[smsm42]

The problem is not that they report differently, but that they fixate on a particular part of the whole picture, and emphasize it beyond all proportion, while neglecting other parts of the picture. It's like if you asked somebody to describe an elephant for you and they'd spend 99% of the time on its tail, describing it in a minute detail up to each hair on its end, and then spending only a couple of words on the rest of the animal - would you be able to adequately imagine what an elephant look like? You probably would think it's like some hairy snake or something :) That's the kind of coverage some biased news outlets provide.

[Tomte]

You think the other parts are important because you don't like the tail.

But say, do you look forward to daily reports in your newspaper how on XY street there was no traffic accident yesterday? Or that no criminal escaped from YZ prison last month?

It's perfectly legitimate to focus on the interesting parts. You want to learn about an elephant's anatomy? Read a biology textbook, not journalism.

[smsm42]

> You think the other parts are important because you don't like the tail.

Thanks for a case study. That's exactly what the press does - describe only the tail and call everyone who objects tail-phobes. No, I'm not going to pay for such baloney. If they find advertisers gullible enough to pay for it - good for them. Otherwise, good riddance.

> It's perfectly legitimate to focus on the interesting parts.

Of course. It's also perfectly legitimate for me not to pay for it if I'm interested in whole picture, not tail hairs. Let the tail hair enthusiasts finance it.

[Tomte]

"I don't care about it" is a fundamentally different thing than "they are biased".

Sure, don't pay for it. I don't pay for Magic: The Gathering cards. But I also don't troll message boards how WotC deserve to die because they neglect XBox games, thus showing their bias towards Collectible Card Games.

[smsm42]

> "I don't care about it" is a fundamentally different thing than "they are biased".

If they describe only what they care for, and only in a way they care for, it's the definition of biased. I challenge you to provide a definition of this word that would not be equivalent to this.

> But I also don't troll message boards how WotC deserve to die because they neglect XBox games

I don't care if they survive on their own - but they are whining that unless people start en masse paying for them, they'd die. I say - in that case good riddance, just as you would say if somebody asked you to pay for local MtG tournament because otherwise they can't survive. If they want my money - they have to provide quality content and do decent work. If they want to prostitute themselves to partisan politics and clickbait - ok, that's a way to make a living too, but I won't pay for it.

Oh, and another thing: I don't think any MtG club ever driven anybody to suicide or ruined somebody's life or career. Media does it all the time (Gawker, finally and deservedly resting in peace, pretty much was built for it). For example: https://quillette.com/2019/01/30/the-death-of-a-dreamer/ And then they want my sympathy. How about "no"?

P.S. you don't have to like my arguments or agree with it, but calling me "troll" just because you disagree with me is rude. Just so you know.

[Nasrudith]

Sounds like they are pointing out the normalization and you are doubling down after being told that no, having a heart attack at 30 isn't normal.

[scottLobster]

No it isn't normal. It also isn't common. Gun homicides don't even crack the top 10 causes of death in America, yet the BBC chooses to devote a disproportionate amount of their US front page to it. They certainly front-page shootings more than heart disease, that's the definition of bias.

Right or wrong, noble intentions or not, it's not an accurate portrayal of America as a whole on the part of the BBC. If CNN ran a front page column every time someone in the UK died of alcohol poisoning, would you consider that unbiased coverage of the UK?

[smsm42]

There's no "normalization" - nobody treats murders as "normal". However, there's a difference between treating it as normal and treating is as bad, but rare abnormal, and putting it in the context of overall big picture. You can say "66 people are attacked by sharks recently" and it would look like a bloody carnage which warrants very grave concern. Or you can put it in the context that it's over all wide world, and there was one single shark attack fatality in the US over whole past year, and about 10x more people are killed each year by vending machines.