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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[SalmonGod]

Right. But you have to remember that you're mostly getting information from people whose language you understand and/or who might have similar views to your own. In complex situations that's not always the full picture.

Yeah, but that's the case no matter where you get information.  Professional journalism has the same problem.  I think it's even worse, because it's further removed and disinfected from raw reality.  When Fox News, CNN, and RT all report the same thing three different ways, then the audience is given free license to pick and choose what to believe.

[Tomcost]

Tomcost, you've got the logic backwards.

You can be innocent even if someone who isn't is responsible for your existing. Otherwise we'd all be guilty at birth and that's just silly.

There is no logic to the statement

Blames people, says goverment is innocent. Goverment is elected from and by people, thus goverment can't be innocent.

Oops, I meant to say that the goverment, being a part from the people, is no exogenous factor in this. Usually in these situations everybody should be blamed of something.

[XXSockXX]

Right. But you have to remember that you're mostly getting information from people whose language you understand and/or who might have similar views to your own. In complex situations that's not always the full picture.

Yeah, but that's the case no matter where you get information.  Professional journalism has the same problem.  I think it's even worse, because it's further removed and disinfected from raw reality.  When Fox News, CNN, and RT all report the same thing three different ways, then the audience is given free license to pick and choose what to believe.

Professional journalism is supposed to compile, filter through and present all sorts of information, from all possible sources. Not saying they're always doing a great job with that, especially US cable news are actually really bad at this.  Journalists should also use social media to get information, but put that information into perspective instead of pretending that reading tweets is journalism. Of course ideally they should also keep their opinion pieces separate from the reporting, instead of reporting opinions only like FOX.
I still think that some situations are much better covered by journalism. When you have opposing sides, like now in Ukraine or partially also in Syria, where both sides might be right and wrong in some respects, you need someone to play the role of a neutral observer and explain that stuff. Otherwise you'll end up either confused or convinced of something that isn't exactly true.

[SalmonGod]

Right. But you have to remember that you're mostly getting information from people whose language you understand and/or who might have similar views to your own. In complex situations that's not always the full picture.

Yeah, but that's the case no matter where you get information.  Professional journalism has the same problem.  I think it's even worse, because it's further removed and disinfected from raw reality.  When Fox News, CNN, and RT all report the same thing three different ways, then the audience is given free license to pick and choose what to believe.

Professional journalism is supposed to compile, filter through and present all sorts of information, from all possible sources. Not saying they're always doing a great job with that, especially US cable news are actually really bad at this.  Journalists should also use social media to get information, but put that information into perspective instead of pretending that reading tweets is journalism. Of course ideally they should also keep their opinion pieces separate from the reporting, instead of reporting opinions only like FOX.
I still think that some situations are much better covered by journalism. When you have opposing sides, like now in Ukraine or partially also in Syria, where both sides might be right and wrong in some respects, you need someone to play the role of a neutral observer and explain that stuff. Otherwise you'll end up either confused or convinced of something that isn't exactly true.

Yeah, I understand and agree with this in theory.  I just don't have faith that it works out this way very often in practice.  Plus, there's some level of faith that has to be given when you use professional journalists as an information source, and if they take advantage of that faith, then you're likely to end up more misinformed than you would have been otherwise.

But I admit that I'm jaded by the way news is generally handled in the U.S.

Spoiler: I take comfort in knowing I don't need to worry about this with footage that is mere minutes old (click to show/hide)

[Lord Shonus]

That sort of thing is far less common, and far less dangerous, than the problem of damning bits and pieces coming out before the full picture is revealed, and obscuring the actual facts of the matter. The most famous example of this is the execution of Nguyen Van Lem* during the Vietnam war, but it is far from the only such case. There are many cases, for example, where protests, street violence, and even riots have broken out over "police brutality" when in fact the officer in question was nearly killed before using force (commonly, these involve very large suspects and fairly small cops. The specific example I'm thinking of was a female officer (white) that repeatedly tased a (black) suspect that was already handcuffed. In this case, swift release of the hospital report and dashcam video showing said suspect (who massed at least double, maybe even triple what the officer did) hurling her several feet through the air repeatedly, coupled with lots of kicking, despite being restrained by handcuffs.) Other common situations involve fatal shootings where the initial report is spread far and wide, but the fact that it is confirmed that they were legitimate defensive attacks (such as an incident where a woman shot and killed an intruder that followed her and her small children into the attic with a crowbar) never reaches anywhere near the wide spread of information.


*For the uninitiated, Lem was identified by South Vietnamese intelligence as leading a "death squad" that specialized in terror massacres, and was captured in civilian clothing right next to a mass grave containing dozens or hundreds of victims of such a "death squad," among which bodies were the executing officer's closest friend and his entire family. The photographer that took the famous shot has since declined all awards and royalties from the photo, and has stated that he wished he had never published it.

[XXSockXX]

I take comfort in knowing I don't need to worry about this with footage that is mere minutes old

The problem generally is, you need some context to interpret any footage. Are you for example seeing a video of a peaceful protester beaten by police or are you seeing police defending themselves against aggressive fighters who attacked them first? There are too many situations where stuff like that is not entirely clear, or worse where no strict good/bad categorization is possible, even if the pictures are completely unfiltered and not manipulated. That's the stuff I don't really trust social media with.
Of course you really have to check on your journalists too, know their biases and check other sources to see how trustworthy they are.

Generally I'm relatively ok with the state of journalism in my country. Part of that is though that the most important tv news are on publicly funded channels. I also check out lots of different sources if I'm interested in an issue, so I do notice when they aren't doing a good job.

Maybe you should start lobbying for PBS to get huge funds and cable news will become as irrelevant as they are here.  (Even our cable news channels aren't that terrible, at least not as politically biased.)

[Helgoland]

Even BILD is not that bad, if you know about their bias. ARTE ftw, anyway

[mainiac]

Maybe you should start lobbying for PBS to get huge funds and cable news will become as irrelevant as they are here.  (Even our cable news channels aren't that terrible, at least not as politically biased.)

If PBS did cable news... no one would watch.  That's because nobody watches cable news.  A bit more then 1% of the population watches any cable news on a given day.  The last episode of Downtown Abbey got more then 8 million viewers.  I don't think there's a single cable news channel that drew 8 million different viewers in the past year.  Obama's last State of the Union was watched by 33 million and that was a 14 year low.

Cable news channels run with viewerships less then a million cause it's not expensive to run a cable news outfit.  They're paid attention to because their daytime viewership contains a lot of people with loud voices (political, financial and other media).  But the american people mostly ignore cable news because believe it or not you can make the mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the american people.

[XXSockXX]

But the american people mostly ignore cable news because believe it or not you can make the mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the american people.

I don't doubt the intelligence of the American people, just the quality of their cable news. I know many Americans feel the same, but it still seems that a lot of people get their news, at least about major events, from there. At least my impression, judging by how often CNN, FOX and MSNBC are cited.

[GlyphGryph]

I'm consistently amazed at the bigoted, criminal antics of the Seattle police department. These guys never seem to go to jail. I tell you, if you want to kill brown people, just sign up for police academy. If you go into the military you get sand in your boots and it's possible they might shoot back.

Seattle PD really does not help the negative police stereotypes that are out there.

Aw man, don't tell me stuff like this! I'm planning on moving to Seattle soon, you're breaking my dreams here. T_T

[Dutchling]

I'm consistently amazed at the bigoted, criminal antics of the Seattle police department. These guys never seem to go to jail. I tell you, if you want to kill brown people, just sign up for police academy. If you go into the military you get sand in your boots and it's possible they might shoot back.

Seattle PD really does not help the negative police stereotypes that are out there.

Aw man, don't tell me stuff like this! I'm planning on moving to Seattle soon, you're breaking my dreams here. T_T

At least you'll be close to Edward :3

[mainiac]

But the american people mostly ignore cable news because believe it or not you can make the mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the american people.

I don't doubt the intelligence of the American people, just the quality of their cable news. I know many Americans feel the same, but it still seems that a lot of people get their news, at least about major events, from there. At least my impression, judging by how often CNN, FOX and MSNBC are cited.

Okay did you not read the post you are quoting or is do you disagree with either of the two arguments I raised?  Because you reply seems very odd to me.

[XXSockXX]

But the american people mostly ignore cable news because believe it or not you can make the mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the american people.

I don't doubt the intelligence of the American people, just the quality of their cable news. I know many Americans feel the same, but it still seems that a lot of people get their news, at least about major events, from there. At least my impression, judging by how often CNN, FOX and MSNBC are cited.

Okay did you not read the post you are quoting or is do you disagree with either of the two arguments I raised?  Because you reply seems very odd to me.

No, I read your post and do not disagree. I was just saying that I get the impression that - despite low average viewership - cable news still seem to be relatively important as a news source. If they were completely irrelevant, they wouldn't be cited and criticized as often. If they are seen critically, all the better. May very well be - as you said - that they get attention only because they are loud and polarizing.
And the PBS thing was not meant to be taken seriously.

[Descan]

If you mean "cited" as in people using their websites to tell other people about it, like "Did you read about this?"

It's probably because they heard from someone else, googled it, and it was (one of) the first results, so they took it.

[Sheb]

Social media good, journalists bad

Note that social media can be full of crap too. This is in French, but the pictures are clear enough.