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Do you think partisan news is killing America?

M

matthewuk

Member
I've been interested in US politics for quite a while and have debated and argued with lots of people from the left and right, and I'm coming to the conclusion that partisanship is all that really matters. That your side is always right and they're always wrong. If it's a scandal that's on your side, it must be a lie and if it's on their side it's typical of them.

I have tried so very hard to get people to look further than cheerleading for their team and look at the bigger picture about what is really going on, and that is the increasing hate and animosity between both sides. That those divisions are exploited.

And I think the root cause is haveing left wing news and right wing news. (fox and MSNBC) two separate camps only ever getting one half of the story. Am I bonkers in thinking that this is not normal or healthy?
 
E

Elegant Weapon

Member
Not just partisan news but the constant stream of misinformation such as Russian bots spread before the election. Us vs them isn’t new; but the level Fox News propaganda has become mainstream misinformation is killing Americans.

Trump literally wants to cut funding for heating for the elderly and disabled but lots of people claim he’s for the common people. He’s a republican and doggs the groups they don’t like though so they continue to support him even as he acts against us all
 
M

MC Safety

Member
There is no news source that is free of the bias of the people who report, edit, and present the news.

The problem is not bias, but rather the Balkanization of politics itself. We've made a policy of demonizing people we disagree with.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
MC Safety said:
There is no news source that is free of the bias of the people who report, edit, and present the news.

The problem is not bias, but rather the Balkanization of politics itself. We've made a policy of demonizing people we disagree with.
Click to expand...

Yep. But I put the blame on politicians. They've been running sleazy campaigns, because they are effective, for decades. It was going to trickle down.
 
BlindMan94

BlindMan94

Neo Member
Other factors involved, but it certainly is one. Of course, its worsened by the changing media ownership laws of the last thirty years.
 
DixieNormus

DixieNormus

Neo Member
I do indeed. Partisan Media has monetized controversy. Pulling us apart is a means of making it easier to deliver content to a targeted audience.

This ensures maximum viewership and advertising revenue with the least amount of effort across both of their affiliated political parties.
 
N

nemoral

Banned
I think entertainment news has been killing America since the mid eighties, and the hyper-partisan cable news channels plus the endlessly fragmented nano-targeted internet news channels are just the latest symptom.
 
BANGS

BANGS

Banned
I don't blame the news. The news is a reflection of society. People actually WANT to be in a bubble. They want to only believe and be told whatever fits in with their narrative. Go to any internet forum including this one, and that fact is completely obvious...
 
T

teruterubozu

Member
BANGS said:
I don't blame the news. The news is a reflection of society. People actually WANT to be in a bubble. They want to only believe and be told whatever fits in with their narrative. Go to any internet forum including this one, and that fact is completely obvious...
Click to expand...

Sorry but the news is not a reflection of society. It's sensationalism.
 
M

matthewuk

Member
BANGS said:
I don't blame the news. The news is a reflection of society. People actually WANT to be in a bubble. They want to only believe and be told whatever fits in with their narrative. Go to any internet forum including this one, and that fact is completely obvious...
Click to expand...

This is what I don't get, where I come from news on the TV is not aligned or bias to any political party, it would seam just wrong. V for Vendetta is a good example of why we don't want a fox or msnbc. So why when dealing with something that has a lot of power to shape public opinion why are the safegards seamingly so lax?, I get the free speach thing but surely when it comes to informing the public this also should come with a great deal of responsibility?
 
Joe T.

Joe T.

Member
matthewuk said:
Am I bonkers in thinking that this is not normal or healthy?
Click to expand...

You're not bonkers. I'll take it one step further, it's not just the blatantly partisan news sources like Fox News and MSNBC that are responsible for the divisiveness we're seeing, it's also the mainstream sources like NYT or ABC News. They provide some/most of the facts, but then sometimes frame the story in such a way to make it look better/worse than it really is, often by neglecting to mention certain details. It's frustrating because they're being paid to report the news, so how do I go about trusting sources that intentionally leave out details I can easily find after a few minutes of internet searches? The short answer is that I can't. It doesn't stop me from reading/watching them anyway, but at this point it's more to get an understanding of how they're going about delivering the day's news than for the news itself.
 
i_am_ben

i_am_ben

running_here_and_there
nah voters are.

Everyone knew what kind of person Donald Trump was, and Americans still turned out in droves to vote for him.
 
B

Bleepey

Member
MSNBC might have a left wing bias but they don't misinform or obfuscate. The same can't be said for FOX. NPR also have ethics when a senior person on NPR got wrapped up in the post Weinstein stuff, they mentioned it every chance they got. I doubt Fox mention Roger Ailes indiscretions with the same frequency.
 
CampbellzSoup

CampbellzSoup

Member
Bleepey said:
MSNBC might have a left wing bias but they don't misinform or obfuscate. The same can't be said for FOX. NPR also have ethics when a senior person on NPR got wrapped up in the post Weinstein stuff, they mentioned it every chance they got. I doubt Fox mention Roger Ailes indiscretions with the same frequency.
Click to expand...

MSNBC is the same shit as Fox News but with a liberal bias
 
llien

llien

Member
With US's major broadcasters being so notably biased towards/against either reps or democrats I am not sure you could blame social media.
 
BANGS

BANGS

Banned
matthewuk said:
This is what I don't get, where I come from news on the TV is not aligned or bias to any political party, it would seam just wrong. V for Vendetta is a good example of why we don't want a fox or msnbc. So why when dealing with something that has a lot of power to shape public opinion why are the safegards seamingly so lax?, I get the free speach thing but surely when it comes to informing the public this also should come with a great deal of responsibility?
Click to expand...

We have slander laws. News companies can't simply make up stories. But what they can do it spin the narrative carefully, and we can't really create laws to stop that. It's not up to the government to control the news, that would be awful. We have free market in place to stop such bullshit...

Unfortunately as I said before in this case people LOVE bullshit. The will listen to all the fake news they can get so long as it reassures them of their own personal narrative. So free market is actually letting these horrible news outlets thrive. I don't blame government, I don't blame the news, I blame the people that are blatantly asking for fake news and eating it up...
 
1

120v

Member
i wouldn't particularly blame "the news" but rather how people disseminate their information now. i can't tell you how many reasonably stable people last year told me something along the lines of "well... trump is awful but i read this thing on facebook about hillary killing people. and she's committing crimes in office. i could never vote for somebody like that"

sure partisan outlets are a factor but there just isn't a market for "news" anymore outside of loss leaders and that will never change unless it's from the ground up (consumer interest)
 
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