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In one of the other threads, this comment was posted.

 redleger wrote:
The problem is the media is not being objective or truthful in most situations. Take the title of this thread. It is neither factual nor objective.

The media sees a story, takes the interesting parts(the parts that sell or gain views) and they run with it. Truth is not necessarily the end goal, although sometimes that does happen on accident.

If the media could be trusted to tell all stories without bias, be factual, conducting truth and fact finding inquiries, and include a little less opinion then maybe just maybe trial by media wouldn't even be a thing. It would simply be media exposes truth.

I had literally just minutes before read another story talking about how the media was botching things up in a rush for a headline grab.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/08/29/news-organizations-are-embarrassing-themselves-with-terrible-tropical-weather-reporting/

Goes on into how various media outlets, in a rush to get you to read their crap, is posting completely, and utterly false drivel. In this case, regarding the weather.

Basically, it makes one wonder when we need to have a purge of the system. How do we get back to "journalistic integrity"?

In this capitalistic society, it would literally take millions of dollars in lawsuits for defamation to possibly put a stop to it for a time, then it would probably just pick back up again. Honestly though as long as sponsors pay the bills based on views and clicks, I don't see how they could be motivated to stop.

 djones520 wrote:
How do we get back to "journalistic integrity"?

That suggests that such a thing ever existed.

Modern news reporting is becoming more and more like click bait (irrespective of the actual medium) but as that is where the money is I doubt that there is much that can be done about.

You have to go back to before the 24 hours news revolution (cause they run out of things to report on usually which leads to this next point) and have them less as businesses trying to compete with each other so they have a reason to stay impartial rather than trying to be "better" (get more attention than their competitors).

As neither of those things can happen easily they'll just stay as they are; probably even get worse as time goes on too.

in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

 redleger wrote:
in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

As a forecaster, things like that truly upset me. I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

 djones520 wrote:
In one of the other threads, this comment was posted.

 redleger wrote:
The problem is the media is not being objective or truthful in most situations. Take the title of this thread. It is neither factual nor objective.

The media sees a story, takes the interesting parts(the parts that sell or gain views) and they run with it. Truth is not necessarily the end goal, although sometimes that does happen on accident.

If the media could be trusted to tell all stories without bias, be factual, conducting truth and fact finding inquiries, and include a little less opinion then maybe just maybe trial by media wouldn't even be a thing. It would simply be media exposes truth.

I had literally just minutes before read another story talking about how the media was botching things up in a rush for a headline grab.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/08/29/news-organizations-are-embarrassing-themselves-with-terrible-tropical-weather-reporting/

Goes on into how various media outlets, in a rush to get you to read their crap, is posting completely, and utterly false drivel. In this case, regarding the weather.

Basically, it makes one wonder when we need to have a purge of the system. How do we get back to "journalistic integrity"?

People seemed confused and forget "the media" is just a business like any other. Its goal is to make money.
Its delivering a product, not "the truth."

 n0t_u wrote:
You have to go back to before the 24 hours news revolution (cause they run out of things to report on usually which leads to this next point) and have them less as businesses trying to compete with each other so they have a reason to stay impartial rather than trying to be "better" (get more attention than their competitors).

As neither of those things can happen easily they'll just stay as they are; probably even get worse as time goes on too.

"Click bait" news isn't an invention of the 24 hours news cycle. Sensationalist reporting is as old as reporting itself.

People mistakenly presume that there is some kind of great "integrity" in which journalists have no opinions of their own and thus offer nothing but a vague and arbitrary notion of "truth." No such thing exists, has ever existed, nor ever will exist. Journalists are people like everyone else. They're not automatons, and they're not perfect. Especially in a world where we can observe borderline abusive reporting practices in the likes national tabloids and rag magazines, it's baffling how people are incapable of telling the difference between reporting that presents a point of view, and reporting that presents outright lies and deceptions. People have somehow managed to convince themselves the former is always the later, solely based on whether or not they like the point of view.

 djones520 wrote:
I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

It could always be worse. You could be Cosmo (possibly NSFW).

A lot of it is also just how people perceive the media. I know lots of people who over the course of my life have seen the media present a story that deals with that person's job or field of expertise or just something the person is knowledgeable in and he/she will complain about how the media presents it horribly wrong. Then those people complain about how the media doesn't understand the subject/field and that they're misinforming the public and warping perceptions. However, those same people will then accept as truthful the media's other stories about other subjects/fields of which the person is not knowledgeable of even though he/she already knows the media screws stuff up.

 djones520 wrote:

 redleger wrote:
in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

As a forecaster, things like that truly upset me. I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

Whats with the Weather Channel?

Media of all types can be sloppy, biased, hyperbolic, jingoistic, disconnected, ignorant, and many other such things. Some places are just looking for views, some act as agitators, others are almost purely propaganda of some sort. This is nothing new, it's just more exposed.

It's always best to get your information from multiple sources and viewpoimts, know their tendencies and biases, and synthesize your own understanding.

For things to change, reader/viewer habits have to change. Until then...

 Frazzled wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 redleger wrote:
in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

As a forecaster, things like that truly upset me. I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

Whats with the Weather Channel?

Have you noticed how they have started naming winter storms? It's utter bs. Just like these other things, their sensationalizing things for the sake of profit.

If it bleeds, it leads.

But, lately, it goes way beyond that axioms.

When everyone is Hitler, no one is Hitler.

That's why Trump and Clinton are partially the reasons why they're the candidates.

For example in 2012, the press went nuts over innocuous stuff like "binders full of women", dog on the car, the haircut, WHAT ABOUT YOUR GAFFES?!?!?!

Meanwhile, Democrats were running ads essentially saying Romney killed a man with cancer, and a Ryan-look-a-like throws grandma off the cliff... and traditional media turned a blind eye.

So, yeah... let's have this conversation about journalistic integrity.

...a good place to start is for news organizations to actively work to diversify their reporter's/anchor's political ideologies.

Any other ideas on how to hold news organizations accountable?

Boycott their sponsors?

Drop cable/satellite altogether (cutting the cord)??

 LordofHats wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
You have to go back to before the 24 hours news revolution (cause they run out of things to report on usually which leads to this next point) and have them less as businesses trying to compete with each other so they have a reason to stay impartial rather than trying to be "better" (get more attention than their competitors).

As neither of those things can happen easily they'll just stay as they are; probably even get worse as time goes on too.

"Click bait" news isn't an invention of the 24 hours news cycle. Sensationalist reporting is as old as reporting itself.

People mistakenly presume that there is some kind of great "integrity" in which journalists have no opinions of their own and thus offer nothing but a vague and arbitrary notion of "truth." No such thing exists, has ever existed, nor ever will exist. Journalists are people like everyone else. They're not automatons, and they're not perfect. Especially in a world where we can observe borderline abusive reporting practices in the likes national tabloids and rag magazines, it's baffling how people are incapable of telling the difference between reporting that presents a point of view, and reporting that presents outright lies and deceptions. People have somehow managed to convince themselves the former is always the later, solely based on whether or not they like the point of view.

 djones520 wrote:
I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

It could always be worse. You could be Cosmo (possibly NSFW).

Everyone remembers the yellow journalism that helped us into the Spanish American War.

The original "click bait"

 djones520 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 redleger wrote:
in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

As a forecaster, things like that truly upset me. I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

Whats with the Weather Channel?

Have you noticed how they have started naming winter storms? It's utter bs. Just like these other things, their sensationalizing things for the sake of profit.

I did not notice that. I live in Texas. I don't know what a winter storm is.

 LordofHats wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
You have to go back to before the 24 hours news revolution (cause they run out of things to report on usually which leads to this next point) and have them less as businesses trying to compete with each other so they have a reason to stay impartial rather than trying to be "better" (get more attention than their competitors).

As neither of those things can happen easily they'll just stay as they are; probably even get worse as time goes on too.

"Click bait" news isn't an invention of the 24 hours news cycle. Sensationalist reporting is as old as reporting itself.

People mistakenly presume that there is some kind of great "integrity" in which journalists have no opinions of their own and thus offer nothing but a vague and arbitrary notion of "truth." No such thing exists, has ever existed, nor ever will exist. Journalists are people like everyone else. They're not automatons, and they're not perfect. Especially in a world where we can observe borderline abusive reporting practices in the likes national tabloids and rag magazines, it's baffling how people are incapable of telling the difference between reporting that presents a point of view, and reporting that presents outright lies and deceptions. People have somehow managed to convince themselves the former is always the later, solely based on whether or not they like the point of view.

 djones520 wrote:
I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

It could always be worse. You could be Cosmo (possibly NSFW).

I think most of use understand that reporters are people with opinions, but when your job is to inform(yes we know they have to make money) then I would prefer something like" We have studied all the information, here it is as we understand it to be, we will update as more information becomes available" Instead of "initial reports are this, so this is what is happening, now we are getting reports of this, we have no way to fact check this, but we want you to listen to us, so we will report it as the truth"

No news sensationalism is nothing new, but when your reporting tends to create social outcry, then your reporting should probably have truth in it. Instead of creating a frenzy that leads to riots, people being targeted and threatened and lives being ruined. If you wanna call a shot gun a high power rifle while holding up a shotgun on national television, then you are taking people ignorant of weapons and creating something false. Why not have someone who can talk intelligently on something report on it. Weather, racism, the state of police in our nation, all being reported on incorrectly, and that is literally leading to people either getting hurt, losing career, being killed, or just plain making bad decision. There has to be a point where someone gives it the old common sense check.

 djones520 wrote:

 redleger wrote:
in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

As a forecaster, things like that truly upset me. I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

Weather.com, the weather channel's website, has become nothing but a "Click here to see crazy cat lady" adds, pop-ups, and other bs. It takes forever to load, and they keep changing the format of the forecast.

I just want to know the fething humidity so that I can see if anything gets primed today! OK? Thanks. I've been waiting 2 weeks for the humidity to get below 50%, my magical cut off to avoid frosting and other issues.

I stopped using weather.com

 kronk wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 redleger wrote:
in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

As a forecaster, things like that truly upset me. I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

Weather.com, the weather channel's website, has become nothing but a "Click here to see crazy cat lady" adds, pop-ups, and other bs. It takes forever to load, and they keep changing the format of the forecast.

I just want to know the fething humidity so that I can see if anything gets primed today! OK? Thanks. I've been waiting 2 weeks for the humidity to get below 50%, my magical cut off to avoid frosting and other issues.

I stopped using weather.com

http://www.weather.gov/

Type your Zip Code into the box on the upper left.

I had found another one, but that one looks decent. Thanks!

I like the forecast graph. that will be useful.

Very nice!

 djones520 wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 redleger wrote:
in reading that story, that is extremely irresponsible. You are telling people deliberate falsehoods which affect decision making that could be life or death. I mean how much more egregious can they be?

As a forecaster, things like that truly upset me. I won't even watch The Weather Channel anymore.

Weather.com, the weather channel's website, has become nothing but a "Click here to see crazy cat lady" adds, pop-ups, and other bs. It takes forever to load, and they keep changing the format of the forecast.

I just want to know the fething humidity so that I can see if anything gets primed today! OK? Thanks. I've been waiting 2 weeks for the humidity to get below 50%, my magical cut off to avoid frosting and other issues.

I stopped using weather.com

http://www.weather.gov/

Type your Zip Code into the box on the upper left.

Thanks for that link. I spent hours the other night fixing models that got wrecked by matte varnish because the humidity was apparently a lot higher than I thought it was.

 LordofHats wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
You have to go back to before the 24 hours news revolution (cause they run out of things to report on usually which leads to this next point) and have them less as businesses trying to compete with each other so they have a reason to stay impartial rather than trying to be "better" (get more attention than their competitors).

As neither of those things can happen easily they'll just stay as they are; probably even get worse as time goes on too.

"Click bait" news isn't an invention of the 24 hours news cycle. Sensationalist reporting is as old as reporting itself.

People mistakenly presume that there is some kind of great "integrity" in which journalists have no opinions of their own and thus offer nothing but a vague and arbitrary notion of "truth." No such thing exists, has ever existed, nor ever will exist. Journalists are people like everyone else. They're not automatons, and they're not perfect. Especially in a world where we can observe borderline abusive reporting practices in the likes national tabloids and rag magazines, it's baffling how people are incapable of telling the difference between reporting that presents a point of view, and reporting that presents outright lies and deceptions. People have somehow managed to convince themselves the former is always the later, solely based on whether or not they like the point of view.

I feel like it's led to encouraging it more than ever by increasing the level of competition between rivaling companies as they're in more constant clashes with each other than daily or so. That without them being run as a business, and thus needing to make more profit than the other news companies leading to more click bait, that level of integrity would at least be a bunch higher than it currently is if those reporters weren't pressured into needing to find the most interesting stories all the time but rather the most informative ones. Maybe they'd have more time to fact check as well.

But then that also runs into even more issues if you instead have the news controlled by the government or whatever because at the end of the day bias would trickle down from the top still so there can likely never be none, but the level can probably be lower than it is.

 kronk wrote:
I had found another one, but that one looks decent. Thanks!

I like the forecast graph. that will be useful.

Also, best time of day to do that will be 2-4pm generally. Your temp and dew point spread will be at its greatest, so humidity will be at it's lowest. Morning and evening are the worst hours for it. Approaching storm systems may screw that up though, so double check if you're unsure.

 redleger wrote:
I think most of use understand that reporters are people with opinions, but when your job is to inform(yes we know they have to make money) then I would prefer something like" We have studied all the information, here it is as we understand it to be, we will update as more information becomes available" Instead of "initial reports are this, so this is what is happening, now we are getting reports of this, we have no way to fact check this, but we want you to listen to us, so we will report it as the truth"

Honestly, that just how it is. There is no mythical point at which we have "all the facts." Inquiry doesn't work that way. Nor does information just readily present itself such that we can know everything. No body functions that way to begin with. We all start forming opinions about something from the first sentence or the first frame. It's not about whether or not the media has all the facts. If they waited for "all the facts" they'd never report anything because there's always more facts. Often times you have to present one set of information, which prompts the development of another set of information, so on and so forth. It's the nature of the beast. There's a certain mechanical aspect to it as well, as national news generally derives initial information from state news, which in turn derived its initial information from local news (so on and so forth). Until you can actually get someone out there yourself (assuming you have the manpower), you're completely dependent on the reporting of others. it's why initial reports are frequently borderline copy pastes, presenting similar levels of vagueness because initial reporting is always vague.

I think journalism can be a lot like a dog with its teeth dug into the bacon. They won't let go, even when the bacon is revealed to actually be turkey bacon, and who the hell wants turkey bacon? That's a problem.

No news sensationalism is nothing new, but when your reporting tends to create social outcry, then your reporting should probably have truth in it.

So, in reference to the thread that started this, you think a deaf man in North Carolina wasn't shot by a police officer? The initial report in the OP is 232 words (a small paragraph), and included what the police "say right now" and what witnesses "say right now." The report that report was based on is now 280 words (updated since the thread started) and does the same.

Where exactly is either report being untrue? They actually manage to name the people they spoke too and who said what, so it's not even like these reports are hiding behind "a source who wishes to be unnamed."

Instead of creating a frenzy that leads to riots, people being targeted and threatened and lives being ruined.

The social unrest currently sweeping the country isn't the sole product of news media, unless we're going to pretend that everything is just hunky dory, there is no reason for people to be upset about anything, and we should all just sit down. I think we both know that's not the case, and conflating news reporting as the cause of these issues is being a bit flippant. As to stupidity, well what else is new. For how smart we are, we humans are stupid creatures.

Another issue I have, and maybe I am totally out of line here, is that our bretheren from across the pond, and north and south of us seem to believe all the American news dribble. Further this is exacerbated by other Americans who fully buy in to all this dribble and post on forums about this stuff like is actually one hundred percent true. I mean there are bits of truth in many of the stores, but there are spins on them. there are trends, liberals pretty much take CNN as the teachings of Cthulu while Conservatives take Fox news as the word of Hey-Zeus Chreesti. And although I claim a leaning to neither side, as far as the news portions, not the opinion pieces, but the news portions fox does seem to get it more towards center, just from the little bit of news I watch.

But seriously I am tired of being looked at like a beer bellied wife beater simply because I am pro 2nd amendment. Based on what i read from others on this page, thats how I imagine their mental picture of us is simply due to the tele.

 djones520 wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I had found another one, but that one looks decent. Thanks!

I like the forecast graph. that will be useful.

Also, best time of day to do that will be 2-4pm generally. .

That's what I tend to see, as well.

 redleger wrote:
Another issue I have, and maybe I am totally out of line here, is that our bretheren from across the pond, and north and south of us seem to believe all the American news dribble.

Americans do the same about other countries. It's not like everyone in the world has been here for any long than possibly rarely the briefest vacation.

But seriously I am tired of being looked at like a beer bellied wife beater simply because I am pro 2nd amendment.

I can honestly say I've never seen anyone characterize 2nd Amendment advocates that way... Ever. And I have a news feed with nearly two dozen news sites on it.

Though it does sound hilariously close to one of my favorite memes; almost politically correct red neck. Cracks me up

 LordofHats wrote:

 redleger wrote:
I think most of use understand that reporters are people with opinions, but when your job is to inform(yes we know they have to make money) then I would prefer something like" We have studied all the information, here it is as we understand it to be, we will update as more information becomes available" Instead of "initial reports are this, so this is what is happening, now we are getting reports of this, we have no way to fact check this, but we want you to listen to us, so we will report it as the truth"

Honestly, that just how it is. There is no mythical point at which we have "all the facts." Inquiry doesn't work that way. Nor does information just readily present itself such that we can know everything. No body functions that way to begin with. We all start forming opinions about something from the first sentence or the first frame. It's not about whether or not the media has all the facts. If they waited for "all the facts" they'd never report anything because there's always more facts. Often times you have to present one set of information, which prompts the development of another set of information, so on and so forth. It's the nature of the beast. There's a certain mechanical aspect to it as well, as national news generally derives initial information from state news, which in turn derived its initial information from local news (so on and so forth). Until you can actually get someone out there yourself (assuming you have the manpower), you're completely dependent on the reporting of others. it's why initial reports are frequently borderline copy pastes, presenting similar levels of vagueness because initial reporting is always vague.

I think journalism can be a lot like a dog with its teeth dug into the bacon. They won't let go, even when the bacon is revealed to actually be turkey bacon, and who the hell wants turkey bacon? That's a problem.

No news sensationalism is nothing new, but when your reporting tends to create social outcry, then your reporting should probably have truth in it.

So, in reference to the thread that started this, you think a deaf man in North Carolina wasn't shot by a police officer? The initial report in the OP is 232 words (a small paragraph), and included what the police "say right now" and what witnesses "say right now." The report that report was based on is now 280 words (updated since the thread started) and does the same.

Where exactly is either report being untrue? They actually manage to name the people they spoke too and who said what, so it's not even like these reports are hiding behind "a source who wishes to be unnamed."

Instead of creating a frenzy that leads to riots, people being targeted and threatened and lives being ruined.

The social unrest currently sweeping the country isn't the sole product of news media, unless we're going to pretend that everything is just hunky dory, there is no reason for people to be upset about anything, and we should all just sit down. I think we both know that's not the case, and conflating news reporting as the cause of these issues is being a bit flippant. As to stupidity, well what else is new. For how smart we are, we humans are stupid creatures.

as to the thread which started this, the title of the thread is what I was referring to. He wasn't shot at a traffic stop while trying to sign. He was shot getting out of his vehicle after evading police. Now I am not talking about the right or wrong, clearly I still don't think it was ok to shoot him based on the current evidence, but I reserve my right to change my mind based on new evidence. That title is the example I was using.

Media, is but one form of information that is spread in massive amounts at the speed of cable. So lets take a very heated subject like Ferguson Missouri. When it was all said and done, and the science was analyzed it was confirmed that the officer was indeed being charged by the suspect, after having already been assaulted once. Now I am not trying to start a debate on ferguson, Im simply talking strictly about the reporting. Now the news was all "cops shoots black kid for no reason"at first, then footage pops up that could be misleading, and they were " he was a good kid who didn't do anything wrong" Now lets think about that. The reporting on this was non stop, and even once truth was found out, no one was interested in the real truth, they were interested in action being taken on a fabrication and false reporting. The riots and social frenzy can in part be blamed on the reporting that took place. Now other shooting are not being reported on with any more integrity. I mean they took "eye witness" statements and then the grand jury results came in, and come to find out, those people were not even there to witness anything. I can't blame that on the media per se except in the ability to verify and coroborate stories, of which they did not do. So no I can't say the media is not responsible for the decline of western civilization, but they are a contributing factor.

edit: changed typo to is not*

Lordy...

You do know the following terms...eh?
-Fly Over Country
-Bitter Clingers
-Bible Thumbers
-Red Neck 'Murricans? (okay... that's a badge of honor)