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News media is becoming complete garbage.

We live in an era where partisan opinion-reporting reigns supreme in our papers, news websites and news shows. Less often are we presented with carefully collected facts and a dry, objective approach to reports on current events. Now, more often than not, we are subjected to either hastily typed and unexamined copy-paste articles or so-called "discussions" and "analyses" from commentators and writers interested in spreading a slanted narrative. Even respected broadcasters such as the BBC and the CBC (Canada's equivalent) are starting to follow this trend.

While by no means a new phenomenon, networks and papers align themselves with political parties and, more evidently than ever, attempt to swing elections and public opinion through selective reporting, smear pieces, and sometimes downright misinformation. Consider the sorry state of the US media in their current election. Time Warner, one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world, is among Hillary Clinton's most significant financial backers. It doesn't take a genius to understand why public trust in the media is at an all-time low.

In response, more people have been turning to the alternative media. However, I don't find these news sources to be any better. The Young Turks, for example, one of the most popular 'news' channels on YouTube, has fast become notorious for their progressive political bias and tendency to misrepresent and twist stories to suit their agenda. Right-wing alternative sources are honestly no better (Breitbart and Info Wars being two of the worst offenders that spring to mind). We also have the clickbait trash sites like BuzzFeed, Mic and Vice rotting people's brains with their ludicrous, poorly researched so-called journalism.

Then there's social media, which may be both a blessing and a curse. While it can serve as an incredibly useful vendor of information not often given to us by the mainstream outlets, it can also serve as a super highway of misinformation that spreads like a disease. The number of trending political graphics and stories that, upon more detailed investigation, turn out to be complete bull is astounding. Yet people share it around almost unquestioningly, not bothering to check its accuracy.

I honestly worry for the younger generation and what the future holds.

it always was

David Icke's site is a valuable source of genuine news, not what THEY want you to hear.

Reply 3

jermybrown

It has its limits, but many are becoming more savy in their use thereof, and it's a good way to counter the above trend

Reply 4

skunkboy

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 5

PTMalewski

I think that TV and newspapers should be reviewed by a sort of comission consisting of university experts on logic, theory of argumentation and related field, just to check for illogical trash and attempts on manipulating audience. TV or newspaper caught on use of eristics or flawed logic, would be forced to announce their failures in prime time. Of course all the media would work only under valid concession.
More commisions would work on fact verification.
The internet media obviously cannot be controlled this way, so it's becoming more and more important to introduce logic, theory of argumentation and elements of methodology as primary school subjects.