Slashdot Mirror
Internet Gains Ground As Trusted News Source
Khammurabi writes "Yahoo is reporting that the younger generation is trusting internet news sources more and more. From the article, 'The survey confirmed that media consumption is shifting online for younger generations, as 19 percent of those aged 18 to 24 named the Internet as their most important source of news compared with 9 percent overall.' Also in the article is the factoid that Americans consider Fox News the most trustworthy national news program overall (coming in at 11%)."
I think the fact that we read about this survey on the internet says it all.
Personally, internet is my most important source of news, but also the least trusted. It's like watching "Days of our Lives", you simply don't want to miss a single episode, but it's the same emptiness after each one of them. This is also the reason why we just keep on posting comments even if it's a dupe.
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
I didn't see Slashdot, DIGG, Fark, etc. listed - why not?!? ;-)
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Heard about this on the BBC this morning. One of the sites I get a lot of my info from, however even the BBC is under certain strain these days after fallout from accusations of the Blair government (The Bush-Blair memo, Hutton Inquiry, suicide of David Kelly) and is being restructured, so you never really know what your going to be left with. Cut-backs have certainly been visible in coverage.
I also visit Al Jazeera from time to time. Maybe there's some propaganda at work on the site, or maybe that's what I've been trained to believe from american media. Either way, they seem to have the credibility I once associated with CNN long before Ted Turner sold them out.
the younger generation is trusting internet news sources more and more.
I sure don't watch news on TV anymore. If I see something interesting I do my own digging, lest I get trapped in a honeypot news site with propaganda all over the place.
The survey confirmed that media consumption is shifting online for younger generations, as 19 percent of those aged 18 to 24 named the Internet as their most important source of news compared with 9 percent overall.
Well, good, just take care where you read from and who you trust. I find a smattering of international sites gives a broader view and avoids the pitfall of buying into one nation's "truth"
Also in the article is the factoid that Americans consider Fox News the most trustworthy national news program overall (coming in at 11%)
An interesting and very, very sad tidbit. The country is in a war it never should have entered, China is financing USA debt, which will give it tremendous leverage, while the president continues to boost 'defense' spending at the expense of social programs, Iran is spearheading a move away from the Dollar for petroleum trading, and a lot more. It's only taken 5 years for some people to come around to the facts that this is not a forthcoming or particularly well run government. Thanks Fox News, you've helped make that possible by bluring corporate interference in the news room, info-tainment and politics.
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I bet they just got it off some website.
Well, since the majority of the news on the Internet comes from the same companies that publish newspapers and run the TV stations (cnn.com, foxnews.com, washingtonpost.com, etc), for all intents and purposes the Internet is almost exactly equally trustworthy as them. As for Fox News, their spin is hard to deal with and makes them almost untrustworthy. Not that the other networks are a whole lot better, although Tucker Carlson is running a great show with a pretty objective and fair perspective on everything these days. He is not the "Partisan Hack" that John Stewart once called him any longer.
The survey confirmed that media consumption is shifting online for younger generations, as 19 percent of those aged 18 to 24 named the Internet as their most important source of news compared with 9 percent overall.
It is much easier to find news sources on the Internet that overlook the things you want overlooked. I.e., if you have the opnion that the war in Iraq is going great and there are no problems, you can find a news source that will give you only information that supports that view. If you think the war in Iraq is a debacle/illegal/disaster/whatever, you can also find a news source to support only that view. It's nothing new. Poeple go where they hear the things they want to hear because it's easier than hearing everything and ignoring what you don't like.
I think as soon as something becomes 'trusted' the advertising jackels and political propagandist quickly move in and use it to their own ends. Then, as it becomes more and more obvious that it is so, they move on to something else. Lather, rinse, repeat.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Ok, let me go out on a limb and predict where the slashdot crowd will direct their wrath on. Behold, Fox News.
I'll admit Fox News has its ups and downs, but the ire and hatred that liberals have for it is over the top.
I doubt you'll hear a peep about Al Jazeera or the BBC on this thread.
100% - 11% = 89%
This means that 89% of the American public, according to this summary, do not think that fox is the most trusted name in news.
Indeed! If you trust Fox News, then everything you think you know is wrong. CNN is really no better. Those initials should stand for Certainly Not News. It is a shame we don't have something like BBC in the US.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Neither of these claims are true in a generic sense. All of these are mere information channels containing good as well as bad information sources (definition of "good" and "bad" left as an exercise to the reader). It is up to the individual to discern which particular websites/channels/newspapers are worthy, and which are not.
Discriminating between fiction and non-fiction is one of the most important skills kids could and should learn.
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Whenever I see a big mainstream news headline and read the story, I'll usually hit Google News to see what opposing views there are. Lately I've typed in some headlines and found 200 newspapers using the exact same wire article, verbatim. After wading through that junk, I'll slowly find opposing views -- views that were impossible to find just a few years ago.
I'm not sure that any news is really news anymore; more and more news is colored by opinion. That is fine with me, but I would like to see more sources given tribute and more news reporters coming up with unique news rather than regurgitating the same stories over and over again. I figure why don't these major news outlets just run an RSS feed of the AP and be done with it?
For me, I prefer the news that was normally marginalized out of existance. It gives me a dose of unique opinions, and it also helps create interesting debate topics that help in relationship at home and my relationships with friends and customers.
I think more and more people are starting to think outside the box -- and the Internet is a great place to find every opinion. Are all of them newsworthy? Probably not.
With companies like BlogBurst.com bringing amateur news and opinions to large mainstream media outlets, we'll see more and more integration of the sidestream media, and maybe we'll see less and less need to rely on sources such as CNN and FoxNN.
...is http://www.nakednews.com/.
While it's perhaps unfair to label both Fox and Al Jazeera as "extremists", but let's be honest: the people I've known who tend to rely soley on one or the other of these two news organizations tend to have very particular views (most hard-core Republicans I have known tend to swear by Fox "the only fair news" as they tell me).
So is it that people give greater trust then to news that reinforce their own views (which is why I'm sure more progressives would swear by Slate and Salon instead)? I'd be curious to see how news organizations do against political/religious/ethnic/age background (though this study at least looked into age).
And which one is the most "accurate"? It reminds me of a study done back in the 2004 elections who shows that viewers of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" scored higher on current events and political events accuracy than watchers of any other news organizations (including Fox).
Either way, it's interesting to see the Internet rising, but that's not surprising as the population gets older. I know I rarely watch TV news anymore save for the "Daily Show" (and that's not for information, but for perspective so I can laugh at the world a bit) and Sunday talking heads shows (so my children can ask me why I'm telling the people in the TV to "answer the question, you hack!").
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Before everybody correctly points out that the Internet is not a reliable source, I would like to point out that newspapers are not really up to the standards they are purported to be. Every time I read a newspaper article on a subject I know well, I very, very rarely read anything insightful, and very often loads of bullshit. Most of the times, the writer probably had to finish an article and deliver X lines, and put a few "facts" together—possibly naïvely got from the Internet as well.
I tend to trust sources where readers can write down their views, integrate, and if necessary insult the writer. I trust Slashdot commentaries (the whole page, not single comments), an often-edited Wikipedia article or a high-traffic blog way more than an article in a newspaper, because if there is something to be known you will probably find it. Even if you have to wade through flame wars and moderators on crack, it's likely there.
There's no such thing as a totally reliable news source, anyway.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
...in the words of Stephen Colbert, "Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side."
The BBC is not unbiased either, just differently biased.
The real problem is the very assumption that there are unbiased news sources. If you think a news source is "unbiased", all it usually means is that the news source just happens to share your bias. Conflating shared bias with lack of bias is a very common failure of critical thinking. When people on every side of the political spectrum accuse news sources of being biased, they are all correct.
The thing about the internet is that it opens up the media, and gives us the ability to hear directly from industry insiders. In contrast, the mainstream media has stagnated, settling for a relatively small ring of sources, interpreted, filtered and censored by an even smaller ring of reporters and media channels.
The question for me though is, how many of the people who read "internet news" are actively tracking down information from sources they respect (though not necessarily trust) vs. those who simply read Yahoo or Google or MSN(BC)'s news feed.
I agree with some of the other points in your post, however:
An interesting and very, very sad tidbit. The country is in a war it never should have entered, China is financing USA debt, which will give it tremendous leverage, while the president continues to boost 'defense' spending at the expense of social programs, Iran is spearheading a move away from the Dollar for petroleum trading, and a lot more. It's only taken 5 years for some people to come around to the facts that this is not a forthcoming or particularly well run government. Thanks Fox News, you've helped make that possible by bluring corporate interference in the news room, info-tainment and politics.
You just blamed a news outlet for starting a war, causing a trade deficit, budgetary and foreign relations problems and mistakes... at the behest of corporations?
Clarfiy this, is your whole jumpsuit made of tinfoil or is it just your hat?
News media tends to be a mirror of the public at large, and there are dissenting views in other outlets. You just said that you tend to trust those outlets. What you're doing in that last statement is trying to assign a "face" to the millions of people that simply don't agree with you. All media slants facts with opinion, so you're doing the right thing by cross checking news organizations to see that they are providing the facts... Which is what news is about... News organizations don't stay in business when they blatently lie and misrepresent the core facts of an issue.
I tend to find it "very, very sad" that less people vote than they should... I am also pissed off that Iran says that they're going to attack Israel if anyone moves against them... I am upset that my stocks went down in the market today... but blame NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and ABC... I'm not that crazy.
What Fox News viewers believe
Did you say "almost untrustworthy"?
Well, it's probably an artifact of the survey. There is a certain percentage of people who will believe what they are told without question, and apparently the "Red state" population outnumbers the "Blue state" population.
The more informed know better. The correct answer to "Which national news program is the most trustworthy?" is "None of the above"
BIGTIME... He didn't blame a news media company for starting the war - he blamed them for hiding the true information that would've exposed this as a bullshit war, therefore helping the government pull the wool over our eyes and screw us over. Again, a particular George Carlin quote comes to mind, pal. If you're gonna have such a knee-jerk reaction, at least make it a useful one involving you dragging a hacksaw blade across the major arteries in your body.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
sites like Google News, which let you see an aggregate of all the mainstream sources at once. This pretty much ensures that you get to see all stories from all angles, which is quite different than if you stuck to a single print (or online) news source. There's also the added social factor, in that you can read blogs, sites, etc. that will point you directly to articles on a given topic or with a given viewpoint that might interest you, regardless of what source they came from. Ideally /. would be in this category, but I can hardly remember the last time I felt the urge to RTFA on a story here ... the editors are a joke, but the comments keep me coming back.
"Leftist sympathies?" Fucking please. The Limbaugh-spewed bullshit about the "librul media" is so transparently false that a grade-A moron can see it these days.
But forget that. I suppose that it's better to have a fake news network that has blatant RIGHTWING sympathies then? Why would a mythical left-wing news source be "bad" but one that is blatantly right-wing be good?
FOX is anything but fair and balanced. You've said as much yourself.
Fox defenders are the very reason thinking people have turned elsewhere for their news--like the Internet. We're sick of listening to the Mouth of Sauron blather the party line.
Fox news has risen to prominence because it is the singluar major news outlet that doesn't pander to leftist sympathies.
Or it could be that Americans want feel-good news. Good reporting digs up uncomfortable truths. After being barraged by many uncomfortable truths in the 60s and 70s, Americans ushered in the feel-good-about-America Reagan Era. Arguably it was America's collective desire to avoid complicated reality in favor of a more jingoistic and easily-digestible view of the world that led both to the rightward political turn of the last two decades, and the simultaneous rise of Fox News and breathless "as it happens" reportage devoid of context or depth.
You don't have to be a leftist to understand that America does actually make mistakes, but you do have to practice willful ignorance if you watch Fox and expect you're getting an unvarnished look at current events. As for the Washington Times, calling it "conservative-leaning" is like referring to the John Birch Society as "mildly conservative."
The most an information consumer can hope for is to be cognizant of the prejudices of the source. One can only hope that as the blogosphere and internet media evolves as an information source, the critical thinking skills of consumers experiences a similar evolution. Too many people believe what they are told and a free society will not long endure when so many of its citizens are damned fools.
Being cognizant of the prejudices of the source is vital. I definitely agree with you there. It's a pity that so many people still take most of their news from one TV network. TV is the most easily-manipulated, most infotainment-oriented, most passive news medium. I find it baffling that anyone could watch Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, or ABC, and think that they're being informed in anything but the most minimal fashion. Read one issue of the Economist, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the NY Times, and compare that to a week's worth of TV news viewing. The difference in the amount and quality of information received is staggering.
Sadly, I'm not sure that the blogosphere is much better than TV. Disinformation and spin can be passed through the blogosphere just as rapidly as via TV. When everyone's opinions are equal in weight, the opinions that fit our own predispositions and desires (as with feel-good Fox TV reporting) get amplified. Minority voices do get heard in the blogosphere, which is good. But ultimately we're still left with the fact that most of what we read on blogs is opinion, derived from primary sources in the mainstream media. If the MSM isn't doing its job and practicing good, in-depth journalism, bloggers can act as primary information gatherers, but it's not easy, particularly in places like war zones and Congressional office buildings.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
How many liberals would jump to the defense of a major news network before even a word of criticism is uttered? Almost none. Yet you have to defend one and attack all liberals at the same time, even though the article has nothing to do with liberalism and has not mentioned any flaws of Fox News.
You may not realize it, but you are reinforcing certain stereotypes regarding blind loyalty and subservience among conservatives.
Nearly every newspaper posts corrections, and has been doing so for as long as I can remember. It's fun to laugh at some of the mistakes they make, but I doubt that anyone would migrate to a different news medium because of it (though maybe to a different newspaper).
Not many news sources these days make an effort to do any investigative reporting, or to actually educate the public on matters important to them... Television and internet sources are generally the worst. I can go through all of CNN and FOX new's sites without finding an article that isn't essentially fluff. People talk about fox news being bad, and it is. However, they miss the real, much bigger problem, that *all* of the 24 hour news channels are generally filled with uninformative crap and sensationalistic nonsense. FOX news is just the worst (a real shitstorm of misinformation, staged interviews, and sensationalism).
What really bugs me, is just what kind of uninsightful hacks they have anchoring CNN, FOX, and MSNBC. I want the news to report politics, not to get political. These guys don't seem to get that, and think that to report politics means they have to pick a side, and demonize whatever party they don't like. I want them to report all the pertinent *events that actually happen* and let me make my own judgements. Anchors can render their own judgement on a situation when appropriate, but there's a clear distinction between that and the constant political hackery that goes on. Don't even get me started on the interviews they give...
Really, newspapers are the best source that I've seen, but not all newspapers. The Seattle Times is a really good paper, and family run so that they aren't totally beholden to corporate interests. They do a lot of investigative reporting, and I rarely see them putting sensationalistic trash (celebrity murders, hyped up disasters that aren't actually that important, etc) on their front page like many other sources. Many people across the country seem to read the New York Times, but I'm a little iffy on them. It seems that their reporters have been caught lying, and doing other unscrupulous things a number of times.
I haven't been listening to NPR recently, but I remember they used to give really good interviews.
I doubt you'd find anyone working at the BBC who was pro US or pro Israel, at least people that work as journalists. If you went to a dinner party with BBC people and said anything positive about any right wing politician you'd get shouted down. In fact if you said anything positive most Labour ones you'd also get shouted down. BBC reporters may come seem to come in a healthy variety of colours and genders, but they come from a very narrow part of the political spectrum, comfortably to the left of both Labour and the Tories. In fact I'd say they are comfortably to the left of pretty much any government that is likely to be elected.
The problem with bias is that there is a feedback effect. Quite quickly, people who don't fit the bias of the organisation will become unpopular and leave. Once that happens, there is no one left in the organisation to challenge it's drift towards whatever extreme it had a slight preference for. A bunch of public school educated journalists working for a publicly funded state broadcaster tend to be keen on left wing ideas (e.g the public sector, pacifism) and hostile to right wing ones (free market economics, the US/UK foreign policy consensus). I guess other parts of their world view has a bias too, but I find it less obnoxious than these because I agree with it.
Look at the way they cover any economic issue for example, left wing ideas get a far more sympathetic hearing that right wing ones. Or foreign policy - all their coverage assumes that it's currently dominant by a conspiracy of neocons, without quoting what the Neocons actually wrote, or mentioning that apart from Iraq, Neocons are not that different from regular Cons.
Or whenever the US/UK fight a war, it's always covered as if disaster is imminient until they actually win. E.g in Serbia, I remember seeing reports about how the bombing was pointless right up to the point the Serbs surrendered. Being sceptical about a war is of course not itself a bad thing, but there were good reasons for that war (oddly enough, you could see that from Maggie Kane's reports in the Guardian), and good reasons for the choice of tactics, and the BBC never reported them.
I think BBC journalists want to do their own version of crusading journalism against the Vietnam war, despite the fact that techology has improved since then, and the US/UK guys go to much greated lengths these days to avoid killing innocent people. Today's journalists also forget that when the US left, Vietnam was reunited under a murderous dictatorship, so assertive US foreign policy is not necessarily worse than the alternative.
I guess if you start off with a built in bias, no matter how slight, conformism will amplify it. And since the BBC doesn't have to worry about customers or outside interference, there isn't any force to counter act that. And from the media people I've met in London, the intake to the BBC has a huge bias.
Sod it, I'm wasting my time posting this stuff here. But if you compare the BBC to any American organisation, you can see that it's clearly to the left. Maybe you just like that.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
A few years ago, there was an ad on TV here (Ontario, Canada) that featured what is says to be Hippopotamus domesticus, the House Hippo. It lives in homes across North America, in people's houses.
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The ad shows a very small hippopotamus (3-4 inches long) in various scenes in a normal house.
The following claims are made in the ad, in a voice that looks like Attenbourough on BBC nature programs:
- house hippos are friendly, but will defend their territory if necessary
- house hippos live in bedroom closets, where they make nests
- house hippos sleep 16 hours a day
- house hippos come out at night when they search for food
- house hippos like to eat chips, raisins, and crumbs
The ad then says something like : "Do not believe everything you see on TV. Ask questions".
Read the Wikipedia article, or see the UK version of it here
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The rest are either moderates or conservatives. All of the other major news outlets are competing for that 1 in 4, and ignoring the rest of us.
Well... Unfortunatley, I don't have any blond missing daughters.
But seriously, I find Fox News offensive and I consider myself to be Independant Moderate (I used to vote Republican).
But there are so many inconstancies and just poor taste and blind support of government and fear mongering over terrorism, that I just don't want to watch them anymore.
Sure the rest suck, but that is what The Daily Show is for.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I think Stephen Colbert said it best: "Fox News gives time to both sides: the President's side and the Vice-President's side."