I’ve previously asked about Trump and his followers believing the mainstream media lie in their reporting, and why they believe that. Since then Trump has accused the mainstream media of being an enemy of the people. My question today is not about why some people hold this belief, but whether or not there is any evidence to support that belief. What are some recent examples of the mainstream media lying in it’s reporting? Let’s define recent as anything since GWB was elected, so as to have the opportunity to study a full eight years of both a Republican and Democratic administration. Going back to Clinton’s time and earlier takes us back to a time when I think the national climate was sufficiently different as far as political polarization goes, which is why I’m limiting it to the last 16+ years. As far as the mainstream media, I’m including the obvious organizations such as CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, Associated Press, etc. I’m excluding organizations such as Fox News, Breitbart, the New York Post, and all the various right wing talk radio hosts (Limbaugh, Hannity, Alex Jones and so on). We can exclude any far left media organizations as well, though as far as I’m aware their aren’t any.
The only instances off the top of my head that I recall are when Brian Williams lied during his coverage of the Iraq war and the more minor story in Rolling Stone about woman that accused some Duke lacrosse players of rape which later turned out to be a false accusation. That was just off the top of my head, and I didn’t do a more extensive search so as to not hide my initial bias, which is that for the most part the mainstream media is truthful in reporting. What other examples are there of the media lying?
I put this in GD because the truth or falsehood of any given claim might still not have been determined one way or the other. I mentioned the a Rolling Stone article because that’s probably something a lot of people remember. I don’t consider Rolling Stone part of the mainstream media and I would prefer the thread not devolve into things reported by such minor outlets or the tabloids.
They don’t do any substantial number of complete falsehoods like the ones you mentioned. I also don’t think they aggressively spin to promote any overarching agenda a la Fox. However, I think there are times that the “news magazine” style shows do selective reporting in order to “tell a story” with a compelling conclusion, and that sometimes crosses the line into giving an incorrect overall picture of the situation via not giving enough time to the other side of the story. I don’t have any specific examples of this however.
CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, Associated Press, etc. can and do make errors in reporting but those errors are often self correcting because they hold themselves to high standards of truth & facts. Unlike the agenda driven and fact shy outlets like Fox, Breitbart, Enquirer, conservative radio, etc…
All news organisations have their biases. Simply deciding what to cover counts as bias. And different perspectives can apply. But falsehoods are a no-no.
If you are looking for a Trump-esque blatant falsehood, it would be unusual to find that from the mainstream media.
But as suggested above, there’s an aspect of “compelling narrative,” that seems to consist of the media deciding early on what they story is, and then shaping coverage to fit that story.
For example, in the New York Times’ reporting on Jeff Sessions’ lie concerning his meetings with the Russian ambassador, their online story quoted Senator Claire McCaskill’s tweet.
Said the New York Times:
However, evidence came to light from McCaskill’s own prior years’ Twitter feed:
The New York Times simply removed the paragraph after this discrepancy came to light.
I argue that an honest approach would have been to leave it, and simply add that McCaskill’s account was incorrect, or that McCaskill met with the ambassador on non-Armed Services matters. But that doesn’t serve the underlying narrative as well.
That’s the kind of dishonesty I would argue is seen in mainstream media, as opposed to blatant lies.
Last year a major British newspaper had a front page with two stories on it. The upper one, about an elderly woman who died in care had the words KILL GRANDMA in large letters in it’s title. Underneath was a picture of our Queen … a separate story. So … how about a front page with two stories that associate the words KILL HIM with a picture of Trump? Is any law being broken? Newspapers frequently place nasty stories alongside separate stories containing pictures of politicians. When Obama became President a British newspaper had a picture of him alongside a picture of menacing looking black criminals.
I agree with this. There is clearly a media bias, and we’d be foolish to think that didn’t bleed (subconsciously) or effect (knowingly) their reporting of the news.
I remember when I was younger, watching election night for the Presidential elections in the late 70’s and 80’s. I’m sure there was bias then but it wasn’t easy to see.
I watched MSNBC during the last Presidential elections, and Chris Mathews and Rachel Maddow were downright suicidal. One would be silly to think that didn’t effect the rest of their reporting.
The topic is bias, not lying, but Alterman argues that accusations of liberal bias are, in part, a calculated strategy of “working the refs” - trying to influence future news coverage by complaining about current and past coverage.
I’d apply the same critical eye to accusations of widespread lying by the mainstream press. Some are sincere (though misguided), and occasionally actual cases of lying do crop up. But **tarring swaths of the industry as “fake news” or “lying” is also strategic - and successful, to a great degree. **As with so many things in conservative/GOP politics, Trump’s simply taking the practice several steps further, doing it clumsily, and provoking a backlash. (And probably causing severe damage to another important American institution.)
I think they lie by omission sometimes. Generally, though, they don’t out and out lie (this is different from them simply being wrong)…not even Fox from what I’ve seen (the news parts anyway…editorials from all of them are another thing). They simply spin the facts or story to convey a certain impression…generally to reinforce the views of the people who read them, IMHO.
Consider the recent election. Just about every news source I follow was saying that Hillary had a comfortable lead and at least gave the impression she would win fairly easily. Was a bit of a shock (to me anyway) when Trump ended up winning.
Another off the top of my head example is the MSM coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, which seems to have mainly relied on official accounts of what was happening instead of sending in their own reporters to actually see for themselves what was happening. By spinning the story towards the official line I think many (most really, at least of the MSM sources) had the impression that the protesters were responsible for a lot of the things that were going down and the brutal treatment many of the protesters were getting. To me, this is a lie of omission as it only tells part of the story, spins it to convey a certain narrative and then gives the impression of balance.
Thing is that many years back me and many others noted that MSNBC was just about one of the few where the bias to the left was noticeable; however, the rule has been (and still is) usually for the corporate media to ignore a lot of what the left considers important. *
I also noted how the big nothing burger of Benghazi gate was mentioned many times at FOX and very little was mentioned at MSNBC. Turns out that the ones that were closer to the truth were outfits like MSNBC.
*Really, while there are reports on subjects (like for example) about how workers are getting a raw deal, the reality is that one does not see the relentless day in and day out of issues like the right wing likes to see like Benghazi. While left leaning subjects are barely mentioned.
In his book “Witness to a Century”- By George Seldes, Seldes mentioned that the editor of the New York Post in the 1930’s was a liberal, and that liberalism was not being reflected at all in the obvious conservative slant that the news from the Spanish civil war were getting. Stern replied to him:
“What do you want me to do, take a quixotic stand, print the truth about everything including bad medicine, impure food and crooked stock market offerings, and lose all my advertising contracts and go out of business- or make compromises with all the evil elements and continue to publish the best liberal newspaper possible under these compromising circumstances?”
So it is with most of the media nowadays. IMHO just talking a bit about social issues and the injustice seen is enough to get a lot of pressure into spiking reports or minimizing them. And still then the right wing will complain about seeing a bit of fairness for left leaning subjects.
The MSM rarely tells outright whopper lies. But it does report selective truth.
Say there are 500 stories that favor Agenda A and 500 stories that favor Agenda B. The MSM only has enough time and resources to report 100 stories a day. In that case, the MSM may select 90 stories that favor Agenda A, and only 10 stories that favor Agenda B. Even if all the stories are reported “truthfully,” it’s selective, and favors Agenda A.
And oftentimes, it’s not fully truthful. There will be subtle bias or slant to prop up a desired social message.
One example that comes pretty close is NBC editing the George Zimmerman 911 call to omit the 911 dispatcher asking about Martin’s race, so as to have it seem as if Zimmerman brought it up on his own. There is a huge difference in a racially-charged case between Zimmerman saying “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something … He looks black” and Zimmerman saying “He looks black” in response to being directly questioned about it by the dispatcher.
Along the lines of other comments here, the media’s favored narrative in that story was a racial one, and the edit had the effect of magnifying that angle considerably, so that’s where their bias was.
I agree. Because the significance of the McCaskill incident was not that McCaskill is a liar. She probably isn’t. What really happened to her is exactly what happened to Sessions - she thought of those meetings/calls in a different context than what she was thinking about when she was commenting about Sessions, and thus they didn’t come up in her memory. So they were specifically relevant to the Sessions story as an indication that what Sessions did is something that just happens to people, and not an indication of some sinister plot.