[dfxm12]

I'd say the mainstream media and their talking-head opinion-pieces masquerading as news did as much if not more to hurt their image.

I don't think mainstream media masquerades opinion pieces as news. I think the public at large, vis-a-vis confirmation bias, just wants to believe anything they agree with is true and miscategorizes these stories on their own.

The Economist, CNN, MSNBC, NPR at least are all clear about what's news and what's opinion.

[mieseratte]

> just wants to believe anything they agree with is true and miscategorizes these stories on their own.

I implore you, go sample "news" segments from major sources (CNN, MSNBC, Fox) on a topic you are intimately familiar with. You'll quickly realize these mouth-pieces are spreading FUD to acquire more eyeballs and ad dollars.

> The Economist, CNN, MSNBC, NPR at least are all clear about what's news and what's opinion.

MSNBC, and to a perhaps lesser extent CNN are hysterically bad.

I had the pleasure of catching a few hours of primetime "coverage" on MSNBC last month and the talking heads were shrieking about some Federal department spending $1,500 on ten pairs of "tactical pants" for security officers. Well, go price some "tactical pants" from 5.11[0], a well known, reasonable brand, and you'll quickly see it's a fairly reasonable sum. Hell, ten pairs of decent Carhartts will set you back a similar sum. Yet the opinion-as-news talking-heads spent 15+ minutes railing on it as obvious corruption and frivolity of the current administration.

This is what passes for news. They're a bad joke.

[0] - https://www.511tactical.com/mens-professional.html

[dfxm12]

Is this the story you're talking about? https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/why-did-scott-pruitt-spen...

Where the talking head concedes the pants were apparently sensible?

[mieseratte]

There were actually multiple talking-heads / segments, with the linked video being the final one. It started with a woman with short-hard (Maddow?) and transitioned to that man.

The video you linked proceeds to list random Twitter users' jokes about tactical pants, e.g. "Chuck Norris Action Jeans" or how one might need the pants to sleep on a used Trump mattress. One would be mistaken for thinking this is Comedy Central's latest political comedy show and not "reputable" news.

> Where the talking head concedes the pants were apparently sensible?

Yes, after spending much time mocking the purchase the video concedes the purchase was perfectly normal (it was actually 40 pairs of pants at roughly $40 per pair.)

So why spend time and effort reporting a non-story on a mainstream "news" channel? It seems they are trying to fill the spot the Colbert Report vacated.