Media?
I went back to college in 1986, graduated in 1991. I and several classmates did internships at local television stations. Mine was over the summer and a bit different. I was at Channel 41 and most of the my time there I interned with that morning show with Julie Lux. I had an idea before this, but after, while it was fun, television was not where I wanted to be.
My classmates were at the other networks. It was also during the Persian Gulf War. More than once, they would come to class with a certain look, shock, stun maybe even fear. They wouldn’t say much except for something like, you should see the film, or the reporting they don’t show you from the war. I think that today we are probably seeing more, maybe less filtered. But what is it was are seeing and from who?
Since then my thought, news outlets get and received all the news unedited and unfiltered. Then ‘they’ decide what you and I should see. Who is making that decision? What is the agenda behind that decision?
If you look or try to look up and get a true analysis of media bias, even today is there accurate information about that? Again the questions, who is making the list and what is the agenda for that list?
Top of the search page:
As I scroll the search and see the names on these lists, what’s missing? The outliers. What is media? What was Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartman? Were they ever on a list that categorized them L to R? And now with the run of talent that has left network for individual independent unfettered, unfiltered Podcast, YouTube or Substack.
Pew Research Center, “For years now, Democrats have much more like than Republicans to say they trust the information that comes from national news organizations.”
Can you read that? 🙂 It is from 2023, but Mediaite breaks that down a bit. When will they add or include all those voices who left a network and are now crossing the platforms of YouTube, Substack and even a Facebook live?
Okay, so all of that to get me here to my original thought. Yes, network outlets get feed from everyone and everywhere. They see everything, unfiltered. The unedited versions of what is happening, start to finish. Every word, every image. They see it all. With the evolution of and the complete bombardment of now anyone and everyone can and will be a reporter. The race to get their footage in first doesn’t allow much time for fact checking or editing.
So, does having access to and seeing it all also create a bias? If the right is influencing, if the left is influencing, where or what is the context? And is that backed up with fact, a law, a precedent, historical relevance and god forbid truth.
If “news” is biased it is because those who report it are seeing the full story and that influences what they choose to show us. We are seeing the digestible version. The less traumatic version. At least we used to. So for me, that is why I believe some feel that the news is left or liberal. And for me, yes a liberal, more attuned to how we as a citizen should act in a community. News and content that does not feed the anger, the fear, the lies being told.
To see the full real story of what has or is happening it is a hope to move people to a less contentious, radial disruptive right. One that feels corrupt, unlawful, alarming and harming more than just a country that had some credibility not just within our boarders but around the world. That feels gone or diminished.
If people think that the “news” is biased is that because they see the full story and that doesn’t fit into their agenda or what they want to believe. They have a disregard for truth, facts and want a world that never existed, fear the browning of America and have been convinced by one person that they have actually been taken advantage of while the takes advantage of them at every swing.
I was watching this interview with Katie Couric. Thank god for Katie! She is beholden to no sponsor, corporate or otherwise. Somedays hearing her drop the “F” bomb is like a salve. I happen to believe that her agenda after years of being on that side that saw EVERYTHING, is truth and maybe just a better way. Or is it as Rich said, “it’s ammunition for what they already believe”. Or want to believe regardless of ultimately who it might harm. That single issue voter. That voter who narrows their view because they can’t take the reality of what might happen, so they hold their nose, push the button and hope for the best.
I think that today what is so hard for me to understand is that we all are dosed every day with everything that is happening. What i see and understand as corruption, disregard for the rule of law, emboldening racism, blatant hypocrisy, concessions for the rich, support and services taken from most and the demise of decency. Yet all of that continues to be normalized as how we should be.
It is not me.
The unfettered and unfiltered;
Jim Acosta,
Joy Ann Reid,
Katie Phang,
Terry Moran,
Don Lemon,
Alex Wagner,
Heather Cox Richardson,
Legal AF,
Meidas Touch,
The Bulwark,
Raging Moderates,
…to name a few.