Do you trust the mainstream media?

It is possible for the media to misrepresent a story, while still releasing good information. The trick is to not present all the data, equally weighed. Data slanting can lead people to draw the wrong conclusion.

For example, say you have led a good life of community service, where you do good by others, 90% of your time. Say you were now running for office and biased media only presented the hard facts from the other 10% of your time. This 10% of your life data will make you look selfish and even petty. If this is all the data people see, some people will draw the wrong global conclusion of your life. All the facts will be both the 90% service and the 10% time to recharge your batteries. All the data will make you appear like a good but imperfect person. But if we presented either just the 90%, or the just the 10%, we can lead people to conclude you are saint or a reprobate.

As a current example, the hard data shows Trump making many insulting comments. If you fact check, this data is true. If we add up the time used by all these insulting comments, and divide this by all Trump's wake hours, over the past 1 1/2 years, this may reflect 1-2% of Trump's time. A person who is not aware of these data time proportions, but who only sees the 1-2% data, may conclude, that insulting people represents 100% of what Trump does.
So you want to discount all the personal attacks by Trump, all the documented lying, all the abuse of supposedly charitable donations, and other bad actions because Trump made money and you like that. That seems foolish.
The way I do counter this is to weight the time the data spans. With Hillary, she has many periods of alleged corruption, which she seems to get way with.
Or that wasn't corruption.
These spans her entire career in politics. She appears to use her power to benefit herself, and then use her power to help her escape justice.
Sure, to you, without any evidence, that is what it appears like. So should we trust the evidence or the gut feeling somebody who is willing to accept bad actions from people who make a lot of money?
 
And media left and right of the political spectrum, also skip info along with putting their left or right stance on it.
Mainstream media may sensationalise as all media do, but most times its easy to work though the syrup.
Extreme media, both extreme left and right certainly do outright lie.
We have a notable shortage of extreme media of the left in general, and I can't off hand think of a single one that outright lies - even in the fringes, where they all dwell.

On the extreme right we have nationally syndicated TV, internet, and radio programs whose brand names are household words, that do in fact outright lie on a regular basis. The presenters of James O'Keefe videos, for example.

A similar difference in prevalence and behavior exists in the non-extreme media of the left and right - the ones that skip info and "put their stance on it".

That difference in the real world would seem to have some bearing on the allegations of conspiracy. There has to be somebody around to do the conspiring.
 
As a current example, the hard data shows Trump making many insulting comments. If you fact check, this data is true. If we add up the time used by all these insulting comments, and divide this by all Trump's wake hours, over the past 1 1/2 years, this may reflect 1-2% of Trump's time. A person who is not aware of these data time proportions, but who only sees the 1-2% data, may conclude, that insulting people represents 100% of what Trump does.
Well, to be fair, they also report on his financial connections to Putin, his advocacy of violence, his bankruptcies, his mistreatment of the women in the pageants he sponsored, his racist and misogynist statements in his books and his discrimination against blacks. So they are reporting on the bad 10% of his life, not the bad 1-2%.

Now let's look at Clinton.

The media has consistently focused on one small part of one job she had - her handling of emails - which consists of about .1% of her time. Her work for the Children's Defense Fund, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the 9/11 responders medical fund, the Family Leave act, and LGBT rights are ignored. The Middle East ceasefire she brokered? Overlooked. The 9 million AIDS victims the Clinton Foundation helped? Can't hear that over the roar of the media reporting on the latest failed attempt to investigate her emails. The No Ceilings project? Never heard of it; all I can hear is Comey talking about her emails.

So yes, it happens on both sides - and you need to do your own research.
 
Back
Top