Do you believe mainstream media?

[jujiju]

I don’t. I used to and I miss being in that safe bubble. I still have a look to see what is being reported, but I’m no longer in that place where I just assume what I’m being fed is correct without doing my own research.

Since covid I do make an effort to look at more sources - including news from other countries.

I think trust must be an issue more generally as keep seeing Ground News app advertised - it claims it looks at world news and measures media bias and blind spots so there must be a growing market for such a thing.

I’m the same. I don’t care either. I only care about my own life, I give no fucks about who is supposedly tearing who apart somewhere else in the world.

Actually, I think they do try to teach it in schools, albeit often indirectly and, of course, not always as well as perhaps we would all like. Here are a few ways:

In English literacy classes children are taught to consider how word choices change meaning, to understand what indirect messages are being used by word choices, tone etc.

English comprehension is as much about learning to recognise the facts in a piece of writing as it is about learning to think about the underlying meanings, suggestions or implications.

In history, children are (supposedly) being taught about different types of sources, how to assess them, how to check or cross check them etc. (I appreciate this is done at a fairly basic level in most cases).

We see children being encouraged to use news writing as a type of writing they should learn as part of broader themes - from my Year 5 daughter being told to write a news story about their school residential to DS year 9 class writing a news article about the death of King Henry 8.

Even in classes like IT and computer skills now where children are being taught about internet safety - part of those classes is attempting to make them understand where information is coming from and how to assess it.

Clearly however, these tools are not working well enough, based on the cluelessness of a lot of people on threads like this.

I envy your ignorance. I find times quite worrying at the moment so it must be lovely not to know about it.

You told me not to be condescending to a "rational viewpoint". I don't think the viewpoint is in the slightest bit rational at all. And you're right, my original response wasn't to you, but you clearly ALSO think it's a "rational viewpoint" so I will say that I am incredulous at the lack of understanding of how this works from the poster I was responding to, as well as many of the others on this thread.

give it a go.
Start small if it makes it easier so eg. don't click anymore on anything to do with Ukraine or Trump or whatever then expand it and you'll soon not give a damn about any of it.
It makes no difference to your day to day life and is wonderfully liberating

i think the thing is that peole now know how the media works and are finding it doesn't match their expectations any more.

how is that irrational?

It’s great.

To be honest, my personal life is fucking horrific. I’ve got enough problems with my child and my health. I can’t be worrying about what other people in the world may (or may not) be doing as well. So I’ve chosen not to give a shit or go looking for it.

Yet your posting history on here seems to suggest you yourself are being economical with the truth.

I'm sorry to hear that. I can imagine that it would be overwhelming to read the news given what you're going through. I hope things get better soon.

i see headlines and stuff on here.
I will confess to the odd look at eg prince harry's baldness 😁

Yes and no. I believe the mainstream media report things but the whole context is always lost in a small news segment or piece by one journalist. So I read around it. Various mainstream media sources, social media for personal anecdotes etc. If they’re reporting on statistics, I read the papers the statistics are from where I’m interested etc.

I generally find the truth is somewhere in between all of these things.

Read Reuters. Facts.

Nope. that's not the case. The original comment I was referring to was outraged because the media reported on government officials on the record statements about Covid. Specifically, that local government said that unvaccinated people would all get covid. She thought that was fearmongering and a lie (becuase she has NOT had covid) and that therefore the media should not have reported it. Which means that no, she doesn't understand how media works at all.

The problem is the expectation that media somehow controls the news or that media should be completely unbiased. It's simply impossible. And it scares me that so many people on this thread don't understand that.

I mean, even just in nroaml everyday life. surely you've had situations where you've heard a story from two different perspectives - facts are the same, but the story is told differently? Neither narrator is lying, they're just providing the facts their their own filter. It's not rocket science.

GroundNews is a news aggregator that also shows you the breakdown of tendencies in reporting

i don’t believe most of it anyway though. I never have done. So it’s not overwhelming in that sense. Mostly it just used to piss me off due to the manipulation of people.

I’ve seen first hand in my life outright lies about a county supposedly at war and in a terrible state. I was at a theme park and having a lovely time in a place that was reportedly a war torn shithole. The photos in the press were not real.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘believe’. Yes, I think the main reputable media outlets (ie bbc, the times, the guardian) are reporting their opinion on real events that are actually happening…

I actively disbelieve the sources you’ve said you think are more reliable OP, as should anyone with an ounce of critical thinking. But hey, we are where we are 🙀

There is something to be said for limiting what is coming at you. I do but still a load gets through. Mn picks stuff up quickly for a start.

I don’t do TV news, have taken to limiting radio news so it’s not every hour and just read and take what I can manage.

There’s no real benefit to being hooked into news cycles and probably some benefit from not doing so.

This! I've been trying to put into words how the BBC lead us along a path of thinking using their own biased views and you've articulated it perfectly, thank you.

To an extent I trust them, but with the knowledge that they all inherently have biases and blind spots and agendas so engage my critical thinking and research in more depth where necessary.
However if ‘doing your own research’ involves following bloggers/youtubers you’ll find they’re even more biased than mainstream media, in a bubble of their own prejudice and feedback loops of their followers who love to being told what they want to hear by someone on a screen.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here but I think there is, unfortunately, a tendency in media to go with "if it bleeds, it leads". There's no doubt that the nature of news means that as a rule, bad news gets a much higher profile. And of course, when dealing with issues in other countries, that can be even more the case: I am from South Africa originally. It is a country with LOTS of problems, no question. But in the UK, they're not going to write a story about how local government in small City A has made improvements, or got water to 5000 new homes. They're not going to write stories about interesting art and cultural events or the success of students and scientists from SA. But if a riot breaks out or a tourist is murdered, of course that is the story they'll write.

Frustrating, but normal.

I think it's also another reason why it's so important to read a variety of news sources and other rinformation sources. If you're reading the arts pages or watching those documentaries, you're getting different types of information. If you're engaging on issues in your community, you're getting on the ground information that's local and specific. Sticking to the first 3 pages of any newspaper is never a good idea.

The BBC are a government mouthpiece as far as I’m concerned. They rely on the government to keep the licence fee and therefore have to toe the line to a certain extent.

I find the BBC partially true, but it’s never fully true.

I gather information on a story that I’m interested in from multiple sources - independent journalists, the daily newspapers, X, podcasts and over time you start to see the slant each of these have (which is fine) and you just form your own opinion.

If I only listened to the BBC, I’d have very different views on many topics. For example, the riots from last year / people in prison for Facebook posts. The BBC just don’t offer any analysis on this.They may cover it in a “person inciting violence on Facebook sentenced to 18 months’ way, but there is absolutely no further explanation of exactly what the person posted etc. Then when people (rightly imo) say that Free Speech is under attack. Or sentencing for these people is barbaric, there’s a cry that ‘these people were inciting violence’ and should be put in prison. No analysis, no further discussion, it’s just ‘a fact’ they were inciting violence. Whereas if you do do the analysis which many independent journalists have done, I’d think99% of the population wouldn’t agree with some of the sentencing that went on.

Which leads you to ask why the BBC do not do due diligence on these stories and I come to the hypothesis that they are compromised to not go against the government because of the license fee 🤷‍♀️

@MattCauthon

if you can't see the role the media played during covid then it's a bit pointless my replying to you

Corruption and bias aren’t the same thing but anyone who thinks media outlets aren’t biased are naive of course they are - I mean dear god quite a few don’t even hide it.

Corrupt is a whole other level though

I've seen many of your posts and you seem to be on the hard right. It's not apparent that you're well informed.