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[John Hopoate]

Why do you dismiss corporate news sources and yet mention nothing about State Press? Why not get all your information from Xinhua if you've got such a hangup about people making money in exchange for providing you with valuable information?

[Qloos]

Because they gain money from ratings through how much they can charge for advertisement space.  It encourages news providers to broadcast news stories that will attract viewers.  It also causes them to shorten the amount of coverage each story gets to keep the audience interested.  People today have short attention spans and the story needs to be switched out for something new, (not necessarily important.)  if people are losing interest. 

[John Hopoate]

Because they gain money from ratings through how much they can charge for advertisement space.  It encourages news providers to broadcast news stories that will attract viewers.  It also causes them to shorten the amount of coverage each story gets to keep the audience interested.  People today have short attention spans and the story needs to be switched out for something new, (not necessarily important.)  if people are losing interest. 

Explain, what is your most favoured alternative?

[Aqizzar]

There's also conflict of interest matters.  Most of the major news outlets are owned or at least affiliated with massive brambles of other completely unrelated companies, and will often omit stories or information that could make their affiliates look bad.  NBC for instance exists under the umbrella of General Electric, and is occasionally accused (mostly by FOX) of passing over bad stories about GE products or activities.

As for political independence, FOX especially realized that by pandering to particular political leaning, they could attract a large viewer base that would watch other FOX programming by collusion.  And they could skimp out on all the expensive parts of running a news organization by just telling their ideologically-attracted viewers whatever drivel they wanted to hear.  All things considered, it could just have easily been liberalism instead of conservatism if that had been selling better when FOX went on air.  Other news channel-groups followed suit to one degree or another, while NBC realized around 2005 that an equally good market-niche lay in liberal programing.

Realistically speaking, all the major American networks are biased on some level, as a practical matter of drawing ratings and viewer loyalty.  You just have to pick through the flavor for the actual news underneath (usually taken from the AP anyway), and decide which network does the best job finding and presenting information regardless of coloration.  Don't be surprised if it winds up being the one that hews towards your political views anyway.

[Qloos]

Explain, what is your most favoured alternative?

Preferably an independent, (and thus not bound by his companies regulations.) source who is or has direct access to people who were involved in the story.  A reporter who asks direct or controversial questions and asks to see proof from the people they interview.  A high quality journalist questions all systems, establishments, governments and ways of thinking.  Then they report what they find from all of this digging in, hopefully, an impartial and factual presentation.

[John Hopoate]

Explain, what is your most favoured alternative?

Preferably an independent, (and thus not bound by his companies regulations.) source who is or has direct access to people who were involved in the story.  A reporter who asks direct or controversial questions and asks to see proof from the people they interview.  A high quality journalist questions all systems, establishments, governments and ways of thinking.  Then they report what they find from all of this digging in, hopefully, an impartial and factual presentation.

Why pays him and why should we trust him? Who if anyone is he accountable to?

[Qloos]

That's where your own knowledge and wisdom comes in, a person needs to decide for himself if what he's being shown is the truth or not.  A reporter who has reported for a long time and has a good reputation for being good at his job will be returned to for information.  In the past a reporter was accountable for not providing sources, this isn't really the case anymore.  This is why a news provider who use evidence and impartial language are much more convincing. 

An independent reporter often gets the money he needs through selling his story to news outlets.  Other times an independent will follow a story because he himself is interested in it and not for a profit.

[Aqizzar]

You realize of course that "evidence" and "impartial" are extraordinarily relative terms.

Evidence is hard to prove or disprove because by definition you're relying on the agency to find that evidence.  Suppose two agencies give equally convincing reports on the same event, but two different stories with all due sources.  How do you know which one to believe unless you were actually there?

Pretty much ditto for impartial, since impartial is supposed to mean whatever is closest to "reality" uncolored by opinions.  But what defines the real story is as much your opinion as anything else.

Eh, long story short, you're setting up an impossible standard: an omniscient, completely imperturbable reporter with unlimited funding, who can go right into your brain and bypass your own biases.  Like I said, just pick the one you want to listen to, or better yet a few, and discern the story for yourself through their different data points.

[Qloos]

This is why I want multiple sources.  With multiple angles on the same story, contradictions emerge.  When forming opinions, (both on the story and the source.) its better to check as many news providers as possible with a web search. 

To make sure a story one is being told is not falsified, one needs to do a bit of Independent investigating themselves.

[John Hopoate]

That's where your own knowledge and wisdom comes in, a person needs to decide for himself if what he's being shown is the truth or not. 

A paid reporter at a profitable newspaper has a strong motivation to maintain the trust that you speak of, if he betrays it he loses his job.

Workers in the state press or the "independent media" (I'm mostly thinking of the online independent media) can get away with more because their political benefactors often don't give a shit how much they lie, as long as they serve their agenda.

You also overestimate the average man's ability to tell whether or not someone is telling the truth, if they only have access to a limited range of information, they'll believe anything. Germany was by far the most educated nation before WW2 and Hitler had popular support until at least late 1944 because the average German had little reason not to believe that Nazi ranting about Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracies and an impending "Final Victory" reflected reality. You see this kind of blindness a lot in the contemporary "Independent Media" which is invariably comprised of political extremists.

Name one "independent" media outlet that's more credible and reliable than one of the better corporate media outlets such as "The Economist"

An independent reporter often gets the money he needs through selling his story to news outlets.

In other words the corporate media you rage against?

[Qloos]

In other words the corporate media you rage against?

Rage is such a strong word, I do in fact read main stream news.  It's the independents and the in depth coverage which is hard to find, atleast for me.  Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

A paid reporter at a profitable newspaper has a strong motivation to maintain the trust that you speak of, if he betrays it he loses his job.

A paid reporter can also be coaxed into writing stories that sell, it works both ways.

if they only have access to a limited range of information

You hit the nail on the head.  Dialog on issues is important as well.

[Jude]

Which issues get reported is another thing - NPR in some sense trades off wide range of information in exchange for depth of reporting. But they still manage to at least mention the headlines, and in a sense they're not really going for mentioning absolutely everything. They spend lots of time on in depth exploration of things that aren't major headlines or even necessarily news, more general understanding of the world type issues, like Iceland's economic crisis or what have you. If you want to know everything that's going on you have the BBC.

Also, NPR scored big points in my book by giving only passing mentions to Balloon Boy even while all the major "news" outlets were cancelling everything else to follow it live. Real reporting >>>>> sensationalist retardation.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Name one "independent" media outlet that's more credible and reliable than one of the better corporate media outlets such as "The Economist"

As stated earlier, simply AP.

Most news outlets will either directly copy/paste AP's articles and cite, or they will take the reporting and twist it how they like - including your objectively-better Economist.

Also, most major media news outlets own stake in AP, as their board comes from all over, so their bias is constantly fact-checked against opposing sides. AP itself is a non-profit reporting outfit.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

You should not expect politically independent news.  Allow me to explain.

More then one third of the American population claims to be independent.  However their claims are mostly a matter of posturing, studies of focus groups show that most of them have consistent ideological views.  The actual number of real independents is about 10% of the population.  Now, discount the apathetic ones.  Doesn't leave you with too many people to run or pay attention to an independent media outlet, does it?

Look for honest news outlets.  Look for outlets that know what the hell they're talking about.  Look for outlets that get into the meat of the issues instead of treating politics like a horserace.  But do not look for independent outlets,  because that's just someone selling you a load of bullcrap.

Hmm.. I'm not quite sure which category I fall in. I do claim to be independent, but I will admit that on average, my views lean to the left. I have a strong dislike for both the Democratic and Republican parties, because neither of them weighs the actual merits of an issue; they just accept or dismiss it because it is 'conservative' or 'liberal' ideals. Elected representatives are worse (especially senators) because the vast majority of them accept what are essentially legal bribes from corporations, and do what the corporations want them to do instead of actually representing the population. There are a few who do represent the population like they are supposed to, and I have great respect for them, even if they are extremely conservative. Unfortunately, a few senators is not enough to get anything through congress. 

[KaelGotDwarves]

Look, no one is claiming that you can have entirely "independent/impartial" news outlets.

Simply by virtue of being alive, we have egos and notions of the self. I can dabble further into the psychology, sociology, and philosophy behind it, but I don't have the time. Needless to say, humans take sides.

However, good news sources seek to be objectively reporting facts while admitting there may be editing problems - and quickly fix it. You hardly ever see MSNBC, CNN, FOX admitting they were "wrong". Even worse is when these groups attempt to pass editorials and opinion pieces as "news" ala Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck. They are entertaining, but it is not news, and the masses buy it as fact almost unquestionably.

You must watch out for those news outlets which claim to be "objective" while reporting "opinions". I can tell you right now from The Economist website that there's an ad on the site directly from the news Intel group (which runs The Economist- how convenient) asking the loaded question "Is Obama failing? with a handy little graphic with checkmark box high profile issues"

If you don't realize that it is a loaded question -a logical fallacy which presupposes- insinuating an opinion within a supposedly innocent question/ad from a website which claims to be "objectively reporting news", then I can't help you and neither can this discussion. Asking loaded questions doesn't make The Economist strike me as "credible and reliable" and strikes me as just the sort of thing media news outlets do constantly.

Loaded Question: This is the popular Glenn Beck-ism "I'm not saying Obama is a racistObama is failing, all I'm saying is that we should be asking "is Obama a racist? is Obama failing?" because he might be a racisthe might be failing" - that Glenn Beck used extensively during the whole Birther debacle and continues to use - insert whatever you want in the blanks. There are much more objective ways to phrase the question, but of all ways they choose that one because they wish to influence the answer, or even if the answer is false, the opinion of the person receiving the question.

The point is, take all news, facts, and information with a grain of salt; study it from your past experiences, according to your belief systems, all the while applying reason to your observations - and wield it for the good of yourself and all. That's the important thing - to think for yourself - there are plenty of people who: seek to control what you think or limit it, want you to remain a slug incapable of critical thought giving them ad money, or don't care if you are happy being blissfully ignorant.

We educate ourselves so we can spot these sort of things.