The Most Trusted Name in News...

[druryj]

For as long as I can remember, CNN has proclaimed itself as the "most trusted name in news"...

I recall us using CNN as a source of information in Desert Storm back in 1991...we felt we could pretty much rely on them to actually report the news, and not just make it up. I'm not sure what happened to journalistic integrity, and when the dramatic shift away from that began, but today, one has to take the news from pretty much any site or source with a grain of salt. It seems that ratings are more important than honesty.

Remember guys like Walther Cronkite? I'm sure we have a lot of members here who are too young to remember him, and some may not have even heard of him. But when he told us about something happening in the world, you could count it being reported on fairly and accurately. Compare old school honest journalists like him to the "reporters" we hear today and there's really just no comparison. I never thought I'd see a journalist act like Keith Olberman recently did. https://www.foxnews.com/media/keith-olbermann-amy-coney-barrett-trump-prosecuted-removed-society

So what happened? Is it really as simple as working for the ratings (or the money)?

 

[38Super]

Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Eric Severid, Huntley & Brinkley.
Back when they just gave the news and you could form your own opinion.
Would be interesting to hear their take on things.

 

[RickN]

Sadly things started going down hill during the Vietnam war when the media figured out they could play politics. Walter Cronkite even admitted it at one point and Dan Rather totally lost it during the Bush campaign with his fake but true story.

 

[HFS]

I believe there are several factors but I think that money (ratings) is the biggest driver of it all.

Some of the old time reporters have said that the quality of news coverage went to hell when the 24 hour news cycle started.
The old geezers also said that the Big 3 tv networks back in the day didn't expect the news departments to make a lot of money for them since the comedies, dramas, soap operas carried the networks.
Now ratings for ALL broadcast tv shows (except maybe the Super Bowl and NCAA Final Four basketball tourney) are in the crapper.
The broadcast networks are absolutely desperate for eyes to watch and it shows.

^^I'll add one thing that is gonna piss a lot of people off.
As bad as the network news is, it cannot hold a candle to the sorry ass local reporting and news coverage on TV, ESPECIALLY the constant OMG THE SKY IS FALLING weather coverage.
Oklahoma weather can be no joke, but the forecast is a shrieking "Tune in and we'll tell you when we will see the next chance of SUH-VE-AR WEATHER, when WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!"
That's basically the forecast on the local stations,
Every.
Single.
Day.

 

[emapples]

For as long as I can remember, CNN has proclaimed itself as the "most trusted name in news"...

I recall us using CNN as a source of information in Desert Storm back in 1991...we felt we could pretty much rely on them to actually report the news, and not just make it up. I'm not sure what happened to journalistic integrity, and when the dramatic shift away from that began, but today, one has to take the news from pretty much any site or source with a grain of salt. It seems that ratings are more important than honesty.

Remember guys like Walther Cronkite? I'm sure we have a lot of members here who are too young to remember him, and some may not have even heard of him. But when he told us about something happening in the world, you could count it being reported on fairly and accurately. Compare old school honest journalists like him to the "reporters" we hear today and there's really just no comparison. I never thought I'd see a journalist act like Keith Olberman recently did. https://www.foxnews.com/media/keith-olbermann-amy-coney-barrett-trump-prosecuted-removed-society

So what happened? Is it really as simple as working for the ratings (or the money)?

This goes far, far, far beyond integrity. There is a two prong reasoning behind the fall of news. 1) 90% of media today is brainwashed left wing college graduates. 2) Colleges which are 99% liberal have brainwashed million upon millions of liberals in the last half century and those people are now in the population and those same people allow them to get away with it (which should be more worrisome). Cronkite, Dan Rather, were both ultra liberal and the liberal takeover likely began with them. The problem is the vast majority of America would not allow the fake news back then. I remember my grandfather thinking Cronkite was a pinko commy bastard.. ..and well .....Dan Rather is no longer trying to hide his ultra left leanings.

We are becoming a nation of cults you have the left and the right, and if I had to live under one its gong to be the one that calls for less governmen, less taxes and more personal freedoms. That isn’t what the liberals believe so that is why I am a conservative.

 

[TwoForFlinching]

The reason no news network is actually a news network is the internet. While they still spout off the same thing you read about hours/days earlier, they figured out that people tune in for what the internet doesn't have, the editorials of the newscasters you've invited into your house for so long.

There's not a single unbiased newscast/program/channel/network in America, or the world for that matter.

In a weird vicious cycle, due to the popularity of these biased tv outlets, internet outlets have stumbled into the world of editorial, spin, and bias themselves making unbiased, factual news a rarity on any media you want to consume. Ironically, the most objective news you can find these days comes from radio. As most news briefs have to fit a specified time slot, companies won't waste time with editorial, rather leaving opinions to those who have shows on air.

 

[HFS]

There was a show on OETA about the role of the news media in the JFK assassination, I think it was hosted by Jane Pauley.
They said that was the first time that TV news started putting people on the air who hadn't seen anything or even been close enough to hear the shots, just to fill up the airtime because it was considered such an important event.
(They were asking them how does it make you feel, etc.)

They also said all three networks had film crews in the basement of Dallas Police HQ when Oswald was shut up, permanently. Only NBC chose to broadcast, on live TV, the attempted transfer of Oswald from the city jail to the county jail.

 

[druryj]

@emapples: Not so sure about your percentages there, but you are correct in that most colleges and universities do lean left. My second career was in higher ed here in Oklahoma, and yes, most of my colleagues were democrats, but the differences even 7 or 8 years ago is not nearly as much as it is today. I'd say that the big schools on both coasts may be more guilty of what you say, but not so much in the Midwest.

Add this: As stated above, the 24 hour news cycle has changed the way we get the news. That and the Internet. We get information (propaganda etc) in real time now, we don't have to wait until the nightly news at 10PM anymore, or read about it in the paper the next day. And the sources; the internet provides us with tons of sites that "report" the news...take your pick; examples are say...CNN (left) and the New York Post (right). They may both "report" the same story, but they will tell often it entirely differently, formed to fit their politics.

What I am driving at here is the question of what happened to "just the facts" - just tell me the facts and let me form my own opinion. Instead, it seems we are told how to think more and more by the media than we were just a few years ago. Who knows what to believe anymore?

Edited: I think the BBC actually does a better job of reporting with some integrity than about anybody else.

 

[TwoForFlinching]

@emapples: Not so sure about your percentages there, but you are correct in that most colleges and universities do lean left. My second career was in higher ed here in Oklahoma, and yes, most of my colleagues were democrats, but the differences even 7 or 8 years ago is not nearly as much as it is today. I'd say that the big schools on both coasts may be more guilty of what you say, but not so much in the Midwest.

Add this: As stated above, the 24 hour news cycle has changed the way we get the news. That and the Internet. We get information (propaganda etc) in real time now, we don't have to wait until the nightly news at 10PM anymore, or read about it in the paper the next day. And the sources; the internet provides us with tons of sites that "report" the news...take your pick; examples are say...CNN (left) and the New York Post (right). They may both "report" the same story, but they will tell often it entirely differently, formed to fit their politics.

What I am driving at here is the question of what happened to "just the facts" - just tell me the facts and let me form my own opinion. Instead, it seems we are told how to think more and more by the media than we were just a few years ago. Who knows what to believe anymore?

Edited: I think the BBC actually does a better job of reporting with some integrity than about anybody else.

BBC is pretty hard-core about editorializing. They are rumored to have a zero-tolerance policy, and past public firings prove it.

 

[dennishoddy]

For whatever reason some of us prefer the news outlets across to pond to actually get the news as it happened, not as the US outlets wish it would have happened.