Left-leaning news

[Thumper]

I miss the old days when news was news, without the news organization’s own political bent thrown into the mix.

I have an app on my phone (SmartNews) that I use as a personal news feed, mostly because it has a section for local news from our local newspaper. (The paper’s website limits me to just a few articles a month without a paid subscription) My problem with the feed is the obvious Left-leaning bias. I don’t care if it’s left or right, I’m not crazy about either. Personally, I can only take Fox News for so long, but it’s more aligned with my views, so I tolerate it. That is, UNTIL Hannity comes on, then I usually start channel surfing. He has his nose stuffed so far up Trump’s ass, if Trump makes a quick turn, he’ll break Hannity’s nose!

But I digress, as this post was actually started to bitch about my news feed. The crap isn’t apparent with my local news, which is my main interest, but for the sake of simplicity, I scroll through the National news while I’m on the app. and just mentally filter out the obvious bias. BUT ... this morning I awoke to one of the most degrading digs I’ve seen so far. Here’s this morning’s headline:

Former reality TV host tests positive for COVID-19

Ummm, the article is about PRESIDENT Trump contracting COVID-19. I’m so sick and tired of today’s “news” organizations, I could spit! (And yes, I throw FOX into the same mix)

[airbud7]

TDS is a real serious mental disease!....people who suffer from TDS often spend entire days only thinking of Donald Trump...

If you ever encounter one of these people try not to smile....they hate happiness.

One TDS suffer punched his 94 year old grandma out when Trump won the election...these people need help but much like the rabies we may have to put them down, Sad but true.

[BarryBobPosthole]

You are yearning for days that never existed, Thumper. The media has been complicit in presentingthings in the way they wanted you to believe them since they first came into existence. We have a the tremendous freedom of speech. Nowhere in that amendment does it say anything you say has to be the truth.

BKB

[airbud7]

My favorite News Channel in the late 80s early 90s was CNN...Chuck Roberts was the Best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Roberts

[Thumper]

You’re actually on point P-hole, it just wasn’t quite as “in your face” as it is now. Slightly left or slightly right is much different than the “nowhere close to center” that today’s news organizations present. Maybe Q/A is right, I’m just turning into an old curmudgeon.

Here’s a good example of “padding” in a bit of unnecessary bias into a sentence. This is from the article mentioned above:

“The Trumps’ diagnosis comes just two days after Trump spent an hour-and-a-half interrupting Joe Biden and Chris Wallace at the first of three scheduled presidential debates”

Was that really necessary?

[quercus alba]

Maybe Q/A is right, I’m just turning into an old curmudgeon.

Maybe?

[BarryBobPosthole]

I’m with QA. Maybe?

I grew up around radio and tv and have seen it play out many, many times with even the most mundane of stories. Coverage of the local school board meetings in the local paper or on the local news in any small town for example.

Media is made up of people and they tell us stories from their viewpoint. They can’t tell it any other way. They’re human. Sure, some have an agenda. I think its high time we own our own opinions on thi gs and quit copping out that its all the media’s fault.


Time was Mr Curmudgeon, when we didn’t need some slickyboy tell us what we need to think.

NKN

[Thumper]

BUT ... we DO need someone to REPORT the news ACCURATELY without trying to tell us what or how to think. All we need is the NEWS ... that's it. No opinions, slant or agenda needed. Otherwise, we have no clue what's going on in the world. Only then can we decide for ourselves what and how we choose to think. There is no such thing as a news channel anymore ... it's all nothing more than commentary.

[johnboy]

Our 'news' programs have devolved into talking heads voicing their opinions on subjects that they know nothing about, ad nauseum. The level of ignorance displayed by these so-called pundits is disturbing. Of course, many know that what they say is horse shit but if it is anti-Trump then it must be good. Right?

[Arty]

I’m with QA. Maybe?

I grew up around radio and tv and have seen it play out many, many times with even the most mundane of stories. Coverage of the local school board meetings in the local paper or on the local news in any small town for example.

Media is made up of people and they tell us stories from their viewpoint. They can’t tell it any other way. They’re human. Sure, some have an agenda. I think its high time we own our own opinions on thi gs and quit copping out that its all the media’s fault.


Time was Mr Curmudgeon, when we didn’t need some slickyboy tell us what we need to think.

NKN

NKN?


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[Thumper]

N is to the right of B on the keyboard. Maybe he’s leaving the left and swinging more toward the right. 😉

[Arty]

N is to the right of B on the keyboard. Maybe he’s leaving the left and swinging more toward the right. [emoji6]

And my ass just grew wings...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[airbud7]

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/035/101/CNN_Mostly_Peaceful_Protests_Banner.jpg

[quercus alba]

11920

[airbud7]

hahahahaha!....true qa!

[Buckrub]

Yeah, Thump, those days did exist. I remember them fondly. "Goodnight Chet. Goodnight David"......and Walter Kronkite. And Edward R. Murrow. Etc. I'm sure they had opinions, but we didn't have to hear them.

I get my national TV news from OANN and Newsmax, nowhere else. I do watch Tucker Carlson on occasion, cause he hammers everybody, tall, short, white, green, smart, dumb, whatever. If they screw up, he lambasts 'em.......face to face if they have enough guts to come on his show. I wouldn't watch any other 'talking head' on Fox though. I hate it Liz Wheeler left OANN.

But my TV exists for about 4 reasons. One, the wife watches all kinds of crap, all day. Two, the Stl Cardinals (who stunk up the game last night and their season is over), three the Razorbacks, and Four the Vikings series on History Channel. The rest I get from reading, not viewing.

[LJ3]

Yeah, Thump, those days did exist. I remember them fondly. "Goodnight Chet. Goodnight David"......and Walter Kronkite. And Edward R. Murrow. Etc. I'm sure they had opinions, but we didn't have to hear them.



You are absolutely correct! Some of us seem to making excuses or justifying CNN #butiwon'tnamenames #foxisjustasbadifnotworse #holycraphaveyouSEENaon?

[BarryBobPosthole]

When they were handing out brains, you thought they said trains and got a slow one.

When the media reports things that fit your own narrative, they’re unbiased. When they don’t they’re media scum. All news is biased. Its up to each of us to be smarter than a stump.

The media has lied and been biased since the very inception of the first amendment. Read a paper from revolutionary war times and tell me there wasn’t bias. They lied to us about the Lusitania and led us right into WWI. They lied to us about the Spanish American war and covered up some really terrible atrocities that were on the scale of crimes against humanity in Cuba. They lied about WWII, covering up huge war dead and were complicit in out and out war propaganda. They covered up japaanese internment and created fear to justify it woth stories of Japanese attacks on the West coast.
They lied to us about Korea and Viet Nam and it wasn’t until the war became unpopular that they didn’t sing the company song. Good old Chet and David and Walter might have kepttheir opinions to themselves to appear objective but they rarely strayed outside the lines colored in by the government. The media got real unpopular during Nixon. He blamed everything on the media. There was definite bias in media both ways. Have you forgotten the 68 Chicago Convention? They were biased and spread the lies about WMD that led us into the Iraq war.

bkB

[Thumper]

I think "somebody" here hasn't gotten laid lately. ;)

[BarryBobPosthole]

Len was being a shit disturber and I was throwing him a bone by responding. I can’t help it I’m right.

BKb

[Thumper]

Len was being a shit disturber and I was throwing him a bone by responding. I can’t help it I’m right. BKb

No, after reading your posts on this site today, I'm thinking you're still "left". ;)

[BarryBobPosthole]

Hey, its nothing to do with political. I just think the ‘good old days’ of media was an illusion as far as integrity was concerned. Remember when we were eyeballs deep in Viet Nam and about everywhere else in that region and nobody was asking any questions?
Yes, that was those guys.

BKB

[Trav]

Hey, its nothing to do with political. I just think the ‘good old days’ of media was an illusion as far as integrity was concerned. Remember when we were eyeballs deep in Viet Nam and about everywhere else in that region and nobody was asking any questions?
Yes, that was those guys.

BKB

I don’t remember that, course I was born in September of 71.

[Trav]

Hey, its nothing to do with political. I just think the ‘good old days’ of media was an illusion as far as integrity was concerned. Remember when we were eyeballs deep in Viet Nam and about everywhere else in that region and nobody was asking any questions?
Yes, that was those guys.

BKB

I don’t remember that, course I was born in September of 71.

[Thumper]

Oh no! Obviously Trav and P-hole have not been wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Trav caught P-hole’s double-posting disease. 😳

[LJ3]

Hey, its nothing to do with political. I just think the ‘good old days’ of media was an illusion as far as integrity was concerned. Remember when we were eyeballs deep in Viet Nam and about everywhere else in that region and nobody was asking any questions?
Yes, that was those guys.

BKB

I'm not arguing bias existed. Plenty of it in our history. What I'm saying now is it's worse than it's ever been and that is beyond any reasonable debate. A position so strong not even the most staunch fencepost arguers would attempt to debase it. A stance so ample in tensile strength in strength it would hold a single liberal ego, along with it's condemnation and judgement of anything it disagrees with. A point so honest and transparent, the blind and willful ignorant short sighted myopia could see the other side easily. An idea so ahead of it's time...

[BarryBobPosthole]

That’s not what you said.

BKB

[Thumper]

Bias most certainly did exist "back in the old days", but as the Lenster points out, it wasn't as "in your face" as it is now. I grew up as a young news junkie, but all I had to go on was the tv news and the local newspaper. I remember, even though I lived in Orlando as opposed to Podunkia, Kentucky, we only had TWO tv stations available. One was CBS, the other was NBC, but the NBC transmitter was in Daytona and even if we loaded the rabbit ears with tinfoil (literally) and had my little sister stand next to the set with her fingers on the rabbit ears (true story, reception was better if someone was actually touching them), we could get a very snowy picture with fuzzy audio. In later years, we got a local ABC station in town. Even then, they'd all go off the air anywhere from 10pm to midnight, only to return the next morning around 6am. Other than that, it was the local paper, so access to news was spotty at best. If coverage was biased, it was hard to determine as there was really nothing to compare it with. Only years later, with the ability to review history, could the fly shit be removed from the pepper. The difference is, although some existed, there wasn't a whole lot of fly shit, at least not by today's standards.

That changed with the Vietnam era and I'm a personally connected witness to the change. The news was "handed out" to journalists through "our" government information management teams. This is when I started to notice the "real" news wasn't exactly what everyone was being told. If you don't think government propaganda exists in the good ol' US of A, you've got your head buried in the sand. We were as guilty of it as the commies. The late 60's is when journalists started digging through the b/s the gov't. was feeding them. That's when it became apparent that our trusted old friend Walter Cronkite was actually a pretty heavy Liberal. TBH, we kicked some major ass in Vietnam during TET and the North learned not to try anything like it again (and they never did). BUT, ol' Walt convinced the country we got our asses handed to us and we were losing the war. Like it or not, we were there and "we" needed all the support we could get from back home, but that went straight into the toilet once Walt and his ilk started turning the country against us. Whether you agree with his stance or not, that's not the issue of this discussion. The issue is, that's when the obvious media bias started rearing it's ugly head. It's also when I started hating and distrusting the media. The rest is history. Even though we "won" TET, the media reported the opposite and the anti-war issues in the States took off like wildfire. Nothing was more depressing than being "over there" putting your life on the line and everyone back home was hating you.

One personal example when it came to the press? I was on a particular mission, doing a particular intel job at a particular place. (how's that for vagueness?) Sorry, but that was the nature of my job, secrecy ... heck, that's how Mil. Intel. does what it does, the ONLY way it can and be successful. To make a long story short, the press got ahold of an ex-intel guy (he'd been court marshalled because he was a loser sob) and he spilled the beans on who we really were (we were working under the cover of a different operation), what we were doing there and how we were doing it. The press released the information and the lives of EVERYONE on that mission were immediately put into jeopardy. We went on "full alert" and GOT TF OUT! (in one piece luckily)

I personally believe that era was when the bias between different news organizations started rearing it's ugly head and things totally went to shit once cable started bringing elebenty-bazillion channels into every home in the country. That's when news organizations started their respective "spins". Remember, we started out with the Big-3 ... ABC, NBC and CBS ... ALL headquartered in New York City (does that tell you anything?) Cable brought in more "cable news" stations with their generally left-leaning politics. Of course, FOX bucked the Liberal trend as they are out of Atlanta, but they're no better than the rest of them ... you just have the option of receiving the other side of the biased reporting.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Good post. I even read it all the way!

Sounds like we agree, except you prefer your bias concealed and I prefer it in the open.

BKB

[Thumper]

No, it's not bias "exactly". I lean to the right, you lean to the left. As long as we can see through the smoke and bullshit to the point we're close enough to the middle to reach across and shake hands, all is well. I like blue cars, Lynn hates blue cars, but we still love each other. ;)

[BarryBobPosthole]

I think the wings are the best part of the chicken, you think its the feet.

BKb

[Thumper]

Ha ha! Back to another Lynn analogy. We're VERY compatible when it comes to eating wings. She prefers the "flappers" and I prefer the "drummies". It's the perfect marriage! ;)

Oh yeah ... and BITE ME!

[HideHunter]

i luv this place...

[Chicken Dinner]

It all went downhill after the Pentagon Papers were published.


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[Thumper]

It all went downhill after the Pentagon Papers were published.

Yessir, a major turning point for sure. :(