Is CNN, MSNBC, FOX and other MSM outlets corrupt?

Question

nightdrot · Accepted Answer

Corrupt? No. Biased? Yes.

However, let us keep perspective here.

The media at the time the Founders laid out the First Amendment were almost all partisan news sheets. The very idea of an unbiased media would have been laughable.

Moreover, the term "yellow journalism" came out of the 19th century. (The term, by the way, partly a reference not just to bias, but to corruption in the journalism profession at that time.) Indeed, it was media reaction to the sinking of USS Maine that pushed a very reluctant President McKinley to ask Congress for a declaration of war against Spain. Indeed, speaking of "fake media," it was later discovered that the sinking was probably an accident and not a Spanish attack.

The notion of an unbiased media really only came about as an accident of technology. Television had three - four if you count PBS - networks. Radio had two national news networks - CBS and NPR. There were three newsmagazines - Time, Newsweek, U. S. News & World Report. Newspapers were always locally focused and it was only due to their location that The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal gained national prominence. (Later USA Today did create a national identity.)

Because of the limited outlets, in order to get the broadest possible audience, the news business had to attempt a high degree of balance. Moreover, during much of this period there was a stronger sense of social cohesion, which tended to reinforce the tendency toward balance.

However, beginning in the 80s with cable and the first cost effective lap top computers, it became possible to target a specific audience. Throw in the proliferation of outlets and social media and audience segmentation took off. Then, as night follows day, a more biased journalism followed. It was as much effect as cause.

Indeed, ironically, it was Fox News - under Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes - who first saw the potential for audience segmentation and who really began the tilt in media coverage. In this MSNBC and CNN merely were echoes - reaching the audience that Fox opted to forego. (Foregoing it because, especially in the 80s and 90s, the conservative audience was much larger than its liberal counterpart.)

Put another way, a biased media has been the historical norm. The trick is to be aware of your media and - most importantly - to be discerning about facts and aware of one's own biases. That, however, as George Washington said long ago, in the obligation of any good citizen.

What is more worrisome is the sloppiness and slipshod nature of journalism. In part it is fair to say that bias plays a part - when you see the President getting 90% critical coverage, it is fair to say it is not just about the facts. It is doubtful Hitler got 90% unfavorable coverage. (Yes, that was a joke.)

However, allowing for that, the pressure to get out ahead of a story - particularly in an age when every citizen with a phone is able to be a journalist, albeit an untrained journalist - is causing the media to get the story wrong and is reinforcing a mob mentality.

In a populist age when established institutions are under attack and when the public is apt to judge its own actions as higher than the law and social peace, that is highly dangerous. See also the high school kids from Covington, Kentucky, who were effectively subject to a mob all because of a smile and an edited and unexamined video.

This was, perhaps, the most odious episode. Adults, who should know better, reacted to visual stimulus, making no attempt to use reason to suspend judgment and get the facts, processing everything through the prism of their own bias and emotions. This was the response of animals, not civilized human beings.

Still, the fault lies as much with a vulgar public as a lazy slipshod media. To be sure, the media failed in its first obligation. Yet the public were no better.

BCA6010 · Accepted Answer

Yes, but not in the way you may be expecting.

The vast majority of anchors on those channels don't have a damn clue about what they talk about. They are fed notes or even a verbatim script to follow, and that's pretty much the extent on their knowledge. Likewise, the people who prepare the notes tend to be subject matter experts on a set of opinions or agenda to push, and serious research or investigation rarely actually happens. Movies and tv shows grossly glamorize what investigative journalism is like, but the reality is that the major networks do almost none of it. The reasons for this are because the news industry gets its money and influence from "breaking News," and it's very expensive to conduct investigations.

The major leftwing outlets use identical talking points all given to them by the same sources. It's basically pointless to watch more than one of them, and in pretty much all cases, they're only going to say what they are told to say, and occasionally go slightly off the rails for ratings, but that's about it. A lot of these networks also have very close, direct ties to the Democratic party (hence all of them using identical sources).

Fox only does what it does in the way it does because from a business standpoint, they're smart enough to realize that the left is totally saturated with cookie cutter copycats, while anything center-right was completely uncontested, so they individually have about as many viewers as the other major networks combined. They also allow for their lesser weekend or late night shows to operate with more autonomy (within guidelines). At the end of the day though, they're just a business for profit and brownie points with people of influence like the rest of them. In fact a huge chunk of Fox's upper management are actually pretty left-leaning, and just generally better at reading the room when it comes to employee and viewer relations; they aren't your friends or peers no matter where you come from though any more than a used car salesman is.

TLDR: All of them are in it for the money and influence at the end of the day, and both of these come from ingratiating themselves and making connections that undeniably foster a bias, and accuracy is secondary to clicks in a day when people in Mongolia and Mexico can communicate with each other in seconds.

laurieluvsit · Accepted Answer

Do a Deep dive on the controlling shareholders, Blackrock and Vanguard then you will have your answer.

supercutebutt · Accepted Answer

All I know is that FOX was the pro-Putin network until a week and a half ago.

RolandCuthbert · Answer

Why did you include Fox? I thought you loved Fox. Also, a Qanon follower recently killed his children over the serpent DNA conspiracy. So perhaps your sources are not all that great either.

DWornock · Answer

I don't know your defination of corrupt. However, except for sports, obituaries, the society pages, and to the best of their ability the weather reports, can you find even a single example where a MSM outlet, told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Anonymous · Answer

Fox is the onky network that seems to have no problem telling the truth for the most part. Which is why their ratings skyrocketed and the others plummeted. They still have there faults but the are definitely the MOST reliable compared to the others. They don’t play the gender pronoun games and they were not on board with defund the police and “peaceful protests” of 2020. They also aren’t jumping on the Jan 6 bandwagon which is just a democratic attack to prevent Trump from running again. In my opinion, I’d say watch all of them and compare the news.

monorprise · Answer

From the days of the town crier to modern day social media, few people go into theses professions without some desire to control and manipulate the public.

They may tell the truth but in a world of diversity and events what truth they choose to share and how they share it in more than enough power.
This is why there must be as great a diversity of providers as possible, we will get an agenda from each one but perhaps hopefully not always the same agenda.

MarkRet · Answer

Probably EVERY news outlet is corrupt in a sense that instead of just telling the absolute truth, they'll leave certain bits of news out, or they'll slant it to fit a certain ideology or political agenda. The commentators (like Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham) are the worst, because they pretend to be reporters, when they're really just entertainers. A real reporter would be someone like Chris Wallace.

MrtoddsWildRide · Answer

My ex was a journalist. Not a big time one, but big enough that you have probably seen her name. In fairness she was a good one that never interjected her opinions in her reporting, but she was the exception that proved the rule. I would go to see her for lunch dates and the people in her office would be bragging on how they found dirt on this person or how the stuck it to someone with a different ideology all the while claiming to be unbiased.

OddBeMe · Answer

70/30

Corrupt as in corporations using their news channels for profit? Thus skewing truth sometimes if it effects their bottom line? Yes.

Corrupt as in always airing fake news, having some secret agenda to mislead or spread propaganda? No.

MountAverage · Answer

I don't know about corruption per se, but they all have certain biases. Which is normal and not necessarily a bad thing, as long as what's being reported is fact based. But Fox for instance often just reports factually incorrect things, they will use graphs that are deliberately misleading or outright false, and stuff like that. That's not just being biased, that's propaganda. And that's where we should draw the line.

abc3643 · Answer

Corrupt, how? How are they "corrupt"? Define corruption.

genericname85 · Answer

no, they aren't. they are private companies that follow a private interest. they have no obligation to show unbiased truth. corruption would be if they were somehow legally obligated to do so. it's in your best interest not to trust them.

JustiReno · Answer

Oh yeah bro this shit ain't a game in Ukraine my man nawwww bro you roll over a civilian car in your OWN damn city and blame it on the Russians? That’s too far I picked sides

FreyaRed · Answer

It's obvious. It take often less than 3 minutes to watch news in TV that their propaganda contradicts itself.

RationalMale · Answer

CNN and MSNBC are literally just the media branches of the DNC.

Fox statistically is closer to actually being fair and balanced but isn't there yet. It appears extreme though because it's the only major news channel that isn't 100% leftist.

dustybiker · Answer

They all need an audience to make money. How they gain that audience is questionable.

legalboxers · Answer

So I guess OAN and NewsMax is your "TRUSTED SOURCE"

Gigi2019 · Answer

Yes. They are arms of the Democrat Party. They do not offer objective facts.

FunkyMonkee · Answer

Most of them are. I've heard of an issue or two at Fox but, if it's only like 2% compared to the 100% of the others, guess who I'm gonna listen to?

GoodGuyBreakingBad · Answer

Yes, all they do is make things worst with politics and I just wouldn't trust them

888theGreat · Answer

FOX is ran by liberals , they just shop to Conservatives because the others were all liberal and they knew money was there to be made.

Anonymous · Answer

Everyone on Fox should be in jail by now, and if Tucker Carlson loves Russia so much, he should fucking move there.

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