Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Maybe it's the accent. When it comes to news, in a world where "fake news" has become an ideological battle cry rather than an oxymoron, Americans deem British media outlets more trustworthy than their U.S. counterparts.
The most trusted news source in the U.S. is the Economist — a venerable weekly magazine published in the U.K. — according, at least, to a recent survey conducted by the University of Missouri's Reynolds Journalism Institute.
The second most reliable news source, in the view of voluntary survey respondents, is public television (with the Public Broadcasting Service separately ranking sixth among survey respondents), followed by Reuters and BBC. National Public Radio placed just ahead of PBS at No. 5, while the U.K.'s the Guardian clinched the seventh spot. The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News rounded out the 10 most trusted brands. The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp. NWS, +0.49% NWSA, +0.65% , the parent of MarketWatch.
At the other extreme, Occupy Democrats — a political website with a self-professed agenda of counterbalancing the right-wing Tea Party — took the dubious honor of most untrustworthy.
BuzzFeed, Breitbart and Infowars also scored dismally on the trust-o-meter, with a BuzzFeed representative questioning the poll's merit and methods. "This is not a poll of how much trust Americans have in their news outlets. It's an open-ended, methodologically flawed survey of people who happen to fill out a form on the homepage of their local news outlet," said Matt Mittenthal, spokesman for BuzzFeed News. "No one familiar with how polling works would consider this to be reliable or scientific."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:35AM (2 children)
Rated 67% by democrats, 72% by Republicans and 99% by LGBTQ2S community.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @01:20AM (1 child)
Hey... Ethanol made the list twice. All the way at the bottom and all the way at the top.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday May 06 2019, @05:55AM
In vino veritas.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NateMich on Monday May 06 2019, @12:37AM (10 children)
It's hard to really say that I "trust" any of them. Even of those listed, I know ahead of time what their political leanings are. When you listen to / read their news stories those leanings come right through loud and clear.
So I guess I trust them to behave the way I already expect them to.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @01:28AM (1 child)
Once you realize they are not news but a way to advertise to you. You realize they can be bought. At that point they have low to no integrity as the only responsibility is to the ones paying the bills.
Most people do not use these things to get 'news' but to affirm what they already believe. You pick your flavor and that one tells you how amazeballs your party is and how smart you are to listen to them and how the other party is scum. They play to their audience.
When CNN went 24/7 live in the early 80s everyone was like 'what the hell are they going to report on'. Well turns out that this sort of station just has basically non stop political opinions disguised as facts. Apparently that sells really well. Where I work I am subjected to MSNBC which touts itself as a financial channel. The commercials are little more than scamy stuff (200 dollar foam pillows and silver coins). The advice is usually terrible. The pundants have no clue what really makes the market work (yet pretend they do). Yet people treat this as if they have something of substance to talk about. They dont, none of them do.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday May 06 2019, @04:33PM
Yes, but CNN also had Headline News (now HLN), which used to do nothing but produce a half hour news report and broadcast that 24/7, slight feature changes over a 2 hour cycle and the lead anchors changing up and different main stories every (4? 6?) hours. That was impressive journalism. Then in the 90s they started saving money (straight recycling anchors rather than live anchor reporting) and in the 2000s caved to the consumerism demographics.
But it was grand while it lasted - it was incredible and grand to be able to get a "live" half-hour news program whenever you wanted to turn it on. And the best proof I've found that one can have journalism independent from entertainment.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Monday May 06 2019, @03:04AM (5 children)
I don't trust any of them either. I see political slants in most sites I read. For me, the trick is to read multiple outlets. From all over the world from Times of India, Washington Post, Guardian, Aljazerra, BBC, NPR, etc., etc. No particular order, just check out a bunch of sites. Think about what you've read, look at the likely bias and *try* to make some sense of it. Most are biased, figure it out. With so many talking heads you can't focus on one place... Think!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday May 06 2019, @04:31AM
The problem is there's a high noise level, and normally the signal takes too much effort to delouse. But if they're saying something you actually NEED to have an opinion on, it could be worth that much effort. Perhaps. But even after all that work it would still be a mistake to really trust the answer you get, because the noise level is higher than the signal level. True, each piece of the noise has a bias that you can TRY to allow for, but even so...
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Monday May 06 2019, @06:00AM (3 children)
Ugh, I have a friend who's like that too, so she goes out looking for sites with counterbalancing coverage because of the mainstream media's bias. Which, given that she's into loony conspiracy theories, are invariably the craziest collections of tinfoil-hat nuttery you can find. In other words she seeks out sites and sources that support her conspiracy theories, because everyone knows the mainstream media is biased and can't be trusted.
Having said that, I agree with your comment "Think!". And not "think about what secret agenda the writer has", which just leads to conspiracy-theory insanity, but "think about whether what's being said is plausible, and if not, look for evidence for or against from other sources".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @09:07PM
Isn't this usually "code" for talking about yourself. 'My "friend" has this problem...'
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @09:52PM (1 child)
I think your friend's problem is that while she accurately recognizes that the mainstream media is biased and generally awful, she does not recognize that the conspiracy peddlers are even worse. So, it's just a lack of critical thinking skills, or critical thinking skills not being applied consistently.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday May 07 2019, @09:31AM
There's a bit more to it than that, she's from a country that's torn by racial violence and is close to civil war but feels that the world media is ignoring the brewing catastrophe there, so she goes to conspiracy-theory sites who cover it indirectly by publishing batshit-crazy racist crap. And then alongside that they also publish a pile of equally crazy nonsense which she picks up as collateral damage. I think it may be some type of reaction to trauma, but then I'm not a psychologist, just guessing around here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 06 2019, @03:26AM (1 child)
Yeah. What caught my eye immediately was the fact that they ranked them, rather than give an actual score. Maybe the #1 ranked news organization, the Economist, scored only 3%.
One thing I do trust is their greed. They won't play hardball with advertisers. And as I've said before, they are all much more strongly biased towards drama than left or right.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 06 2019, @04:36AM
Well, people in the US trust the Economist more, because it's more evenly biased about the US. (Granted "more" is a comparative term.) Also, not all that many people actually read their articles, and it's easier to trust a source if you don't look at it carefully.
Depending on the subject matter, I'd trust the Economist perhaps twice as much as the US source I consider most trustworthy. But if it's about things affecting Britain, that drops considerably. (Even so, they've got a philosophical bias that you need to allow for, but since you aren't their target audience, their twists won't be aimed at you.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:46AM (3 children)
Had been an subscriber to the Economists for decades, but then I've got to travel to other parts of the world, and then the Internet happened, where folks from the region talked back to the Economists writers that they are full of shit.
I am sure this is true of most other big-name media (NYT, NPR, WSJ, AP, Reuters, etc.), but specifically about the Economists, they hire "young bright things" from Oxbridge/LSE/U of London, send them off to places they have no clue about, get them send reports like they know what they are talking about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @02:59AM
I hear you on the Economist. They write up the conventional point of view in a way that gives the impression of being insightful. They've definitely hired the cream of the BS-artist crop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:13AM
Incompetence or malice? Intelligence agencies would love such a system if they could control it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 06 2019, @07:24PM
When the Economist was a purely British publication, their take was unapologetically in support of neo-liberal economics, personified by Milton Friedman. They argued consistently for abolishing tariffs and liberalising international trade and finance. Basically, they championed the project of globalization. They did not care about touchy-feely discussions about whether that was good for everybody. They scoffed at the impact on the environment. They cared not at all for non-Western cultures.
I always felt ambivalent about their project, but admired their pluck in its defense.
Then sometime in the early 90's they hired an American to run the magazine, and it morphed into the monster than gave us the Iraq War and WMDs, and which tried very, very hard to give us the Trans-Pacific Partnership to break the back of the West's resolve once and for all.
For a time Stratfor, an online magazine, took up the torch and they carried it high. But when I got my own personal window into the heart of the Beast that is the global government, I lost the taste for that too. Dunno where they're at now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:48AM
But Runaway does! Not surprizing. Another thing Runaway does not know.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mykl on Monday May 06 2019, @12:51AM (4 children)
I suspect that UK-based sites may be more trusted because they are reporting 'from the outside' and don't have a personal stake in the outcome of US politics. It makes it harder for the critics (on either side) to throw accusations of bias, ulterior motive etc.
Interestingly, there was recently an undercover investigation in Australia performed by Al Jazeera which revealed some very poor behaviour from senior members of one of the more right-leaning parties here. The defence used by those caught out was to accuse the Qatar government (who owns Al Jazeera) of trying to influence Australian politics. That claim didn't stick, because Al Jazeera is known for good journalism.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @03:29AM
This is hilariously ignorant. There is a reason the head of GCHQ resigned soon after Trumps inaugeration: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/23/gchq-chief-robert-hannigan-quits [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday May 06 2019, @06:03AM (2 children)
They're in an odd position there, I have friends who are kinda right-wing conspiracy-theory people but they read Al Jazeera, which would be kinda the last news source I'd expect them to go to because of their political views.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:07AM (1 child)
For an unbiased source on the US activities you need to read real news from China (sorry you will have to translate or learn the language). For example, this trade war that Trumps says he is winning. Billion of Chinese have responded in surveys that they would prefer to starve than let Trump win on trade.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @07:51AM
And happen to be a high ranking member of The Party. I am sure the reports given to Xi and friends is quite reliable, however I wouldn't trust most of the state-owned propaganda too much more than the local corporate shills.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @01:11AM (9 children)
If the news said it was sunny outside, I'd take a fucking umbrella.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ilPapa on Monday May 06 2019, @01:18AM (8 children)
If you need the news to tell you whether or not it's sunny outside, you probably should carry an umbrella with you at all times.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @01:30AM (7 children)
We could have the reporters from CNN standing in a ditch waist deep in water to show how bad things are while their camera crew stand in a small puddle with the water slightly up their shoes. When they start lying about the weather you really have to wonder WTF is wrong with them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @02:08PM
Bzzzzzt.
You have to wonder who is paying them.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 07 2019, @04:02AM (5 children)
One of 'em already did that, literally. Squatted down in hip-deep water to make it look drowning-deep, to shovel some agenda (and was roundly mocked when the truth leaked out) Don't recall if it was CNN or MSNBC, but one of the very-MSMs.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Tuesday May 07 2019, @06:28AM (4 children)
Just for the record: that story has been debunked. A meme was created in 2018 purporting to be from Hurricane Florence that was actually from a 2008 special about Hurricane Ike in which Anderson Cooper was walking through a street in Texas and was demonstrating the variations in water depth because people were drowning in what looked like shallow water. The video the still was taken from showed Cooper walking across what looked like a flat street where there was actually a ditch created by the flooding washing away pavement.
The whole story, shared widely by MAGA jackoffs, was bullshit. But you probably already knew that, but don't care any more because your hatred for any media that does not celebrate the greatness of Donald Trump has so distorted your sense of honesty that you believe lying about your enemies is now fair play.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/ [snopes.com]
https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/verify/verify-viral-picture-of-anderson-cooper-in-deep-water-is-not-from-florence/507-595175925 [wkyc.com]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:44AM (3 children)
[looks] Nope, not the same one. Some other reporter (definitely not Cooper; also, this guy at least got wet, Cooper is wearing waders). The one I'm thinking of had chainlink fence all along the shoreline with the camera crew lined up next to it, and the guy was actually taped standing up from where he'd been squatting. IIRC it was from Houston and H.Harvey.
"But you probably already knew that, but don't care any more because your hatred for any media that does not celebrate the greatness of Donald Trump has so distorted your sense of honesty that you believe lying about your enemies is now fair play."
If I paid that much attention to media, I'd have to point out that perhaps we've picked up bad habits from our enemies.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:45AM (2 children)
I was in Houston through Hurricane Harvey. Right smack in the middle of it. If there was some CNN or MSNBC correspondent squatting in a puddle to make it look deep, you would be able to find a link to it, which you cannot. The street in front of my house was under 50 inches of water, so I seriously doubt anyone had to fake being in deep water during Harvey. The water on I-59 was almost all the way up to the bottom of the overpasses. They were taking people off of rooftops with helicopters on my block because many of the houses are low-lying.
You made an accusation against "the MSM". Put up or shut up.
https://images.app.goo.gl/Z1w5n7aSnzTj8ofL6 [app.goo.gl]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday May 09 2019, @02:02AM (1 child)
I know what it was like; friend had water up to his house. Not saying there wasn't deep water (tho not as deep as the previous big flood!) -- in fact that was what made this ridiculous, no need to fake it, coulda gone swimming outright just about anywhere. Anyway if I happen to see it again you'll be the next to know. I don't think I saved it, because journalism credibility is already in the dumpster, what's one more?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Thursday May 09 2019, @05:37AM
Thanks. I keep a bit of a scrapbook about my year in Houston that ended immediately after Harvey. I'm sorry if I came down hard on you. I know it's politically correct among those on the right to complain about the "MSM", but the fact is journalism is not only alive and well, but doing a lot better now than it has since the 1970s. The movement on the right to try to convince people that nothing you see on the news is true is the most Orwellian thing I've seen in my lifetime and it gets my hackles up.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @01:21AM (2 children)
This was from almost two years ago? WTF???
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday May 06 2019, @01:35AM (1 child)
SoylentNews: trusted by time travellers everywhere.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday May 06 2019, @04:38PM
Especially for those of us just 20 minutes into the future [wikipedia.org]...
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @02:19AM (1 child)
Wow an online survey given to people who read news sites said they trust the sites they read. And I would never fill out such a survey (or likely even be exposed to it in whatever annoying popup they used to "entice" people to take it), so this does not represent me. Really you can say this applies to the subset of the population that clicks on those annoying popups that are appearing everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 07 2019, @06:15AM
Looks like a Runaway submission. I much preferred "Runaway Bride" with Julia Roberts.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @03:04AM
A very simple story about friends giving favors to friends -- and thereby monopolizing the main PR outlets of a multibillion-dollar industry, and thereafter faking the news -- was flagrantly falsified into a story about the supposed "harassment" of Helldump, Bantown, and GNAA trolls. Why would the media do that? These friends all worked on the Obama campaign together and so no one in the media -- or the organizations that supposedly watch and fact-check the media -- wanted to say anything bad about Democrats. The only people that got the story right were Breitbart and Milo Yiannopoulos, which is why there is such a strong push to censor them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 06 2019, @01:38PM (18 children)
A couple easy rules of thumb to evaluate media sources now are delivering well-sourced facts in a neutral tone and an absence of tribal signaling. That disqualifies about 98% of commercial media across the spectrum. Almost no one outfit meets that bar. There are a handful of people on some channels who do better than 60%.
Off the top of my head, I'd name Glenn Greenwald and the Intercept, Bill Maher, Tucker Carlson, Styxhexenhammer, Tim Pool, Bill Whittle, Anthony Brian Logan (ABL), and Lauren Chen. Were he still active I'd name Jon Stewart too. Those of you who recognize those names know they run the gamut from left to right, through weird. But a throughline i perceive is that they are not afraid to call bullshit on their own "side."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @02:15PM (8 children)
That would be ideal.
Yet a problem remains. Whatever the facts actually are, there will be people who do not like those facts. (And this shoe fits both the goose and the gander without need of any special cables or adapter dongles, not that I would mix metaphores)
Some of the people who do not like actual facts, in a neutral tone, without tribal signalling, happen to have money, power and/or influence. Or a big megaphone. An agenda. A big online community. Or a lot of faithful donors who will vote the way God tells them to vote.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @02:26PM (6 children)
> Whatever the facts actually are, there will be people who do not like those facts.
And those people are called republicans.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @05:30PM (3 children)
People who do not like facts, will not argue the facts. Instead they need to find an expert, just one, who will disagree with other scientists. Now a thing called a Controversy has been manufactured. (Assuming its constructor doesn't upchuck an exception.)
Once there is a controversy, it is no longer necessary to argue the facts. When facts are brought up, they are controversial.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:11PM
Like I said... republicans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:18PM (1 child)
I was trying to lose weight and someone suggested getting whooping cough since when they got it as a child they coughed so much they couldn't eat for like a month.
Now here comes your denial of that "fact".
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @10:00PM
I wouldn't deny that this could happen to you.
But that doesn't make it good dieting advice.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 06 2019, @06:31PM (1 child)
DannyB did a good job of making a neutral point. You're giving us a good example of a tribal call.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 07 2019, @12:49AM
Republican!!!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 06 2019, @06:29PM
Sure, but the topic of discussion was news sources and how trusted they are. Those rules of thumb are just the ones I use, offered up in case anyone else might find them useful also.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @02:16PM (2 children)
I trust Sarah Huckleberry Sanders.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @05:41PM (1 child)
That's good. She recently said she wanted to be remembered for being honest and transparent.
(yes, really!)
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @07:34PM
Well, at least she got the transparent part done.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @07:22PM (2 children)
That demon satanic national (SOCIALIST) public radio!!
Newsing all calmly in between their uppity classical music and hipster jazz. I don't know what they're up to but I can tell you this:
I don't like it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @08:20PM (1 child)
Only an alt-right nazi would not like NPR's ongoing moral panic over how oppressed the illegal aliens, homosexuals, and trannies are. Antifa would like to have a word with you...
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 07 2019, @01:01AM
First the Muslin, now the Satin! What's next, Garbardine? Tweed? Is there no fabric the alt-right is not afraid of?
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Tuesday May 07 2019, @06:33AM (2 children)
When have you ever heard Tucker Carlson "call bullshit on his own side"? When have you ever heard Tucker Carlson admit to having made a mistake?
Also, Tim Pool doesn't really "call bullshit on his own side" because his side is not what he claims it is. He's made a career out of being the "lib who supports white supremacy". At some point, you are what you support, you know?
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 07 2019, @12:56PM (1 child)
Tim Pool is half Korean. Really doubt he supports white supremacy.
All the time, actually. That is, he's a populist who's always calling bullshit on the power elites.
You're not gonna see that if you're as steeped in the tribal narrative as your words seem to indicate. In fact it's quite telling how far identitarians have slid along the spectrum that they now call everyone who doesn't want to climb their pyramid of victimhood alt-right Nazis, when those people haven't changed their views and as little as five years ago called themselves progressive.
To me it seems tragic that after watching Republicans go berserk over the Benghazi and Fast and Furious episodes that they have themselves entered a rectal-cranial recursion so intense that it is about to collapse into a singularity, without even a tiny, tiny shred of self-awareness that that is what's happening.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Tuesday May 07 2019, @04:18PM
Would you like to see a list of prominent jews who supported Nazis?
Forget the fact that Tim Pool constantly hosts white supremacists on his podcast and amplifies their message. Just a cursory search of his discord discourse demonstrates his true affinity:
https://discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/search?q=consider+the+assertion&s=91 [discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 1) by VacuumTube on Monday May 06 2019, @03:50PM
And I can honestly say that the reporting is pretty much status quo, biased in favor of corporate Democrats. Definitely not progressive.
VT