[wolverine876]

> Once you learn the propaganda techniques, you start seeing it everywhere in the mainstream media.

I think it heavily depends on what media you see. The best journalism generally avoids it (i.e., the straight news side). Most journalism isn't in the top few percentile, but you don't need to read anything less than the best. I stick to the best, and when I encounter lesser stuff (e.g., I was visiting relatives and CNN was on TV), it's shocking and depressing how obviously bad it is. (BTW, one good source I discovered on that trip: BBC World News television - actually excellent cable news!)

But the opinion pages of even the best news sources (e.g., NY Times, Wall St Journal) are 99% exercises in propaganda; it almost defines opinion in the news. It's disgusting to me that they brazenly deceive their readers, but it's ok because it says 'opinion'.

However, where I see propaganda far more is online, not in the news media. I see it comments and blog posts, etc., including in this forum, sadly. The focus on the professional news media is odd to me; and in fact, and ironically, de-legitimizing the professional news media is a widespread propaganda campaign from a specific political grouping.

[njonesuk]

The BBC's World Service and non-UK coverage is generally pretty fantastic, but unfortunately they can no longer be trusted for anything related to the UK, speaking as a Brit.

By nature of their primary funding source (a "tax" levied on those who watch TV in the UK through the government, which thus controls their purse strings), they tend to be very soft on whoever the governing party is, especially at present. For one, Laura Kuenssberg, their political editor, has had a lot of allegations of bias against the current opposition party, some of which have been upheld in enquiries. She's also ended up serving as an unofficial mouthpiece for leaks from the conservative party on a number of occasions, parroting party talking points uncritically.

[nickpp]

I remember ProPublica's story from a few days ago.

It was the very definition of propaganda: clearly biased, obviously wrong to anybody who has the slightest idea about finance and obviously working hard to push a foregone conclusion against an imagined enemy ("The Rich").

To my dismay, mainstream media, including the BBC, picked up the story as if it was anything else than bad journalism, thus offering it credibility. Because as flawed as it was, it served their cause.

[wolverine876]

> It was the very definition of propaganda: clearly biased, obviously wrong to anybody who has the slightest idea about finance and obviously working hard to push a foregone conclusion against an imagined enemy ("The Rich").

That repeats what a blog post on HN's front page said, but that doesn't make it true. It was the blog poster who didn't understand finance, as many on HN commented, and their argument was weak in many other ways. Also, the conclusion about ProPublica's motives has no evidence - even if the article is inaccurate in that way, there are many possible reasons why. It's an appeal to emotion when we start saying "the slightest idea", "obviously", and "imagined enemy", not to fact and reason.

Even the allegations don't necessarily fit the definition of propaganda; bias or even deceit are not necessarily propaganda.

Why are people so ready to believe that a carefully researched story, rich in evidence, is wrong and take at face value a ranting blog post, with no evidence or research, by some anonymous person?

The answer is, that is how propaganda works: An appeal to emotion, and many other tactics described in the OP, were in that blog post. That is killing our society, IMHO.

[r00fus]

BBC is biased in what it chooses to cover/not cover. You can have reasonably objective coverage but still carry water for the propaganda machine.