I think anyone that trusts the media, has never been close to many of the stories. There's something called the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, that basically points out that if you read a story on a subject you have knowledge of, you're liable to cringe at how it is misrepresented, yet when you turn the page to a story you have little knowledge of, you somehow think it's going to be credible.
No Bias, they were all over Trump before he got elected, throwing all the dirt they could. It may even have been true. There were plenty of questions to be asked of Biden in the run up to the latest election but he got an easy ride from the MSM. In the last election the MSM wanted Hilary to win, this time they wanted Biden.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...ntary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72798-7 The consensus is that cloth masks probably better than nothing but not wonderful.
Why even argue about this? Just wear a ****ing mask, because there's one thing we do know.It's not going to hurt you or anyone else, is it.
Masks stop you sticking your virus covered fingers into your mouth. And into any other mask wearer's mouths. And act as a social distancing reminder. Although to be really effective they'd need to have a long beak filled with sweet smelling herbs. And you'd need to carry a long poking stick.
Andrew Neil is very, very good. He's almost sceptical of everybody he interviews, which means that there isn't any chance of him going easy on anybody. My only worry with GB news is that he made his mark as a neutral because that's what the BBC wanted. If he's allowed to flourish, he might lean a different way.
But who are the 'MSM' that are constantly referred to? Mainstream media is every outlet that is published, isn't it? So when people say "MSM", do they mean all news regardless of channel or publication, or certain ones that don't ascribe to that person's personal viewpoint? This is my problem with that term, it's deliberately vague to make it sound like all media is bullshit, which isn't the case at all. Fox news is one of the highest rated news networks in America, definitely what I'd call MSM, you telling me they were rooting for Joe Biden? Seriously? The DM? The Times? The Observer? Were they? We don't need to get political, but when people say MSM, are they using it as a synonym for things like CBS, NBC and The Guardian, or do they literally mean every news network and newspaper? We don't want a state of distrust, media needs to be honest in what it reports and in the UK, the television news broadcasters are, for the most part, pretty transparent. If I sit down to watch the BBC talk about Coronavirus or daily events, I don't get opinion. I've never heard a BBC news presenter say "well, in my opinion, he's a big fat liar", even when they do vox pops talking to members of the public. They're like droids, they just report the news with a straight face.
If anyone fancies a break, the quarantine free areas have been expanded, so while Scarborough may be out of bounds, you can go down to Heathrow, and have a bit of time in Rwanda.
Well in this case the MSM are the BBC and SKY the ones you mentioned in the post I replied to. I get an international version of those, but also take a look at RT, Al Jazeera, CNN, Euro News. The media can be honest and at the same time biased by only telling 1 half of the story.
The BBC doesn't have a bias, nor did it root for Biden to win. It's run by a conservative and has been for the last few months and even then there was no lean one way or the other. Sky is just Sky, I don't catch it as often as I used to but I don't recall them openly rooting for anybody either. The point is, we know why the term "fake news" became a thing. It's not because an outlet lies or says anything remotely fake, it's a term used to discredit media outlets so that the public lose trust in them and listen to whoever is using the term. Which meant that any time there was any criticism, people could then accuse them of just being "haters" and being totally biased, when in reality most news outlets were just reporting what the president did. I don't know what people's end game was there, was the news just supposed to not report it if it was something that made him look bad? No idea, but it's really, really stupid and rather predictably caught on here, which lead to the popularity of Breitbart (which definitely does lie) and OANN in America. Some people don't actually want factual news, they want news that makes them feel good and back up their life choices. Which brings us nicely back to social media, because it's through these echo chambers that bullshit like 5G being harmful, Covid being a hoax, flat earth and anti-vax have risen to prominence. They haven't come from mainstream media, they've come because some very sneaky people (not clever, sneaky) have engineered the populous to distrust the media and seek out alternative truth. It isn't even a good plan. It's not even Scooby Doo standard bad guy action. It's crap and people shouldn't be falling for it in 2020.
Absolutely. The ones that defend it, tend to do so because the soundbites suit their rather one dimensional blinkered view.
This thread is rapidly slipping in to the political soapbox territory again. Please think before posting. Ta muchly.
Sad thing is he seems to be easing into retirement. A journalist friend of mine (a Brit) briefly worked with him in New York in the mid 70's when he was with The Economist. Thought he was a god.
