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Media Criticism (1 Viewer)

I guess this goes here also...
Top Facebook exec: Yes, we got Trump elected and it may happen again

 

New York (CNN Business)A Facebook executive who backed Hillary Clinton's 2016 election campaign told colleagues in an internal memo last month that the platform could ultimately be responsible for President Trump's reelection.

In the memo, Facebook VP Andrew Bosworth wrote that the Trump campaign's use of Facebook's advertising tools were responsible for Trump's win in the 2016 presidential election. The company's political advertising platform, he added, "very well may lead to the same result" this year.

"As a committed liberal I find myself desperately wanting to pull any lever at my disposal to avoid the same result," Bosworth said in the memo. But he laid out his philosophical objections to any theoretical attempt at intervening. "As tempting as it is to use the tools available to us to change the outcome, I am confident we must never do that or we will become that which we fear."

The memo was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times. Soon after, Bosworth posted the memo to his public Facebook profile, noting that "it wasn't written for public consumption."

Bosworth, a longtime Facebook executive and confidant of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, used the memo to dismiss filter bubbles ("a myth" that distracts from the real issue of polarization), explain why Facebook is more like sugar than nicotine ("It benefits from moderation") and offer his analysis of the platform's real impact on the 2016 election.

 

"So was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected? I think the answer is yes, but not for the reasons anyone thinks," Bosworth wrote. "He didn't get elected because of Russia or misinformation or Cambridge Analytica. He got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I've ever seen from any advertiser. Period."

Bosworth said Trump and Brad Parscale, the digital director for Trump's 2016 campaign and now the campaign manager for the 2020 campaign, did "unbelievable work."

"They weren't running misinformation or hoaxes. They weren't microtargeting or saying different things to different people. They just used the tools we had to show the right creative to each person," he wrote.

 

He also had sharp words for the data analytics firm at the center of arguably Facebook's biggest scandal. Bosworth described Cambridge Analytica as a "total non-event" and called those behind the company "snake oil salespeople."

"When Trump won, Cambridge Analytica tried to take credit," he wrote, "I was glad when the Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale called them out for it."

Bosworth urged his colleagues not to dismiss feedback, particularly from issues exposed by the media.

"I think most of the criticisms that have come to light have been valid and represent real areas for us to serve our community better. I don't enjoy having our flaws exposed, but I consider it far better than the alternative where we remain ignorant of our shortcomings," he wrote.

 
I dont have a problem with a media company not reporting about its own legal affairs.
I don't either.  If they all did, it'd be Fox Sex Scandal channel.

I don't have any issues with CNN paying up here though.  Just like I didn't have any issues with Alex Jones and others having to pay up for poor reporting, discussions or whatever you want to call it.  

 
Good point here: https://twitter.com/PeterHamby/status/1215316619666190336

Kathleen Kingsbury: On Jan. 19, the @nytimes editorial board will publish our choice for the Democratic nomination for president. It won’t be the first time we’ve endorsed a candidate — we’ve been doing that since 1860 — but we aim to make it our most transparent endorsement process to date.

Peter Hamby: My usual rant: Newspaper ed boards should stop endorsing candidates, and considering abandoning editorials altogether. Too many consumers are low-information headline readers who have a hard time distinguishing between news/opinion/analysis ...

Ed board endorsements - mostly left-leaning - only fuel bad faith attacks on the "biased" media and confuse modern readers on what the press does and is supposed to do. It's not 1957 - communities no longer look to ed boards to tell them how to think/how to vote.

This is obviously more true of big national papers -- they're political targets in a way, say, the Des Moines Register and El Paso Times are not. I can see editorials still being valuable in local communities.

 
For MSNBC?  I agree...for CNN...I disagree, I think they are more factual in their reporting and less slanted than Fox
Do MSNBC, CNN, or Fox even do any original reporting?

I almost never watch news on TV so my sense is probably off, but my sense is that MSNBC basically just relies on NBC for its original reporting. MSNBC has news shows on sometimes (though it's known better for its opinion shows), but the news seems to come from the NBC arm, which MSNBC's on-air personalities just repeat.

CNN seems to be 100% talk shows with stupid guests. When's the last time they broke an original story?

Fox seems to be like MSNBC. It has news shows, though it's better known for its opinion shows, and its news shows seem to just repeat news broken by other reporters. I don't remember the last time Fox did any original investigative journalism that resulted in a scoop.

 
Good point here: https://twitter.com/PeterHamby/status/1215316619666190336

Kathleen Kingsbury: On Jan. 19, the @nytimes editorial board will publish our choice for the Democratic nomination for president. It won’t be the first time we’ve endorsed a candidate — we’ve been doing that since 1860 — but we aim to make it our most transparent endorsement process to date.

Peter Hamby: My usual rant: Newspaper ed boards should stop endorsing candidates, and considering abandoning editorials altogether. Too many consumers are low-information headline readers who have a hard time distinguishing between news/opinion/analysis ...

Ed board endorsements - mostly left-leaning - only fuel bad faith attacks on the "biased" media and confuse modern readers on what the press does and is supposed to do. It's not 1957 - communities no longer look to ed boards to tell them how to think/how to vote.

This is obviously more true of big national papers -- they're political targets in a way, say, the Des Moines Register and El Paso Times are not. I can see editorials still being valuable in local communities.
I hadn't really considered this before, but I think its absolutely right. On both the national and local scale. I definitely still see the need for it on a local level. But the NYT and WaPo should not be doing it anymore.

 
Do MSNBC, CNN, or Fox even do any original reporting?

I almost never watch news on TV so my sense is probably off, but my sense is that MSNBC basically just relies on NBC for its original reporting. MSNBC has news shows on sometimes (though it's known better for its opinion shows), but the news seems to come from the NBC arm, which MSNBC's on-air personalities just repeat.

CNN seems to be 100% talk shows with stupid guests. When's the last time they broke an original story?

Fox seems to be like MSNBC. It has news shows, though it's better known for its opinion shows, and its news shows seem to just repeat news broken by other reporters. I don't remember the last time Fox did any original investigative journalism that resulted in a scoop.


One of my big frustrations is there are no news programs on at night when I get home from work. All of the networks only have opinion talk shows on. And those are basically all political shows.  Its quite frustrating.

 
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One of my big frustrations is there are no news programs on at night when I get home from work. All of the networks only have opinion talk shows on. And those are basically all political shows.  Its quite frustrating.
CNN still has that "Headline News" channel, right?  

 
My biggest problem with the current state of the news media is their perceived need to present "both sides" of an issue regardless of the credibility of the arguments/facts on each side.  In fairness, news being a business I understand that they have to cater to readers in a sense, but I think as a whole some of the big boys have erred on the side trying to be fair to conservatives in recent years and thus their coverage has been slanted against liberals with respect to reality.  

 
Isn't that all Dr. Drew and Nancy Grace?
Honestly, i haven't watched in recent months, so maybe it's gone away.  I know the coverage used to change to international news for a few hours late night/early morning, back when I was awake at weird hours.  

 
Do MSNBC, CNN, or Fox even do any original reporting?

I almost never watch news on TV so my sense is probably off, but my sense is that MSNBC basically just relies on NBC for its original reporting. MSNBC has news shows on sometimes (though it's known better for its opinion shows), but the news seems to come from the NBC arm, which MSNBC's on-air personalities just repeat.

CNN seems to be 100% talk shows with stupid guests. When's the last time they broke an original story?

Fox seems to be like MSNBC. It has news shows, though it's better known for its opinion shows, and its news shows seem to just repeat news broken by other reporters. I don't remember the last time Fox did any original investigative journalism that resulted in a scoop.
This guy did some pretty good investigative journalism and live reporting at the outset of the kids in cages debacle.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-live/jacob-soboroff

 
My biggest problem with the current state of the news media is their perceived need to present "both sides" of an issue regardless of the credibility of the arguments/facts on each side.  In fairness, news being a business I understand that they have to cater to readers in a sense, but I think as a whole some of the big boys have erred on the side trying to be fair to conservatives in recent years and thus their coverage has been slanted against liberals with respect to reality.  
I would like to see an example of what you're speaking of here. 

 
Quite an admission from ⁦@Lawrence⁩: “on MSNBC there will be no one defending [Trump.]” “Bc we don’t bring on liars,” he adds. So anyone who defends Trump is a liar, & MSNBC will never offer any defense for anything Trump does. Media is so broken. https://t.co/RbXIGgNu5a

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) January 14, 2020
Even the media thinks the media is broken.  :bag:

 
My biggest problem with the current state of the news media is their perceived need to present "both sides" of an issue regardless of the credibility of the arguments/facts on each side.  In fairness, news being a business I understand that they have to cater to readers in a sense, but I think as a whole some of the big boys have erred on the side trying to be fair to conservatives in recent years and thus their coverage has been slanted against liberals with respect to reality.  
So what issues on your side of the aisle would you question the credibility of that you would say shouldn't be given the time of day? 

I ask this because your post basically sounds like "I don't know why the media just doesn't present issues from only my side.  It's not fair that we have to listen to opposing views."  Furthermore, It sounds like you believe that everything is credible on your side and that it's only "the other side" that's not credible.

Maybe I'm wrong?

 
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cnn-botched-democratic-debate
 

CNN Completely Botched The Democratic Presidential Debate

The anchors substituted centrist talking points for substantive questions.

Who will stand up for the “insurance town” in the 2020 election? Why should the government do things? Will Bernie Sanders bankrupt America? Who onstage will let Iran have a nuclear weapon ― you know, just because?

If these sound like terrible questions to you, you’re right. They were awful. And they were the focus of CNN’s tedious, interminable, frivolous debate on Tuesday night ― a fiasco of irrelevance held three weeks before the Iowa caucuses.
This was only a matter of time...

 
This is pathetic, and also why I laugh when people claim CNN is a bunch of leftists or whatever.

They're a corporate entity lead by centrists who don't want to upset the status quo.
#CNNisTrash trending on twitter.  They made the left left mad. 

 
So what issues on your side of the aisle would you question the credibility of that you would say shouldn't be given the time of day? 

I ask this because your post basically sounds like "I don't know why the media just doesn't present issues from only my side.  It's not fair that we have to listen to opposing views."  Furthermore, It sounds like you believe that everything is credible on your side and that it's only "the other side" that's not credible.

Maybe I'm wrong?
I don't think he is somebody that only wants to hear one side of the story, but the NYT/Clinton email thing is a talking point I see a lot. It is kind of frustrating to me. The problem I really have with it is that it all stems from a left slanted study. I know it to be left slanted because it was a small time frame selected including when news broke. 

It ignores the fact that the Huma Abedin emails on Weiner's computer is very salacious and of course will get disproportionate coverage. I mean a top Clinton aid is married to a guy named Weiner that had sent pictures of his Weiner and texted young girls and has a laptop that was confiscated and she works for the wife of a president that did some stuff with his weiner and a young aid, etc etc. Some of these stories wrote themselves. Hillary's team would like to paint that as unfair. Realists would simply point out to team Hillary the reality of the situation and selection of the aid.  

Any study that would even mention a comparison to the amount of coverage to a breaking controversy to coverage of a stale controversy is disingenuous. People would laugh at anybody that said the NYT cared more about Clinton's various email scandals than they did about Watergate since they wrote so many more articles about Clinton in this little six day window. I mean look how biased that is.  

This story was one of the headlines that was outlined in red in one of the main infographics. Does this seem like an article unfairly giving airtime to a side that isn't credible?

Also when they say that Trump's policies got more coverage that is also very misleading. Articles that were mainly written to criticize Trump and were negative in tone got counted as discussing his policies. 

A harvard study concluded that the NYT coverage of Trump was 86 % negative in tone whereas coverage of Hillary was 61% negative re: the NYT. As a comparison, that meant Hillary got more positive coverage by the NYT than Trump got from Fox. Also it meant that Trump got more negative coverage from the NYT than Hillary got from Fox. I think it is hard to argue that the NYT unfairly gave Hillary negative coverage when the whole picture is looked at, rather than a 6 day window. 

I am sure there were at least some articles that did in fact mention some stuff that wasn't credible. I would like to focus on those actual examples and would be happy to heave criticism on the author and publication. I am disappointed that @tommyGunZ didn't reply to my request for a specific story that had information that wasn't credible as it is always easier to have specific discussions about this stuff and more productive. But I also understand that sometimes requests like that are made in bad faith. I can already tell we would disagree on the big picture of coverage, but I am sure we would find common ground about individual articles. 

 
It really looks like Warren sold him out.  What is interesting is how corporate media was such a willing partner in trying to sink Bernie's campaign.  It's really gross how this played out- no accountability for CNN blatantly inserting itself into the 2020 primary, the 'believe women' pundit crocodile tears, the coordinated assault on Sanders and his supporters.  They will blame HIM for this.  They already have a paid DNC operative going on national television and smearing them as misogynists.  

Secular Talk suggested that Warren may have cut a deal with Joe Biden.  Makes sense to me- he's the big winner in all this.  

 
It really looks like Warren sold him out.  What is interesting is how corporate media was such a willing partner in trying to sink Bernie's campaign.  It's really gross how this played out- no accountability for CNN blatantly inserting itself into the 2020 primary, the 'believe women' pundit crocodile tears, the coordinated assault on Sanders and his supporters.  They will blame HIM for this.  They already have a paid DNC operative going on national television and smearing them as misogynists.  

Secular Talk suggested that Warren may have cut a deal with Joe Biden.  Makes sense to me- he's the big winner in all this.  
No way they hate each other 

 
CNN is so liberal they hired a GOP operative with no journalism experience to coordinate its 2020 coverage.  
—On Tuesday evening, a CNN spokesperson emailed Vox and said they “just wanted to be super clear – Sarah is not leading, overseeing, or running political coverage.”

“She is helping to coordinate coverage across TV and Digital – she is one of several editors,” the spokesperson added, going on to characterize Isgur’s role as making sure that stories are featured on the right shows and articles get posted online at the right time.

 
CNN is so liberal they hired a GOP operative with no journalism experience to coordinate its 2020 coverage.  
Interesting.  Thanks!

Do you think that the edition of one conservative to their ranks moves the needle so much that they can't be accused of liberal bias anymore?  That CNN will fundamentally change its agenda?

 
NYT endorsed both Warren and Klobuchar over the weekend.

Maurile made a post about this earlier, but national newspapers really need to stop making endorsements. I get that it may make sense for local papers to endorse in local races - where people may not know as much. But there is PLENTY of information on Presidential candidates.

 
This NYT writeup on the split Klobuchar/Warren endorsement comes across as out of touch.  The arguments are very disingenuous to me.    It's aggravating to read.  

Senator Sanders has spent nearly four decades advocating revolutionary change for a nation whose politics often move with glacial slowness. A career spent adjacent to the Democratic Party but not a part of it has allowed him to level trenchant criticism of a political party that often caters more to rich donors than to the middle class. Many of his ideas that were once labeled radical — like paid family leave, a higher minimum wage, universal health care and limits on military intervention — are now mainstream, and may attract voters who helped elect Mr. Trump in 2016.

Mr. Sanders would be 79 when he assumed office, and after an October heart attack, his health is a serious concern. Then, there’s how Mr. Sanders approaches politics. He boasts that compromise is anathema to him. Only his prescriptions can be the right ones, even though most are overly rigid, untested and divisive. He promises that once in office, a groundswell of support will emerge to push through his agenda. Three years into the Trump administration, we see little advantage to exchanging one over-promising, divisive figure in Washington for another. 

Good news, then, that Elizabeth Warren has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic left.
Doesn't seem right to chalk Sanders up as an even exchange with Trump.  Trump is a far right authoritarian, Sanders is a progressive populist.  I know it's tempting for centrists to chalk them up as one in the same, but they're not.  They really couldn't be more different. 

I see the 'divisive' argument against Trump but that has more to do with being a pathological liar and demagogue.  Sanders went on Fox News, he talked to the Trump base and connected with it.  He reaches out to everyone.  Warren blasted Fox News and declined the invite.  So who was divisive on that one? 

Senator Warren is a gifted storyteller. She speaks elegantly of how the economic system is rigged against all but the wealthiest Americans, and of “our chance to rewrite the rules of power in our country,” as she put it in a speech last month. In her hands, that story has the passion of a convert, a longtime Republican from Oklahoma and a middle-class family, whose work studying economic realities left her increasingly worried about the future of the country. The word “rigged” feels less bombastic than rooted in an informed assessment of what the nation needs to do to reassert its historic ideals like fairness, generosity and equality.
I also don't like the insinuation that Sanders' worldview is based on that of a 'bombastic revolutionary,' as opposed to an informed assessment.  Their editorial is crawling with these sorts of underhanded jabs, that Sanders is a pie in the sky fantasist and Warren is the grounded pragmatist.  The Democratic Party is being remade in Sanders' image before our eyes, and they want to act like selfie Warren is the standard bearer for the 'radical' approach.  Come on.  

Never mind the fact that Sanders is a genuine messenger, without the history of telling absurd lies like Warren.  They don't even mention it, but it would present major problems for her if she was the nominee.  They even go so far as to paint Warren's history as a Federalist Society Republican as an advantage.  If they want something along the lines of a centrist, then write that.  If you don't like Sanders, then just say so.  They don't have to resort to these backhanded arguments and false equivalencies to tell us that.  Biden, for his Iraq-War-cheerleading part, "commands the greatest fluency on foreign policy" of course.  

The NYT is a self-affirming rag for affluent elites, and it's annoying that they are still treated with so much credibility.  

 
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https://www.inquisitr.com/5854931/bill-maher-media-civil-war-virginia-gun-rally/

Bill Maher Says Media Was Disappointed ‘The Civil War Didn’t Break Out’ At Virginia Gun Rally

Despite tens of thousands of pro-advocates rallying at Virginia’s capital on Monday — per Fox News — violence didn’t break out as some media outlets warned. During Friday’s episode of HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher suggested that the peaceful outcome was not what the media had hoped for, The Hill reported.

The conversation began when former Fox News and NBC host Megyn Kelly took aim at the current state of the media.

“The media’s so messed up right now, it’s disheartening to me. And I’ve felt this way for a long time,” she said.

Kelly claimed that the media problem has been around since before Donald Trump and noted that they are biased politically. She also claimed that Fox News — her former employer — did so well because the network stood in contrast to the biases of the rest of the competition.

Maher noted he believed the media bias is primarily in favor of money.

“They’re biased toward money and conflict, because that’s what sells. I was watching the Virginia rally this week. There was a gun rally. It was peaceful. And you could see how disappointed the media was that the civil war didn’t break out.”
The media continues to be a big part of the problem in America.  When two people from opposing political positions can agree on it, you have to admit there is something there. 

 
The media continues to be a big part of the problem in America.  When two people from opposing political positions can agree on it, you have to admit there is something there. 
An even more ludicrous example of the issue you cited was when the media was essentially cheering on the prospect of gun violence connected to the Joker premier.  That was crazy.

 

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