Duped by CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC

The media puts a spin on everything, for the most part, and no matter which network you're on. Some try to stay fair, and so their intentions are center, but their sources are actually biased one way or another, and so the result is unintentional biased news about the truth in the world.

Take Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. If you look at it from one sense, they each have roughly equivalent (and at times the same) sources of news. They are each given story A (left wing spin), B (center), and C (right wing spin). Fox often chooses to run with C, MSNBC chooses A, and CNN normally goes with B. None of this is a surprise.

The problem is that there are actually more stories out there (such as D, E, and F). the networks are either not being vigilant enough to get to these stories, not allowed, or they don't have the capability to access them. I don't think the latter is the case, since I can find in two minutes a thousand D, E, and F stories in international papers.

Any advertising exec can tell you that repetition works wonders in shaping our minds (that's how I passed my vocab quizzes). If every day, these three networks present us stories about a mortgage mess, we start believing there is a mess. If they say we are in recovery mode, then we start believing that, too.

The media has an august responsibility to make us aware of every angle of what is going on, and not just one side that fits their own agendas. It seems as if they have taken on a personal crusade against each other in an attempt to balance the other network's propaganda, and we the public are left to suffer. Instead of presenting all of the facts, they end up appearing biased.

What we hear is that our soldiers are building schools and bridges. What we don't hear is that a U.S. Marine testifies before congress that we are creating 9 enemies in Afghanistan for every 1 person we may get right. You just don't hear this on the news. That 9 out of ten times, we are just killing or beating up people who end up being innocent, who are now pissed that we killed their brothers and children by mistake and who want to now go to war.

What we hear is that American generals are visiting bases in Afghanistan to greet the troops. We do not see the articles that the these generals are forced to apologize for US is forced to apologize for killing innocents again and again and again.

What we hear is that the president of Iran has denied the Holocaust. What we are also not hearing is that on many occasions, he has clarified his position (here, here) that this is just not true, that instead, he says let us present an impartial group of scientists and scholars to study it. He went on CNN's Larry King and had a very eloquent and intelligent interview and we rarely get mention of that. Instead, we focus on the ones that make him a bellicose anti-Semite. And if it's all factual and scientifically documented, then let's let him get his impartial scientists and historians together and try to refute facts. Last I checked, you can't refute facts and that will shut him and his conspiracy theorists all up. Why is that so difficult?

What he says and what I am TOLD by the networks he says are thousands of miles apart.

I just think we should take our news sources to task.

Comments

[apolloguide]

I'm convinced that MSNBC is not left wing spin. Often it is faux left wing drivel treated seriously, at least when it comes to spinning the huge immigration problem with Mexico and points south. It is especially galling to hear Keith Olbermann ignore the connection of the illegals and their border jumping on the flu epidemic/pandemic by promoting the absurd notion that the flu was spread by school children on a trip to Cancun from New York City.

I am a northern Californian and got this flu at Christmas and it is still lingering now over 4 months later after treatment at the VA. The person I got it from taught at a Hispanic magnet public school and the entire faculty got exposed back in October of 2008. 75% of the students there are Hispanic . They travel to Mexico and points south each time there is any holiday or vacation. For Olbermann, this discussion is "racism".

California is going to go to 160 million in the next 25 years and the deleterious public health consequences of people who refuse birth control compounds problems. Women over 10 must be comfortable with planned parenthood. The media needs to lead making Zero Population Growth a regular topic of discussion on these networks. Avoiding it reinforces the popular illusions which keep people ineffective, and in disease and poverty.

[Eyeheartfreedumb]

We need to take money out of the journalism equation so we can have the toothy 4th estate that our government and constitution require.

[Eyeheartfreedumb]

We need a government funded media since those who own the media have decided they'd rather sell stuff.
If we funded the journalism, but government had no ability to take funding away or change the process of investigative reporting, then everyone could start getting real news. We don't want journalists to feel like they have to censor themselves, and that's exactly what working for a conservative-owned "news" conglomerate forces. "Don't want to make the boss/adver­tisers/rea­dership mad." Well, guess what, sometimes the truth can make you mad- - get mad nd then do something about it, but don't keep everyone else from the truth.
We live in an age where truth is dead, or has been so marginalized that it doesn't matter any more. Every toothpaste claims that 9 out of 10 dentists recommend their product. Do the math. Bush was placed in the White House and the next day every "liberal journalist" was on television saying, "well, we might as well accept it." What a crock. In the run up to Bush's War the media told us how inevitable it was, for weeks, and then when there were thousands in the streets protesting and saying that it wasn't inevitable if you just looked at the facts, the media reported that they were small rallys with little effect on the inevitability that Bush's propaganda would work (the rich people who own the media companies stood to gain a lot of money from Bush's War).

[Lexie]

Fox "often" chooses A? CNN is center? MSNBC is "left-wing spin"? Fox always chooses A. CNN frames all coverage in terms of the imminent demise of the Democrats and more subtly intellectually dishonest than CNN. CNN is considerably less respectful to Democrats than to Republicans. In fact, I would call CNN the "John McCain" channel.

To say that MSNBC is left-wing spin is to not understand the dominant narrative frame (which is right of center, unlike the people of the United States). It is not an ideological mirror image of Fox. It actually offers a critique of the existing power structure (that does not go deep enough, if you ask me). You may not agree with it, but it is more honest and intelligent than both Fox (completely and deliberately dishonest) and CNN (self-deluding and occasionally good on reporting events like hurricanes; note, CNN-International is somewhat better than CNN).

[FanofPaine]

No offense to you, but having an independent study of the Holocaust is like asking to have an independent study of 9/11 but to the 100,000,000 degree. It is an insult to survivors, war veterans and their families and, really, all of humanity. We have so much documented and eye witness proof that this is beyond ridiculous. Mahmoud changing the wording around every once in awhile means jack. Let someone suggest in 40 years that we study if 9/11 really existed with an independent group of people and you would hear outrage from American citizens. Please, go spout your nonsense somewhere else. You've gone too far.

[texaslib82]

I cant believe that Liberals are now supporting Iran and its holocaust denying stand...ex­cellent...

[shaman]

The Irony of your Blog is that it is on an Alternative / Internet site that disseminat­es/aggrega­tes news from a number of sources, albeit with a bias of its own. There are many other similar sites with their own agenda, then there are sites like Google News, offbeat channels such as The Daily Show. There are still newspapers (some will survive) and there are foreign sources of news as well. The point is the Cable News channels cater to a target audience. Watch at your own peril or do not watch, it is up to you. Do not expect the scorpion to change its nature.

[Ozy]

You know you are right in principle but Fox has been running unchecked for years.

MSNBC NEEDS TO BE (A) AS LONG AS FOX IS (C) CNN JUST BLOWS!
So there is room for real reporting out there ABC is mostly Neocon with Sinclair running the show and John Stossle in denial 24-7, CBS is being run into the ground by Moonvees's EGO & Katie Corics new fake look so how about NBC trying to go after E,D&F?

[blaising]

"...MSNBC chooses A (liberal).­.."

Excuse me? You haven't been listening to Morning Joe. have ya?

[marchamlin]

Not many do.

[fausto412]

i agree, the news is broken. no truth honest reporting out there. i blame fox news and right wing radio for this. they went extreme and so the left went extreme and really all they are after is money. Rupert Murdoch says so himself...­if being left leaning meant fox news would have higher ratings then fox news would be leftist.

[QuasiEgalitarian]

Wow! Great Article. I for one no longer only watch one news source, especially after hearing a seasoned journalist going blow for blow with a competitor over who makes the most money and who's stocks are more valuable on wall street. I was outraged, but I realized something very important. Most PRIMETIME journalist don't care about reporting the truth, but they do care about the value of their stocks/bonds, with the exception of Amy Goodman. I watch her show every morning. I've found that she is the one journalist who doesn't talk about the designers she's wearing or what color bleach she uses for her hair. I've never heard her boast or insult any other news program, or how many more viewers she has over msnbc or fox news. She reports the news and the truth as she knows it. www.democracynow.org

Anyone who doesn't believe the holocaust happened is probably mentally ill or seeking to offend traumatized human beings. I believe people who deny the holocaust are sociopaths.

[Spiritof1982]

"he says let us present an impartial group of scientists and scholars to study it"

I don't suppose that doubting the Shoah could be the motivation for this study?

[IsobelDeBrujah]

No, that couldn't be it. Also, the photographic evidence and, you know the first hand accounts from people who survived, participated or observed the Shoah just aren't enough. It's totally possible that 12 million people just moved and didn't leave a forwarding address.

[AdDaCa]

There's no business like Shoah business..­...

[Peace4Allnotsome]

The media still claims Ahmadinejad said "wipe Israel off the map." Stephanopolous just interviewed him and still states that lie. HE *NEVER* SAID THAT, and I find it hard to believe that the MSM doesn't have one, damned Farsi-speaker to make that clear to them.

They consciously lie for a reason, and the reason is perception­... perception of the worst kind.

[Kaves]

Just wait til the Ted Turners and Rupert Murdochs of the world take over the internet.

[skialethia]

Nooooooooo­oooooooooh­hhhhhhhhhh­!!!!!!!!!!

[snapshot1940]

Of all the sickening things I've read today, that is the absolute worst.

[unity13]

There have always been better sources for accurate and more meaningful news coverages than television networks. I started reading the Christian Science Monitor years ago when I longed for news that wasn't saturated with O.J. Simpson, Marcia Clark's new hairstyle and Judge Ito. There are other credible news sources, but unfortunately, none are main stream.

Thankfully the Internet has made it easier for us to search relevant information while sorting through what the MSM has wrongfully tried to pawn off as news.