Is objective news reporting/commentary important to you?

[TZ]

Just curious. I and my ultra liberal sister have BOTH sworn off of cable news programs because it seems to be more important to them to tell you what to think and believe than to actually report on the news. Obviously I find Fox truly disgusting in its practices. But more and more I find both MSNBC and CNN to practicing the same kinds of things, if with a liberal slant in the case of MSNBC. I don't want pre-digested news..I want the facts and the ability to make up my own mind. Increasingly even MSNBC is making me distrustful that I am not getting all the facts that I need to know..This whole thing with Olbermann pisses me off because I don't like it when conservative journalists do it, and I like it less when someone whom I used to trust did it.

One of the reasons Olbermann's quite blatant lack of objectivity bothers me is because I think it makes it hard for anyone who is not extremely liberal to take anything he says seriously...and that is bad to me...Preaching to the choir simply is not an effective tool in journalism I think. It makes me wonder, what if Bob Woodward had been known to be extremely liberal and have a personal dislike for Richard Nixon? Would his reports about Watergate been taken seriously? Would Nixon have fallen? No way to know, but its why bias in any body who reports or comments on the news bothers me.

I was arguing about this with friends on FB..and I think one person said something that resonates--I think I might have to resort to watching BBC for news because they seem to try their damndest to report facts and not political beliefs.
Posting here because having a hard time finding any kind of rational discussion about this elsewhere.:-( x(

[Behind the Aegis]

1. True reporting/journalism should have no bias.

Facts are facts. When I read a news article, I should not be able to determine left/right, conservative/progressive, black/white, or anything else. That said, talk shows and the like are different in my opinion because they do have bias, and we can learn from them too, but we just know which way the wind blows.

[HuckleB]

2. Yup, but it's been very hard to find for at least 20 years.

[salvorhardin]

3. Both straight journalism and opinion/analysis are important to me

The reason is that I first want the facts, but I'm not always in a position to completely understand the facts, or know that I'm not getting all the facts, and I appreciate people who are capable of looking at the facts in a different way than I am. And no, one doesn't get that with Olbermann. As you said, Olbermann is mostly preaching to the choir and I don't really consider what he does as journalism.

[charlie]

4. Cable news isn't news

And the rest of the major media news isn't very good, either. That's obvious enough.

But, partisan reporting and infotainment IS the sort of "news" most people want to watch, more so with every passing year. So, I'm grateful for Keith, Rachel, et al. They broke into the conservative hothouse and proved progressively slanted commentary and analysis was a viable ratings draw. Don't discount what they're doing as merely preaching to the choir. Limbaugh and the innumerable idiots who followed changed the political slant of the country. Hugely. We're long past due for some liberal pushback, and would be getting creamed worse than we are without it.

Personally, I'm with you, I can't take getting ranted at for very long. I don't even watch TV. But, we're outliers. TV nation is addicted to conflict and controversy, so it's important they can get alternatives to Glenn Beck in their diet.

Bernstein was the liberal, BTW. Woodword was an ambitious weasel with shady connections :)

[Codeine]

5. I'll admit to enjoy Maddow and KO, but that isn't really "news.'

When I want news - factual information presented in an understandable and concise fashion - I pretty much consider the BBC World Service the gold standard, and I listen to it nightly.

And while it's not popular with most of DU I also consider NPR to be a solid and informative source of news and information. Democracy Now, beloved of my friends and fellow posters, is pretty awful most of the time.

[salvorhardin]

6. Same here

I tend to listen to the BBC, CBC and NPR for factual news content, although I do think NPR relies too heavily on conservative experts (American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, CATO, etc.). Between the three, I feel like I get a pretty good overview of the major stories.

And yeah, while I think what's happening to Pacifica Radio is heart breaking (basically they've been taken over by a cabal of far left nut jobs) because the Pacifica mothership and member stations do produce some excellent programming, I still think Democracy Now is just awful. Bad production values, bad interviews, bad sound, all too often thoroughly uncritical.

[realisticphish]

8. yes

the guests and stories are often very interesting, but they suck at interviewing, and even their script-reading blows

[Odin2005]

7. The BBC is pretty good, but even they have a Neo-Liberal bias.

I would rather people be open about their biases instead of hiding them and putting on airs about being objective, because total objectivity is impossible. Just the fact of who your bosses are or where your money comes from can unconsciously bias a journalist.

[mr blur]

9. We're lucky to have the BBC here.

Although I prefer BBC radio news, it's still wonderful to have programmes on either medium with no commercials.

[LeftishBrit]

10. At least, until the Tories destroy it...

As seems to be their ambition.

[Warpy]

11. Fact checking is extremely important to me

Political bias, not so much. I would rather have the bias right out in the open, rather than cloaked in the illusion of objectivity and lying through omission the way the broadcast networks do.

You will never hear a story about how we need to cut the Pentagon budget on anything NBC owns, for instance, and I noted many years ago when big stories about the damage tobacco does were breaking that they'd never show up on ABC. Every single corporate news outlet is going to lie by omission in order not to offend the parent corporation. That's just the nature of the beast.

Just don't actively lie to me. I really hate that.

[TZ]

12. Hate to say it but

I have in the business sources that have flat out told me before that this fellow "makes shit up" from time to time. I did not believe this person at the time. I do now, unfortunately....Much like politicians are all crooks, I now believe these talking heads are all lying egomaniacs in it only for their own self aggrandizement.