←back to thread

707 points patd | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
VBprogrammer ◴[] No.23322903[source]
Can this even be considered a free speech issue? They aren't deleting his tweet, only displaying it alongside a fact check. Of course you can try to call into question the impartiality of the fact check but that is a long way from not deciding not to show the content.
replies(6): >>23323205 #>>23327484 #>>23327571 #>>23328045 #>>23329677 #>>23329719 #
mathdev ◴[] No.23327571[source]
A fact check would be fine if it led to objective analyses of some sort, or even Wikipedia. But when I clicked it, it displayed some highly partisan sources, including a CNN article with its usual "Trump bad" vitriol. Maybe it was an algorithm's fault, but it didn't work at all.
replies(3): >>23328047 #>>23328067 #>>23328434 #
gameswithgo ◴[] No.23328067[source]
How do you objectively report on trump without it painting him in a bad light?
replies(3): >>23328568 #>>23328724 #>>23328950 #
dahfizz ◴[] No.23328568[source]
> How do you objectively report on trump without it painting him in a bad light?

You are missing the point. Using objective reporting to paint a bad person in a bad light is exactly what "the media" should do.

I went to cnn's homepage and clicked on this article[1]. Lets look at the first paragraph:

> President Donald Trump's use of the bully pulpit to defy his own government's advice on face coverings has turned into the era's latest ideologically motivated assault on science and civility. His noncompliance is a symbol of his refusal to adopt the customary codes of the presidency during a crisis and his habit of turning even a dire national moment to political advantage.

You can't possibly call that objective reporting. The factual content is true, but highly highly subjective and filled with inflammatory language.

Saying "Trump refuses to wear a facemask in defiance of $HealthExpert's advice" is objective. Calling that act "an assault on science and civility" is a heavily inflammatory and subjective stance.

To be clear, I don't disagree with CNN here. Trump is being dumb. But you can't pretend like CNN is objective or unbiased.

CNN, like all news media, is a private, profit seeking corporation who will pander to their audience to generate ad revenue. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But turning around and treating this multi-million dollar corporation as the sole arbiter of absolute, objective truth is plain foolish.

[1]https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/donald-trump-covid-m...

EDIT: Some argue that this is an opinion piece and so my point is invalid. Up in the top left corner, this article is marked as "Analysis by $Author" instead of just "by $Author". They don't label it as an opinion, and they don't place it differently on their home page. It is an analysis on current events, written by a CNN reporter, hosted on the CNN front page. This is an explicit endorsement of the content of the article, and it's crazy to say that CNN is absolved of all journalistic integrity because this article is an "analysis" versus "regular" news. The only difference is the addition of the single word "Analysis" hidden in the top left corner. This article is clearly meant to be treated as any other.

I suppose that is the problem with using examples, though. People would rather pick apart the example rather than face the larger claim. Without examples, of course, the point would be dismissed as unsubstantiated. It's just not possible to change people's minds, I guess.

EDIT 2: This is what an actual opinion piece looks like: https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/opinions/trump-racist-tweet-m...

They disclaim that the article is the authors opinion, they host it in the opinions section, and have opinion in the header, etc. The article I linked is not an opinion piece.

replies(3): >>23328743 #>>23329234 #>>23329296 #
three_seagrass ◴[] No.23328743[source]
It's not just CNN saying that the President is lying about mail-in voting.

There's a long list of news organizations:

https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384

replies(3): >>23328975 #>>23329060 #>>23329183 #
btilly ◴[] No.23329183[source]
You are not responding to the content of what you are replying to.

It is irrelevant how many true things CNN says, or how broadly other organizations agree with them. CNN is still not presenting things in an objective way. Which means that those you would like to convince will flip the bozo bit because of the bias, and never even hear the evidence.

Note that we seldom notice bias in others when it matches our own. So CNN's bias is invisible to its core audience. Just as Fox News' bias is invisible to theirs. But it can't be missed by anyone whose biases differ, or who are actively looking for whether things are presented with bias.

But http://gatewayjr.org/how-a-popular-media-bias-chart-determin... gets it right. CNN skews liberal, and isn't particularly accurate. It is better than Fox News...but not by much.

replies(1): >>23329412 #
three_seagrass ◴[] No.23329412{3}[source]
>You are not responding to the content of what you are replying to.

That's because the content I am responding to is a red herring to the question of Twitter's actions.

This derailment into "Is CNN biased?" is not relevant when the majority of news organizations are in agreement about the president lying in the tweet.

Further muddying the waters with claims that it's all just an "opinion" anyways is also non-sequitur because there are definitive facts about mail-in voting showing otherwise: https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384

replies(1): >>23329721 #
1. dahfizz ◴[] No.23329721{4}[source]
My comment was a direct reply to my parent, who asked a fair question about how media is to deal with Trump. I make no greater claims about this specific situation and I am not derailing a discussion, I am directly answering an interesting question. If anything, you are derailing a discussion about news media bias with the red herring of "but Trump bad".

For you to say that its wrong to discuss media bias because Trump did a bad thing is dishonest at best. Yes, Trump is acting a fool on Twitter as he always is. That does not mean that the news media is beyond reproach and it is wrong to call into question their biases.