Post New

https://www.creators.com/read/a.f.-branco/05/23/34...

No, it isn't. Not even close.

He may or may not have done everything he's been accused of over the years, but there was sufficient evidence to indict him for some of them, and he's still in jeopardy in GA if they decide to proceed (they have him on tape...can't say that was a frame).

I doubt it, but I hope the Orange Man ends up in an orange jumpsuit. It's well deserved, from the evidence I have seen thus far.

'I doubt it, but I hope the Orange Man ends up in an orange jumpsuit. It's well deserved, from the evidence I have seen thus far.'

Your post boils down to your opinion only.

RussiaRussiaRussia is a complete lie created by democrats with outside help.

Democrat Trump Derangement Syndrome lives.

'I doubt it, but I hope the Orange Man ends up in an orange jumpsuit. It's well deserved, from the evidence I have seen thus far.' - 1pg

Your post boils down to your opinion only.

RussiaRussiaRussia is a complete lie created by democrats with outside help.

Democrat Trump Derangement Syndrome lives. - LM

-------------------

Now now Lurkermom. Remember 1pg eschews politics so his statement about President Trump is a genuine conclusion he reached based on pure facts learned from sources completely free of political bias. Not sure where you find such things but he has his sources. We would all come to the same conclusion if only we limited ourselves to his unimpeachable sources.

Numerous convictions say otherwise, with the caveat that Trump wasn't convicted for anything in the Russia investigation.

You're being snide, but you're also not too far from the truth. I am only interested in facts. Let the chips fall where they may. My sources are very solid, though I doubt any source out there would qualify as "unimpeachable". I have seen some of the data about his real estate dealings in NY, which his organization was whacked for, and I've heard the recording of him trying to get the GA secretary of state to "find" votes to swing the state to him, and I've also seen some of the data about falsifying business records (that albaby went over in great detail a few weeks ago). So, yes, I think he belongs in an orange jumpsuit. However, it's up to juries to determine that.

Also, I usually consult multiple sources (often overseas, like BBC) to even-out any bias that may exist from a single source.

Numerous convictions say otherwise, with the caveat that Trump wasn't convicted for anything in the Russia investigation.

And what about Hillary, who started the lie and all who helped her heap on more lies for her cause? The FBI is now trash. The FBI even went after their own agents who were brave enough to become whistleblowers, honest FBI agents whose careers are now ruined.

Comes to mind Harry Reid and his lies about Mitt Romney. Then we have the liars Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff doing all their dirty deeds to impeach President Trump. Another democrat sham. The whole democratic party is riddled with liars.

And OMG! Then we have the Big Guy Biden and son Hunter. Two crooks who belong in jail.
And you have the nerve to tell us your sources are reliable and then spout nonsense?

Yep, classic case of Democrat Trump Derangement.

Now now Lurkermom. Remember 1pg eschews politics so his statement about President Trump is a genuine conclusion he reached based on pure facts learned from sources completely free of political bias. Not sure where you find such things but he has his sources. We would all come to the same conclusion if only we limited ourselves to his unimpeachable sources.

A pure case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It will never end.

Credible links to any of those claims?

As for the rest of it, if you aren't going to engage civilly, maybe you should leave as you said you were going to do. Confine yourself to your echo chamber if that makes you happy. I note the conservative board is really hopping (not!). Folks like BHM actually want to engage intelligently, and discuss rationally. Dope1 and I have agreed that neither one of us wanted to see the country destroyed, which is at least a basis to discuss issues. That's what most of us are here for. I have neither time nor patience to deal with shrill nonsense. For example, claims that the FBI is a bunch of libs covering for Dems have already been eviscerated.

Yes, my sources are generally reliable. They conform to reality, and are consistently highly rated by independent entities. There is always some bias in any source, even if it's just choosing which stories to run. The sources I use will pick on Obama, or Biden, just as quickly as McConnell, if there's cause. They excoriated Obama about his claim "you can keep your doctor", for example. My sources tend to be near the peak of the distribution (which is where accurate and least bias resides): https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-c... Other entities will report similar. I choose them because they are accurate, not because they tell me what I want to hear.

Try international sources...they don't give a crap about Dem or Rep in Britain, they just observe the idiocy and report it. The Guardian, BBC, al Jazeera, Strait Times. They aren't partisan in terms of US politics at all. (Though the BBC is annoyingly pro-monarchy, and proud of it, evidently. But that's not US politics.)

As for the rest of it, if you aren't going to engage civilly, maybe you should leave as you said you were going to do. Confine yourself to your echo chamber if that makes you happy.

Sorry, as far as I am concern it is you and like minded posters who are uncivil, constantly complaining source and links are unreliable because they are linked to conservative sources.
It has become the gist of a couple left minded posters to discredit any post from a conservative source instead of debating the topic.
Yet, the same topics of information will also appear in a number of left wing sites and articles, even a site you suggested I should take note of.
A post with a link to a conservative source? Oh no! That is not allowed according to you and a couple others.

So I took a breather from this Board. So what, get over it!
I was sick and tired of the screaming banshee and her spit balls, you and others constantly discrediting sources only because they are from conservative sites, rather than debate and discuss it.

Call a new board whatever you like.

BUT ---

It's the Left that doesn't like contrarian viewpoints. Until their man XI takes over America -- - they'll have to sort of get used to contrarian viewpoints.

A post with a link to a conservative source?

There are, in fact, conservative sources that are not 99% tabloid quality journalism and lies.

There is a difference. You, apparently, cannot tell the difference.

That said, most folks prefer a screaming banshee hurling fact based spitballs than a predictably outraged RWNJ monkey flinging Fox/OANN feces...aka "flooding the zone with shit" (kudos to Steve Bannon for his turn of a phrase describing the RWNJ m.o.).

LurkerMom: Sorry, as far as I am concern it is you and like minded posters who are uncivil, constantly complaining source and links are unreliable because they are linked to conservative sources.
It has become the gist of a couple left minded posters to discredit any post from a conservative source instead of debating the topic.

Nope. Questionable sources are flagged (as they should be). And the solution is simple: run your source through mediabiasfactcheck.com to see if you're using a questionable source before bringing it here.

Or get your news from reliable conservative news sources, including Reason Magazine, Washington Examiner, National Interest, Deseret News, AL.com, San Diego Union Tribune, WSJ, Detroit News, and Military Times.

But don't expect to get a free pass because you found something in the echo chamber that tickles your fancy.

Or get your news from reliable conservative news sources, including Reason Magazine, Washington Examiner, National Interest, Deseret News, AL.com, San Diego Union Tribune, WSJ, Detroit News, and Military Times.

Facts are facts, and stand on their own merits.
Complaining about sources is logically fallacious, and you know that.

Besides, you don't want to play that game. Not you or any of the left wingers. Why? Every single source that you would deem "credible" prattled on for years about RUSSIAN COLLUSION and it was 100% false. For years the mainstream media ran with this nonsense and I'd bet that there's a nonzero number of posters here who think that the pee-pee tapes and the rest of the Steele Dossier were true.

So let's not try to play the "My sources are the official repository of information". That's bogus. The mainstream media is comprised of charlatans and fools, and putting their work on some kind of Truth Pedestal is something that we're never ever going to do.

Yes, because truth matters. Facts matter. You'll note in the link I provided that accuracy tends to go down as bias goes up (either left or right, doesn't matter). So your "conservative sources" (or "liberal sources", for that matter) are usually going to be less accurate than middle-of the road sources. You can't discuss something intelligently if you don't have accurate information. And if you watch Fox, for example, you don't. By their own admission through internal memos revealed in the Dominion filings, they are about telling their audience what it wants to hear. When they didn't do that (calling the election for Biden), viewership dropped and so did ratings ("OMG! We can't tell people the truth!").

To take a silly example, we can't discuss why the sky appears to be blue if you insist it's pink. Both liberal and conservative sources, in general, are crap. Just look at the distribution in my link. Stick with the middle and you'll be better informed.

So, yes, I will criticize bad sources on either side.

Facts are facts, and stand on their own merits.

Agreed.

Complaining about sources is logically fallacious, and you know that.

When those sources assert, for example, that HRC is running a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor, I think it is justified to complain. Especially when that pizza joint didn't have a basement. The problem you're overlooking is that the sources we are talking about aren't reporting facts. So there is no merit. So, yes, I complain about them.

It's a huge leap from "the FBI has Hunter's laptop" (fact) to "the FBI is covering-up for the Dem lying machine" (conjecture without any evidence).

The mainstream media is comprised of charlatans and fools, and putting their work on some kind of Truth Pedestal is something that we're never ever going to do.

That's opinion masquerading as fact. At least two sources have been cited on this thread that rate accuracy of various outlets, and they both yield similar results: the more partisan a source, the less accurate they are in general. I assume "mainstream" is the NYT, WashPo, NBC, ABC, etc? And they're all charlatans and fools? Where's your evidence. Your data. I have (courtesy of Dominion, among others) reams of data saying Fox is unreliable. Can you produce the same for NPR, for example? Probably not. NPR consistently rates as highly accurate, and roughly center in the bias scale. Of course, Fox has probably the largest audience on the planet, so they should probably be considered "mainstream" just based on audience share.

Adhering to a source because it tells you want you want to hear is engaging in confirmation bias. Both left and right do this, but -at this moment in history- it's more problematic on the right.

Facts are facts, and stand on their own merits.
Complaining about sources is logically fallacious, and you know that.

Thinking about this for a bit, I don't think that's correct. Complaining about sources isn't fallacious.

We live in a pretty fragmented world. There's countless different news outlets. There's countless different sources for those news outlets to draw from.

For some types of facts, that doesn't matter. If you're asking, "Who won the Heat-Celtics game last night," every news outlet will have the same answer. Because every source will have the same facts.

For other types of questions, though, the facts you get from news outlets will depend on which news outlets you choose. Because different news outlets will go to different sources, and if there's a divergence of position among potential news sources you can get divergent reporting of facts. So if you're asking, "Is surgical intervention harmful or beneficial to 17-year-olds who identify as transgender," the facts you get will depend entirely on which news outlets you go to. Because that's a contested question where you can find credentialed sources that will answer "harmful," and where you can find credentialed sources that will answer "beneficial" - so the facts that get reported to you are a function of which news outlet you pick. Because news reporting has become such a diverse market, there are outlets - or groups of outlets - that are entirely oriented towards delivering facts from news sources that are sorted by the preferences of their target audience.

In this world, your choice of news outlets will largely determine which facts you get presented with. Which means that the quality of the news you get presented with - the degree to which that news will give you an accurate understanding of the issue at hand - depends entirely on whether you choose news outlets that are genuinely making an effort to draw from sources that will provide an accurate understanding of the issue.

So if you're looking at an issue that sources are divided on - let's say whether the Paleo diet "works" or not - you can find news sources that will tell you absolutely "yes," and news sources that will tell you absolutely "no." But since the "right" answer is almost certainly, "we don't really know for sure, and doctors and nutritionists disagree about the issue," the news outlet that bothers to really investigate and interrogate the issue by looking at lots of different sources and properly assess their credibility is going to get you closer to the true facts.

Albaby

'So, yes, I will criticize bad sources on either side.'

If only....
Your TDS blurs everything you say. Yes I know Trump's faults but when you cannot apply the same disdained for the Biden crime family, your double standards gives me little faith of the links you think are gospel.

Thinking about this for a bit, I don't think that's correct. Complaining about sources isn't fallacious.

Facts are facts, as in your example of the NBA score.
2+2 =4 no matter if the New York Times writes an editorial on it or Greg Gutfeld makes a joke about it on Fox News.

So if you're asking, "Is surgical intervention harmful or beneficial to 17-year-olds who identify as transgender," the facts you get will depend entirely on which news outlets you go to.

Ahhh. This is where nuance comes in.
Was the 17 year old suicidal prior to transitioning and did the surgery + transitioning prevent a potential loss of life?
Or was the 13 year old pushed into transitioning from overbearing parents or teachers and regrets the permanent alteration of their body some 10 years later?

Because news reporting has become such a diverse market, there are outlets - or groups of outlets - that are entirely oriented towards delivering facts from news sources that are sorted by the preferences of their target audience.

And this is both a good and a bad thing as people will gravitate towards their preferred choices. The folks on here who do the most complaining about sources find left wing news outlets more palatable and therefore assign them more credibility than say, Newsmax or OAN...even if OAN is reporting that the Red Sox beat the Yankees.

So if you're looking at an issue that sources are divided on - let's say whether the Paleo diet "works" or not - you can find news sources that will tell you absolutely "yes," and news sources that will tell you absolutely "no." But since the "right" answer is almost certainly, "we don't really know for sure, and doctors and nutritionists disagree about the issue," the news outlet that bothers to really investigate and interrogate the issue by looking at lots of different sources and properly assess their credibility is going to get you closer to the true facts.


This. This is why it's crucial to not out of hand reject a particular source *until* an evaluation of the factual merits of their information takes place.

Facts are facts, as in your example of the NBA score.
2+2 =4 no matter if the New York Times writes an editorial on it or Greg Gutfeld makes a joke about it on Fox News.

True - but 2+2=4 isn't the reporting of an event. It's a mathematical statement. The truth of the assertion is completely assessable wholly without regard to the identity of the person reporting it.

By contrast, however, if someone asserts "I just saw Albaby punch a kitten," that is not necessarily an assertion which can be assessed independently of the person asserting it. There may or may not be corroborating witnesses or evidence. The likelihood of the truth may be contingent on the credibility of the person asserting it.

This. This is why it's crucial to not out of hand reject a particular source *until* an evaluation of the factual merits of their information takes place.

No, it's not. You absolutely should reject certain sources.

Consider the following, more abstract example. We have a circumstance where either A is true, or B is true. They are mutually exclusive. Imagine we have a political spectrum where people on the "up" side of the spectrum generally want A to be true, and people on the "down" side of the spectrum want B to be true (rather than left or right). Now imagine four different types of news sources:

- The platonic ideal news source, where the financial and reputational incentives for everyone at the news source depend up on them figuring out the A v. B debate correctly. Whether they report A or B to be true will depend entirely on the results of their best efforts at investigating and reporting.

- The Up-leaning news source, which caters only to an audience of "up" viewers. All of their financial and reputational incentives are based on whether their audience hears something it wants to hear. They will report A to be true, no matter what - their investigating and reporting efforts will be entirely oriented towards reaching that result.

- The Down-leaning news source, which caters to the "down" viewers. They're the converse of the Up-leaning source - all their incentives are to return a story that says B is true, no matter what. So that's what they will report.

- The Social media news source, which is run by algorithm. They will "report" - ie. promulgate to the widest audience - either A or B not based on which one is true, but based entirely on which one generates more engagement. That basically means they will tell their audience that either A or B is true based upon which one makes the audience madder.

These are caricatures, of course. But note that you should reject the second and third sources out of hand. That doesn't mean those two news sources are wrong. In fact, one of them has to be right. But their reporting doesn't give you any information about the issue. Whether the second and third sources claim that A or B is true has absolutely no bearing on whether A or B is likely to be true or not, because those sources aren't designed to investigate or interrogate A vs. B claims - just to support the previously decided-upon outcome. You should, instead, try to find news sources that come closest to the first type.

This isn't the logical "genetic fallacy." Just because the up-leaning news source reports A to be true doesn't mean that A is false. Just that it gives you absolutely no information about whether A is true or not.

True - but 2+2=4 isn't the reporting of an event. It's a mathematical statement. The truth of the assertion is completely assessable wholly without regard to the identity of the person reporting it.

And yet, most things in life come down to objective truths that are specific, observable, and measurable.

Candidate X said Y thing a rally. What came before and after sets the context and provides nuance, both of which are necessary to provide the full picture. This is the thing most routinely abused in American politics.

No, it's not. You absolutely should reject certain sources.

Welp, now we're into the logical fallacy game. If Joseph Stalin says that 2+2=4, then he's correct. Now, should you listen to him on the subject of the Soviet Union's record on civil rights? Sure, if you want to know what a tyrant sounds like. But the point you're making is that we should hear anything he has to say.

And that's the danger. Every single point that can be argued here about how bad supposedly all these right wing sources could be made in triplicate in the other direction. Critical thinking is the ability to absorb and process information from a wide variety of sources and then having the ability to draw a conclusion.

Be very wary of people who say stuff like this:
When I was coming up you had three TV stations and people were getting a similar sense of what is true and what isn't, what was real and what was not. Today, what I'm most concerned about is the fact that because of the splintering of the media, we almost occupy different realities.
-Barack Obama

Can you see the danger in something like this? I reference Stalin for a reason. How factual were the uniformly opinioned Pravda and Izvestia in the USSR?


Whether the second and third sources claim that A or B is true has absolutely no bearing on whether A or B is likely to be true or not, because those sources aren't designed to investigate or interrogate A vs. B claims - just to support the previously decided-upon outcome. You should, instead, try to find news sources that come closest to the first type.

And we've arrived at the crux of the debate: Who decides?
Certainly not Team Up *or* Team Down, as both are incentivized in different ways. Which is why I'll always fall back to more speech and more information is always the better choice.

Well stated. I like your example of "up" and "down". Removes real-life party affiliations. I kept emphasizing "both left and right" in my posts, but people kept insisting I was only commenting on right-wing sources. Despite my providing a graphic that showed that the more partisan a source was, the less accurate it was.

I totally agree with you that you should reject the second and third sources out of hand. You can't know if they are telling you the REAL truth or what their marketing studies say you want to hear. They could be telling the trust, or maybe not.

And "critical thinking", while vital, may not be enough to resolve this. If I see a story from an UP source, and I want to verify it, where will I go? If I'm in their demographic, I'll probably lean towards another UP outlet that likely got their info from the same -possibly faulty- source.

The outlets and sources that approach the platonic ideal are the only ones anyone should be consulting. Ones that do actual investigation and verifying of sources.

LurkerMom: Yes I know Trump's faults but when you cannot apply the same disdained for the Biden crime family...

What crimes? There are no facts to support any crimes of anyone in the Biden family besides possibly Hunter Biden for tax evasion and a felony gun charge related to a firearm purchase -- and both currently are under investigation. Politicians and political family members pay back taxes all the time. If Hunter Biden did anything illegal then indict him. The Left doesn't care.

Even the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability didn't find evidence showing Hunter Biden and Romania's Gabriel Popoviciu's business relationship violated any laws. Rep. Comer appeared with Maria Bartiromo on Fox and declared he had an informant -- who just happened to be missing -- who described "a quid pro quo with a foreign country in exchange for foreign aid."

The next day Comer's spokesperson clarified the claim, saying the missing informant Comer had spoken of did not have information about a foreign bribery scheme but could talk about the "Biden family's influence peddling schemes."

WTF? Comer's first claim would be illegal and his clarification was word salad.

When pressed, Comer and the committee admitted they had no specific examples of Joe Biden's policies or decisions that were influenced by his family's business practices.

It's not a crime to use the family name to get on a board of directors. Individuals get on boards all the time without experience (see Nikki Haley and Boeing). The Trump's have used their names to get copyrights and funding for buildings and billions of dollars from the Saudis. Wealth funds linked to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar invested hundreds of millions in Kushner's private equity firm after the Trump presidency... but Comer dropped that investigation.

You want to prosecute Joe Biden? Get some evidence. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability tried and failed.


https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/may/16/hou...

Welp, now we're into the logical fallacy game.

No, we're not. The logical fallacy is a recognition that the source of a logical argument doesn't have any bearing on whether the argument is correct. However, the credibility source of a factual claim does have a bearing on whether that factual claim is more or less likely to be true. Which is why you're allowed to impeach witnesses in a criminal trial. Whether someone has a history of lying doesn't affect the veracity of them arguing that "2+2=4" (which doesn't rely on their witnessing it to be demonstrated), but it would affect the veracity of them claiming that they saw me punch a kitten.

If a news source isn't engaged in a serious and responsible effort to differentiate between truth and untruth through investigation and interrogation of competing claims, then you should devalue that news source compared to outlets that do.

Can you see the danger in something like this?

I can see why you see the danger in something like this - because I think you misunderstand the argument.

Back when there were only three news stations, the commercial success of those news stations was more directly linked to the credibility and reliability of their reporting. Because they had to appeal to an audience that included nearly everyone, all of their economic incentives drove them towards garnering a reputation for investigative accuracy. Without a splintered audience, the only way for news outlets to differentiate themselves and gain (or lose) market share was the quality of their reportage - because a desire for accuracy was the only common denominator in the demand of such a diverse customer base. It's one of the few things that everyone in the audience wants. There was no way to make money by narrowcasting untruths in broadcast "over-the-air" television - those untruths would destroy you with the rest of the audience.

If you're only trying to build an audience of the 10% most [conservative/liberal] viewers, then that's no longer true. You don't need to be accurate in reporting in order to get them to want to watch your newscast. In fact, it can actively hurt your economics if you're accurate. Instead, you need to deliver what the audience wants. Unlike with the situation with only three networks, now your target audience has far more homogeneous interests and viewpoints. So you can be economically successful delivering news that isn't accurate, but which favors the viewpoint that your audience holds.

And we've arrived at the crux of the debate: Who decides?

You do. For yourself. But for that to work, you have to make the effort to actually figure out whether a source is in fact trying to search for truth or to support a particular "side."

You should interrogate whether or not the news sources you consume are economically incentivized to try to be accurate, or to try to deliver content that will please viewers that have a particular affiliation. There's nothing wrong with watching a network that's firmly "on your side" for entertainment or when you want to hear someone articulating the worldview that you support - that's the reason people go to political rallies, after all. But if what you're looking for is a news source that's going to give you an accurate depiction of the world as it is, then you really want to avoid the ones that are clearly "Team Up" or "Team Down." And it's not really that hard to do - they typically don't try very hard to hide that they have an affiliation, even as they might nominally claim to be neutral conduits of the truth.

I mean, you don't have to do that. But it might be helpful if you're aware of the fact that a particular news source is, in fact, marketing itself to an ideologically homogeneous audience before trying to cite it to people who do try to distinguish between ideological "news" sources and those that fulfill traditional news functions.

However, the credibility source of a factual claim does have a bearing on whether that factual claim is more or less likely to be true. Which is why you're allowed to impeach witnesses in a criminal trial. Whether someone has a history of lying doesn't affect the veracity of them arguing that "2+2=4" (which doesn't rely on their witnessing it to be demonstrated), but it would affect the veracity of them claiming that they saw me punch a kitten.

Which is a legal tactic meant to affect the perception of the jury towards the witness. It says nothing about the veracity of the claims of the witness.

If a known liar says 2+2=4, that's a true statement. Somebody on a jury who doesn't know that adding 2 and 2 to get 4 would be prejudiced against that witness, however (which is why that tactic is used).

Back when there were only three news stations, the commercial success of those news stations was more directly linked to the credibility and reliability of their reporting. Because they had to appeal to an audience that included nearly everyone, all of their economic incentives drove them towards garnering a reputation for investigative accuracy.

Or, looking at it from the other perspective, people who think about things in identical ways tend to report the same things with the same biases and the same lenses. Hence Walter Cronkite's reporting not being much different from John Chancellor's, say. Was Cronkite a straight deliverer of the news or did he use his platform to advance his opinion?

Without a splintered audience, the only way for news outlets to differentiate themselves and gain (or lose) market share was the quality of their reportage - because a desire for accuracy was the only common denominator in the demand of such a diverse customer base. It's one of the few things that everyone in the audience wants. There was no way to make money by narrowcasting untruths in broadcast "over-the-air" television - those untruths would destroy you with the rest of the audience.

This doesn't hold up either. Witness Dateline NBC: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-10...
Doing sensational things for ratings has been a feature of media for decades.

You do. For yourself. But for that to work, you have to make the effort to actually figure out whether a source is in fact trying to search for truth or to support a particular "side."

That's exactly the point I'm making: One side of posters here can't claim victory by just dumping on something they don't like to read.

I mean, you don't have to do that. But it might be helpful if you're aware of the fact that a particular news source is, in fact, marketing itself to an ideologically homogeneous audience before trying to cite it to people who do try to distinguish between ideological "news" sources and those that fulfill traditional news functions.

----------------

One thing I put a lot of stock in is actual video of the news item being reported. From that, I can make my own assessment regardless of what the particular news caster is saying about it or what network is doing the reporting. Now he may be confirming what my own eyes are telling me and even he is from news source that some say is biased, there still is the video to back up their words.

This can't work with subjective reporting like "Trump is a Russian asset".

But when reporting about border chaos, for example, is accompanied with day after day after day of video of massive groups of immigrants, tent cities, trash heaps lining the banks of Rio Grande, continuous swarms crossing the river, interviews with border county sheriffs, border city mayors, ranchers whose fences have been cut and outbuildings broken in to, etc, etc etc, I can believe it when even the biggest liar on Fox News, Tucker Carlson, is reporting it.

That's exactly the point I'm making: One side of posters here can't claim victory by just dumping on something they don't like to read.

True.

An article from a liberal source and the same article from a conservative source can both be factual and correct.
Yet a poster will be dumped on if the source of the article is not of their liking.

Lurkermom: "A pure case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It will never end."


What you sadly and infuriatingly are unable to realize is that, in reality, Trump Derangement Syndrome refers to the destructive impact the orange man has had on members of maga-world.

Be careful, Mike. They can do a LOT of things in video editing. I understand your point, and even agree somewhat except that they can surgically edit footage to make it seem different than it is. Taking a snip of a quote out of context, etc. Both sides of the distribution do it, which is why I prefer my outlets be in the center of the spectrum. They are much less inclined to do that, and instead give the context.

I won't comment on the border specifically, as that will lead us astray from the point about relying on credible sources. But it is more complicated than that, and border residents have been dealing with trash and such for decades. It's not really new.

Lurkermom: "I was sick and tired of the screaming banshee and her spit balls,...."


There is one screaming banshee on this board, and it's none other than you. People who simply articulate their disagreements with you and point to the fallacies in the sources you quote aren't screaming or throwing spit balls. Your belittling, demeaning insults, however, fit that to a tee.

If a known liar says 2+2=4, that's a true statement. Somebody on a jury who doesn't know that adding 2 and 2 to get 4 would be prejudiced against that witness, however (which is why that tactic is used).

Again, you're conflating a mathematical statement - which is an abstract statement that is testable irrespective of context - with reporting of facts. If a known liar says 2+2=4, you can determine the truth of that statement without relying on the testimony of the liar. But if a witness says "I heard a gunshot at 9:45 p.m. and saw the defendant leave the building two minutes later," you can't determine the truth of that statement without taking into consideration whether you believe the witness or not. If that witness is a known liar, or is shown to have impaired vision, or was drinking at the relevant time, or has memory problems, or has a personal relationship with the defendant (or a victim), or any of a number of other factors.....you might not believe them. You can't determine "the truth" without making an assessment of the credibility of the source - because you don't have independent ways of testing the truth of the proposition apart from the fact that the source made the claim.

That's not prejudice. You have to form an assessment of the credibility of a source if the only method you have of determining the truth of a proposition is that the source asserted it.

Hence Walter Cronkite's reporting not being much different from John Chancellor's, say. Was Cronkite a straight deliverer of the news or did he use his platform to advance his opinion?

Almost certainly the former, because all of the incentives that he operated under favored being a straight deliverer of the news rather than being someone who shaded the news with his opinion. He was operating in a different market than someone like a Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity. For his program to be successful, he needed to be believed by viewers all across the political spectrum. Maddow or Hannity don't. They just need the folks who share their viewpoint to believe them.

This doesn't hold up either. Witness Dateline NBC: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-10...
Doing sensational things for ratings has been a feature of media for decades.

Wait - 1993? Dope, you're showing your age. 1993 is well past the era that we're talking about. CNN launched in 1980, for Pete's sake - the media landscape had already been fracturing for a decade and a half by then. To the point where the fragmenting of media had already made its way into popular culture - Springsteen released 57 Channels (And Nothin' On) before that aired. I mean, Pat Buchanan had already parlayed his career as a very unabashedly slanted pundit into a serious Presidential campaign, nearly winning New Hampshire, a full year earlier.

That's exactly the point I'm making: One side of posters here can't claim victory by just dumping on something they don't like to read.

They're not "claiming victory." They're pointing out that when a proposition is asserted by a media outlet that is not engaged in actively assessing and interrogating claims before they publish them, they don't regard the proposition as having any support. If a reputable news organization reports something, people will assign that some weight and regard it as credible (though not necessarily proven) that the thing that was reported was true. If an outlet which exists primarily to provide content to an ideologically sorted audience reports something that is consistent with the predilections of their audience, it is fairly likely that they did not make any serious effort to interrogate the veracity of the proposition.

Be careful, Mike. They can do a LOT of things in video editing. I understand your point, and even agree somewhat except that they can surgically edit footage to make it seem different than it is. - 1pg

-----------------

Take a look at this short video and tell me what you think. It should not matter who is doing the reporting, what do you eyes and common sense tell you? But in the interest of full disclosure it is being reported by the known conservative mouthpiece CNN.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h_TqO9EqMhY

bighairymike: But in the interest of full disclosure it is being reported by the known conservative mouthpiece CNN.

CNN has moved hard right under the leadership of Chris Licht. Did you not see the Trump town hall? As for the video, did you notice the journalist said the migrants were stopped and did not cross into the U.S.?

But when reporting about border chaos, for example, is accompanied with day after day after day of video of massive groups of immigrants, tent cities, trash heaps lining the banks of Rio Grande, continuous swarms crossing the river, interviews with border county sheriffs, border city mayors, ranchers whose fences have been cut and outbuildings broken in to, etc, etc etc, I can believe it when even the biggest liar on Fox News, Tucker Carlson, is reporting it.

Be careful now. They can do a LOT of things in video editing. 🙄

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12082307/...

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6327329180112

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLfMLVIdMeg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wTPshc9wcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jQDk9yrAb4

https://www.themainewire.com/2022/12/viral-videos-...

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/16/security-footag...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEA6o-XSRZ8

I see a lot of desperate people trying to cross the border. Based on the comments, CNN is asserting these are Venezuelans. They're doing it at a checkpoint with armed officers on duty. The video did not show anyone advancing past the armed officers.

bigharymike: Take a look at this short video...

Question: did you know this video is from March 13 and has nothing to do with Title 42?

https://nypost.com/2023/03/13/video-shows-hundreds...

Question: did you know this video is from March 13 and has nothing to do with Title 42? - CO

----------------

I knew is was a video before Title 42 expiration but did not know the exact date.

1pg is correct that it shows a swarm of desperate people attempting to rush in but being stopped. I can see that too but I can also see that immigrating into our country is far from an orderly process, some might use the word chaotic. there are literally hundreds of videos like this. What they show is reality and not some figment dreamt up by Sean Hannity.

My point is reality is reality regardless of who reports it. And sometimes if it is Fox News where the video is observed does not make it less real. Now if all we had was simply a talking head telling us what is going on at the border, that is more susceptible to fake news than showing the video. Same reason cops now have body cam except that the authorities seem too often to withhold it until the riots start.

bighairymike: I knew is was a video before Title 42 expiration but did not know the exact date.

Okay. I asked because a House Republican tweeted that video this week as evidence that there was a surge of migrants following the termination of Title 42. In fact, that video from March was of a group of Nicaraguans who were misled by disinformation that the border was temporarily opened, allowing open access to the U.S.

In the days after Title 42 ceased, border crossings actually dropped about 50 percent.

Republicans were certain that there would be a surge after Title 42 ended but when the surge failed to materialize, they pretended it happened anyway. And that's why that video is circulating again.

My point: even if you see something with your own eyes, it's easy to be manipulated unless you have accurate context. You saw migrants swarming the bridge in a rush to (perhaps illegally) cross the border. They weren't. They were rushing, yes, but to a legal point of entry. When they were stopped and learned they had received disinformation about the border being open, they turned around and went back.

One thing I put a lot of stock in is actual video of the news item being reported.

Old trope: Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see. It would be nice if photos and videos actually depicted the accompanying narrative, but we know that is no longer necessarily the case.

There are plenty of photos and videos that have been debunked as actually being from a time or place not the event being described. Russia routinely denies culpability for videos of bombed out Ukraine towns. Syrians, the same. Several right-wing crews create absolutely dishonest videos, clips of which Fox has gleefully shared. 2000 Mules comes to mind, as do the videos Fox shared of clandestine filming done in Planned Parenthood offices, and, yes, even border 'panic' videos.

1) The video is from March 2023, not May 2023. It shows a crowd of frustrated migrants who tried to enter the U.S. from Mexico to seek asylum.
"A May 12 Twitter video (direct link, archive link) shows a large crowd of people pushing past barricades and clashing with police."JUST IN: Massive violent caravan headed to the United States Border," reads the video's caption. "Will The Biden Administration do anything to stop this?" The video was retweeted more than 4,000 times and shared on Facebook more than 300 times in five days."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023...

2)Photo of 2018 migrant caravan falsely shared online as current
By JOSH KELETY May 11, 2023. CLAIM: A photo shows 700,000 migrants heading to the U.S.-Mexico border as pandemic-related asylum restrictions are set to expire. AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. The photo is being misrepresented. It was taken in 2018 and shows a migrant caravan making its way into Mexico from Guatemala, on its way to the U.S.

Several right-wing crews create absolutely dishonest videos, clips of which Fox has gleefully shared. 2000 Mules comes to mind, as do the videos Fox shared of clandestine filming done in Planned Parenthood offices, and, yes, even border 'panic' videos. - Sano

=======================

Does your worldview allow for even the tiniest fraction of so-called "right-wing" videos to be actually true? Are all those tent cities, open drug use, and the sidewalk defecation in Portland really the work of actors paid by the Koch brothers?

CNN has moved hard right under the leadership of Chris Licht. Did you not see the Trump town hall? As for the video, did you notice the journalist said the migrants were stopped and did not cross into the U.S.?

LOLOLOL.

Again, you're conflating a mathematical statement - which is an abstract statement that is testable irrespective of context - with reporting of facts.

And you're bringing in jury trials and testimony into a debate about news reporting on an internet message board.

You've already agreed with me that it's up to the reader/watcher to do due diligence and determine what the best sources are.

I'll further extend this and say that it's not up to a few posters on said message board to pre-determine where all sources of information are allowed to be pulled. And when these so-called gatekeepers of truth engage in the at kind of tactic, I'm going to call it out and jump on it.

They're not "claiming victory."

They're refusing to engage in actual debate and are just running away. That's fine if it works for them.

Does your worldview allow for even the tiniest fraction of so-called "right-wing" videos to be actually true?

My worldview is irrelevant to the topic of truth in reportage.

Are all those tent cities, open drug use, and the sidewalk defecation in Portland really the work of actors paid by the Koch brothers?

Not having seen the video to which you are referring, or the context in which you saw it, I am in no position to comment on same.

In the days after Title 42 ceased, border crossings actually dropped about 50 percent.

So? A lull of a few days or so?

BUT....Any concern over this?

snip
'(The Center Square) ' The number of people illegally entering the U.S. solely through the southern border in the first four months of this year is greater than the population of Delaware, the home state of the president, and the populations of five other states.

So far this year, at least 1,047,528, people have been apprehended or reported evading capture, according to data analyzed by The Center Square. The total is greater than the estimated populations of Delaware (1,031,985), South Dakota (923,484), North Dakota (780,588), Alaska (732,294), Vermont (647,156) and Wyoming (583,279).'

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_b...

snip
'Migrant border crossings in fiscal year 2022 topped 2.76 million, breaking previous record'

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migra...

And you're bringing in jury trials and testimony into a debate about news reporting on an internet message board.

It's the same principles. To take an extreme example, if Reuters or the Wall Street Journal report that the Kremlin is considering pulling troops out of Bahkmut, you might consider that news to be credible based on the source of the reporting; if the newspaper from your local high school reported that news, you'd probably ignore it. That's because Reuters and the WSJ are known to you to have the resources to possibly have that information, have a lot of incentives to get it right, and will probably engage in the type of fact-checking and interrogation of that report to reduce the likelihood that it is incorrect. Your local high school paper will not.

I'll further extend this and say that it's not up to a few posters on said message board to pre-determine where all sources of information are allowed to be pulled.

They're not doing that. They're telling you that they regard certain sources of information to be no more credible than the local high school newspaper in my example in the previous paragraph. Because those sources have an established track record of not engaging in the sort of rigorous interrogation of claims that is required to be a credible news source. Because of the business model of those sources - providing content to an ideologically homogenous customer base - they are unlikely to have any incentive, and thus unlikely to invest any resources, into determining whether something that the have a source for is true rather than whether it supports the views of their customers. Again, to the contrary - if they've got someone willing to say something their audience wants to hear, it's better for them not to try to figure out whether that person is right (by, say, engaging in the hard work of talking to further sources that might push back on the original source). They gain more by producing content that slants the "correct" way for their audience than by testing those assertions with real investigation.

They're refusing to engage in actual debate and are just running away.

Generally speaking, if one wants to assert a point in an actual debate, it's up to that person to back it up with some evidence that it's true. There are lots of content-generating sites that don't engage in the type of actual investigation and interrogation of claims to be credible sources. No one outside of their target audience is going to regard their "news" as being backed up by anything to suggest taking it seriously, and even their target audience probably shouldn't either.

To use a fanciful extreme example again, if someone asserted that their Magic 8 Ball had confirmed that Donald Trump was guilty of selling military secrets to Sri Lanka, you would dismiss that by pointing out (correctly) that the source of that information was so deficient that it wasn't worth arguing about. That's not you "running away" from Sri Lanka-Gate - it's you astutely noting that your interlocutors hadn't even passed the starting post.

It's the same principles. To take an extreme example, if Reuters or the Wall Street Journal report that the Kremlin is considering pulling troops out of Bahkmut, you might consider that news to be credible based on the source of the reporting; if the newspaper from your local high school reported that news, you'd probably ignore it. That's because Reuters and the WSJ are known to you to have the resources to possibly have that information, have a lot of incentives to get it right, and will probably engage in the type of fact-checking and interrogation of that report to reduce the likelihood that it is incorrect. Your local high school paper will not.

Depends, doesn't it? What if this particular paper was where the kids of State Department officials went to school and it happened to have an awesome Model UN program? What if the article quoted one of the parents, who happened to be a Deputy Assistant to the Secretary?

I will grant your point that most would skip over it if you grant mine that source type does not necessarily imply noncredibility.

They're not doing that. They're telling you that they regard certain sources of information to be no more credible than the local high school newspaper in my example in the previous paragraph.

...while running away from the debate.

Because those sources have an established track record of not engaging in the sort of rigorous interrogation of claims that is required to be a credible news source.

...in theirs, and evidently your, opinions. The problem is I can throw rocks at the so-called mainstream media which a) can be counted on to supply the liberal perspective b) slant facts c) never supply the correct context and d) frame every issue in exactly the same way.

You brought courts into this, so let's use a courtroom example to illustrate how the US media operates: Jim Beam is arrested for shoplifting a bottle of bourbon. In court instead of Innocent until proven guilty, what we would have is Jim Beam having to prove his innocence. "No, your honor, I wasn't even present at the time of the alleged shoplifting". That's such an odd thing to consider given our current legal system but yet that's how the media frames every issue:

Republicans pounce is the way bad news is "reported" when something negatively affects a left wing cause. The fact that democrat X screwed up isn't the story; the story becomes the neanderthal Republicans reaction to it:

On Tuesday, the federally-subsidized abortion provider Planned Parenthood had its worst news cycle since the Supreme Court's decision in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby. In a candid video filmed over a two-and-one-half hour lunch, Planned Parenthood's senior director for medical services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, dished about the marketplace for discarded fetal organs and body parts in between delicate bites.

'We've been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I'm not gonna crush that part,' Nucatola told her dining partner. 'I'm gonna basically crush below, I'm gonna crush above, and I'm gonna see if I can get it all intact.' She went on to describe how to best remove a child from a womb and to remove its brains while preserving its body in order to meet the demand for infant hearts, lungs, muscle tissue, et cetera.

Nice. How was this framed in the media?
The Hill led the way: 'Republicans seize on Planned Parenthood video,' the headline read. The critical information, the pitiless discussion of human dismemberment and the value of their precious organs for traffickers, was apparently not as fascinating to The Hill as was the reaction from conservatives to Nucatola's bloodless candor.

This is what passes for "journalism" in the modern era. The framing is the bias. Selective coverage is the bias. Had the FBI planted moles in Joe Biden's campaign team with the express intent to thoroughly investigate him for ties to the Chinese Communist Party there would be no end of 128 point headlines over at NYT and others.

Which is why it's important to dig through articles to extract the actual facts and remove the spin, and that's all I'm saying. Blindly labeling this or that news source as no-good terrible horrible without doing the due diligence isn't an effective tactic.

LurkerMom: So far this year, at least 1,047,528, people have been apprehended or reported evading capture, according to data analyzed by The Center Square.

Do you not recognize the uselessness of that data? And that it is presented to sensationalize rather than to inform?

For example, were 98% of the people apprehended and 2% reported evading capture? Or did 98% evade capture while 2% were apprehended?

The Center Square doesn't tell us although it claims to have "analyzed" the "data obtained by The Center Square from a Border Patrol agent".

Since a high percentage of migrant captures ruins its narrative, a logical inference is that captures significantly outpaced evasions.

Look, no one disputes that immigration is an issue, a big issue. No one disputed it was an issue when republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House under Trump. Their focus then was tax cuts for the wealthy and the repeal of Obamacare. They passed one -- which has added a couple of trillion to the debt, now a very big concern of theirs -- and failed on the other. We won't go into Trump's promise to get Mexico to pay for a wall.

In an election year, republicans are not about to pass any meaningful immigration legislation or funding -- hell, a not insignificant number of republicans are pushing for default on the debt -- and democrats, who no longer control the House, have no leverage to bargain.

Stalemate.

Dope1: You brought courts into this, so let's use a courtroom example to illustrate how the US media operates: Jim Beam is arrested for shoplifting a bottle of bourbon. In court instead of Innocent until proven guilty, what we would have is Jim Beam having to prove his innocence.

Jeebus, that's exactly backwards.

The prosecution has to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They cannot go into court and say, "Hey, we don't actually have any evidence to prove our case but we think he's guilty, so, well, that should be good enough."

Good grief.

Jeebus, that's exactly backwards.

Of course it is. It's supposed to be. That's the point.

Congrats for figuring out the reason for the analogy: That's how the media treats Republicans today.

Do you not recognize the uselessness of that data? And that it is presented to sensationalize rather than to inform?

For example, were 98% of the people apprehended and 2% reported evading capture? Or did 98% evade capture while 2% were apprehended? - CO

-----------------

A distinction without a difference. The issue your statement sidesteps is our country is being overrun as a result of Biden's open border policy.

A distinction without a difference. The issue your statement sidesteps is our country is being overrun as a result of Biden's open border policy.

He threw in red herrings in his long drawn out reply my eyes started blurring over
and I clicked on next. I applaud your patience.

The issue your statement sidesteps is our country is being overrun as a result of Biden's open border policy.

OK...this misconception has got to stop. It is wholly inaccurate. Biden promised to do some things, but he has actually done very little. And the left is complaining about it.

This is a relatively informative program on exactly that topic. The show is left-leaning, but he rips into Biden and corrects misconceptions (such as yours). It's worth the 20 minutes. Yes, he's a comedian, and he inserts his opinion, but his staff does research and cites sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy5VQvDGKd4

Biden has not opened the border. Not even close. Deportations are still routine, and he has done very little to make asylum rules any better. In fact, apparently (from the left perspective) he may be making things worse.

bighairymike: A distinction without a difference. The issue your statement sidesteps is our country is being overrun as a result of Biden's open border policy.

Do you realize how absurd that sounds?

If the majority of migrants trying to cross into the United States at the southern border are being apprehended and turned back, then there is no "open border".

You can't have it both ways. You can't complain that too many border crossers are being apprehended and at the same time complain of an open border.

And Biden doesn't have an open border policy... that's just a flat-out lie.

Biden actually has a new policy in place that likely will equally annoy progressives and hardline conservatives: the administration plans to reject asylum claims from anyone who crosses the border illegally. And the administration will now allow a greater number of migrants into the U.S. from the major sending countries of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela at legal ports of entry, as long as they have a U.S. sponsor to care for them on arrival -- modeled after a similar program in Canada.

This program began with the Uniting for Ukraine initiative, allowing in nearly 300,000 Ukrainian refugees, thousands of whom had been trying to reach the United States via Mexico. They are eligible for stays of up to two years, can work here, and can apply for asylum, if desired.

The program was expanded to Venezuelans in October 2022 and then to Haitians, Cubans, and Nicaraguans in January.

Biden has gotten Mexico to assist, to take back citizens of those countries if they are caught attempting to cross illegally.

Border encounters of Ukrainians trying to cross illegally fell from an average of 940 per day before the initiative to only around one dozen per day.

The number of unlawful crossings by Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans fell from 84,000 last December to just 2,000 in February.

Overall, border apprehensions in January and February fell by 42 percent from the December 2022 record.

The issue your statement sidesteps is our country is being overrun as a result of Biden's open border policy.

This is 'true', but only in the whacky world of right wing propaganda.

The platonic ideal news source

This platonic ideal was the standard for journalism before the corporate edutainment takeover. Independent verifiable sources with heavy editorial oversight. Instead we have tweets cited as evidence, and opinion masquerading as fact. There are very few legitimate sources of journalistic information available: NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Pro Publica'

You will not find a conservative news source following journalistic principles other than the WSJ.

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