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Comment by proximitysauce | Hacker News Reader

It's much more rare though and it's almost entirely absent when looking at political coverage. Two journalists I can think of off the top of my head who have acted with outstanding integrity in recent years are Ronan Farrow and Julie K. Brown (broke the Weinstein and Epstein stories respectively). Part of what makes their journalism so strong is that they had to fight the entire industry to get their stories out.

Political coverage is a nightmare though. Just yesterday George Stephanopoulos was caught on camera acting in an extremely partisan manner [1]. This happens on both sides of the isle regularly at this point (the White House itself is hardly faultless). It's only ratcheted up since 2016 where it seems the press took it up themselves to "save" us, where the definition of save seems to be: push their own political opinions.

1. https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1220758756071497728

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Honestly mate, you need to find better news then. It's out there, but it's not 24/7 stuff. The GP is right, there are vastly more good, professional journalists than the celebrity-style 'It-girls' on the networks.

There's plenty of political reporters doing excellent work. Get off Twitter and turn off cable news, they're a mess. But outside of that world there's no shortage of professionals who take the work seriously AND go through a fact checking process.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22146480.

> caught on camera acting in an extremely partisan manner

I'm sorry, but even as political talking points go this makes no sense. He made a "cut" gesture during a live feed, but live news broadcasts cut from one feed to another dozens of times per hour, and the feed he was motioning to cut wasn't of any particular importance to either party (it was a Trump lawyer listening to someone off-camera asking a question). That's hardly "extremely partisan".

>Just yesterday George Stephanopoulos was caught on camera acting in an extremely partisan manner [1]

To be fair, Stephanopoulos was a Democratic operative for years before transitioning to media. Why would you expect him to not be partisan?

I wouldn't but I also wouldn't expect a political operative to become the chief anchor and political correspondent of a major network.

The problem I see is that no one can agree on what is right or the truth any longer. What one side considers the truth might not be the same for the other, look no further than the impeachment proceedings.

I'm amazed that we've reached a point in the USA where we can't agree on some simple truths anymore.

>I'm am amazed that we've reached a point the in the USA where we can't agree on some simple truths anymore.

I'm curious. Can you give one or two examples of the 'simple truths' that we can't agree on anymore?

>What one side considers the truth might not be the same for the other, look no further than the impeachment proceedings.

The impeachment proceedings are interesting examples because I truly believe that objectively, even if the facts are as stated by the Democrats, it would be a gross abuse to remove Trump from office for that. It's bonkers. Trump's conduct, at best, warrants a Congressional censure. But I take your point one two sides looking at the same event but interpreting it vastly differently. The Kavanaugh nomination was the same way, as well as coverage around Covington kids (could not believe as it was happening that news reports would profile children in the way they did).

One simple truth in dispute is that vaccines save lives and do not cause autism.

Thanks that's a perfect example.

See also “anthropogenic climate change is real”

"I'm curious. Can you give one or two examples of the 'simple truths' that we can't agree on anymore?"

"Should Trump be impeached for leveraging military aid to require an investigation into local companies in a nation that was ostensibly interfering in American politics, when the target of said investigation is a political opponent, thereby creating an obvious conflict of interest"

"Should Hillary Clinton be charged for communicating sensitive information using persona devices, or deleting information requested by the FBI during the subsequent investigation"

These are really hard issues actually.

If you stand outside your hatred or love for these people, and stand outside of your own political preferences, they become considerably more nuanced and difficult than we'd care to admit.

They are not black and white enough to have easy answers, and so, we get narratives, misinformation, and polarisation.

> The problem I see is that no one can agree on what is right or the truth any longer.

I don't think this is a new problem in politics at all. In my earliest memories of observing politics I remember being outraged at the convenient redefinition of words. Politicians are basically advocates for an agenda (most of them are even trained attorneys). And most everything they do and say is designed to further that agenda. Character is secondary and will not be what gets them elected/re-elected.

That Stephanopoulos example of partisan behavior is an incredible choice, especially when you then claim that the White House is "hardly faultless". Given that you could randomly choose virtually any second of Fox News coverage and have a much worse example, still you chose this?

Stephanopoulos was giving directing clues for his own talk program. There is positively nothing "partisan" about that, however partisan he may be. The White House, on the other hand...well let's not even go there.

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