[jsgo]

While I agree, I think I'd be saddened by what it would suss out: that people don't really want news.

The sad part would be that even after this, people would still look to the Hannitys, the Maddows, the Carlsons, the Lemons of the world for their news. I understand the reasoning behind it (zero effort way of processing news). Where it does become dangerous is if someone turns a non-news/fake news item into a talking point to deceive the viewer into thinking it is legitimate like the content based on real news items.

I guess the beginning of the end was to allow channels specific to "news" to propagate. In an ever growing fight for ratings, something if we're being honest that shouldn't be a news team's goal, they've had to at best fluff the news or at worst make it controversial for ratings sake. I like CNN and feel them to be fairly "even", but even I have to question the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" nature of constant BREAKING NEWS items that are on their site at any given time and I would imagine is pretty frequent on social media (at least, anything I see shared from CNN seems to have breaking: at the beginning).

Maybe the local news showing national/international news format would be best, but with some kind of regulation to prevent them from politicizing it. Now what that would be defined by, I'm not sure. It probably wouldn't be heavy in ratings though.

[bradleyankrom]

I think putting the Hannitys and Carlsons on the same level as the Maddows and the Lemons implies a false equivalency. Everyone has an agenda, yeah, but one of those groups is deliberately misleading its viewers.

[chiefalchemist]

Um. They're all pretty deliberate. They're all gainfully employed based on one key KPI: ad revenue. They have a target market. They have a narrative. And they work that to the tune of ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.

Death by cancer is still death whether it's Red State death or Blue State death. That's about as equal as it gets.

None of the four you listed quality as news or journalism. One another day we can discuss what they really are, but news and journalists they are not.

[bradleyankrom]

What qualifies as news or journalism?

[specialist]

Verified sources, citations, quotes on the record.

Otherwise it's gossip, heresay, agitprop

[jsgo]

From what I've seen, and I could be wrong, David Muir seems to deliver in a way that doesn't seem heavy in bias. Admittedly, I don't watch ABC a lot so I don't see a ton of him, but his content seems pretty impartial.

[chiefalchemist]

Perfect example. He's nothing more than a talking head. He's reading a script off a teleprompter. He's there - and Katie Couric isn't - because he tests well and the rating are strong.

That doesn't make him a journalist. Nor does it make what falls from his lips news.

[jsgo]

Will have to agree to disagree on that one. And I think he's there and Couric isn't is due to Couric at a certain point trying the Barbara Walters track pivoting into the talk show side of things.

But I think him being fairly interchangeable with another journalist is an indicator that his role isn't personality driven like the previously mentioned: he's there to deliver the news and that's essentially it. I think his Gaza Strip/Haiti/etc. work qualifies him as a journalist and from what I've seen of him, has delivered factual news (with varying levels of importance, but realistically, it is unlikely to have hard hitting items daily).

[chiefalchemist]

Funny enough, my term papers in grade school come to mind. We were required to take a subject, investigate it, present both / all arguments, and then draw a conclusion as based on the investigation.

Journalists ask questions. Tough question. The hard questions. Taking the narrative of a rumour and/or a "press release" is not journalism. When there's an over-use of "power words" and heavy handed adjectives that manipulate the interpretation, that's not journalism either.

That's the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe it's kinda like porn? I'll know it when I see it?

[jsgo]

While I agree they're not all the same or approaching the median at the same rate, my statement was in their propensity towards editorializing. Whereas people view them (well, typically if they agree with them) as newspeople. I was going mostly by personalities that seem to have the largest viewerships, purely anecdotal though, admittedly.

[lainga]

Maddow spins the news just as hard, whether you can/want to see it or not.

[bradleyankrom]

Spins news as hard as Hannity and Tucker Carlson?

[pnw_hazor]

Yes.

[metamet]

Maddow definitely creates a narrative out of the current events. Hannity is on another level, though, making dishonest use of every logical fallacy in order to push the state directed agenda.

He is one of the "allies" Trump pushes his propaganda through: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/382993-white-hous...

> Trump also urged supporters to watch Fox News host Sean Hannity's show on Wednesday, during which Hannity called for Rosenstein to be fired.

[philwelch]

This isn't new. Pulitzer and Hearst practiced "yellow journalism" that wouldn't look a day out of date compared to Fox News. Most news sources in the world and throughout history have had clear editorial biases at the very least.

Even they heyday of "unbiased", "impartial" news was anything but--there just weren't many outlets for people to express dissenting views, and the lack of transparency was shocking at times. For example, Lyndon Johnson once got annoyed at reporters asking him why the US intervened in Vietnam, exposed his genitalia to them, and shouted, "this is why!"

The notion of a kindly old Walter Crokite-esque gentleman telling us the news every night in a fair and impartial way was always an illusion, and it's one that shouldn't be mourned.

[specialist]

Not a new problem. My favorite modern retellings:

"Network" [1978] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

"De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" [1980] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v2GDbEmjGE