Maybe the solution is for everyone to wear a bright bannanna yellow jumpsuit, instead?
Feds are reportedly abducting people in portland
- Thread starter Worgen
- Start date
Why am I suddenly imagining a line of cops, one of protesters and one of banana dudes doing the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song & dance?
It'd be an effective means of identification, but also just plain too terrible to fathom.
Random youtubers get more views than mainstream gatekept press, so I'm just going to go ahead and say
no. You're not special. And inertia is the primary reason people even watch things like CNN or their local news in the first place. Not special at all.
To be fair, the part they quoted, you didn't say anything about credibility. You said "We're just better at being heard than you." Which is only referring to how much exposure you can get.
Granted. Still, it does seem like a rather facile argument to suggest that because bloggers are popular that makes things like press credentials gratuitous. I don't have much love for legacy media myself, but the internet press runs the gamut from reputable news to Info Wars.
*shrugs* Again, the phrasing you used, whether it was good or not, implied that by being Official Press, you are better at "getting the word out", and that is what they said "BS" to. Which I do agree with in some ways. With the proliferation of high quality video equipment to the public, getting that information out is no longer really the purview of The Press. Quality of the information is another issue, which again, wasn't what was stated. It was "how much we can get that information out to the public."
My thoughts are that I do think there is a difference in someone establishing themselves as a source of information, and thus ostensibly declaring themselves as an official "neutral party", and having a system acknowledging that neutrality. In the form of a press pass. It's not a magic wand, it's SUPPOSED to be an official agreement (in a sense) that the person with the pass, isn't going to be a part of whatever shit is going down that the cops are there to deal with, and thus, the cops reciprocate by not bothering them. And since you are not just Random Dude/Dudette With a Smart Phone 27, recording things, that the cops wouldn't mess with you. Of course it's a 2 way street in that the cops expect you to behave, and you expect the cops to not beat you or gas you indiscriminately.
Of course, that's sort of the issue in question with the current stuff going on, so that "established understanding" is incredibly shaky in my opinion.
I personally see it more as the definition of journalism is changing and it's not done shaking out yet. Ever since the gonzo journalists, there's been a trend for example for journalism to be less clinical and more human. As Spider Jerusalem described it in Transmetropolitan, the journalism of attachment. Humans talking about human life. There was a similar shake-up at the beginning of the previous century. The investigative journalism of people like Nelly Bly was already setting a new standard and that brought out a generation of muckrakers. Magazines and tabloids were a relatively new form of print media at the time and were more willing to cover things no traditional paper would touch. Strange as it sounds today, there was a time a hundred years ago where tabloids contained some of the best investigative journalism around.
Digital press media is going through a similar process. Not the same of course, but it does rhyme. That said, part of this is figuring out where precisely to draw the lines between journalism and commentary. Or how we distinguish a representative of the press from a busybody with a blog. And I'll admit there I don't really know.
Ask Kyrian007 who seems to think the popularity of being default makes legacy media 'special'.
And as for credibility, legacy media hasn't exactly been shining. Just the most recent example that comes to mind:
In ‘Russian Bounty’ Story, Evidence-Free Claims From Nameless Spies Became Fact Overnight - FAIR
Despite the fact that the anonymous accusations were far from proven, and that both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal included categorical denials from all those involved, including the White House, the Taliban and Moscow, much of corporate media treated the story as an established...
fair.org
That article relies on a number of assumptions as factual that it doesn't ever prove, which is a bit funny considering its topic calling out other media for similar practices.Ask Kyrian007 who seems to think the popularity of being default makes legacy media 'special'.
And as for credibility, legacy media hasn't exactly been shining. Just the most recent example that comes to mind:
In ‘Russian Bounty’ Story, Evidence-Free Claims From Nameless Spies Became Fact Overnight - FAIR
Despite the fact that the anonymous accusations were far from proven, and that both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal included categorical denials from all those involved, including the White House, the Taliban and Moscow, much of corporate media treated the story as an established...
Despite what the claims make, traditional media has WAAAAAY more credibility than Youtubers.Ask Kyrian007 who seems to think the popularity of being default makes legacy media 'special'.
And as for credibility, legacy media hasn't exactly been shining. Just the most recent example that comes to mind:
In ‘Russian Bounty’ Story, Evidence-Free Claims From Nameless Spies Became Fact Overnight - FAIR
Despite the fact that the anonymous accusations were far from proven, and that both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal included categorical denials from all those involved, including the White House, the Taliban and Moscow, much of corporate media treated the story as an established...
Mainly because all YouTubers have DESTROYED or ATTACK or SHUTDOWN in their headline. Most are biased hacks. John Oliver has more journalistic integrity then them and he's definitely claims he's not a journalist
But then, we, as a society don't care for journalism at all. We never had. We want a story that have heroes and villains, abuse our fears skinner box and tells us what to do.
The 'golden age of journalism' a few decades ago was incredibly one sided. It was biased as hell. It lied for the government and they got away with destroying countries. Journalists overall are less biased now than then
We get the journalism that we want and complain that the other side of politics get their version of joirnalism and it's mean... despite our side doing the same thing. We COULD have an unbiased news but it would never make money. It's not what we want
Edit: To see this in action, find me a Youtuber who is unbiased
Last edited:
Mainstream media, legacy media... buzzwords out there thrown around by media haters and conspiracy folks. The funniest part, a lot of that bunch actually listen to my talk station as we're kind of popular with them. We run Coast to Coast overnights and many of the syndicated shows we carry are very right-leaning or libertarians. When someone can't tell the difference between news and commentary (and a lot can't) we get accused of having a conservative bias or are accepted because of a perceived conservative bias. And I couldn't care less either way, both are incorrect assumptions.Ask Kyrian007 who seems to think the popularity of being default makes legacy media 'special'.
And as for credibility, legacy media hasn't exactly been shining. Just the most recent example that comes to mind:
In ‘Russian Bounty’ Story, Evidence-Free Claims From Nameless Spies Became Fact Overnight - FAIR
Despite the fact that the anonymous accusations were far from proven, and that both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal included categorical denials from all those involved, including the White House, the Taliban and Moscow, much of corporate media treated the story as an established...
And the conservatives listening to the syndicated shows whine and complain about our news coverage being "mainstream" and "liberal." Because we specifically don't have a bias. But they listen. Because they want to know what is happening and it is my job to help tell them what is happening, even if they don't like it.
You can attack me and "the establishment media" all you want, plenty of people do. It annoys me, sure. But I do what I do because someone is listening and wants to know more... and I can help them. Information I have broadcast has kept people out of harms way, none of the hate I get thrown at me takes away from that. Shows I have broadcast have kept people informed and entertained through tough times and that means a lot to me. It means more than knowing people out there hate me because they can only consume media that reinforces their own viewpoint. I'll just stay away from their echo chamber and continue to do what I do... and my listeners will keep listening.
Such as?
Are they actually? Or is it just less obvious because you're living it rather than observing with historical distance? Or because legacy media has been quietly consolidated into 3 or 4 television sources and ever fewer newspapers with less and less investment in actually investigating things rather than just parroting whatever AP, NYT, or WaPo said about them?
As if the mainstream media isn't its own group of echo-chambers. People like Wolf Blitzer can jerk themselves off for adopting an authoritative 'unbiased' tone, but it's just fluff.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,539
- 3,485
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
Bias in itself isn't bad, its when someone tries to hide that bias that it really becomes an issue. If you know how someone is biased then that gives you a basis to gauge the information you are getting from them. Although if its from a youtube source then you should really read the article they are claiming information about since there is a good chance they didn't actually read it.
I think it's usually worse than hiding bias, I think a lot of people don't recognize the implications of their own bias enough to try and hide it. Even if people see their own bias and acknowledge it, they often treat it like "yes, that's my opinion" and don't understand that they might be ignorant of other perspectives.
I've gone on this rant a couple times, but I do like repeating myself so I will. I listen (and yell at) NPR pretty frequently when I'm driving. I don't think many would dispute that the people doing news for NPR lean left and are aware of their bias, but they attempt to present unbiased news. And all due respect, they really do try, they will have people on with all sorts of points of view and give them basically identical treatment. But it's not equal because the NPR voices are utterly ignorant of Republican or otherwise right-leaning positions. You can have a perfectly identical interview format with two people that goes as follows:
Host: I'm here today talking to so-and-so.
Guest: Hey, thanks for having me on.
Host: So you're involved in XYZ. Can you tell us more about that?
Guest: Sure, yada yada yada.
Host: So what you're saying is...
And here's where the interview diverges, when the host tries to rephrase the statement to help the audience understand. Because if the guest is left wing, the interviewer already understands the guest's perspective thoroughly, and their restatement will be spot-on, and the guest responds "exactly". If the guest is right wing, the interviewer tries to do the same thing but genuinely doesn't understand and rephrases it wrong, and the guest has to go "well no, that's not it." Even with unprejudiced equal treatment, the bias still hurts the segment, as the guest's perspective is more poorly represented and the conversation seems to become combative just because of ignorance.
Having a bias, as in an opinion, is inevitable. Being forward with what that bias is, I agree is good. But anyone who wants to present actual fair news is obligated to try even harder to understand the things they disagree with before presenting them, or their reporting is tainted.
And right now, basically all news sources at a national or global scale suffer from not only failing to understand those the disagree with, they don't even have friends they disagree with to ask.
I wonder when people will stop saying 'left wing' when what they clearly mean is 'liberal'.
No, they're just as biased as they've always been. It's just that now the practice of performative objectivity is passing its peak. New media is quicker to embrace the journalism of attachment and the steps of the "both sides" dance have become familiar enough to breed jaded contempt.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,539
- 3,485
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
I'm not really sure this is the same kinda thing but I do understand your point. If you have followed my posts at all then you know that I am a fan of the streamer Destiny and one of the things that always comes up in his debates is him trying to figure out exactly what someone means when they say something or claim to be part or so and so group. This can go a number of ways depending on the person hes talking too, sometimes they will clarify and then Destiny will ask something to try and gauge how consistent they are and they will either answer or assume hes trying to trap them, if they answer and are consistent he will usually just say "ok" if not then it goes into a circular argument for awhile. Like if someone says they are left wing what do they mean? Do they mean they are a socialist, a socdem, a progressive, a tankie, what?
If people are even working with slightly different definitions then its easy to end up talking over each other and missing each others points, naturally those that share your biases will probably be able to understand where you are coming from easier so like it or not, there will be a hangup if you have to understand someone elses definition for things. This is just a problem with our stupidly complicated language and poorly defined yet broadly used definitions we like to use.