Why the Media Keep Publishing Fiction

[LongJim]

Interesting opinion piece.  He's pretty wound up, regardless of whether you agree with him or not.

Regarding the bit on Rolling Stone--I agree that it used to be a fairly balanced place for opinion, but not so much now.  Some excerpts below.

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-tuesday/like-a-rolling-stone/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TUE_20210907&utm_term=Tuesday-Smart

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"The venerable pop-music magazine, which not long ago had to retract a splashy story about a vicious gang rape that never happened, has now been obliged to issue a correction — this should be a prelude to retraction — for a story about how gunshot victims wheeled into hospitals in rural Oklahoma are being left to bleed and groan in agony because the emergency rooms are overrun by cases of ivermectin poisoning...There is a reason Rolling Stone has been unable to independently identify any such cases: There are no such cases.

The most important word in this story is not “ivermectin” — it is “Oklahoma.” Because you know who lives in Oklahoma — Joe Rogan fans.

The story turns out to have been based on the claims of one doctor — claims that Rolling Stone never checked. Why? Because the story is about (1) ivermectin, and, more important, (2) Oklahoma.

Magazines such as Rolling Stone, the major newspapers, the academic establishment, and the professional-activist class are not staffed in the main by people who grew up on Indian reservations or in dysfunctional mountain villages, people who dropped out of high school, people who have been incarcerated, or other people from the margins. You may find one or two or those at any given media property, but you’ll find a lot more Oberlin and UVA graduates. Their interests, anxieties, and obsessions are those associated with their class. They don’t know — or care — what’s happening at Pine Ridge or in Owsley County. But they do know what sort of class-adjacent people they like and don’t like, they do know what sort of lifestyles and cultural affiliations they disapprove of, they do remember being snubbed or insulted (even if they only imagined it) by some frat goofus at UVA, and they do know what sort of people they resent.

They don’t know much, but they know what they hate.

The people who edit the Washington Post are the sort of people who care intensely about who gets into Harvard and what’s happening at Georgetown. Only a minority of Americans are college graduates, but the people who run Rolling Stone and the rest of the major media are in large part people who have powerful emotional connections to campus life.

School choice for poor black kids in Philadelphia isn’t even a blip on NPR-listening Democrats’ radar – but forgiving college loans sure as hell is. Why? It is obvious enough.

For progressives who see those who do not share their political priorities not as having different views but as enemies, publishing a made-up story about deranged gang-rapists at UVA pushes all the right buttons: white privilege, rich-jerk privilege, male privilege, Southern brutality, maybe even Christian hypocrisy if you can figure out a way to shoehorn it in there.

The students I taught at Hillsdale were undergraduates, not professional magazine editors, but they were able to see the problems with Rolling Stone’s reporting and its agenda-driven narrative pretty easily. Which is to say: These stories don’t get published because nobody knows how to prevent that from happening — these stories get published because nobody cares, because these stories serve the purposes of a particular narrow cultural agenda and flatter the prejudices of a particular narrow set of educated and generally affluent American professionals."

Edited September 7, 2021 by LongJim

[ColoradoEagle]

49 minutes ago, LongJim said:

Interesting opinion piece.  He's pretty wound up, regardless of whether you agree with him or not.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with no, I don't care about the opinion of someone who stated that women having an abortion, as well as the doctors and nurses who performed the procedure, should be hung.

Edited September 7, 2021 by ColoradoEagle

[El Paso Eagle]

1 hour ago, ColoradoEagle said:

Yeah, I'm gonna go with no, I don't care about the opinion of someone who stated that women having an abortion, as well as the doctors and nurses who performed the procedure, should be hung.

He might be a piece of trash, but does that make it OK for the magazine to lie? Seems to be a lot of people on both sides are OK with the media lying as long as it supports their narratives.  

[ColoradoEagle]

5 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

He might be a piece of trash, but does that make it OK for the magazine to lie? Seems to be a lot of people on both sides are OK with the media lying as long as it supports their narratives.  

It's less a case of lying and more a case of bad reporting. In the end, the message is "don't take veterinary grade Ivermectin" so I don't really see any harm in it, especially since they have also published more information refuting the reporting.

Just seems like the latest outrage of the day.

[LongJim]

Yeah, the problem I have with the topic discussed--at least the Oklahoma/Rolling Stone part of it--is that we are really on a dangerous slope when stories are either made up out of thin air, or not sourced properly to verify veracity. 

It's not enough to go back and get a correction, or publish and then retract due to "bad reporting".  Not enough--it's not ACCEPTABLE for it to keep happening over and over again.  That's horrible journalism, period, and it's the very definition of "disinformation". 

[Coffee and TV]

2 minutes ago, LongJim said:

Yeah, the problem I have with the topic discussed--at least the Oklahoma/Rolling Stone part of it--is that we are really on a dangerous slope when stories are either made up out of thin air, or not sourced properly to verify veracity. 

It's not enough to go back and get a correction, or publish and then retract due to "bad reporting".  Not enough--it's not ACCEPTABLE for it to keep happening over and over again.  That's horrible journalism, period, and it's the very definition of "disinformation". 

The irony is astounding. 

[ColoradoEagle]

21 minutes ago, LongJim said:

It's not enough to go back and get a correction, or publish and then retract due to "bad reporting".  Not enough--it's not ACCEPTABLE for it to keep happening over and over again.  That's horrible journalism, period, and it's the very definition of "disinformation". 

No, the definition of disinformation is "false information which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media." This is not that. This is poorly sourced reporting that allowed the writer to jump to the conclusion he wanted to arrive at. That type of reporting has always and will always happen so long as humans are doing the writing.

If you want to get down and dirty into the bias part of it, even local news in DFW has been having stories about feed stores selling out of Ivermectin. So maybe writing an article exaggerating the effects on hospitals wasn't the best route to take, but saying that yokels are eating horse paste to cure COVID isn't exactly a fantastical take.

Edited September 7, 2021 by ColoradoEagle

[UNTLifer]

22 minutes ago, ColoradoEagle said:

It's less a case of lying and more a case of bad reporting. In the end, the message is "don't take veterinary grade Ivermectin" so I don't really see any harm in it, especially since they have also published more information refuting the reporting.

Just seems like the latest outrage of the day.

No, it is lying.

https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/the-great-ivermectin-deworming-hoax/article_19b8f2a6-0f29-11ec-94c1-4725bf4978c6.html

https://www.outkick.com/report-liberal-media-slammed-for-taking-the-bait-on-fake-ivermectin-overdose-news/

 

[ColoradoEagle]

9 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

No, it is lying.

https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/the-great-ivermectin-deworming-hoax/article_19b8f2a6-0f29-11ec-94c1-4725bf4978c6.html

What hard hitting reporting from **checks notes** the psuedonym using author of the eBook "Ivermectin for the World."

 

Quote

https://www.outkick.com/report-liberal-media-slammed-for-taking-the-bait-on-fake-ivermectin-overdose-news/

Seriously?

[MeanGreenTexan]

26 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

No, it is lying.

https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/the-great-ivermectin-deworming-hoax/article_19b8f2a6-0f29-11ec-94c1-4725bf4978c6.html

https://www.outkick.com/report-liberal-media-slammed-for-taking-the-bait-on-fake-ivermectin-overdose-news/

 

Dangit Lifer, you did it again (linked an opinion piece as a factual reference)!   

And the second one...  I clicked on it and was immediately slapped in the face with far-right keywords and a popup invitation to subscribe to their crap, or reject them and "only get news from the mainstream media".

Please check your references.   Linking these kinds of articles does nothing to help your case with educated people who are able to see past the slanted B.S.

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by MeanGreenTexan

[UNTLifer]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/reason.com/2021/09/06/ivermectin-overdoses-oklahoma-hospitals-rolling-stone-hoax/%3ffbclid=IwAR3toTHBIvwEXYKMG5IZtdzlH3GtWckNhUDBpyW1W6XuizORuRqIJidY1ck&amp

[ColoradoEagle]

@UNTLifer against my better judgment, I'm going to attempt a real response to this. For reference, I have an undergraduate degree from our University of North Texas in Communication Studies and took several courses that covered media bias, rhetoric, and technology as it pertains to communication. Give that whatever level of respect you deem appropriate.

If your point here is that "the media is biased," then that is accurate. All media includes the biases of whoever is creating it. From low levels of bias (AP and Reuters) to highly skewed media (Fox News and Mother Jones) to outright junk (Newsmax, Infowars, etc). It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view, because a person or an organization is giving you information from their perspective, and that will always carry some level of bias.

That is why taking information from a website like "Outkick" that openly mocks its reader saying, "Do you want the facts delivered to your inbox each morning?" and one of the options is "No, I prefer mainstream bias" is so laughable. They're telling you straight up that they're biased, clueless, or (most likely) both.

This Rolling Stone article was a lazily written non-sourced article repeating bad spin from local TV news. Stuff like that happens. And again! It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view for that very reason. But trusting, "You can't trust these guys, you can only trust us!" by a website from a sports shock jock, "here's why you should be outraged" by a guy who was fired for advocating lynching people, and "ivermectin isn't that bad" as written by a guy who may or may not be a real doctor, but definitely wants you to buy his eBook entitled, "Ivermectin for the World." is ... odd.

I know that a certain handful of people who always downvote my posts will just do the same here. Realize, though, that I have talked nothing about politics here. At all. Simply that people should be more skeptical of media, wherever it may come from. 

[El Paso Eagle]

1 hour ago, ColoradoEagle said:

@UNTLifer against my better judgment, I'm going to attempt a real response to this. For reference, I have an undergraduate degree from our University of North Texas in Communication Studies and took several courses that covered media bias, rhetoric, and technology as it pertains to communication. Give that whatever level of respect you deem appropriate.

If your point here is that "the media is biased," then that is accurate. All media includes the biases of whoever is creating it. From low levels of bias (AP and Reuters) to highly skewed media (Fox News and Mother Jones) to outright junk (Newsmax, Infowars, etc). It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view, because a person or an organization is giving you information from their perspective, and that will always carry some level of bias.

That is why taking information from a website like "Outkick" that openly mocks its reader saying, "Do you want the facts delivered to your inbox each morning?" and one of the options is "No, I prefer mainstream bias" is so laughable. They're telling you straight up that they're biased, clueless, or (most likely) both.

This Rolling Stone article was a lazily written non-sourced article repeating bad spin from local TV news. Stuff like that happens. And again! It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view for that very reason. But trusting, "You can't trust these guys, you can only trust us!" by a website from a sports shock jock, "here's why you should be outraged" by a guy who was fired for advocating lynching people, and "ivermectin isn't that bad" as written by a guy who may or may not be a real doctor, but definitely wants you to buy his eBook entitled, "Ivermectin for the World." is ... odd.

I know that a certain handful of people who always downvote my posts will just do the same here. Realize, though, that I have talked nothing about politics here. At all. Simply that people should be more skeptical of media, wherever it may come from. 

Nice reply. Your correct, it is very easy to find a source that will validate what you want to hear. My problem with the media is that they can lie if they want and say their sorry, or as you say be "lazy" to get clicks and there is usually no repercussion. One well placed headline can ruin a person, or organization, and putting a back-page, oops, were sorry, is BS. It seems like the industry does not feel the need to uphold standards and accountability.

 

[ColoradoEagle]

59 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

Nice reply. Your correct, it is very easy to find a source that will validate what you want to hear. My problem with the media is that they can lie if they want and say their sorry, or as you say be "lazy" to get clicks and there is usually no repercussion. One well placed headline can ruin a person, or organization, and putting a back-page, oops, were sorry, is BS. It seems like the industry does not feel the need to uphold standards and accountability.

I agree, however the frequency of mistakes is also going to vary on output and organization size. The smaller the organization, the much more likely it is they’re not going to do their due diligence and simply reprint or summarize information from someone else. If something is reported by CBS News, for example, it’s likely to be researched far more than something like Rolling Stone. 

Again, doesn’t mean a large organization like CBS News or the New York Times are going to get everything right (they most definitely do not), but it does mean they have the resources to properly vet their sources and maintain higher journalistic integrity. 
 

I would argue that especially the larger news outlets do their best to uphold standards. But there’s obviously also a gradient here, and that’s where I’d again recommend multiple sources and critical reading. 

[UNTLifer]

7 hours ago, ColoradoEagle said:

@UNTLifer against my better judgment, I'm going to attempt a real response to this. For reference, I have an undergraduate degree from our University of North Texas in Communication Studies and took several courses that covered media bias, rhetoric, and technology as it pertains to communication. Give that whatever level of respect you deem appropriate.

If your point here is that "the media is biased," then that is accurate. All media includes the biases of whoever is creating it. From low levels of bias (AP and Reuters) to highly skewed media (Fox News and Mother Jones) to outright junk (Newsmax, Infowars, etc). It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view, because a person or an organization is giving you information from their perspective, and that will always carry some level of bias.

That is why taking information from a website like "Outkick" that openly mocks its reader saying, "Do you want the facts delivered to your inbox each morning?" and one of the options is "No, I prefer mainstream bias" is so laughable. They're telling you straight up that they're biased, clueless, or (most likely) both.

This Rolling Stone article was a lazily written non-sourced article repeating bad spin from local TV news. Stuff like that happens. And again! It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view for that very reason. But trusting, "You can't trust these guys, you can only trust us!" by a website from a sports shock jock, "here's why you should be outraged" by a guy who was fired for advocating lynching people, and "ivermectin isn't that bad" as written by a guy who may or may not be a real doctor, but definitely wants you to buy his eBook entitled, "Ivermectin for the World." is ... odd.

I know that a certain handful of people who always downvote my posts will   just do the same here. Realize, though, that I have talked nothing about politics here. At all. Simply that people should be more skeptical of media, wherever it may come from. 

I don't necessarily disagree with what you are stating outside of you just revealed your bias by only listing right leaning sources as highly skewed while ignoring MSNBC, CNN, Vox, Salon, Huff Post, etc....  The Rolling Stone article wasn't just lazy.  They didn't even post a retraction and to top it off, they posted a picture with the article that showed people dressed for cold weather.  It was a lie to fuel a narrative.

[ColoradoEagle]

10 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

I don't necessarily disagree with what you are stating outside of you just revealed your bias by only listing right leaning sources as highly skewed while ignoring MSNBC, CNN, Vox, Salon, Huff Post, etc....  The Rolling Stone article wasn't just lazy.  They didn't even post a retraction and to top it off, they posted a picture with the article that showed people dressed for cold weather.  It was a lie to fuel a narrative.

I actually only listed two highly skewed sources, Mother Jones (left) and Fox News (right). I consider Newsmax and Infowars to basically be parody and farcical. You could survive with Mother Jones or Fox News as your only news sources, you'd just be highly misinformed. With the other two, you basically live in an alternate reality.

Everything after that, I'm not going to respond to because you haven't budged one millimeter from how you started the thread despite an honest effort by myself and others to discuss the topic.

[UNTLifer]

48 minutes ago, ColoradoEagle said:

Everything after that, I'm not going to respond to because you haven't budged one millimeter from how you started the thread despite an honest effort by myself and others to discuss the topic.

Haven't budged on what?  The Rolling Stones article?  Nope, not going to call that "lazy" reporting when they ran with the story, posted a picture of people in a line wearing winter clothing and didn't print a retraction.

[ColoradoEagle]

Me, a normal person, reading the story: "This is lazy."

You, UNTLifer, reading the story: "They're intentionally lying and trying to dupe us! Just look at those winter coats! We caught those motherf*ckers trying to lie to us!"

[UNTLifer]

30 minutes ago, ColoradoEagle said:

Me, a normal person, reading the story: "This is lazy."

You, UNTLifer, reading the story: "They're intentionally lying and trying to dupe us! Just look at those winter coats! We caught those motherf*ckers trying to lie to us!"

Sorry, I just don't see this as being "lazy reporting" when there are so many glaring errors.

Me, a normal person, reading this story: "This is a national publication that ran with this story even though the average Joe can tell it is full of misinformation."

You, ColoradoEagle, reading this story: "Cool, the Rolling Stone wrote an article on nobody being able to get into the emergency room because of people OD'ing on horse dewormer.  Look at that picture of people lined up in winter coats during the heat of the summer.  Man, those Okies sure are stupid.  Oh, the article isn't true and they quoted a doctor that doesn't even work at that hospital.  Dude, that's just lazy.  I bet Tupac and Elvis are laughing about this one."

I'll be happy to discuss the topic with you, but you obviously won't be happy with the outcome unless you win me over.  I heard a great quote last night regarding discussing something with others.  "Speak like you are 100% correct but listen as if the other person may have something of value." 

Edited September 8, 2021 by UNTLifer

[ColoradoEagle]

Nah, it's the version I posted. You can watch the original story that Rolling Stone lazily re-reported, since I know you haven't thus far.

And I had never seen this article until it was posted here, so the visceral reaction you imagine above is all in your head.

 

Edited September 8, 2021 by ColoradoEagle

[LongJim]

21 hours ago, ColoradoEagle said:

This is not that. This is poorly sourced reporting that allowed the writer to jump to the conclusion he wanted to arrive at. That type of reporting has always and will always happen so long as humans are doing the writing.

I agree that it's poorly sourced reporting.  To me, "that type of reporting" is no big deal (although really not ever acceptable) when there's a cat in a tree, or whatever.  It's not excusable--in my opinion--regarding life or death stuff.  That's when (at least) you can't have poor sources. 

Somebody mentioned irony in this thread, but gave no context.  To me this standard applies regardless of who in office, or what ox is being gored.  It's gotten worse over the last few years--I think generally since the major news outlets had to start competing with the internet.  And as far as bias goes, as you allude, you know what you're getting with the POTUS currently and previously.  You know what you're getting with Newsmax, National Review, Mother Jones and Vox.  But the tendency to publish and retract later (if we're lucky) has gotten ridiculous.

[ColoradoEagle]

51 minutes ago, LongJim said:

I agree that it's poorly sourced reporting.  To me, "that type of reporting" is no big deal (although really not ever acceptable) when there's a cat in a tree, or whatever.  It's not excusable--in my opinion--regarding life or death stuff.  That's when (at least) you can't have poor sources. 

I'd agree with this. I place this type of news in the "cat in a tree" territory, because 1) it's Rolling Stone (does anyone actually rely on that source for hard hitting news?) and 2) it's barely news. The local news station (KFOR) knew that, and that's why they tried to sensationalize it. Even if you do classify this as life or death, the end result of the article is "don't eat horse paste", so it's a net positive I imagine.

 

Quote

Somebody mentioned irony in this thread, but gave no context.  To me this standard applies regardless of who in office, or what ox is being gored.  It's gotten worse over the last few years--I think generally since the major news outlets had to start competing with the internet.  And as far as bias goes, as you allude, you know what you're getting with the POTUS currently and previously.  You know what you're getting with Newsmax, National Review, Mother Jones and Vox.  But the tendency to publish and retract later (if we're lucky) has gotten ridiculous.

Hard agree on this. I've always liked the Media Bias Chart (pictured below), and I've watched over the years as CNN and MSNBC have drifted further left (lean) and down (less fact based), and Fox News has drifted further right (lean) and down (misinformation, propaganda, etc). I'm honestly not sure how anyone watches any of them, but for different reasons, obviously.

Regarding publishing and retracting later, you're seeing that more and more on the outlets rushing to beat the internet, as you mentioned. Mainly MSNBC and Fox News. CNN has an international presence, so they're slightly more disciplined than those two, but they're nowhere near the journalistic quality they had in the 90s.

 

 

1 hour ago, UNTLifer said:

I heard a great quote last night regarding discussing something with others.  "Speak like you are 100% correct but listen as if the other person may have something of value." 

Sounds like a quote you should take to heart. I regularly reply to El Paso Eagle and LongJim knowing full well that we don't see eye to eye politically, but also seeing that we do share common ground from time to time.

Edited September 8, 2021 by ColoradoEagle

[UNTLifer]

53 minutes ago, ColoradoEagle said:

I'd agree with this. I place this type of news in the "cat in a tree" territory, because 1) it's Rolling Stone (does anyone actually rely on that source for hard hitting news?) and 2) it's barely news. The local news station (KFOR) knew that, and that's why they tried to sensationalize it. Even if you do classify this as life or death, the end result of the article is "don't eat horse paste", so it's a net positive I imagine.

 

Hard agree on this. I've always liked the Media Bias Chart (pictured below), and I've watched over the years as CNN and MSNBC have drifted further left (lean) and down (less fact based), and Fox News has drifted further right (lean) and down (misinformation, propaganda, etc). I'm honestly not sure how anyone watches any of them, but for different reasons, obviously.

Regarding publishing and retracting later, you're seeing that more and more on the outlets rushing to beat the internet, as you mentioned. Mainly MSNBC and Fox News. CNN has an international presence, so they're slightly more disciplined than those two, but they're nowhere near the journalistic quality they had in the 90s.

 

 

Sounds like a quote you should take to heart. I regularly reply to El Paso Eagle and LongJim knowing full well that we don't see eye to eye politically, but also seeing that we do share common ground from time to time.

I do take it to heart.  That's why I shared it with you.

[LongJim]

54 minutes ago, ColoradoEagle said:

Even if you do classify this as life or death, the end result of the article is "don't eat horse paste", so it's a net positive I imagine.

I don't know.  I guess it just seems beneath any media to run this type of story.  I realize RS isn't a bastion of hard news, though.  I won't get into the overarching point of the article, because it'll probably get the thread locked, but I think there's some meat there.  Maybe for another thread.

57 minutes ago, ColoradoEagle said:

Hard agree on this. I've always liked the Media Bias Chart (pictured below), and I've watched over the years as CNN and MSNBC have drifted further left (lean) and down (less fact based), and Fox News has drifted further right (lean) and down (misinformation, propaganda, etc). I'm honestly not sure how anyone watches any of them, but for different reasons, obviously.

I love that chart.  I don't agree with placement of some of the outlets there all the time, but it's a useful tool.  The "news" outlets you mention above are jokes, in my opinion.  All of them.

1 hour ago, ColoradoEagle said:

I regularly reply to El Paso Eagle and LongJim knowing full well that we don't see eye to eye politically, but also seeing that we do share common ground from time to time.

Yeah, it's good to have spirited discussion, and I really appreciate folks that add to the conversation, though I may not agree with the point of view.  I think most people actually have more common ground than differences politically, to be honest.  It's just different things that get people wound up.  Most people generally want the same things in the end, but don't always agree on the best path to get there.

[El Paso Eagle]

5 hours ago, ColoradoEagle said:

Hard agree on this. I've always liked the Media Bias Chart (pictured below), and I've watched over the years as CNN and MSNBC have drifted further left (lean) and down (less fact based), and Fox News has drifted further right (lean) and down (misinformation, propaganda, etc). I'm honestly not sure how anyone watches any of them, but for different reasons, obviously.

When you see where they put CNN and MSNBC in comparison to FOX it tells a lot about their objectivity. Not saying they are wrong on FOX, but if you agree where those two are then your not being objective either.