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Originally Posted by mithrilG60
There are very very few news broadcasts around the world that are unbiased enough for me to give any form of serious attention to and Fox is certainly not one of them. The BBC and CBC are really the only ones that report equally on all sides of matters of real significance. Besides those I tend to try and read 3 - 4 online newsprint sources; one with a very left wing slant, one with a very right wing and 1 - 2 that are moderate. While I personally am centre-left by Canadian standards (which would probably be very left wing by American standard), I feel that if I don't see the news from both the far-left and far-right view points I can't possible make an informed decision on the reality of the situation. That kind of balance is what's completely missing in almost all media news whether the outlets are American, Canadian, etc.
Don't equate entertainment value with actual news reporting. News is meant to be informative, well balanced, unbiased and factual yet all those hallmarks come a distant second to shock/entertainment value on all the US cable news channels (Fox, CNN, etc.) as well has many of the major network programs. That's also certainly not a purely American phenomenon as the same unfortunate trend applies to many of the equivalent news programs running on Canadian networks.
While the entertainment-news programs do give you some idea of current events, they also ALL contain underlying motivations that skew the reporting and as a result the truth they portray. Always there is an underlying financial motivation as ramping up the entertainment value of the news cast provides more revenue in the form of advertising.
While the financial motivation is unfortunate, what's scary is the underlying political motivations. The constant blind and unquestioning (aka biased?) support given to the Bush administration by both Fox and CNN are a prime example of that. Regardless of a journalist's personal political views or leanings their job is to critically report on and question the actions of political leadership. The media play a very important role in keeping politician's honest and on course by holding their decisions and actions up to public scrutiny, and since the general public's perceptions are formed almost entirely on what the media tells them, the dangers of the media giving any administration carte blanche are very high.
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I used to work in the media. I was a photographer (still am) and held down the position of Photo Editor for a few years. Which meant I had the misfortune to listen to the back and forth "discussion" in the newsroom with all the other journalists (I was the black sheep of the bunch, the only non-writer... I just took pretty pictures
).
Let me tell you, it was APPALLING. Journalistic ethics and integrity? UNbiased oppion?
, MY DOG is capable of more unbiased thought than any journalist. It just doesn't fuking exist anymore. believe me, spend a little time in there, and you wouldnt even trust the news if you were pulling it from 6 different sources.