Teen girl in Columbus killed by police

[Dill]

(04-25-2021, 11:02 AM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Selective editing is a form of manipulating.

Whether we agree or not doesn't matter one iota.

All news sources must edit. They must decide what to report and how much of it, make decisions about what is relevant for their audience, national or local. My local PA paper does not report HS basketball scores from Alaska. Similarly, the US press has a US "bias" at the national level, reporting--or not reporting--information and events from other countries. That filter limits what US audiences understand about the rest of the world, often presenting US interests as natural or unbiased. But without that filter they would be overwhelmed, and news "consumers" (as we are called now days) could make heads nor tails of all that overwhelming information.

Journalism/reporting is not possible without editing/selection of news. Editing/selection is not possible without bias--some filter based upon reporters/editors' interests. Assuming "unbiased news" as some kind of ideal only makes sense when people have not thought through the nature of reporting.

Because all news sources must filter news, all can be accused of "bias" of some sort. Sometimes the accusation is meaningful, and sometimes not.

If we want to be informed voters, then the standard for evaluating news ought to be which sources give us the most reliable information--that is, with sources effectively vetted and supplied with relevant backstory for interpretation. That doesn't mean treating every source and pov as equivalent.  

Also, if we want to be informed voters, then we should not suppose that news sources are supposed to be perfect, that we are just supposed to "trust" them, and then suddenly we can't trust any of them because of one story here or one editor there, because mistakes are made every week. 

(04-25-2021, 12:12 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: My sources are my eyes, ears & a functioning brain which is able to see that there are biases in all these news sources. If you choose to ignore the left leaning media's biases, then you are no better than the Fox viewers that you denigrate at every turn.

So claiming there are "biases" in all news sources is not really much of a point, especially if it leaves one unable to recognize the vast differences between them in terms of how well they vet sources and the depth to which they pursue investigations. And especially if one cannot specify how or which biases harm or degrade information we need as voters. 

Finally, it seems to me quite possible that someone who ignored "left leaning bias" in the NYT and WaPo but recognized that Trump obstructed the Russia investigation, abused his power to pressure Ukraine into attacking a presidential opponent, and lost the election fair and square, could indeed be "better" (i.e., better informed as to the state of the nation) than someone who denied those things because of his reliance of Fox News. That is not to deny that there might be liberal bias out there. It is to deny that it is presently a source of mass disinformation.