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Comment by randomgyatwork | Hacker News Reader

True, it is not their job to predict the future... But if they go about doing that, then they are responsible. No one is forcing news organizations to publish polls, they do it by choice.

But that is hardly the point, most of the media told us for months that Trump wasn't a real candidate, then he wouldn't win and that Clinton was the only real candidate and you had choose her. They published tons of positive articles about her and tones of negative about him.

In a general sense this tarnishes their credibility, either they lied or they didn't know what they were talking about for the last 6 months.

Being wrong about who would win isn't so much of the problem, its more about being totally clueless about what was going on and what people actually thought about the situation.... They failed at their job of telling everyone what had happened.

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They were not the ones predicting anything. Polls were doing that. They were just reporting what the polls said.

Judging by what you say I would have never heard anything bad about Clinton. No one ever brought up her emails. We didn't hear anything about a new investigation. /s

Oddly enough we never really did hear in the news that Trump had two court cases coming up after the election. I literally never heard that mentioned on GMA. I heard about the Clinton-Comey investigation every morning.

If you keep repeating something that isn't true, people stop listening to what you say... It doesn't mater if you made up the story or someone told it to you, the spreader takes the responsibility when it comes to reputation.

> In a general sense this tarnishes their credibility, either they lied or they didn't know what they were talking about for the last 6 months.

I think we have very different understandings of what the news is about. Maybe you're comparing more editorial aspects, while I'm concentrating on reportage of facts? So, 'not a real candidate, not able to win, clinton is only real candidate, have to choose her' are all opinion. Whereas Trump says he wants to build a wall, Trump boasts about being able to sexually assault women, Trumps campaign has ties to Russia and is being helped by Russia, the polls as they were, Trumps refusal to take standard steps to avoid conflict of interest and to be transparent were and are all facts.

Individuals that appeared saying the things you said were opinion pieces, and they potentially should reevaluate (although quite a few of them are not proved wrong by the simple fact of Trump winning). Individuals saying the things I listed were reporting facts. Just because a lot of facts were particularly unflattering for one of the candidates doesn't mean that reporting was wrong or biased, and all the calls for the MSM to beat itself up for how it was wrong make no sense. The things I listed don't go away just because Trump won.

To be clear, I'm not taking a position on either candidate, they both seemed to be the absolute least likeable option.

The line between 'opinion' and 'fact' is mostly invisible, in fact presenting anything beyond the exact quoted words of a person is speculation and opinion. A story that gives context to a quote by its very nature has a bias or opinion to it.

It is very rare if ever the case that a purely factual, dry presentation of facts is presented in the news. For this reason it seems unreasonable to hold that as the standard of news.

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