Should the news media be required to be neutral?

How is it measured and who determines neutral?

There is no such thing as unbiased or neutral. That would be silly.

@Tropical_Willie @hello321 Whatever controls where in place when Walter Cronkite was in the heyday of television reporting.

Some obvious things like calling someone who one disagrees with one’s viewpoint a criminal or dishonest. Like CNN did with Trump when he was using positive thinking and salesmanship. Or Fox news bashing Biden.

I guess that the viewers have the final say. I am thinking or cancelling my news package.

I think they should be more transparent in disclosing their conflicts of interest. Also the biggest bias in the news is the stuff they DON’T cover. For example, news networks are owned by companies that have a strong interest in getting rid of net neutrality. It reflects in the absence of coverage of the topic. Also many of the primetime anchors are multi-millionaires, they should disclose that fact when discussing policies that could increase their tax liabilities significantly.

No. The most reputable news sites are but they can’t be required. That would kind of infringe on freedom of the press.

@Dutchess_III I thought that the freedom of the press was in exchange for the obligation to be neutral.

Who decides what is neutral? Donald Trump? Bernie Sanders?

Anything ever written express an opinion. Including the news.

@elbanditoroso In Canada one can file a complaint to the CRTC. Maybe other countries have something similar?

@RedDeerGuy1 IMHO News is fact only no opinion ever! Opinion can be offered as opinion but do not screw with facts!

I’m surprised no one has mentioned that the news used to be required to be neutral. Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine. When Cronkite was an anchor, there was a regulation that reporting had to be neutral, and editorials had to be clearly labeled as such.

@Hawaii_Jake – True thing. I researched it for a communications class in college. And compared to the media freak show we have now, it worked.

Generally speaking hard news is fairly neutral. The problem is that people confuse opinion-editorial programs/articles with news.

Even at Cronkite’s height as the most trusted man in America, CBS News still had its own viewpoint. The big debate in newsrooms in the mid 60’s was on whether or not to show graphic video from Vietnam on the nightly news.

And mainstream media all over the country, especially newspapers, were reluctant to cover Watergate until it got to the point of having a Select Senate Committee.

And the biggest threat to information is not so much elimination of the Fairness Doctrine as much as elimination of restrictions on the number of media outlets a single corporation can own,

Even during the Cronkite era we had things like The National Enquirer. But people then were smart enough to recognize it as silly junk, not real news. I don’t think many people today are that discerning.

It should be a standard to strive for amongst the news media themselves.

Yes. News is facts, we form our opinion from verifiable facts.
What I see everyone accepting (to our detriment) is called yellow journalism.

In a way, neutrality is a bias. When CNN and MSNBC bring on republicans and democrats to debate an issue that’s already been verified as fact (like the effects of global warming) they’re doing a huge disservice to their viewers by staying neutral. Because they’re staying neutral so they don’t piss off the side that’s incorrect.

News outlets need to be objective, not neutral.

Yes, sort of. I think impartial is a better term than neutral. They are supposed to be the conscience of the politicians, asking the tough questions and not taking sides. It’s okay to challenge elected officials on their stated policies. If they are good policies, the politicians should be able to easily defend them. If they can’t or if they try using “wiggle talk” to avoid answering, they should be challenged further.

Opinion is okay, providing you separate it from the actual news. I remember the news used to have a section for “opinion”. That was where some upper member of the news room could voice an opinion, but it was distinctly noted to be only an opinion.

What we have now is nothing like any of that.

Where humans are concerned, how can anything be truly objective, neutral or otherwise? EVERYBODY is opinionated, biased. It is all in the eyes of the beholder, in the end…
What will you believe?

I think news media should be free of commercial and political pressures and should employ journalists who respect the truth and are given freedom to investigate.

@flutherother I agree with you on that. And much of the pressure on journalists come from their own superiors. I recently read the book Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow. Much of the book is dedicated to his investigation into Harvey Weinstein and his escapades. His own upper echelon at NBC nixed the entire investigation…several times. It took him a long, long time and much pressure was put on him and on his sources and their families and friends. He finally had to take his story to The New Yorker to get it published. When the heat started coming back on NBC they completely revised history to say he never brought them a story or anything like that. Unfortunately for them there was much evidence and witnesses so their credibility took a big hit.
If he had been free of commercial and political pressure, that story would have hit the air waves long before it did and there might have been at least a few women that weren’t subjected to Harvey’s ministrations.

People frequently misunderstand the phrase, “from of the press”. It is not declaring freedom to say whatever flips your skirt. It means freedom of access to the facts. Nothing more, only that.

Any opinion expressed about the facts is editorial commentary. That’s it. Misrepresentation of facts is known as propaganda.

Damn. Good to have you back @Patty_Melt.

I’ve been busy.
I have made much progress on my current novel.
I’m trying to slim down a bit.
I’m going to try to teach myself how to play a morin khuur also known as a horse head fiddle. I have never played a stringed instrument before, but with only two strings, how hard can it be?
I am also trying to accomplish throat singing, in Mongolian, so I can sing along with The Hu songs.
The sounds are just too cool to not join in.