Poll: Majority says mainstream media publishes fake news - Polidicks

[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52275473]Also it's an onlne survey. They probably didn't randomly select the population themselves and it's an opt-in survey, which is a huge no-no.[/quote] The poll responses are weighted, as they should be for such a poll. Opt-in polls are not ideal, but with correct methodology (weighting) they are not entirely illegitimate either. I shouldn't have to explain how weighting works. [quote]Depends on the population and what questions you're asking and how you're doing it.[/QUOTE] Yes, you're absolutely right that it depends on population. A survey size of even 400 can effectively represent the entire globe with a 95% confidence level and a 5% margin of error. A poll of 2,000 people? Can represent the United States with a 99% confidence level and between a 5% and 2.5% margin of error: [img]https://surveyanyplace.com/wp-content/uploads/sample-size-table1.png[/img] Point is, there are problems with The Hill's record of factual reporting, and the article and the OP are sensationalised to hell. You should be complaining about those things; the survey methodology matters that you complain about are non-issues, and frankly, I am getting absolutely sick of constantly having to post the above image here on Facepunch.

[QUOTE=Mattk50;52275611]I'm pretty sure all i've seen you do recently is quote people and make an irrelevant comment that intentionally misses the point of whoever you're quoting. The fact that the idea that we should expect more from our national media and news sources is now heavily politicized doesnt concern you at all? That it's now considered right wing to take issue with the complete lack of per-organization reporting? That's it's fine that they usually just regurgitate each-others news reporting without doing investigation of their own? The extreme oversimplifcation of every issue and dumbing down analysis and punditry to the barest left vs right level to appeal to as wide an audience as possible? This is so much of a non issue to you that your response to a comment about all this is 'but wash po isnt trump'. :hammered:[/QUOTE] But fox is the literal definition of "mainstream" they have the most viewers. They also misinform the most, quite literally more than all the others.

[QUOTE=Mattk50;52275611]The fact that the idea that we should expect more from our national media and news sources is now heavily politicized doesnt concern you at all?[/QUOTE] Of course that's an issue but we can care about more than one thing at a time. [QUOTE]That it's now considered right wing to take issue with the complete lack of per-organization reporting?[/QUOTE] can you explain what this means [QUOTE]That's it's fine that they usually just regurgitate each-others news reporting without doing investigation of their own?[/QUOTE] I dunno if you or I can be certain about that but generally journalists try to verify their sources to determine they're trustworthy or accurate. [QUOTE]The extreme oversimplifcation of every issue and dumbing down analysis and punditry to the barest left vs right level to appeal to as wide an audience as possible?[/QUOTE] It's a good the Roger Ailes is dead huh [QUOTE]This is so much of a non issue to you that your response to a comment about all this is 'but wash po isnt trump'.[/QUOTE] Fundamentally I see Donald J Trump as a bigger threat to America right now than anything else in American society right now. If you disagree with me that's fine but do you need to be so rude about it

[QUOTE=Mattk50;52275540]A lot of people here have started 'trusting' the mainstream media because the politican they dislike has been repeating fake news a bunch. You know, it's totally valid to point out that random bullshit blogs are not a good alternative but that doesn't forgive modern media being unbelievably awful.[/QUOTE] Have you ever considered that some people never stopped trusting the press? I fundamentally disagree with the idea that modern media is universally awful.

I'd probably answer yes to this poll. Look at Fox News, they just ran a conspiracy theory as front-page news.

[QUOTE=Mattk50;52275611]I'm pretty sure all i've seen you do recently is quote people and make an irrelevant comment that intentionally misses the point of whoever you're quoting. [/QUOTE] It seemed on point to me. [QUOTE=Mattk50;52275611] The fact that the idea that we should expect more from our national media and news sources is now heavily politicized doesnt concern you at all? That it's now considered right wing to take issue with the complete lack of per-organization reporting? [/QUOTE] This is supremely disingenuous. Holding news media to a higher standard isn't the issue here. If it was, the left has been talking about it for decades regarding Fox, Breitbart, and the various left leaning news satirists like Jon Stewart. The reason this is needlessly politicized rests squarely with people like Trump and those that support him. People who propogate the idea that fake news is anything that criticises them, their leaders or their political brand. [QUOTE=Mattk50;52275611] That's it's fine that they usually just regurgitate each-others news reporting without doing investigation of their own? [/QUOTE] This isn't new. Not every paper or network has the same level of contacts and sources to work with, so when other outlets see a story that they feel is verified enough to stake their reputation on they will report it to keep up in current affairs. Its ths difference between WaPo reporting something and having it be picked up by literally everyone and the Buzzfeed dossier story not being touched with a ten foot pole. [QUOTE=Mattk50;52275611] The extreme oversimplifcation of every issue and dumbing down analysis and punditry to the barest left vs right level to appeal to as wide an audience as possible? [/QUOTE] No one thinks this is great. In my opinion it is a consequence of living in a society where news has to sell itself to continue existing. [QUOTE=Mattk50;52275611] This is so much of a non issue to you that your response to a comment about all this is 'but wash po isnt trump'. :hammered:[/QUOTE] Who should we trust for news?

I almost feel like the question is too vague to really mean anything. It would be nice if there was a breakdown of which media outlets the different groups thought were most responsible for publishing "fake news" and how much of each outlet's content they believe is fake.

The question they were asked wasn't that good. [img]http://i.imgur.com/Deokii2.png[/img] "There is a lot of fake news in the mainstream media." What defines fake news? Is "news" defined as an article or is "news" defined as a news outlet? What defines mainstream media? Is "mainstream" defined as anything but fox news or is it defined as traditional media (tv, radio, newspapers, etc)? When Trump talks about mainstream media, he's refering to moderate to left leaning publications in print and on television. What does "mainstream media" and "fake news" mean to the respondent?

[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;52275943]The question they were asked wasn't that good. [img]http://i.imgur.com/Deokii2.png[/img] "There is a lot of fake news in the mainstream media." What defines fake news? Is "news" defined as an article or is "news" defined as a news outlet? What defines mainstream media? Is "mainstream" defined as anything but fox news or is it defined as traditional media (tv, radio, newspapers, etc)? When Trump talks about mainstream media, he's refering to moderate to left leaning publications in print and on television. What does "mainstream media" and "fake news" mean to the respondent?[/QUOTE] That is a pretty poor question, yeah. The mainstream media includes Fox News (the largest "news" channel in the country), so I would inclined to answer at lest "somewhat agree" for that reason alone. They really should have broken this down into more specific and meaningful categories. [editline]26th May 2017[/editline] Goat, I'll let this one slide since you provided a secondary source directly from the pollster, but [B]be careful with your sources[/B]. The Hill does [I]not[/I] meet our source selection criteria. Learning media literacy is the first step to learning how to spot unreliable news sources, which may publish [I]actually[/I] fake news. So, your poor source selection is pretty ironic. :v:

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52276123] Goat, I'll let this one slide since you provided a secondary source directly from the pollster, but [B]be careful with your sources[/B]. The Hill does [I]not[/I] meet our source selection criteria. Learning media literacy is the first step to learning how to spot unreliable news sources, which may publish [I]actually[/I] fake news. So, your poor source selection is pretty ironic. :v:[/QUOTE] Ok I will stop sourcing The Hill (for polidicks) until if they get more professional/more least biased researchers or website (I may not going trust site if they actually accurately saiding which news group is defined bias or not) now said they have high Fracture Reporting in future.

Even this is enough to be somewhat worrying. If everyone trusts no one, then how is the truth supposed to get out there?

[QUOTE=Disgruntled;52282564]Even this is enough to be somewhat worrying. If everyone trusts no one, then how is the truth supposed to get out there?[/QUOTE] i think thats the point, you have to be skeptical of everything. [quote]Eighty-four percent of voters said it is hard to know what news to believe online.[/quote] i feel like this is a good thing. everyone sometimes lies, everything has an angle.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;52282569]i think thats the point, you have to be skeptical of everything. i feel like this is a good thing. everyone sometimes lies, everything has an angle.[/QUOTE] The problem is most people don't take it as incentive to take in stories from different sources and find truth from the details, they just find a narrative to believe and entrench themselves in it while refusing to listen to anyone at all.

[QUOTE=kharkovus;52275410] It's quite hard for people ill equipped to distinguish which information sources are credible, and which ones are not. Many people, especially those older, less educated, and less used to large amounts of information exposure (IE the rural, old, high-school-or-less educated demographics that republicans are composed of) aren't nearly as proficient in distinguishing between fact and fiction in an infotainment world bulging more and more with contradictory viewpoints and radical interpretations of events, all initially presented as equally valid to those without rigorous skepticism and information filtering methods.[/QUOTE] This isn't an issue exclusive to Republican voters or the right wing in general. It's not even mainly older generations (I mean, how cliche of our generation to blame those before us with the 'holier than thou' attitude because we understand technology a helluva a lot better than them). You have a highly progressive generation coming in that is equally naive and ignorant of everything else. There is an entire generation of kids coming in growing up with Facebook, instagram, Social Media as a whole; without a desire to get information from anything else outside of the internet. If anything, they're probably MORE likely to be less informed purely on the fact that there is A LOT of information getting pumped out across the internet. Facebook is a prime example: there's blatantly false information being passed around as "facts" on a daily basis. The idea of fake news may be something we can all snort and mock Donald Trump over but the reality is, there's enough of it going around to warrant concern over what people can distinguish between fact or fiction today Then you throw in political agendas and it becomes even more convoluted and due to the power of the internet, it's going to be a continuous struggle regardless.

Trump has now co-opted an argument against the WaPo & others, that some users here had been using. [media]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/868810404335673344[/media] Now he's attacking one of their most important legal protections, and people will buy it. It's like I'm living in bizarro world. People are cheering that our President is trying to ruin the reputation of every news agency and reporter in our country (unless they agree with or support him). It's like it's one of his only objectives.

[quote=Wikipedia]The protection of sources, sometimes also referred to as the confidentiality of sources or in the U.S. as the reporter's privilege, is a right accorded to journalists under the laws of many countries, as well as under international law. It prohibits authorities, including the courts, from compelling a journalist to reveal the identity of an anonymous source for a story. The right is based on a recognition that without a strong guarantee of anonymity, many would be deterred from coming forward and sharing information of public interests with journalists. As a result, problems such as corruption or crime might go undetected and unchallenged, to the ultimate detriment of society as a whole. In spite of any such legal protections, the pervasive use of traceable electronic communications by journalists and their sources provides governments with a tool to determine the origin of information.[1] [B]In the United States, the federal government legally contends that no such protection exists for journalists.[/B][/quote] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_sources[/url] [quote=Wikipedia]Reporter's privilege in the United States (also journalist's privilege, newsman's privilege, or press privilege), is a "reporter's protection under constitutional or statutory law, from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources."[1] It may be described in the US as the qualified (limited) First Amendment or statutory right many jurisdictions have given to journalists in protecting their confidential sources from discovery. [2] [B]The First, Second, Third, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits have all held that a qualified reporter's privilege exists. In the recent case of U.S. v. Sterling, the Fourth expressly denied a reporter's privilege exists under Branzburg. Furthermore, forty states and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes called shield laws protecting journalists' anonymous sources.[3][/B][/quote] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege[/url] Get fucked Donnie.

[QUOTE=Mattk50;52275540]A lot of people here have started 'trusting' the mainstream media because the politican they dislike has been repeating fake news a bunch. You know, it's totally valid to point out that random bullshit blogs are not a good alternative but that doesn't forgive modern media being unbelievably awful.[/QUOTE] They're doing a kickass job holding the Trump administration's feet to the fire. CNN has been pretty bad for the last 8 years, with the Malaysian airlines coverage and everything, but that's mostly because the biggest scandal to come out of the Obama administration was that time Obama war a tan suit. NYT and WaPo are the two best news sources in this country, hands down. Their investigative reporting is really bringing a lot of attention to the Trump administration's collusion with the Kremlin to influence the election against the Democrats. ABC is also doing well; they've become less "morning talkshow"-y and much more informative on politics. George Stephanopoulos is killing it on GMA. Mainstream media, right now, has never been better in my lifetime