying to you or leading you to believe something that's completely unsupported by actual facts.

On CNN they just switched from "Russian collusion" to "no less than 87 other things" before they finished with their first big lie. They didn't even apologize for 2 years of wasting everyone's time and they just went on to the next story. Shouldn't they make a few apologies?

Edited by WestCanMan
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a big deal, IMO as Wikipedia is everywhere and a primary search tool for many (although it shouldn`t be the primary tool)   Who wants to bet which side was protected?  

 

Wikipedia Editors Paid to Protect Political, Tech, and Media Figures according to a  report in the Huffington Post recently  which revealed the case of Wikipedia editor Ed Sussman, who was paid by media clients such as NBC and Axios to help diminish critical material. Paid editors operating in a similar manner to Sussman have worked on behalf of CNN contributor Hilary Rosen and the CEOs of Reddit and Intel, among other clients.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-facebook-nbc-axios_n_5c63321be4b03de942967225

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/25/2019 at 6:00 PM, WestCanMan said:

To be honest, I think that most people know when they're being lied to quite often, they just choose to go along with the story just like they follow along with the script in a Harry Potter movie even though they know he can't cast spells. People suspend their sense of disbelief at will, especially when they get a chance to act like SJWs when they do it.

After more than 2 years of collusion investigation by Mueller, with CNN talking heads constantly going on about "impeachment just around the corner" while they were playing clips of Adam Schiff's version of "the sky is falling", Mueller finally concluded that they didn't have any evidence of Trump's team colluding with Russians despite the fact that they received several invitations from them. Now that we know Hillary already paid Russian spies for intel (through another foreign agent Christopher Steele) the fact that offers of help were coming out of the blue takes on a whole new meaning. 

Maybe they should have a show or two dedicated to "how did we get it so wrong, twenty times per hour, 24 hours a day, for over 800 days? That's about 380,000 times. Should we issue one apology? HAHAHAHAHAHA they either don't know or they don't care."

We all saw Trump say "MS-13 are animals." We all saw Nancy Pelosi twist that into "Trump said that all immigrants are animals." We all saw what networks let that quote get out there without questioning it or correcting it.

We saw the networks act like Trump was the first President to ever separate children and adults at the border. The pictures that they used when they broke the story were actually taken when Obama was Prez. That didn't stop them from running a whole "Trump is doing something unthinkable" routine on it. We all know that was bullshit.

Back when Obama was still president we saw a guy go into a nightclub shouting about Allah, killing people, and they let their guests go on and on about "Republican hatred of gays" as a lead factor. Anyone who didn't know that was bullshit is a total waste of oxygen.

I watched CTV show a video of Jeff Sessions saying: "I never talked to any Russian Governement officials or agents about colluding in the election" and Lisa LaFake poured on an extra-thick helping of insinuation behind her comment "but he was caught in a recording talking to a member of the Russian government". And....... they talked about....... c'mon say it....... Russian collusion? Nope. So why the insinuation?

Lisa LaFake was calling comment by the Conservatives "character assassination" when they were talking about Lavscam. Really? For 3 years Duffygate was the most important thing on the planet to LaFake and the rest of the bought-and-paid-for-flunkies at CTV. Did she ever characterize a comment about Harper as an attempt at character assassination? It's a huge joke. 

Honestly just try to catch whomever you're watching lying to you or leading you to believe something that's completely unsupported by actual facts.

On CNN they just switched from "Russian collusion" to "no less than 87 other things" before they finished with their first big lie. They didn't even apologize for 2 years of wasting everyone's time and they just went on to the next story. Shouldn't they make a few apologies?

So you have somehow received full access to the Mueller report and therefore know everything that is in it, not just what's in Barr's obviously biased 4 pager? So maybe you can fill us in on one phrase that Barr's report did include saying it "does not exonerate" Trump, especially when it comes to obstruction of justice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Owly said:

So you have somehow received full access to the Mueller report and therefore know everything that is in it, not just what's in Barr's obviously biased 4 pager? So maybe you can fill us in on one phrase that Barr's report did include saying it "does not exonerate" Trump, especially when it comes to obstruction of justice.

No, not at all. 

But here's what we both know FOR SURE: there are leakers and liars everywhere. People broke actual laws to leak information about other people, they released their names even though it was a felony to do so, people's personal emails have been hacked and their dirty secrets have been coming out, etc.

If there really was evidence of Trump-Russia collusion then 2,800 subpoenas, 300 search warrants, 500 interviews, etc would have uncovered it and it definitely would have been leaked.

Mueller's report can't "exonerate" Trump. Exonerate is a legal term that doesn't apply to anything that Mueller has the power to do. The FBI can only recommend a trial, if there's enough evidence, or not to bother going to trial if there's not. Exoneration comes from a judge, in a court of law.

On the other side of this affair it's now known that the FBI was aware that Trump was going to offered help by the Russians and that Russians were trying to get involved. How did they know? How and why did they meet with that woman who said that she had info about Hillary's crime before and after the meeting with Trump's kid? Why did a FISA warrant keep getting issued even though no new evidence of collusion was being discovered? That's illegal. Why were important disclosures not made during the FISA applications? Why did Hillary pay foreigners, including Russians, for this dossier which was then used to influence the election?

 

Owly I sure hope that when you talk about "obstruction of justice" you understand that hundreds of people were subpoenaed, they testified, tens of thousands of pages from relevant documents were handed over, etc. The FBI even arrested people on unrelated charges that were decades old and then offered them reduced sentences for damning information about Trump. After all that, nothing was leaked. They even know that Trump's team was approached by Russians with offers of help and they know that they didn't take them up on it.

How many of Trudeau's associates were offered reduced sentences for damning info about SNC Lavalin? How many subpoenas went out? How many search warrants? How many people were interviewed under oath? How many thousands of documents were submitted? How many pre-dawn raids were there? 0,0,0,0,0,0. Why? Because Trudeau and the Liberals used their god-like (dictatorial) powers to shut down the ethics commissioner's probe and to prevent JRW from talking about it in Parliament. There's a real obstruction of justice case going on right here under our noses and you only care about this idiotic scam in a foreign country. Lol. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

No, not at all. 

But here's what we both know FOR SURE: there are leakers and liars everywhere. People broke actual laws to leak information about other people, they released their names even though it was a felony to do so, people's personal emails have been hacked and their dirty secrets have been coming out, etc.

If there really was evidence of Trump-Russia collusion then 2,800 subpoenas, 300 search warrants, 500 interviews, etc would have uncovered it and it definitely would have been leaked.

Mueller's report can't "exonerate" Trump. Exonerate is a legal term that doesn't apply to anything that Mueller has the power to do. The FBI can only recommend a trial, if there's enough evidence, or not to bother going to trial if there's not. Exoneration comes from a judge, in a court of law.

On the other side of this affair it's now known that the FBI was aware that Trump was going to offered help by the Russians and that Russians were trying to get involved. How did they know? How and why did they meet with that woman who said that she had info about Hillary's crime before and after the meeting with Trump's kid? Why did a FISA warrant keep getting issued even though no new evidence of collusion was being discovered? That's illegal. Why were important disclosures not made during the FISA applications? Why did Hillary pay foreigners, including Russians, for this dossier which was then used to influence the election?

 

Owly I sure hope that when you talk about "obstruction of justice" you understand that hundreds of people were subpoenaed, they testified, tens of thousands of pages from relevant documents were handed over, etc. The FBI even arrested people on unrelated charges that were decades old and then offered them reduced sentences for damning information about Trump. After all that, nothing was leaked. They even know that Trump's team was approached by Russians with offers of help and they know that they didn't take them up on it.

How many of Trudeau's associates were offered reduced sentences for damning info about SNC Lavalin? How many subpoenas went out? How many search warrants? How many people were interviewed under oath? How many thousands of documents were submitted? How many pre-dawn raids were there? 0,0,0,0,0,0. Why? Because Trudeau and the Liberals used their god-like (dictatorial) powers to shut down the ethics commissioner's probe and to prevent JRW from talking about it in Parliament. There's a real obstruction of justice case going on right here under our noses and you only care about this idiotic scam in a foreign country. Lol. 

Well just a few things there, first exoneration is not a technical legal term, but in any case so far, according to Barr's 4 pager there is not enough evidence regarding certain issues to proceed with charges, but that does not mean the record is wiped clean. As to the collusion issue, I'll wait to hear what more comes to light from the Trump Tower meeting, which tends to reek of suspicion of collusion. Trump himself may not have had direct collusion but one would have to be a little naive to think with his close connections to people in that meeting, including his son in law, that he didn't get insights. Trying to re-flog the Hillary case after it's long since been in the rear view mirror is typical Trump obfuscation attempts. I'll wait until I hear the actual Mueller report, not Trumps appointee's 4 pager when there are apparently over 300 pages in the report. And if you think it was just a phony investigation look at the criminal charges that evolved from it, especially regarding so many of Trumps closest allies. This case is far from over, even though Donald rants on about "full exoneration" and of course we do know from what Barr did divulge is that the report did not say there was no collusion with the Russians, simply that there was just not sufficient evidence to make a legal case. 

Edited by Owly
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/28/2019 at 6:41 AM, scribblet said:

This is a big deal, IMO as Wikipedia is everywhere and a primary search tool for many (although it shouldn`t be the primary tool)   Who wants to bet which side was protected?  

 

 

Wikipedia Editors Paid to Protect Political, Tech, and Media Figures according to a  report in the Huffington Post recently  which revealed the case of Wikipedia editor Ed Sussman, who was paid by media clients such as NBC and Axios to help diminish critical material. Paid editors operating in a similar manner to Sussman have worked on behalf of CNN contributor Hilary Rosen and the CEOs of Reddit and Intel, among other clients.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-facebook-nbc-axios_n_5c63321be4b03de942967225

The way you've worded this seems to imply that Wikipedia itself is an architect of fake news for profit as opposed to simply being used as a free platform by an occasional paid faker.  Anyone who uses Wikipedia is free to be an Editor, as they should be when they're truly committed to countering news or articles that have been laundered or faked.

Good on you for bringing this purveyance of BS to our attention though. 

 

Edited by eyeball
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, eyeball said:

The way you've worded this seems to imply that Wikipedia itself is an architect of fake news for profit as opposed to simply being used as a free platform by an occasional paid faker.  Anyone who uses Wikipedia is free to be an Editor, as they should be when they're truly committed to countering news or articles that have been laundered or faked.

Good on you for bringing this purveyance of BS to our attention though.

You are free to believe that Wikipedia is not edited for profit or based on ideology

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, scribblet said:

You are free to believe that Wikipedia is not edited for profit or based on ideology

I know it is but I also know its edited for free and without bias.  I'm also fairly confident the for-profit/ideology editing is just as subject to awareness and open to public validation or invalidation as the case may be or call for. It seems a lot less reliable a place for fakers to get away with plying their trade than you're imputing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/29/2019 at 8:58 PM, eyeball said:

I know it is but I also know its edited for free and without bias.  I'm also fairly confident the for-profit/ideology editing is just as subject to awareness and open to public validation or invalidation as the case may be or call for. It seems a lot less reliable a place for fakers to get away with plying their trade than you're imputing.

Without bias would be absolutely false. Wikipedia is one of the heavily modified sites going, and I will say with a lot of bias. Intelligence communities have at it all the time. Corporations and event the Canadian government has taken part in editing wikipedia.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/nnk97k/the-internet-is-flooded-with-wikipedia-edits-made-by-government-and-big-oil

One person was trying to correct the entries about him, but he then got word that he was not a very good authority on himself.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia

Quote

Dear Wikipedia,

I am Philip Roth. I had reason recently to read for the first time the Wikipedia entry discussing my novel “The Human Stain.” The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. This item entered Wikipedia not from the world of truthfulness but from the babble of literary gossip—there is no truth in it at all.

Yet when, through an official interlocutor, I recently petitioned Wikipedia to delete this misstatement, along with two others, my interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/29/2019 at 8:58 PM, eyeball said:

I know it is but I also know its edited for free and without bias.  I'm also fairly confident the for-profit/ideology editing is just as subject to awareness and open to public validation or invalidation as the case may be or call for. It seems a lot less reliable a place for fakers to get away with plying their trade than you're imputing.

LIKE

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, GostHacked said:

Without bias would be absolutely false. Wikipedia is one of the heavily modified sites going, and I will say with a lot of bias. Intelligence communities have at it all the time. Corporations and event the Canadian government has taken part in editing wikipedia. 

Sure, it's not perfect but is it good ?

It's like the people who say "The Globe & Mail is biased !" and then use that to justify FOX news as a balanced source of information, or flat-earth sites or Qanon as legitimate sources.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Sure, it's not perfect but is it good ?

It's like the people who say "The Globe & Mail is biased !" and then use that to justify FOX news as a balanced source of information, or flat-earth sites or Qanon as legitimate sources.  

All mainstream media is biased.  Some reporters on those stations are not biased and can throw out a level report. But we can easily see most US media is partisan in some fashion.

No different in Canada. The state of news delivery and fact checking these days is absolutely deplorable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, GostHacked said:

1. All mainstream media is biased.  Some reporters on those stations are not biased and can throw out a level report.  

2. No different in Canada. The state of news delivery and fact checking these days is absolutely deplorable.

1. I will go further to say human interaction introduces bias, almost like a virus.  Everybody is biased.

2. A bit better in some respect and worse in others IMO.

But I reiterate, using three levels of rightish-wing media:

Striving for objectiving while acknowledging bias IS BETTER THAN open bias while lying about striving for objectivity IS BETTER THAN outright lying to get subscribers
or
The Globe & Mail IS BETTER THAN Fox News IS BETTER THAN InfoWars

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, GostHacked said:

Without bias would be absolutely false.

Entirely false in absolutely every single case without exception?  

Quote

 

Wikipedia is one of the heavily modified sites going, and I will say with a lot of bias. Intelligence communities have at it all the time. Corporations and event the Canadian government has taken part in editing wikipedia.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/nnk97k/the-internet-is-flooded-with-wikipedia-edits-made-by-government-and-big-oil

One person was trying to correct the entries about him, but he then got word that he was not a very good authority on himself.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia

 

Okay so this is how it ends, where there is not a single source of information to be trusted on the planet.  That said why should I trust my mistrust - where do I even begin to approach that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, GostHacked said:

All mainstream media is biased.  Some reporters on those stations are not biased and can throw out a level report. But we can easily see most US media is partisan in some fashion.

No different in Canada. The state of news delivery and fact checking these days is absolutely deplorable.

I just don't get it, is it really that hard to learn how to tell crap from Shinola?  Maybe dropping out of school was the best thing I ever did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

So the Globe has a number of stories on the importance of journalistic freedom today, including the one below, which basically decries the problem of so many people using the term 'mainstream media' or MSM as a pejorative, and turning to less reliable sources. It's not wrong on what's happening, but it's oblivious to the cause.

The cause, and I'm only speaking to Canada here, but it's a similar situation in the US and western Europe, is that journalists are not neutral, and do not simply see their job as giving us the unvarnished news. Journalists are partisans. They see their job as advocating for their views. And their views are almost all progressive. There are exceptions, but the days when reporters were simply ordinary men and women who joined right out of high school and worked their way up through talent are long gone. For decades now journalists have come through journalism schools, and been indoctrinated with the same notions of the 'crusading' journalist, advocating for the little guy, bringing down the rich and powerful, etc. A lot of this came from the boomers who dreamed of exposing the evils of big business and US foreign policy, and lauded the Washington Post reporters who brought down Nixon.

But the result is that progressive views are front and centre in the MSM. In Canada, we get story after story of whatever the progressive media wants us to see, be it stories about the horrors of nuclear energy, or climate change, or the joyous wonders of immigration and grateful refugees. None of their stories are lies. But that they're so selective of them does make for a dishonest view. Thus we'll have lots of stories of happy immigrants and grateful refugees and wonderful economic benefits, but very, very few that contradict that. The MSM aren't, for the most part, interested in stories of criminal immigrants or refugees, or the costs, or validating government claims on other benefits. 

Similarly we saw lots of anti-nuclear stories before the media all but killed the nuclear power industry, but nothing about the benefits. We see lots of stories about white supremacy lately, because that reflects the progressive narrative, but almost nothing pointing out that there are virtually no white supremacist groups and that the report this is all supposedly based upon stated bluntly that terrorism from the far right was really not a serious problem and was unlikely to become one. As for climate change and the wonders of carbon taxes, there's very little in the media which isn't supportive of the progressive view. The only questioning I've seen from media of carbon taxes is why they aren't higher. I have not read a single thing regarding the lack of impact any of it is going to have given the major emitters are not playing along.

When you advocate for something you're basically advocating against something else. When you become partisan you leave yourself open to the view you're being dishonest.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-conspiracy-peddlers-vilify-journalists-in-order-to-replace-them/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Tell a friend

    Love Repolitics.com - Political Discussion Forums? Tell a friend!
  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      10,713
    • Most Online
      1,403

    Newest Member
    nyralucas
    Joined
  • Recent Achievements

    • Jeary earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Venandi went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • Gaétan earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • Dictatords earned a badge
      First Post
    • babetteteets earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...