Do
you trust the mainstream media (MSM)? Do you consider them a
reliable source of information about the broader world? When they
provide you information about Libya, or Egypt, or Israel, or Syria,
do you believe that you are getting an accurate and dispassionate
presentation of the facts? What about on issues surrounding US
monetary and fiscal policy? Unemployment numbers? Rate of
inflation? Issues involving science and technology? Racism?
Sexism? Government actions and abuse? Guns and violence?
Do
you trust what you are fed by these sources? If so, why? If not,
why not?
I've
long been very skeptical of most of what I see on mainstream sources.
One reason is their total support and promotion of Keynesian economics. While it's very clear that Keynesian principles can work
in the short term, it also seems very clear that the consequence of
using these principles constantly is to dig a society into a massive
fiscal hole that may be unrecoverable. The Austrian School seems to
have a much better and well grounded understanding of several aspects
of economics, but this school of thought is rarely ever mentioned,
and when it is it's dismissed as being “extreme”.
Basically,
the MSM supports only one perspective, and unless you have a
significant amount of education in that field, you're not in a
position to understand how biased they are.
Now
to guns. I've explained my background before. With that as
perspective, I can say that virtually everything that's presented in
the MSM about guns and violence is shockingly stupid. Let me be
clear – I don't mind ignorant people who honestly question things
in order to gain information and knowledge. As an instructor, I
enjoy such engaged students. What I hate however, is ideologues who
exhibit no understanding of a subject, who refuse to listen to or
learn from people who do have knowledge and expertise in a field, and
who insist on continuing to push their ideology as “the truth”.
This MSM bias is all the more dangerous when it's teamed up with a
government that wants to disarm the population and considers the
Constitution little more than a speed-bump.
When
I see extreme bias, lies, and misinformation being presented as
“facts”, and emotional manipulation being presented as
“information”, my reaction is disgust...
… but
more importantly, if the “information” that I'm getting in areas
where I have a great deal of experience and knowledge is so
overwhelmingly biased, what does that say about MSM reporting in
areas where I'm not an expert? Can I trust what they say about
Benghazi? Can I trust what they say about Pakistan, or Syria?
Can I trust what they say about actions taken by the State Department,
or the Justice Department, or any other department of the government?
Can I trust what they say on the issues of racism or sexism?
The
conclusion that I have come to is no, since their reporting is so
overwhelmingly biased in areas where I do have some expertise, I must assume that at least some of their reporting in areas where I'm not an expert is just as biased. I therefore do not trust anything they say.
That's
my opinion. What's yours?
Quite a disappointing post. You look like a fool to point out the problems with liberal new channels but completely ignore the problems with conservative channels. Fox News is one of (if not the)biggest culprits of being bias, lying, ignoring facts, editing video and taking words out of context, and even flat out bigotry. Because you chose to ignore this fact and not add Fox into your post, what I thought was going to be a grounded and reasonable opinion turns out to be just another politically twisted rant with no substance.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard not to giggle a little bit at your rant. Yes, I have an issue with FoxNews, and yes they are very biased and unreliable – does that make you feel better?
DeleteThe overwhelming majority of mainstream media outlets are uniformly lockstep with the “progressive” Marxist agenda. In fact, the majority of the time FoxNews screws up badly is when they also get caught up in the Marxist mindset that's so rampant in America today. Maybe you're the type of person who sees things in the very narrow “right” vs. “left” dichotomy. All I see is statists of two slightly different flavors.
You probably didn't notice, because your comment suggest you're the type of person who doesn't notice much, but this is a blog about guns, weapons, tactics, and the training that surrounds these topics. As it so happens, on this one issue, FoxNews almost comes close to being “Fair and Balanced”.
Fox News is one of (if not the)biggest culprits of being bias, lying, ignoring facts, editing video and taking words out of context, and even flat out bigotry.
Delete"Citation needed"
While I'm not at all comfortable “defending” FoxNews, as I do not like them generally and think they are very, very far from having any journalistic integrity, I'd have to disagree that they are anywhere near “the worst”.
DeleteI understand this comes down to an opinion and a judgment call. It is my opinion that Marxism, both economic and cultural, is by a wide margin the most dangerous and destructive ideology in America today. With this understanding, I'd say that MSNBC is by far the worst. I don't watch enough to know how CNN, ABC, and CBS compare for second place. Although still very bad, I'd say that FoxNews trails all of these on the metric of Marxism.
Now, if we lived in a very different world and the religious right was dangerously close to instituting a theocracy in America, I might agree that FoxNews would be the most dangerous. (They shit the bed horribly on certain scientific issues such as evolution vs. “creationism”).
Again – according to the topics relevant to this blog (and the economic example I used), MSNBC and CNN are far worse than FoxNews.
One thing that I find humorous – I didn't mention a single network in my article. I simply download several logos from the internet to put a little visual color in the post. I did download a FoxNews logo and originally intended to use it, but decided against it simply because I thought that one more picture would be too much for a short post like this.