mikema63 wrote:In that case what conditions lead you to believing a story?
I like audio visuals from various sources before I'm inclined to take something too seriously. However, I now tend to prefer footage from non-journalists. For example, if I want to know what the Syrian war looks like, I go to YouTube or LiveLeaks and watch a bunch of videos. Even video productions that are done for a particular story often get the B-roll wrong. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a video about a weapons platform--say the F-22--where the video also has B-roll of the F-15. Believing something might have happened (getting your attention) and believing the story (veritas) are two very different things.
Decky wrote:Party publications, all else is bourgeois propaganda.
Even that is impossibly naive. A lot of Republican voters thought that the Republicans would repeal ObamaCare, but they've reneged. I knew they would do that. I knew Trump wouldn't repeal it either, but I'm glad he's president just because I despise the establishment.
Pants-of-dog wrote:I trust each source to provide those facts or narrative that support their agenda.
That's why I like Frontline, but believing them is a different matter. They will provide solid facts to support their agenda, but they will omit facts that don't.
Drlee wrote:I trust PBS. I trust the BBC for international news. I like MSNBC and CNN. Fox News is a laughingstock. Before it shut down I appreciated Al Jazeera USA. Sadly it is gone.
PBS is good, but like NPR, it is absolutely biased. The BBC is good for international news. CNN used to have a great foreign news desk, but sadly it's a vestige of its former self. France24 also gives you a perspective you won't get in American media. That's why Al-Jazeera was interesting too. FoxNews is good if you want to know what the Democrats aren't telling you or what the Republicans want you to know. Even RT is good if you want to know what Vladimir Putin's public position is, because you won't get it from an establishment outlet in the US.
Drlee wrote:I agree with POD and also trust work done at universities. I have been around them most of my adult life and have never personally seen a case of deliberately falsified data and very little with a deliberately slanted point of view.
I totally disagree. Cold fusion would be a fine example. First of all, there is a lot of shit work done that doesn't need to be done at all. People should be working on useful projects like how to scale up graphene or carbon nanotubes, and get off of the mating habits of bears and such. A huge chunk of the global warming work is pure bullshit--business-driven government propaganda that uses scientists as a means of trying to bypass public debate on policy, just as Eisenhower had warned about.
Here is a very sad example of how easy it is to destroy your reputation:
Stephen Hawking issues dire warning about the threat Trump poses to a livable climate.
“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible,” explained the world’s most famous scientist. “Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250º” C (482°F).
Poor old fool. I'm sure he was well paid for that one.
Maybe the Earth will reach an average of 250F when the Sun becomes a red giant. The paleo record stops at about 22C, or 71F.
I don't know why believing scientists is such a popular thing. Anyone who has seen a court trial has seen the corruption of scientists as expert witnesses. Two scientists will give you diametrically opposite views. One will tell you that there is no link between smoking and lung cancer, and the other will tell you that second hand smoke is even more dangerous than smoking and they are both wrong.
fuser wrote:Economic & political weekly i.e. http://www.epw.in both in print and web format is my preferred place for analysis of national and international events.
Stock, commodity, bond, and currency prices will tell you a lot, but they get manipulated too.
4cal wrote:The news magazines on NPR are the few places you can find in-depth reporting.
I find in-depth reporting more credible on average than a daily news story or headlines, because they have to stack up more facts to support a narrative. That's why 60 Minutes and 20/20 used to be gospel along with Frontline.
Drlee wrote:I am very concerned that those formerly middle class whites who are following him because they feel disenfranchised have yet to discover that they have chosen the wrong side.
Well, you can't say that Hillary was the other side for the formerly middle class. They weren't going to be given a choice, but the establishment figured Trump was a joke. The joke was on the establishment.
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:Christ, what a load of bollocks. No one can seriously state that Fox News is "fair and balanced".
Not even FoxNews does that anymore. They dropped that line recently. I think that's one of the changes the boys are interested in. FoxNews used to give both sides--meaning the Democrats and the Republicans. However, there are more than two sides, and FoxNews has never been interested in that.
Verv wrote:I'd like to put it simply...
I tend to trust nearly every source to a degree. Even if I do not believe in the angle that they make, I generally believe there are objective facts in the article. I value getting a biased Leftist opinion as well as a biased Rightist opinion because, ultimately, there is no objective center.
I think that most sources have axes to grind and I do not overly frequent the Leftist Secular Humanist sources, but I really try to make a point to not entirely dismiss them.
I like to make this distinction because it plays both to the fact that we can all learn from other people as well as it reinforces the idea, which should be normal, that the objective does not exist.
Well, I do that too. However, I do like to read what non-journalists say. For example, I saw a video that had an anti-drone bias. It was well produced and persuasive, but I ended up totally disagreeing with it. That would be a great opportunity to attack Barack Obama for someone like me. However, I had read soldier accounts like Level Zero Heroes and how the Taliban would do things like kill a woman and child and use them as props to try to make it look like a US Marine JTAC had called in an airstrike on them and killed them, and then tried to extort money. When you read other accounts of soldiers in Afghanistan, you get the very clear impression that women are worth less than livestock in that culture. So this video said that an airstrike killed a boy's grandmother and injured him. No picture of the grandmother, but a boy with a 3.5 inch keloid scar that had healed some time ago on his knee, and he was frowning as the camera panned his well-healed scar. It struck me right away that the NGO lawyer was trying to extort money out of the US government and was probably sympathetic to the Taliban, or otherwise had an anti-US/anti-ISAF bias. The reality is that you just can't trust production quality anymore either.
When I see a national network news report--CBS, NBC, ABC--I'm usually leery of what they report, but typically very impressed with the production quality.
What's interesting about today's news critics, is that they can compete with the networks using green screens, 4k or 1080p cameras, a decent microphone and some video editing software. While Adobe Premiere is probably the best, the free and open source kdenlive is free and now much more stable.
I like Shirvan Nephtli's "
Caspian Report." However, he is biased too. It's interesting that one guy can produce at that level now though, including b-roll footage, stock photography, royalty free music, and so forth.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
-- Joe Biden
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