I completely agree with your sentiments about the daily news.

I'm really into documentaries rather than news, though I do get news in my youtube feed that I occasionally watch but that's mostly from the television news youtube channels. There are some news commentators on youtube in the past that I listened to but at some point I started to feel like the news is an unfinished story. Here's an example:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42493918

This is a summary of the Trump-Russia election investigation that was reported on for years, I hear about it but I don't want to hear about it every night. I prefer to keep up to date this way, slightly delayed but convenient, I don't even want to form an opinion until all the facts are out anyway.

I don't even want to form an opinion until all the facts are out anyway. — Judaka

That’s an interesting point. Real information about an event or series of events is found in a booK on the subject, which takes months of research and writing. Even a documentary is caught in the process of production. So you end up getting a very detailed and analysed report but it comes to you sometime after the event. So it suggests in some ways that the dailies, tv and internet coverage cannot really give you reliable in depth reporting, which means the facts are very superficial and quite often incorrect in the rush get the story out. It’s more about the sensation of news, the dramatic headline and video that follow. If there’s no video there’s no story. So it’s the image that creates the importance of the story. And there’s no shortage of video available online; everyone has a phone. But there’s no time to verify the accuracy of the video supplied.

I am quite interested in how ad revenue works on sites like youtube where it's determined by viewership, which takes away some of the power of those paying for ad space. — Judaka

Can you explain this a bit more? Do you mean viewers are in control of what ads they want to see? If yes then what needs mentioning is tailoring ads to a person's usage pattern is a greater level of manipulation, requiring knowledge of "intimate details" of that person, no? The issue of privacy pops up with viewing behavior-based ads.

I may have misunderstood you.

There's this romantic image of the media as the source of unbiased, good quality information. Some have swallowed this ideal picture of the media hook, line and sinker. It turns out this is untrue. The media can't avoid being a point of view whether that's political, social, religious, cultural, etc. and that's true whether or not there are forces from outside that influence reporting. To me, the media is simply the average joe we meet on the streets who just happens to have a very loud voice; he's like anyone else, biased, emotional, a bit confused, has personal interests, and so on, but with one big difference, his loud voice that makes him a person who's well-heard.

I mean that the content creator gets ads on their channel without creating a contract with the company paying for the ad because their contract is through youtube. As opposed to a direct relationship with greater influence for the companies over the image and reporting of the news company. I am pretty much at a point now where I don't think this idea will improve anything because of discussions in this thread and my own research.

Also, I am not interested in an actually objective news station but whether one tries to be objective or not. Whether or not that's the primary objective or if they have a political agenda. I am not sure that being objective is best, what's the worst is where they brand themselves as objective but have a clear political agenda because that's highly manipulative.


Yeah, agree.

I don't even want to form an opinion until all the facts are out anyway. — Judaka

All the facts?

Wait about 10 years and you'll have a pretty clear view what happened in the best histories written about the Trump era. All the secret files come out in about 40 years or so, so then you clearly have the best view possible about the facts. At that time with good luck, you perhaps even can have the Russian archives open and Russian history done about the Trump era, as likely Putin isn't in power anymore.

At worst case there's this Trump mystery, something similar to JFK assassination.

I think it could be good to do an investigation on how the news makes it money and whether that incentivises practices that help inform the public fairly or not. — Judaka

There have been stories about advertisers pressuring media owners about content they’re not happy with by threatening to withdraw advertising. Usually it’s because of some aspect of their business (not just theirs but genetically, like cigarette companies) that has not looked good in the news. That’s not uncommon. Very big corporations can hurt media companies by pulling advertising. But then again if that media outlet has a big chunk of readership that includes their target audience then they’re not likely to walk away permanently. It’s more like a smack on the knuckles.

As your links suggest the public can make people feel their displeasure, like the NFL experienced. But if someone likes a newspaper or news channel then they are likely to return in the near future, despite some irritability over a story or opinion piece, because it’s their news outlet of choice.

The question is does advertising revenue affect content in terms of issues like politics and ultimately democratic process? News outlets had huge readership levels during Trump’s campaign. They new what was happening and they loved it. The NYT did very well, and they will again this year. The higher the readership levels the higher the advertising rates go.

Trump got a huge amount of coverage that others would have to pay for in advertising rates. So the news media will go where the readership goes, which for them equals advertising revenue. The interesting thing is how will the NYT run stories on Trump? If they ignore him they lose revenue. And they can’t support him. But they need him to sell more papers to get more advertising revenue, so they have to feature him. So in some ways they’re a victim. Of what though: politics or economics?

I get what you mean, honestly, to some extent that's actually what is needed in some cases. The correct understanding of the Vietnam war as one example can only be attained after a lot of secret details became public. At least, all I meant was that things become clearer with time and easier to digest, so waiting a little while for more to come out can be a good way to go.


Well, it's certainly easy to draw parallels between Trump's success and his media coverage, it's free advertising and it doesn't appear to matter if it's negative.

I think it's fair to say that news reporting can be and has been influenced by big companies due to advertising rights. It can be argued that from the perspective of increasing viewership, choices will be made that take the focus away from objective news reporting or simply toss out objectivity because it isn't as interesting to viewers.

On top of that, for many, there may never have been a real attempt at objectivity to begin with and the news reporting was always intended to be either manipulative or overtly biased.

I think it is economic, there's a financial incentive to comment on Trump, negatively or positively, because it sells. Political biases exist but if it wasn't doing well financially then I think we would see changes. Just as CNN have changed to compete with their competition from more objective to more opinionated, it would have happened in the opposite way if the financial incentive led towards objective reporting.

It's a supply-demand issue, people prefer opinionated reporting because it's entertaining, I don't know if there's any way of financing reporting that doesn't react to the demand for opinionated reporting. I really don't know what the solution might be. I don't know the reporting we see currently is a symptom of the current political climate or part of what created it but I do think it will be a factor in its continuation.

At least, all I meant was that things become clearer with time and easier to digest, so waiting a little while for more to come out can be a good way to go. — Judaka

Sure, if the bureaucracy functions and the archives genuinely do exist and aren't burned. :roll:

I think it's fair to say that news reporting can be and has been influenced by big companies due to advertising rights. It can be argued that from the perspective of increasing viewership, choices will be made that take the focus away from objective news reporting or simply toss out objectivity because it isn't as interesting to viewers. — Judaka

But I do assume we can typically notice this, right?

Sure, if there a total block on some issue, we won't know, but otherwise there's enough of different media outlets to notice which bias or agenda some media outlet has. Hence noticing the differences how Fox or MSNBC, BBC or RTV report on something is quite easy (assuming that you have the time to follow them). And once you know their modus operandi, it's easy to listen to them.

I mean that the content creator gets ads on their channel without creating a contract with the company paying for the ad because their contract is through youtube. As opposed to a direct relationship with greater influence for the companies over the image and reporting of the news company. I am pretty much at a point now where I don't think this idea will improve anything because of discussions in this thread and my own research. — Judaka

I'm completely in the dark regarding how businesses are run on the web but if you're correct then it looks very much like businesses are getting a free ride - piggybacking on channel content creators without paying a penny for it. The company for which a particular ad is supposed to serve gets the chance to showcase its products to the right audience - the people who're guranteed to try out their products - and all without spending the extra amount that would've gone to the person who made it possible, the content creators of news channels. It's as if content creators are being excluded from a very lucrative deal in my opinion.

:confused:

what's the worst is where they brand themselves as objective but have a clear political agenda because that's highly manipulative. — Judaka

:sad:

I mean that the content creator gets ads on their channel without creating a contract with the company paying for the ad because their contract is through youtube. As opposed to a direct relationship with greater influence for the companies over the image and reporting of the news company. I am pretty much at a point now where I don't think this idea will improve anything because of discussions in this thread and my own research. — Judaka

Interesting. Imagine if newspapers went that way; someone outside the “news” outlet, the man in the street with us phone, supplies the stories/news and shares the space on the pages with advertisers who pay for space. So the news is really there as a hook to the advertisers target audience, and the news content is also targeted at that same audience otherwise the advertisers would not have its target audience. So in the end “news” is any content that pulls in a target audience. There’s probably nothing new in that except that news outlets don’t really need journalists anymore, and they no longer pretend to be objective news sources.

But has it been naive of us to have gone along with the importance of “freedom of the press“ and the idea of the fourth estate?

I think that when it comes to issues like manipulative news reporting, it does come down to what one thinks about the average listener. Many times when it comes to issues like this, I meet people who think very highly of the average citizen, that they are worldly and intelligent while I tend to think that the average citizen is maybe good at a few things but has extremely limited knowledge of even basic things.

If one of the articles I listed, polling suggested that 40% of news listeners trust the news and another said over 50% of viewers trusted Fox news and around 75% of republicans trusted FOX news. When we look at the current political polarisation as well, I do not really believe that we can assume that the major news reporting biases are being identified and deftly bypassed by viewers. Rather, it seems more appropriate to view them as being highly successful in their manipulative practices.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fox-news-lashes-out-at-cnn-with-new-ad-2010-2

The pollster was Public Pollicy Polling, I looked for information on them and apparently they even have a democrat bias.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

I think freedom of the press is important, when you look at a country like China, they have their own set of problems due to a lack of freedom in their press. It seems we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The trend is clear, we probably haven't seen things as bad as they will get, polarisation will accelerate due to the biased reporting.

That doesn't mean I want to trust the government to handle things though, the news is one of the most powerful forces in keeping the government honest.

the news is one of the most powerful forces in keeping the government honest. — Judaka

So even in its biased, economic based practices it still functions to the degree enough that governments are put on notice, where there is always the possibility they will be exposed. Obviously life without them would be far worse and China’s a good enough sample. And even if the public was educated enough to understand the manipulation of the press, or just the influence of imagery, they would still lean towards the news source that gelled with their own perspective. News outlets still get sued for distortion or misinformation, and their mistakes are always public for everyone to see because they’re always watching each other and waiting to pounce in their own interests. So in a way it works. Not perfect but not too bad either.