This is reminding me of childhood,,,

Tom: "Bob broke the vase"
Bob: "Nuh uh, Tom is lying. He broke the vase"

Tom: "Nuh uh, Bob broke it"
Bob: "Nuh uh!"


sad really


as a matter of simplicity, I find that headlines tell a lot about the 'slant' of the news. But there is a difference between news with a slant and fake news.

news with a slant includes words that claim knowledge of someones intent or feelings or judgment of someones actions or words.

so it may include phrases such as 'Congressman Joe dodges questions'
implying some negative intent behind the lack of answers.

or it may say 'Congressman Joe gives divisive answers', implying that the answers themselves should be seen negatively

Where as a non slanted report would just say 'Congressman Joe is questioned about,,,"




FAKE news is usually written with a headline that warns of slant. It usually has no researchable data and uses a lot of EMOTIONAL words to describe an event. It can still include one or two bits of factual information, but mostly builds upon it with baseless , unproven conjecture. It is usually 80 percent commentary(opinion) posed as undeniable fact.


I generally look for the articles whose headlines don't warn of slant(and they are hard to find) when trying to find news with less slant or bias, and news that is not actually commentary posing as fact.

REUTERS and AP are usually dependable in this area. Many other news sources merely repeat the information from REUTERS and AP and add in commentary.


which sources (if you are one concerned with looking) have been dependable when it comes to avoiding slanted/biased/ and fake news?

Agree harmony... many are having issue with the news ... becouse more can fact ck now ... who wish to care to ... Trump will call it fake if ... it does come to something he may disagree with ... but yet some of those fakers gave him more free press then any of the candidates...

I'd be pickier with my definition of Fake News.

What we have these days, more than in a very long time, is a lot of outright, made up for propaganda purposes, FALSE information being touted as factual. Declarations of events which didn't happen at all. It is created and then promoted, specifically to accomplish a nefarious goal, to persuade people to vote against their own best interests, or to make other choices which will be bad for them, or unfairly good for the one's planting the fake stories.

There are two more basic categories, and it is IMPERATIVE that they don't get mixed up with actual FAKE NEWS:

* Erroneous News. news about real events, which includes some unintentional errors, such as the incorrect spelling of a name, or the exact time of something happening.

* Biased News. This is what is described above, where the real news is being reported, but it is being done so in a way that is actively designed to encourage a specific attitude about the event in the observer.

What is being pulled right now, by the worst offenders in the Fake News category, is MISREPRESENTATION OF FAKE NEWS. It is a clear effort to lead people who are trying to become informed, to completely ignore, completely true and factual information, by declaring that if there is so much as a comma out of place, that the entire information set is to be discarded, and an "ALTERNATIVE" version inserted as a replacement.

In short, concerns about FAKE NEWS is being abused by the people who are generating the most FAKE NEWS.

Seems all you are saying here is "news vs. opinion vs. spin."

SOSDD.

Nothing really changes, people just keep looking to apply terminology du jour to make themselves appear to be authorities, or to make the problems they have personally associated with seem more relevant and important.

Rediscovering the same old mousetrap but calling it the rodent removal system one day to amaze consumers, then calling it the evil death machine the next to get a different reaction.
News, fake news, alternative facts, spin, click bait, bad journalism, falsehoods, stories, gossip, bias, slant, punditry, opinion.


You posted a thread on critical reading and/or critical thinking a while ago.

As long as you use those skills/methods it doesn't really matter if it's "news, fake news, alternative facts, click bait, news with a slant," poor journalism, biased, pundits, opinion, or whatever.

IMO "news" today is more a reflection of the consumer than the disseminators.

People have been lying, gossiping, making up stories, biased, slanted, wrong, spreading propaganda and falsehoods, manipulating facts and statistics, exaggerative, hyperbolic, for a very long time.

It never went away and should always be assumed. That's why things like "critical reading skills" had to be developed and why they were important enough to be taught to everyone via compulsory education.

There's no magical source you can trust to do your thinking for you and simply hand you the answers with your perspective and value system as the core focus, even though that seems to be what people keep looking for.

I believe it has gotten harder to distinguish
the facts on certain stations ...


my local is ok for local ... but for other parts of the country and out side the USA... I listen to something else all together ... I tend to believe what they say ... so I stick with them ...

and others I don't ... we all make our own choices as to what to believer not ... ever wonder if we will ever be on the same page ...
as one another on this earth ...

Growing up there was basically 2 news channels, NBC & ABC. What they did was... give the news of the day. The didn't spout their views.. they gave the news... told you what happened. Period.

Not so anymore, most every channel has a political agenda, same for most newspapers.

It is very difficult to get the true thru todays media outlets. Even if it is the truth.. your not sure anymore.

Its actually sad.

I don't remember it all quite the same way.

When I got back from Britain in 1962, there were three TV stations in my area at first, and soon after, two more were added. But news back then was entirely different, from a business standpoint.

That is, it was considered a part of the TV stations contract with America (literally), that in order to be allowed to use the airwaves that we the people of the US owned, in order to make money from us, they had to give back to the communities they served. They had to do so by presenting us with things like access for local events notifications, AND news.

The news was NOT considered to be a money maker in any way shape or form, it was entirely designed to pay back for access to the channel itself.

Then, somewhere in the late sixties/early seventies, a new business concept swept the nation: running everything from the CEO's office, using pre-programmed Business Science processes. In addition to screwing up how profits were calculated in manufacturing, it ALSO meant that suddenly all the TV stations were ordering EACH of their programming teams, to independently show a profit.

Suddenly, the News wasn't a community information service, it was a For Profit Business, in and of itself. The natural immediate result, was an end to formal, careful, purely factual presentation of the news, and a conversion to a more viscerally pleasing program.

That meant several things developed over the next decade, including LOTS of news presenters building up "styles," and "humanizing themselves" in order to gain market share. Translation: they started including their own feelings about the stories, and making them about their own personalities, rather than being about the subject matter.

It wasn't primarily a politicization, but that naturally followed.

Now, we see a natural progression from those days. With the addition of many more media sources, all scrambling to get a hold on a personal audience, no one is bothering with pure facts anymore, because you can't charge high prices for commercials, just because you are honest and factual. People have to admit that they watch you.

And what makes people watch? Careful reason? Thorough investigation before reporting the first words about something?

Nope. What gets you ratings, and therefore personal income, is being FIRST to the market, with the most exciting VERSION of whatever the main story is. Hence the focus on who is recently nude, who's screwing around with who, and what outrageous things famous people are CLAIMING about each other.

That translates to lots of conspiracy allegations, claims of persecution, claims of bias on the part of your competition, and tons of the most upsetting stuff they can manage to imply, in order to get viewers riled up enough to stay through the commercial breaks.

That's it in a nutshell. It's only accidentally about identity politics versus right wing self-righteousness. What makes it the mess that it is, is that it's not about facts, it's about SHORT TERM PROFITS.

Freedom of the Press has morphed into something quite sinister.

It should be VERY illegal to report on something the author knows to be untrue.

It started with all those trash mags like the National enquirer.

People believe all that garbage. Like some weird cult

Hahaha, NEWS

I stopped watching the NEWS.
I have a lot less stress now.

How much NEWS do you really need?

If I want to know the weather I go to intellicast.

If I want to go to the beach I go to the local beach closure site.

Once a week I check the local city hall site for community notices.

It doesn't matter why the prices went up. If I want to buy something, I have to pay their price no matter why.

I have no power and no significant money so there is nothing in the NEWS that I can change.

The world is insane. It is going to hell in a handbasket and there is nothing I can do about it. Following the NEWS is insanity in itself.

Just the other night there was a car accident just outside my door. The responders arrived as evidenced by the noise outside. I didn't even look outside. No curiosity whatever. I heard the police yelling for someone to stop and there was a impact on my wall. I heard the commotion as the police tackled the drunk driver trying to flee. I did not even get up from my chair. I heard the crowd of neighbors outside all worked up about all the excitement happening. They yakked for a full hour about it outside. Much ado about nothing. The next day when I went outside, I looked to see if my apartment was damaged. I kicked the sod back in place where the scuffle occurred. I looked at the street and the accident scene was cleaned up and there was no evidence anything at all happened. Everything was just like it always is.

Try living in the here and now. Less stress and a lot less bull.

Propaganda found a new name and found a home with the Liberal media.
Interesting how the libs now, try to define it as something they had no part in. Just happened. Trump calls it what it is and they can't stand it. Go Donald, go!

Alex Jones makes more sense of it.