Where To Get Honest New Reporting ??

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WALKERs210

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I have finally admitted to myself that for the most part the main stream media has no desire to present an honest informed report. Mostly think they are more concerned about being First with the story and then fill in the blanks later. A few days back I saw an add on Direct TV for a new addition to their selection of channels which is a News broadcast service Al Jazeer America. I will probably be corrected but not a problem here but it was my understanding that this news agency was a Middle East based and in the past have posted more stories that put the US in a negative position. But after loosing faith in FOX, CNN, and the majority of others I would like to find one place that I can half way feel that what I am hearing is close to the truth. CNN's P. Morgan has made me so mad at the way he slams any one that owns a firearm that if I happen to turn to CNN and he is on I just keep going to something else like maybe Disney channel where at least the viewer knows it's make believe.
 
You can't find honest responsible news reporting from the big commercial US sources about shootings, firearms, or RKBA. This has gotten so bad that Jon Stewart lampooned/lambasted CNN and other networks and NPR put out a guide for consumers.

otm_consumer_handbook-4-copy_custom-0c8dfca9a3a739c93ad6ef34273fa5b252dd1214-s40-c85.png

It is remarkable when we can cite Al Jazeera America as being more objective and reliable than ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, NSNBC and have many many people agree.
 
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Somehow we have to figure out how we are going live with our rights intact in the era of "Infotainment". News isn't news...it's entertainment. Look at "fictional" entertainment: Zombies, vampires, space travel, time travel. So how much of a philosophical (or even editorial) stretch is it to report "AR-15 shotguns"?

I'll bet a bazillion people tuned in to CNN during that crisis. Whether the truth was told, lies, or just mistakes...none of that matters to the ratings. Doesn't matter if we, in the role of "fact checkers" were there too...counting the mistakes. All that mattered to CNN was that a bazillion people were there watching it. They then plug that number into a calculator and their advertisers now have to pay more because CNN, for the first time in the process, actually can produce a fact and cite to their advertisers that a bazillion viewers watched their channel between the hours of x and y.

The truth is not important to the mainstream media anymore. I used to defend them...way longer than any of you guys did. I am not concerned about "liberal" vs "conservative" bias in this outlet vs that outlet. Truth? Well I am concerned about that.

Infotainment killed truth because truth does not increase ratings.
 
Ahhh, back in the day you could TRUST the news for unbiased and factual reporting!


...

:scrutiny:

...

No you couldn't. Remember the Maine?!? News outlets in the days of everyone from Sam Adams to Lincoln, to TR, JFK, LBJ, etc., etc., have always spoon fed the public whatever flavor of syrupy sweet yellow journalism they wanted! Heck, some of what happens now is absurdly tame in comparison to "news" in the days of the Civil War or the Victorian era. Mark Twain had an awesome short story about what it took to be a newspaper editor during those times that is worth reading if only to make our own current failures at news reporting seem mild by comparison.

Yeah, it sucks that there is very little that is truly "objective" but believing that that's a new problem is just as flawed as believing what the media tells you to begin with! :)
 
Seriously, I stopped watching ALL news outlets years ago and this includes Fox News, I even stopped listening to Alex Jones some years ago. I DO watch the local news for weather, traffic and local happenings but that is the extent of it.

I figure they are going to distort the truth, outright lie, omit some facts. Why give them the time of day? It isn't worth my time...

If I want the latest news and items relating to firearms I'll come here to THR ,read the GOA alerts on Facebook or read some of the NRAILA news and alerts.
 
Sam1911 said:
Ahhh, back in the day you could TRUST the news for unbiased and factual reporting!


...

:scrutiny:

...

No you couldn't. Remember the Maine?!? News outlets in the days of everyone from Sam Adams to Lincoln, to TR, JFK, LBJ, etc., etc., have always spoon fed the public whatever flavor of syrupy sweet yellow journalism they wanted! Heck, some of what happens now is absurdly tame in comparison to "news" in the days of the Civil War or the Victorian era. Mark Twain had an awesome short story about what it took to be a newspaper editor during those times that is worth reading if only to make our own current failures at news reporting seem mild by comparison.

Yeah, it sucks that there is very little that is truly "objective" but believing that that's a new problem is just as flawed as believing what the media tells you to begin with! :)
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Outstanding, and entirely factual reality check there Sam! At least back then it got a name "yellow journalism"...now it just passes for "journalism" if you're in the business and infotainment if you're not.

The Maine was an accidental coal dust explosion that we blamed on the Spanish as pretext for war so that Hurst could make millions reporting that war. Worked for him! The media actually started a war to sell news papers.

Good point Sam and well taken.
 
About 90% of all information given by humans is false. This is due to a variety of reasons.
 
SAM1911 your not saying that both news and federal agencies would feed wrongful information in order to further an agenda that could lead to war between nations are you. If so then the second attack on a US Navy Destroyer in the Gulf of Tokin might not have happened as presented. Why that could lead to over 58,000 American service men dead and countless others crippled both physically and mentally, not to mention how many could be listed as M.I.A. for no reason...??? And then we are to believe the same group wanting to disarm the average American citizen for what reason.
 
Walker, I'm not an insightful enough person to delve far enough into the reasons why and prove that any group has ever made known false claims to sway the US public specifically because they wanted a certain outcome. But I do know that many times one way of looking at a tidbit of information has acted as a mighty convenient excuse or rallying cry to do something that some folks REALLY REALLY wanted to do anyway.

Did the McKinley administration know that the Maine hadn't really been sabotaged or bombed? Hard to say. But the shoe fit and was pointed in the direction certain feet wanted to walk!

Seems a few wars, social movements, political movements, etc. since then have had vaguely similar triggers.
 
We started to compare CNN with Al Jazeera when I was in OEF, only focused on things my team had first hand knowledge of; Al Jazeera consistently reported more fairly and accurately than CNN did.

I have also heard good things about CCTV (Chinese sourced). They of course do not report well on China but are supposed to be good with the outside world.

Been lied to too many times with the American crap so am willing to give just about anyone a chance now.
 
Yes Sam I have to agree with you, I enlisted in the Navy at a ripe ole age 17. Gullible, over trusting are a few words that describe my outlook of our country. Bush 2 had to be curtailed, according to interviews from former staffers, after 911 to keep from invading Iraque. At this point of my life I'm not worried about another group or even our President getting us into a full scale shooting war. This is only because my son is over the age of military service, grandson way too young. Plus with today's social networking I do feel that the our young people have information at their finger tip than we had after a week or more of "Fact Finding" of the MSM. Makes me look back to the age of 18 and realizing what a foolish boy I was, mostly due to false information. Guess we as a firearm collection group need to start a News Gathering Network, self governed, financed by subscriptions and as few advertisers as possible. Who Knows, I don't.
 
Remember the Maine? Yes, I do, semi-sister of the Texas 1892 first stirrings of the US toward an intercontinental navy. The genuine maritime investigations are still out on the sinking of the Maine, but it was immediately attributed to Cuban government sabotage, especially in the Morning Journal newspaper of [strike]Charles Foster Kane[/strike] William Randolph Hearst, resulting in public outrage which may have tipped the U.S. government into the Spanish-American War aka the Journal's War (like the government wasn't already leaning that way).

Advocacy journalism is the modern mantra (by modern I mean the past three centuries): change the world by changing people's perceptions to promote social change. War movements, anti-war movements, crusades and moral panicks over alcohol, marihuana, comic books, Satanic Ritual Abuse, and guns and their control. The advocates report incriminatory evidence, suppress exculpatory evidence, and behave like misconducting prosecutors, grand inquisitors and at times like leaders of a lynch mob. Change based on lies, half-truths, innuendoes, insinuations is change based on falsehood, change doomed to failure because it is based on false premises.

Where To Get Honest News Reporting ?? You have to get multiple sources and develop your own bovine and equine manure filters for your mind, because searching for honest news reporting would put you like Diogenes of Sinope wandering the streets with a lamp by daylight endlessly searching for an honest reporter and ending up in News of the Weird yourself.
 
WALKERs210 said:
Guess we as a firearm collection group need to start a News Gathering Network, self governed, financed by subscriptions and as few advertisers as possible. Who Knows, I don't.
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If all the firearm owners in the U.S. donated $2 to $5 each we should be able to start our own TV news network.
 
Take the blue pill and everything will be okay when you wake up in the morning. Just another bad dream!
 
Reading the book John Adams by McCullough, mud slung lies that passed for free press goes back to those days as well (probably before that as well no doubt).

The old kids game our 5th grade teacher had us play... whisper something in kids ear next to you, ask him/her to pass it around the classroom until it gets back to you... whaddya get? :uhoh: :D :rolleyes:
 
I heard some people mention Press TV and RT (Russia Today) as alternative sources for news. Usually the 'conspiracy crowd' radio hosts appear on RT from what I understand. I'm at different forums from time to time and I see links to stories and videos to these sources.
 
Walker, I'm not an insightful enough person to delve far enough into the reasons why and prove that any group has ever made known false claims to sway the US public specifically because they wanted a certain outcome.
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I don't know about my insight but I know what I was taught in journalism school. They told me I would be expected to report in such a way as to lead people to come to a desired conclusion. In other words they said if I wasn't willing to sway people to a certain point of view I would never work in the journalism field. I don't know how much more clear it gets than that. I decided that day I would never be a journalist. And I haven't been one either although I have written some sports columns here and there. Even there they expect you to promote their POV.
 
Cee Zee said:
but I know what I was taught in journalism school. They told me I would be expected to report in such a way as to lead people to come to a desired conclusion. In other words they said if I wasn't willing to sway people to a certain point of view I would never work in the journalism field. I don't know how much more clear it gets than that.
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Wow. I have always suspected that something like that was happening, but ...
 
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