Did you ever notice how bad the news media is?

Question

It's ridiculous that they just say they have information on something and make all this news about it and then it turns out that it wasn't accurate. It's a joke.

Answer 1

It's demand driven unfortunately.  So the appetite for the audience at large for the supercilious, salacious and superficial will drive this unfortunately.

I for one have never understood the fascination with celebrities. They are not real people and yet people's appetite for celebrity driven drivel is never ending.  As a consequence a very large percentage of media coverage is given over to it.

We collectively, as people are pretty stupid

Answer 2

Most news editors are scared of losing their high-paid jobs. Their jobs depend on meeting higher and higher profit objectives which means lowering costs and raising more and more advertising income. You don't meet profit goals by causing corporate sponsors to pull their ads because they don't like the truth.

Consequently, the news media takes whatever the government and corporate press releases says. Investigative journalism is fraught with risk to your sponsors and it costs a lot of money.

Noam Chomsky got it right when he said that news media allows vigorous debate within a spectrum of topics. Outside that spectrum there is absolute silence or marginalization of issues. For example, Ralph Nader is one of the most persuasive speakers and debaters in a political forum. During previous campaigns, he was marginalized by media. Today, the media is totally ignoring him. Despite this, Mr. Ralph Nader has 6 percent of the popular vote.

Given a fair chance, I'm convinced that most people would support him and he would become our next president. However, the media will never let that happen.

Fox News claims to be "fair and balanced," but we all know that it's nonsense. However, even PBS refuses to tred in topical areas outside the acceptable spectrum of topics.

Answer 3

YES! Here's a recent example of how bad it can be:

An ABC News journalist was covering McCain's visit to Iraq. While there, she interviewed 60 American military personnel, asking them who they supported for president. 54 said McCain, 4 said Obama, and 2 said Hillary. When the news report was shown on TV, there was no mention of these numbers, but they did show 5 clips of soldiers responses. 3 of those were for Obama, and both of the Hillary supporters were shown. none of the 54 McCain supporters were shown.

That is a lesson in how to deceive without lying!

Answer 4

The US media is appalling but you have internet access to what is really going on in the world - just stay away from US sites.

Answer 5

the media panders to its readers/viewers. until people demand a higher quality news service, it's not going to happen. we can only blame ourselves.

Answer 6

Yea, they try to make it entertaining so they can get more viewers. E.g. "Tonite at 11, we'll show you how to avoid paying for gas!" then when you actually watch it at 11, they just say switch to hybrid (true story, annoying as h**l). If everybody reported on real news accurately, the ratings would be lower for them.