But this brings us back to the OP, which was focused on public perception. Most of America would disagree with you; most people would feel that there are most definitely large parts of the media that skew left… and I suspect that most feel that they insert their agenda into their work.
I completely understand that left and right depends on where you are coming from. I think of myself as a moderate, for example… but I have friends that would call me a squishy lefty on some issues, and others who think I’m a knuckledragging mouthbreather on others.
Since there is no definite standard, and everything’s relative, I guess public perception is the arbiter. And it seems that that standard has determined that media other than Fox is not to be trusted.
One more thought: is it possible that the lack of trust wasn’t due to the political slant but rather some other reason… that the others have been around longer and therefore gotten lazy/fat, and have been taking a knee and running out the clock? Just thinking out loud.
Well, they are simply wrong. People think that because it is a lie that has been repeated again and again by the Right; not because it has any basis in fact.
No, it’s because they are fool and fanatics who want to be told lies. Fox is nothing but a propaganda arm of the Republican party; casual liars.
IANADT, but IMHO C-Span is the only truly ‘centered’ television news/political channel. CNN leans slightly to the right with a corporate friendly, dumbed down tilt, MSNBC leans slightly to the left with a more populist, intellectual bent*. FOX’s equivalent would be all the way over on the CC with its single, one hour block of Stewart and Colbert; spiteful vs. satirical, funny :smack: vs. funny :dubious:, context - bye.
The networks? Hell I dunno, consider them the cast of Always Sunny in Philadelphia: NBC/Dennis, CBS/Mac, ABC/Dee, FOX/Charlie “Wildcard bitches!”. As for Frank, I guess he would be a mix of, WB/UPN, Discovery Channel and Home Shopping. Some likable quirks to each, but all pretty rotten at the core.
*MSNBC is also, and even some what uniquely, “balanced” internally from the AM and PM with Brzezinski/Scarborough and Olbermann/Maddow.
ETA: As always, I feel the need to note that my user name, tds, has nothing to do with with TDS.
You still don’t get it! Grrrr. OK, let me walk you through it.
I never once stated that Brock’s disease was due to Canadian single-payer bungling of the treatment. Some OP in another thread decried that Brock did. I merely pointed out an inconsistency.
My point, which evidently I needed to spell out more clearly, was that people have different perceptions of reality based on their politics. In other words, one person used an anecdotal story to score political points (health care horror), while another decried someone (brock) trying to use an anecdotal story (his own) to score political points. They had different opinions on what is a reasonable way to make a political point based on the politics itself.
Now map that back to the OP. People look at the news through the prism of where they fall in the political spectrum. Red Shirt Backwards seems to think that **all **of the media is uber right wing. Ok that person is clearly insane so we’ll forget him/her. But that illustrates the point I was making (evidently not clear enough, perhaps I overestimate the ability of this audience to connect the dots): that while many (most?) of the people on the SDMB cannot fathom why Fox is the most trusted network, to many people in the real world, it’s obvious. Name a scandal that happened on Fox (sorry, this is the SDMB… “Faux”) News or the Fox network itself that rises to the level of the ones I’ve already pointed out in this thread. You can’t.
And yet, not. The poll found that more people trusted Fox News among the survey respondents than distrusted it. However, conservatives were overrepresented in the survey’s sample:
The numbers of self-described moderates who trusted each outlet (culled from the link above):
So what the poll actually found is that CNN is, as it bills itself, the most trusted name in news. It also found that conservatives overwhelmingly trust Fox News. Well, color me surprised.
This is an excellent indication of what we are talking about - thanks.
For this to be true, every Republican candidate of the last thirty years would have to have been a complete fuck-up who ran a horrible campaign - including the ones who won.
That is not a fact, it is a highly biased and partisan opinion. The MSM shares it, which is much of what slants their coverage.
This just confirms my view that Americans are largely stupid and uninformed when it comes to politics. They’ll go with whatever seems to fit whatever their views are regardless of how well grounded or factual they are.
People thinking ANY media outlet can be “most trusted” is a sad commentary on the intellectual capacity of 'muricans.
Oh, nice dig, Smashy. The right wingers don’t have some sort of lock on living in the “real world”.
Most trusted by a largely clueless populace isn’t much of a selling point.
Dig completely unintended. I meant real world vs virtual (ie online) world, not liberal coasts vs conservative flyover country, or whatever you thought I meant.
As for the largely clueless populace… watch it, you’re getting awfully close to the dumbfuckistan<—> elite stereotype many ascribe to those from your side of the aisle.
Anecdotal stories are certainly no substitute for factual analysis during a debate. However, they can be useful in putting a human face on a controversy, AS LONG AS THEY ARE TRUTHFUL.
People certainly do have different perceptions. There is only one reality, however, and when someone veers so far away from that reality, don’t be surprised when it is pointed out.
You contrasted an anecdote about a couple who had hospital bills that their insurance then decided not to cover,with an anecdote from a celebrity who came to Canada after being misdiagnised in the US, and then did not get a test in Canada that he desired (against medical advice).
The problem is, you did not report the second anecdote accurately. Nobody actually said this in the thread. People were not pitting Mr. Lesnar because he had a bad experience. He was being pitted because he was full of shit, and because the hospital in Canada actually diagnosed him correctly, it just would not give him extraneous tests.
Lets’ recap:
You tried to compare anecdotes.
You misrepresented what actually happened.
Your misrepresentation happens to paint the 'socialist" Canadian medial system as bad.
You refuse to acknowledge your error.
Conclusion: You sir, are the embodiment of FOX news! This is what is wrong with them. You have just demonstrated how they operate, with their own unique “perception of reality” that is at odd with the actual facts.
He didn’t say that this failing was limited to those on the right. I think most of us would agree that most media outlets display a mild leftward bias simply based on the fact that they and their employees are generally New Yorkers or Californians.
However, Fox News displays a strong rightward bias and doesn’t even pretend otherwise, except in its tagline.
ETA: Smashy, that’s true - it would have been more accurate to say that liberals are heavily underrepresented. I think you’d have to agree that the numbers make the poll suspect at the very least, though.
If my view is considered elitist, that sucks, but it is what it is. I don’t think my fellow Americans are stupid. I just think that they are, largely, uninvolved and uninterested in understanding issues. So people tend to just go along with those things that seem to agree with their particular ideas.
And it isn’t the exclusive domain of conservatives. Not by a long shot.
I agree. But any reasonable and objective person (and I count myself in that number) would know that most of the derogatory comments aimed at the great unwashed are more often made by what their opponents would call effete, elitist liberals, and targeted at the mouthbreathing blue-collar types. In fact, wasn’t there some dust-up about Obama doing that on the campaign, something about Pennsylvania clinging to God and guns? (I may have the state wrong there, I’m sure someone will correct me).
Maybe you don’t think this, and I certainly hope not. But that stereotype, which I see promulgated from everyone from Jon Stewart to Al Gore, has allowed Rush and Sean and Company to dine out on that for years; stirring up the proletariat and urging them to line the chardonnay-drinking, elbow-patch jacket wearing Upper West Siders against a wall.
