Image via WikipediaRead related » Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news
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“To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts - suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates, seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism, when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust. Back then, a policy against political contributions would have aimed to avoid even the appearance of partisanship. But today, when Olbermann draws more than 1 million like-minded viewers to his program every night precisely because he is avowedly, unabashedly and monotonously partisan, it is not clear what misdemeanor his donations constituted. […] We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable. The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. […] Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.” [emphasis added]
— Ted Koppel, November 14, 2010 (washingtonpost.com)
Yes, yes, of course: truth, fiction, fact, opinion, spin, and anti-spin are all in play when considering the big-money game of political news. Ultimately, however, it's all about trust! Whose version of the news is the least untrustworthy? That criterion is a double negative, but it's the only effective positive that really counts in this murky, ax-grinding world we live in. Were it Hamlet's world, that would have been The Question.
I have no problem trusting Olbermann, Maddow, and Matthews as much as, if not more than, Beck, Hannity, and O'Reilly. Surprised? Don't be. I hardly ever watch any of them, let alone accept what any of them say. I have full faith and trust in their political biases and their ulterior motives. I am well aware of whose oxen have been gored.
The so-called "mainstream news people", however, are a much more devious group. They all purport to be journalists, to whom one attributes certain standards of veracity and political neutrality, but few of whom, I daresay, adhere to or even aspire to. All of them, to varying extent, diverge from disseminating "factual" information as they know it to be; it really can't be helped. It's human nature to prevaricate, because it's a survival disadvantage not to do so.
And so, even Ted Koppel can't avoid a certain spin in what he presents as a seemingly even-handed comparison between left-leaning MSNBC and right-leaning Fox News. If, for example, you weigh not only what he says but also what he omits saying, you will discover that he implies, by omission of Bret Baier's "Special Report" evening news hour, that Fox News comprises only what Koppel terms to be the "cable news universe that celebrates the opinions" of the likes of those celebrity commentators he does mention. Nevertheless, Bret Baier's "Special Report", with the exception of its "Fox All-stars" commentary segment (which, by the way, frequently includes Juan Williams' commentary as well as that of Charles Krauthammer), is every bit as "mainstream" as its counterparts on NBC, CBS, and ABC, all of which latter tend to be noticeably left-leaning.
So, what is the poor news consumer to do? I submit one needs to search for the news sources one can trust, with full knowledge of the impossibility of complete trust, to present the news at the sources' acknowledged as well as its perceived level of spin, AKA bias.
And if the news you receive is of particular importance to you, trust but verify.
Post 1,483 It's the trust, stupid
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