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Comment by josquindesprez | Hacker News Reader

I'd honestly have a hard time making a case that Fox News is less net bad for society than Facebook as of today. But Fox News feels like the "end-stage" version of whatever you'd call that particular flavor of classic corruption and human-brain-hijacking, whereas Facebook has been visibly improving its algorithmic behavior control abilities, has already invented new flavors of human-brain-hijacking, and seems to be getting better and better at making us worse every day.

We've learned how to handle the old style of human-brain-hijacking. Those lessons were written in blood and war. Facebook has few parallels, only distant rumblings of far worse lessons to be learned.

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> I'd honestly have a hard time making a case that Fox News is less net bad for society than Facebook as of today.

If you were to put "any media outlet" in place of "Fox News", I would agree with you.

Part of the problem is that so many people think it's only the media outlets that say things they disagree with that are the problem. It isn't. It's all of them, no matter what side they're on or what point of view they're advancing. They will all lie and manipulate when it suits them.

> They will all lie and manipulate when it suits them.

Absolutely. At the same time I think it makes sense to single out Fox News at this current moment. For several years now they have they been a straight-up propaganda mouthpiece. They’re noticeably worse.

I’d call myself a Progressive, but FWIW as a habit I don’t watch any television news regularly - I read.

Point being I think it’s reasonable to say that you can’t say with a straight face that Fox News is - at this particular moment - equivalent to other networks.

Fox News isn’t designed to be even handed. “Fair and Balanced” is an inside joke. It’s designed to bring balance to a media industry that skews heavily left by offering the countervailing view on issues. (I do agree it’s gone downhill since Ailes left. Megyn Kelly has said as much.)

To put it differently: you cannot understand what’s going on in the world just reading the NYT and watching CNN, especially in the Trump era. Those outlets may oftentimes be closer to the truth in their conclusions, but they’ll completely strip context and nuance from issues in favor of preferred narrative. CNN will happily air a video with buildings burning in the background and “mostly peaceful protests” in the chyron: https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-panned-for-on-air-graphic-...; https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/only-some-kinds-of-pro....

One thing that’s remarkable is that in the last 6 months, I’ve had Democrats confide to me that they’re harboring skepticism of the media because they noticed how much the media downplayed the violence of what was happening in their cities.

The whole media is skewing left is completely fabricated. If anything most media has traditionally been moderate conservative. It is simply that part of the republican part has moved so far to the right that Reagan would likely be kicked out today.

And this to a large degree has been driven by Fox News. It is also important to point out that they are different to most other news media in that they categorize most of their shows as entertainment not news, the reason that they can not be held accountable for knowingly telling outright lies.

We’re not talking about 1971. CNN started in 1980. Fox News didn’t become popular until the early 2000s. My theory is that it arose in response to a distinct leftward swing in the media, where they were obviously rooting for Gore: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/ju.... In 2002, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 2:1 among journalists. By 2013 it was 4:1. Today, self-identified liberals outnumber self-identified conservatives 13:1 https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-lef.... Journalists overwhelmingly donated to Clinton: https://publicintegrity.org/politics/journalists-shower-hill...

You can see the distinct leftward swing in coverage of the 2019 primary. The media was completely blindsided by the victory of Biden, and the implosion of progressive superstars like Warren and Harris.

Harris was a progressive superstar?

And Fox News is propaganda ... it's not a good thing for any news organization to be like that - regardless of the media environment as a whole.

The argument that the media is left leaning seems to be based largely on the notion of "if you don't agree with everything I say and ask difficult questions you must have a left bias". Have a look at this Shapiro interview https://m.youtube.com/watch?index=616&list=LLj44HgVlqL7Qgzft.... For some context Andrew Neil the journalist being accused by Shapiro of a left wing bias, is an ultra conservative. Anyone with some knowledge of the UK media would fall over laughing hearing this accusation.

I’m not convinced that the majority of “the media” skews to the left (although some subsets, like say, the NYT opinion page probably do). CNN however is definitely left leaning, at least in the era of Trump. I don’t remember them always being this left leaning, I feel like they saw the success of Fox News and decided they needed a foil on the left.

> To put it differently: you cannot understand what’s going on in the world just reading the NYT and watching CNN

Absolutely. At the same time, regardless of what other news you consume, all Fox News is good for is taking the temperature of the American paranoid right and/or your low-information voters with authoritarian sympathies. Or folks who just like the news babes.

Or of those who have a difficult time acknowleding uncomfortable truths. Or do not wish to say certain things out loud.

And before you admonish me - the issue is not a lack of broadmindness on my part, or a lack of desire to debate/discuss. The issue is that Fox News is propaganda pushing morally and ethically outrageous policies. They're not the only one but they're by far - by far - the worst (at this time).

Propaganda is not balance. Fox News these days is propaganda. No news organization should be such. That is the truth, as unpleasant or difficult as it may be for some people to connect the dots to get to the point where they understand that.

Second. I'm pretty sure if you talk to people on the Left - the real Left, not the "center-neoliberal-not-far-right" which sorta is the placeholder for the Left in the United States (although I'm glad to see Progressives beginning to win elections), they'll disagree with you about the media bias of large media organizations.

I think that's part of what prompted the creation of The Intercept. I don't always agree w/them but they're clearly more of a Left publication.

Consider these issues:

- The Gulf War - The invasion of Iraq (Gulf War 2) - Until recently, police violence - Until recently, climate change - Capitalism

And probably more. Plenty of the media outlets you named (and I think NY Times does great investigative reporting) often have not been alignment with the left on these issues, at least initially.

I am always down for discussion but not for obfuscation of facts, denial of the truth, or equivocation on the fundamentals of equality, respect for fellow people, and human rights. If we have to politely agree to disagree, so be it. But please consider what I say.

Oh. And it's important to distinguish between the tens of thousands of people protesting racist police violence since the murder of George Floyd, and the people who have been looting, whether out of rage, poverty, or simply opportunity.

There were lots more peaceful protestors.

In fact, that you kinda tried to imply that falsehood when talking about CNN (who probably did do something dumb) is exactly the kind of fact-distorting intellectually dishonest behavior that is so problematic. It's not specific to Fox, but it is endemic at Fox.

Lastly the recent rise in violence in some cities is worth talking about some other day, in some other conversation.

I think the problem is the addition of "opinionated" content media outlets publish to generate outrage. E.g. IMO the NYT is the gold standard of journalism but a lot of their opinion pieces are not even fit to print.

> It's all of them, no matter what side they're on or what point of view they're advancing.

The premise to your statement is rather telling... why should a media outlet take a side or advance a point of view? It's just not necessary or (IMO) acceptable for the main sources of information to do so. Here in New Zealand we're blessed to still have trustworthy minimally biased media. Australian media sadly seems heavily Americanised.

> I think the problem is the addition of "opinionated" content media outlets publish to generate outrage. E.g. IMO the NYT is the gold standard of journalism but a lot of their opinion pieces are not even fit to print

A lot of their journalism isn’t that great anymore either. (In the last 3-5 years, there has been a massive upheaval in the ranks as revenues have declined and experienced journalists have left.)

E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/nyt-1619-project-...

All media is biased. It might not be as blatant as Fox but it's still there, in the tone the reporter takes, in the types of questions they ask, in the attitude of their responses to answers, in which parts they emphasize, etc...

I agree. I kind of regret putting the "minimally biased" in my reply. I think that media can be trustworthy despite a small amount of bias, as long as the audience does a little critical thinking. At high levels of bias, they start trying to mislead you.

Edit: because good journalism involves taking steps to avoid bias.

> Part of the problem is that so many people think it's only the media outlets that say things they disagree with that are the problem. It isn't. It's all of them, no matter what side they're on or what point of view they're advancing.

You can further reduce this to "all humans will lie and manipulate when it suits them". As a statement it's just as true, but it obfuscates the concept of scale : some people lie more, more deliberately and more frequently than others.

By declaring everyone an offender without further distinction, you are effectively excusing the behavior of the worst actors while minimizing the good faith efforts put forward by others.

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