Is there more responsibility on the news media today to get the facts, not their opinion?

The media doesn’t report general facts….they report heavily biased facts.

Ideally, the news media should report the facts without bias. Editorial is one thing, and that’s fine, but news reporting ideally should have no opinion involved.

I don’t think that that affects one’s freedom of speech. No one’s stopping Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh from saying whatever they want (within limits of hate speech – and not even that works all the time), but news reporting has an obligation to be unbiased. (Or at least it should.)

@BoBo1946 since all three of the people you listed aren’t journalists or members of the news media, I will assume you mean when does commentary cross over the line of free speech. I would think you’d have to give specific examples in context to get at the root of the question of crossing the line of free speech in political commentary. The three people you listed have nothing to do with journalism or news gathering. They are commentators.

@bkcunningham they are members of Fox News… maybe they should change the name to Fox’s Opinions?

The job of the media is to make money for their shareholders. They report what they think will get them the biggest audience so the most money from advertising. Facts don’t come into it and probably get in the way.

@BoBo1946 I think your question is very valid and a good one. So please, don’t think I’m being dismissive. I’m not. The name of the networks, be it Fox News Channel or MSNBC (a combination of Microsoft and NBC), Cable News Network or the name of newspapers, don’t have anything to do with commentary versus news.

Thats the mistake of the general public, thinking MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN are “news.”

By in large they are news straddled with heavy doses of opinion.

Didn’t think that BK…not at all. There is a fine line between commentaries and news. My concern is should there be more responsiblity on putting ideas out there that people with mental problems take literally and kill people. It’s a touchy subject now as you know. Just think the left and right need to be more aware of their comments.

If they have that responsibility, they’re shirking it. It isn’t just Fox and hate radio, either. CNN and the major broadcast networks have all become more sensationalized and far less objective than I care for. I try to get my mainstream news from reuters.com. They’re more business-oriented, but not as conservative as the Wall Street Journal.

With respect (or disrespect) to Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and their like, what they do isn’t news, nor is it commentary, it’s entertainment. The people who like to swim in their toilets don’t care about objectivity. The more rational among them know better but tune in anyway. It’s when you have people who are unhinged listening to their noise, and acting it out, that you start to wonder if they’re so over the top they ought to be taken off the air. I say no. We have to pay a price for freedom of expression; if we want to see Robert Mapplethorpe in a public gallery, we have to put up with the likes of Beck.

But I wish to hell they’d shut up.

Honestly, I don’t think that they were being hateful. They were angry, sure, but that’s a people thing. In any case, Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh run talk shows, not news programs.

At the end of the day, even the most upstanding journalist is human, with all of the limitations which that entails. They all have a stake in the matter just as you do, and they all have experiences and background filtering their perceptions just as you do, and those are going to color their judgment. At best, the bias is going to be unconscious. At worst, it will be deliberate.

Bias manifests itself in the language used (‘killed’ as opposed to ‘murdered’, for example, the latter being a play for the heartstrings), in the amount of attention given to an event, where it is in the publication or program, how the message is aimed, and indeed, whether or not it’s covered at all.

The ultimate goal of a journalist is to be read. So it follows that they will do what they can to draw an audience. And there goes objectivity.

Your best bet is to read all that you can, and synthesize. I have yet to find a site that provides a person with raw data instead of articles.

I think that was always the responsibility.

@Nullo “the ultimate goal of a journalist is to be read.” Hmm, I have to think about that. Just off the top of my head, the ultimate goal of a journalist is keeping the public trust. Of course your style of writing would depend on what audience they want to hold. For instance, are they covering hard news, breaking news, an investigative piece, a human interest story, a sports event, a business story or a feature story about the new spring fashions. I think credibility, fairness and accuracy come first in most instances and with the vast majority of journalist I know. Without credibility you soon don’t have an audience.

@BoBo1946 If you truly think the left and the right need to tone it down, why did you just single out the right and Fox News in your question?

There are multiple 24/7 cable channels and they have to fill the air with something. Talking heads are cheap and easy. Actual reporting is expensive and hard.

Pay attention and note how much of what you hear and read is just hearsay or opinion. Hhow much involves people on the ground, at the scene, asking who, what, where, why, how? I’d bet there is a 1:100 ratio between people just commenting and actual reporting.

There are multiple 24/7 cable channels and they have to fill the air with something. Talking heads are cheap and easy. Real journalism is hard work.

Ed Murrow, Paddy Chayefsky (“Network”) and others saw the handwriting on the wall many decades ago. News and those who tell or write it have to be entertaining and controversial in order to profit the media that disseminates it. Unfortunately, that tends to put fact-finding and objective reporting in the back seat.

If you watch CNN, they give opinions by right and left. But, they don’t claim to be fair and balanced.

@bkcunningham Note that I said ‘ultimate goal’. The ultimate goal has supporting goals – the trust and credibility and whatnot.

Thank you the answers.

There are no “lines” for freedom of speech. Some porn has been declared “free speech,” for God’s sake, and by the very people who are right now raising hell with everything the right says because it’s “crossing the line of Free Speech.” I didn’t spend two years almost getting my ass waxed in Vietnam so the left OR the right could limit free speech! So KNOCK IT OFF!

Although I am often upset at the opinions expressed by many of the personalities mentioned in this thread, I think we need to place responsibility where it belongs – on the viewers.

People have opted to choose angry-voiced zealots to be their source of sound bites. There used to be competition between “centralist” new sources and the extremists. But the people have spoken.

Free speech has a limit…. There are examples that we all know…hollering fire in a theater etc. Then there is slander etc. My Dad died on Normandy D Day (stayed in and out of mental institution most of his life), so I’m certainly aware of the price paid for free speech. My concern is the increased violence in America the last 20 years must be from something. Probably a society problem. Seeing so many young people doing violent acts Did not see that when I was a young person. Having coached and taught school in the 70’‘s, did not see this kind of violence with our young people. Also, I’ve the right to have free speech to post this question. SO, THAT IS MY POSITION.

@BoBo1946 I think lynchings are down…

@6rant6 ?

@BoBo1946 Oh, your “My concern is the increased violence in America the last 20 years ”? I was saying lynchings were down, but I guess that would be since the 60’s.

Actually, violent crime is down in the last 20 years in the US. (see Crime_in_the_United_States for FBI numbers).

Crime reporting may be up; certainly the “news” tries harder to sensationalize it and their trailers are written to make you think you are next on the hit list.

And I think that as people get older they tend to see more crime as a danger to them, regardless of actual crime rates. Nothing to back that up, but I think it’s so.

So it may feel more scary, but it’s not true that your level of risk is rising.

Probably so… but this lastest incident has brought out a lot of discussion.

@BoBo1946 What do you think it would be like to teach today? With all the political correctness you can’t even talk harsh to a student in todays classroom for fear of a lawsuit. Not to mention we actually teach kids that all of them are special. There are no winners and losers…everyone gets a trophy! What a crock of bull! When I was a kid and we lost…we lost. We also worked harder to win! Not anymore.

It’s like Obama wanting to “redistribute wealth.” Let’s equate that with school. The A students don’t need all those points so we take some to give them to the less fortunate so they won’t be D students. All of a sudden no one is trying and everyone is a C student at best. Simple example but it works. Take away incentive and there is nothing to strive for.

@missingbite

Excellent, excellent answer! I salute you! : ))

I don’t think I could @missingbite ! When i was teaching, you could discipline student… not anymore.

The crock of bull is everyone blaming President Obama for all our problems. Bush did the same thing, but no one said anything. I’m an Independent… But, I call it like I see it.

@BoBo1946 We can agree on that one. It’s not all Obama. The US has been going down this road for a long time. Obama just happens to have the “bully pulpit” right now. Don’t even get me started on past Presidents mistakes! That would take a while.

yeah, we can leave it there. I don’t want to go there either. We could write until “the cows came home” and accomplish nothing.

@BoBo1946

No one SAID anything??? WTF? Were you alive at the sime time I was???

WTF are you saying?

@BoBo1946 He is commenting on your post stating that “Bush did the same thing, but no one said anything.” I’m pretty sure Bush was under constant critique from the media. Even some on the right like Beck have spoken out about Bush’s spending.

My comment was too you @missingbite ! Got to run. About Bush!