Comments on: Judging the news

By: cassie-b

cassie-b — Sun, 27 May 2007 13:48:52 +0000

The reporting of the news media has always upset me. I live near a large city, and if I watch the local news, I get to hear how many people were killed the night before, or how many died in a fire or car accident. So I don’t watch it.

I do like to know something about what’s happening, and I must say, I get most of that information right from my computer – the internet, and also from bloggers.

Cas

By: Reenie

Reenie — Sat, 26 May 2007 11:30:38 +0000

Like really, the only news I believe is like stuff I read about Paris Hilton… and like who cares…

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 23 May 2007 03:21:56 +0000

I agree that the news is manipulative and I avoided it for years, just glancing at headlines or overhearing conversation. I think Vietnam scarred us all in our generation. In addition, I kept wanting to say, “There must be more sides, more facets. What is there that you’re not telling us?”

But recently, on the Web, I have found 2 or 3 sites which gather news from different sources and present it in logical format. Also, I have begun to read The Week, which is a news magazing, which writes about news from a global perspective, and for hot topics, presents several viewpoints in a point/counterpoint format. I’m sure there is still much we don’t know, but I feel that if we’re going to blow ourselves to Kingdom Come, I’d like to know what happened along the way. I’d like to think I knew what the issues were and made an effort to do something to ameliorate the evil and ignorance.

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 21 May 2007 18:33:52 +0000

Operation Mockingbird. Look it up.

By: Creechman

Creechman — Sun, 20 May 2007 13:05:33 +0000

I follow all that and agree. An “at length” perspective is best. At least we are (I hope) intelligent enough to recognize the ploys which greet us on the news channels every day. But over saturation, including talk radio. In the end, what can we personally do about civilizational conflicts or reprehensible behavior on the part of leaders? Not a lot.

So best not to twist oneself into early cynicism.

By: violetismycolor

violetismycolor — Sat, 19 May 2007 17:15:59 +0000

I think that it is really important to read all sorts of news outlets, etc. and get information from a variety of sources and make a ’somewhat’ informed decision about how we see events in the world. It is frustrating but allows you to see more aspects of the world and all the people and how they are thinking. John (my husband) is a news-a-holic. We get the NY Times and the Oregonian at home. He reads the political blogs. He is very involved with the Democratic Party and hears the talk going around with the insiders. My hubby even watches Fox News to see what they are saying, then reads other outlets to see where Fox is slanting their news/getting it wrong/getting it right. I rely on him alot to understand the really complicated things.

By: Beverly Jackson

Beverly Jackson — Sat, 19 May 2007 10:33:41 +0000

I’ve pretty much given up on conventional news sources except for things
like who died, what’s happening (superficially) with the weather, and what
day it is. More news comes to me these days through blogs (always slanted)
and books (always in retrospect), so in fact I really don’t know what’s going on. It seems to me, at this late point in my life, if it’s human, it’s not
objective. It’s true that in earlier years, it seemed more objective, but if you look at history, there were just as many lies told then as now…or just as many truths untold. It’s the human failing, I think. That’s why ferreting out the truth is such an art. God has a wicked sense of humor. Yes, She does.

By: Eric Mayer

Eric Mayer — Thu, 17 May 2007 16:16:08 +0000

I continue to read far too much news, even though it upsets me, and for no good reason because there’s nothing I can do about what’s going on in this country and around the world. But the news is always there on the internet so I read it.

It seems to me that journalists have mostly abandoned their ethics and professionalism, forgotten what their jobs are. News is designed to garner advertising revenue rather than the truth. I’m sure that Nixon and his band of crooks would have gotten away with Watergate easily today. Heck, Bush and his gang have gotten away with far more than Nixon ever attempted but today the press doesn’t really investigate like it used to. If it weren’t for the internet, where information can be disseminated by non-professionals or by journalists who work outside the biggest media conglomerates and still retain some ethics and courage, forcing the national press to at least mention certain things, we’d probably be given no news at all.

I guess I don’t have to mention Fox which is a US version of the old Soviet Pravda, simply a party organ. I mean it is run by the former head of the Republican party! Having grown up in an era when Pravda was held up to ridicule and scorn it amazes me to see exactly the same form of propaganda accepted by so many people in this country.

One thing that irritates me is how journalist avoid any responsibility for sorting verifiable truth from propagandistic lies. It isn’t being balanced to present both sides of an argument equally when one side presents facts and the other is spouting palpable lies. Lies don’t deserve equal time with truth. The far right has taken advantage of this lapse of journalistic judgment incessantly.