AIBU - to be tired of being manipulated by the press?

[plinkyplonks]

Example - Nigella and Saatchi's 'argument':

Mumsnet discussion at the time:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a1780735-Fucking-hell-Nigella-picture-WTF-includes-links-to-upsetting-images

The 'truth':

His 'claims': hillgrove-news-opinion.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/nigella-lawson-and-her-publicist-mark.html

Vanity Fair expose planned:

womansday.ninemsn.com.au/celebrityheadlines/8746573/nigella-lawson-dismisses-new-truth-claims

If what was alleged to have happened (from 'his' side) is true, AIBU to think its shocking for the media (photographers, journalists etc) to knowingly peddle a story that wasnt true on behalf of someone's PR agent? AIBU to feel just a lil bit manipulated?

Maybe I am old fashioned in that i think telling the truth should be valued?

To be clear this isn't another thread to call either of them a or some of the other offensive language chosen by posters in the original thread. I want to keep this about the press, whether it be photographers, publicists or otherwise willing to abuse their position of trust to defame and manipulate people. And whether we should feel cheated by that?

Sorry, but if expect newspapers to be only about 'news', unbiased and unopinionated , then you're living in cloud-cuckoo land.

And before you say anything, it has always been thusly. They want to sell to people who want to read shock and horror. To produce this shock and horror they will use emotive language and to appeal to readers of one political slant or other they will choose stories that agree with that political slant.

You should read what they used to say a couple of hundred years ago! Talk about manipulation of the public will...

I don't think there is such a thing as unbiased truth.

Your nigella example is pretty poor though, only a fool would believe Saatchi's version of events in that blog. I thought he went with the 'playful tiff' line originally.

False widow spiders are a perfect example, they've been here since the 1800's they won't 'hunt you down' and attack like bees or wasps when under threat.

It's taken me a long time and a number of stories on things I actually 'know' about to realise the old adage 'never believe all you read'

My SIL will read an article that says eating bacon = cancer and will.imediatley impose a ban.on bacon. I will read the same article and think"not this nonsence again".

People choose to believe/not believe what they read.

So don't be manipulated.

Apply thought and reason.

We will never find out the "truth". The only truth we know is what we saw.

He physically attacked her. We saw it, the media can't manipulate that!

That's all I need to know about him.

A shop selling dog crap opens; people buy the dog crap, they know its crap and it stinks but still shell out for it; the shop makes money and continues to sell the crap as there is a market for it.

Thanks everyone for your responses so far. I agree we are probably not going to get a situation where the press is completely unbiased.

I am worried though we're getting to the point where everything is so manipulated and staged that it is more fiction than fact. With lots of content now being added on line and traditional newspaper production winding down, the focus now is on advertising revenue.

To get good advertising revenue premiums, they need lots of visitors to their website and on their news articles. So then we get those new articles that are really just advertisements and certain celebrities getting column inches because they are the spokesperson for one of the big site advertisers.

DailyFail et all has always been slanted towards one particular view point or another. I guess now they are not even trying to come across as impartial or fully explain both sides of the argument. It's just blatant lazy journalism filled with sensationalist headlines, designed to rile people up, click (ching ching!) and comment. So much so that they are now just trolling people at times for the advertisement revenue.

Then you get the endless twitter reporting:

"Battle of the big-heads: Fisticuffs. Hissy fits. For 13 years, Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan have waged a hilariously juvenile feud... and now it's hit new depths"

www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.htm

Somehow that's more newsworthy than this:

'Hundreds of women may have aborted perfectly healthy babies' after NHS staff at a major teaching hospital routinely failed to make vital checks"

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2483498/Hundreds-women-aborted-perfectly-healthy-babies-NHS-staff-major-teaching-hospital-routinely-failed-make-vital-checks.html

I thought the BBC was immune from this.. but I've noticed even their news coverage isn't free from bias and sensationalism (particularly their radio segments)

I know it seems obvious, but there are probably thousands of people out there who don't realise to the extent we are being 'manipulated' or veered towards a certain opinion.

I hate that: "Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle" line.

No it doesn't.

What's the name of that modern PR/rhetorical structure? The "Something Window", where the point is precisely to move the so-called "middle" of the discursive ground, by introducing a more extreme discursive point?

Anyway, I think that is what is happening in your opening example with the Charles Saatchi thing, OP.

And your opening post would seem to demonstrate it may be working. Which I am, frankly, astounded at.

So I will just say that the "truth" that you really should find "in the middle"* is this: Domestic Violence is Never Acceptable.

*By the way, spatial structures don't help a great deal when discussing public rhetoric and truth.
Introducing an analysis of power often does, because public truth is often very interwound with power structures.

Have you ever seen a documentary called Manufacturing Consent? It's many years since I saw it but it deals with this subject, of how the media spins 'news' to get the desired response from the public.

Erm, I don't know, let's apply Occam's Razor shall we.

Is it more likely that the Queen of all that is cookery managed to spin a story in the papers to make her look like a victim. Papers that would no doubt want to tear her to pieces given the opportunity, Daily Fail first.

Or:

That somebody who runs/owns a PR company attempts some damage limitation after finding out that the world is full of camera phones and he isn't as bullet proof as he thought he was.

If there was any way the press could have ripped Nigella to pieces and made it her fault they would, empirical evidence suggests this.

Really?This?Tiggaxx

Why have you chosen a news piece about a woman who was physically assaulted in public

You could go to the daily mail any day and pick news that has been manipulated to suit their readers.

I do not believe that this is just an example you picked, though I could be manipulated into thinking that way by your given reasons

It's always been like this. Read Public Opinion ->full text. Published in 1922!