US Politics

I suppose for some perspective, how do other news services rank? I would imagine there are not many to rate as high on the “trustworthy” scale as ABC.

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Hmm, I simply read it as a condensed 140-character version of “the American people, the ultimate consumers of news, lose out when fair and balanced coverage is not provided to them”. It’s a pretty basic statement really. If you’re reading it literally, rather than extracting the meaning, then you lose out - you haven’t learnt how to communicate with your fellow beings yet.

In any case, stripping back all your hysterics, the American people thought this about their mainstream media even before Trump came along - he’s tapping into a feeling. And if it was completely baseless, well then he wouldn’t be getting very far with that sort of statement, would he? Certainly not to the Presidency or anything…

I find your attitude similar to quite a few people when it comes to ‘reputable’ brands. Let’s take Vegemite. There is an almost unhealthy obsession with it based on brand name - never mind that it is an unhealthy war-time salty black spread. It’s not fit for purpose any more. It was once, it traded off its reputation for a very long time, but it can’t any longer.

Well, many products can’t live off an old reputation forever. Similar to the New York Times. It was trusted as a newspaper of record for many generations. That simply isn’t the case any more. The move to digital, the creation by editors of narrative arcs many months in advance, has meant that it now caters to a different audience, one on only the left side of the political spectrum.

You can’t dismiss criticism of it now, because in the past it was regarded as untouchable. That is what Americans have learned with the mainstream media.

You can wail and huff and get angry all you like but when the mainstream media tell you a candidate has a 98% chance of winning, and yet the opposing candidate wins something like 13 out of 10 (yes) battleground states, then something is seriously wrong. They’re no longer looking for the facts, the reality of the situation.

Well, the other news services out-rate the ABC each night and have done for decades.

In any case, if 30% of people said they didn’t trust Colgate to brush their teeth, a company whose purpose is delivering that product to the highest quality, then that is an extraordinary percentage, regardless if 41% then said they also didn’t trust ACMEToothpasteCompany to brush their teeth. Which % is more noteworthy?

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70% trust doesn’t mean 30% distrust - the 30% includes don’t know and don’t use etc.

This is the usual source of these surveys and the latest complete survey

This is part of the table from Feb 2016

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Sorry but I ain’t your monkey.

I’m not by any means an alt-left shrieker. I’ve stayed pretty stable. It’s the spectrum which has gone off the deep end, especially since Trump’s supporters now possess a sense of legitimacy. No point writing a bachelor thesis to refute something which can be dismissed with “fake news!” or “whiny leftist”.

I’m just gonna ride this Trump wild ride out until he’s impeached (at this rate, before 2018). Then hopefully all this nonsense will die down a little.

Oh no no no - none of this discussion is about the merits or even morals etc. of any particular policy. In fact, compared with some of the right-wing loonies that have contested the Republican nomination, Trump almost looks far left in comparison. :joy: He is, as an individual, very mild/centrist on God, abortion, gay rights, the usual Republican staples. In fact this election season was notable for their relative absence. So the spectrum argument doesn’t wash.

Huh? Were they not actual, legitimate people before? Were they fake Americans? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Ok, but he’s a bona fide authoritarian. The tweet I posted in that other thread demonstrates he is set on undermining the 1st amendment of freedom of press by bullying into submission dissenting views.

If he were such a leader, he’d ignore the criticism and do his own thing instead of whinging on Twitter like a spoilt brat.

I like Rose wine.

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There’s no doubt he’s using the tweeting about fake news as actually a bit of a cover for bad news. That’s obvious. But I truly and honestly don’t think he is out to undermine 1st amendment rights, lol. To me, it reads as a bit of a playful throwback in the media/Obama’s face for saying that he was elected on the back of “fake news” in the first place. That has morphed into a general tit for tat with the media - he knows it pumps up his base, gets him the headlines, is what got him elected in the first place. As he said on Friday - he’s enjoying it - it’s not done with malice. You think someone who has just described the NYT as a jewel in the crown is serious when he throws tags like “failing NYT” in tweets? lol. Only the literal people that can’t read others take all his words at face value. The truth is somewhere in between. Note the muted reactions from Beijing, Tehran etc. even in the face of his “threats” - they view him with a sense of bemusement too.

He’s literally threatening Iran and yet they’re not even as upset as the NY Times, CNN, and the alt-left. Too funny!

Thanks that makes sense.

Several news agencies, including the NY Times, CNN and the BBC, have been blocked from attending White House Press briefings. Meanwhile, Trump restated that the media is the enemy of the American people last night at a conservative forum.


Trump has gone too far. Soon Fox News may be the only news outlet allowed in the White House.

there are others like Infowars, Drudge and Breitbart

I think Fox are sitting on the fence at the moment. Right now Trump is still popular enough with the Republican base for it to be ‘treasonous’ for Fox to openly criticise the Administration. Nevertheless, as I think some at Fox are already beginning to realise, any attack on the freedom of the press by the President is by default going to weaken the position of Fox.

If the Trump Admin stays on its current trajectory, I can see Fox News bailing and throwing weight behind the Republican establishment. It’s extremely typical of any of Murdoch’s outlets to stay on the winning side; his newspapers endorsed KRudd in '07 after all. Fox will never support a Democrat but they will support Pence if an impeachment begins to take shape against Trump.

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Another case of fake news, the blockage was only for today’s briefing. They make it sound like it is forever. Misinterpreted

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Source on that?

And it’s not about how long it lasts, it’s more about the precedent it sets.

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After reading more on the blockage, it was only for an off screen “gaggle”. So it didn’t seem that important, but then I read other News outlets were invited to come. So obviously it was important in some kind of way. Now, I don’t think it was necessary to block certain media outlets, so this time I actually question Spencer’s Call.

The normal press briefing for the day was cancelled and the gaggle was the only contact the White House had with the press, so it was effectively barring certain press agencies.

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Yeah that’s what I thought too. And apparently these “gaggles” had also been conducted during Obama’s Presidency, where several news sites were also not invited.

Fake news. This is false. Maybe I should set up my own fact-checking unit for your misleading posts here. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Very true. All about the precedent.

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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This is the big splash Fairfax has on SMHOnline at the moment:

Fervent Trumpists claimed that a subsequent riot in a Stockholm suburb proved he was not just right, but has extraordinary powers of precognition.

I don’t think anyone’s point on Sweden’s troubles was about Trump being a clairvoyant, actually.

Migrants are over-represented particularly in violent crimes and sexual violence.

The biggest criminological problem we have is gang violence in a few particular suburbs to our biggest cities.

He does add there is an increase in reports of less serious sexual assaults in the last three years, which is related to immigration. That includes reports of “young [immigrant] newcomers harassing young women”, he says.

So, the numbers don’t exactly lie. There is a nexus between crime and migration in Sweden.

And then:

In December 2015 a police intelligence report identified a link between crime and “areas of social risk”.

Also on the list was Rosengard, a majority-immigrant suburb of the city of Malmo on the west coast, just opposite Copenhagen.

Police said such areas were characterised by “parallel structures of society” and “violence-promoting religious extremism”.

So, that’s the main conclusion of police on the ground in the area.

What does Fairfax decide to lead with?

Someone who’s basically tasked with promoting the city of Malmo, complaining about Trump err…not lying. Awesome objective source!

This really ticked off Nils Karlsson, deputy mayor of Malmo. As did Trump’s original comment.

"It’s irritating. I got a bit angry… He’s not lying, he’s just stupid.

"Of course there is a tiny, tiny bit of truth in it.

I don’t know, but to me the stupid people are those trying to distort plain reality in order to produce clickbait anti-Trump nonsense. Fake news?

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