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Pew Research Finds Opinion Dominates MSNBC More Than Fox News
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Jack Mirkinson reports that Pew Research Center's annual "State of the Media" study found that, since 2007, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have all cut back sharply on the amount of actual reporting found on their airwaves. Cheaper, more provocative debate or interview segments have largely filled the void. Pew found that Fox News spent 55 percent of the time on opinion and 45 percent of the time on reporting. Critics of that figure would likely contend that the network's straight news reporting tilts conservative, but it is true that Fox News has more shows that feature reporting packages than MSNBC does. According to Pew MSNBC made the key decision to reprogram itself in prime time as a liberal counterweight to the Fox News Channel's conservative nighttime lineup. The new MSNBC strategy and lineup were accompanied by a substantial cut in interview time and sharply increased airtime devoted to edited packages. The Pew Research examination of programming in December 2012 found MSNBC by far the most opinionated of the three networks, with nearly 90% of MSNBC's primetime coverage coming in the form of opinion or commentary."
This is as misleading as the studies that "disproved" that organic food is more nutritious. Nobody was making the claim they disproved. The basic claim about Fox News' bias is that every single story is framed in such a way to reinforce a distorted, reactionary worldview.
Of course. But what the OP was talking about is the parts not marked as opinion, but the reporting parts, which should be as objective as possible. What the OP questioned is how much of that reporting is actually biased, and thus not truly reporting (he also questioned how much of it is simply incorrect, which is already a strong hint he wasn't talking about the opinion part).
And yes, it's not really possible to be 100% objective even in reporting, but good reporting goes as close to that as possible. Biased reporting, on the other hand, is worse than marked opinion, because it makes the opinion look like hard facts.
In German public TV they once had a very nice demonstration of this: They purposefully made two oppositely biased "documentations" about the same East-German city (the report was a short time after the German re-unification). Both of them reported only hard facts, yet one of them painted the picture of a declining city which was essentially doomed, while the other one told the story of a booming city with a great future. And both did do it in a quite convincing way.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
BBC and Al Jazeera are better than any news in the US.
As someone outside of america looking in, but seeing all of these stations from time to time...
MSNBC is as much total bullshit as fox news is, they fail, but they fail less hard because they frame their bullshit as what it is, bullshit. Fox puts on 'reporting' programs supposedly reporting facts but often the facts are distorted and they've got commentary that destroys what truth there was in the report.
CNN is the only halfway decent major news network in the U.S. They shift back and forth from 25% bullshit to 75% bullshit depending on what current events are going on, but their news reporting IS news reporting and their bullshit is framed as such. Its actually not a terrible station even on an international comparison.
I think we have the most number of "journalists" in this world right now than any other period of human history - it is ironic that REAL JOURNALISM has gone to the dogs
Yes, it is highly ironic that I have to go to blogs to get news because the mainstream "news" outlets are controlled by corrupt corporate interests.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
How about a law to require them to put "opinion" in the corner of the screen when they're just spouting crap.
No sig today...
I realize I must be careful about the tone I use here, or my comment will be censored, so I'll try to be polite. There were historical figures, especially in the 1930-45 era, in Europe, who used certain propaganda techniques, now wholly discredited, who's character could be compared to the comment above -- made by persons of comparable political persuasion, of the time.
MSNBC is owned and controlled by a political conservative. Only in the context of the above mentioned country and period of Europe, can MSNBC be considered liberal. Hardball, for instance, was an unreserved supporter of the invasion of Iraq.
Fox is owned by a conservative, and run by an extreme right wing political operative. Fox is the equivalent of the information Ministry of the fore mentioned country, and time.
A rose is a rose, and is color of the neck of the author of the comment, to which this is a reply.
CNN wins on the news front, ive been saying that for years but 55% vs 90% it is not even close the difference between fox and msnbc with the opinion.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The current generation doesnt seem to know what journalism used to be, and apparently cannot seem to tell the difference between facts and opinions.
I don't know about this current generation claim; all of the highly charged opinion masquerading as fact that I hear in discussions or get forwarded to my inbox, all come from people over the age of 65.
One of my favorite tricks is where they publish a completely stock AP wire story on their website, but with an inflammatory headline that has almost nothing to do with the content. The story will be about Obama leaving Israel or something, and every other source will headline it something like "Obama concludes Mideast trip" and foxnews.com will headline it "Obama abandons Israel". Both count as "news" but one clearly shows bias.