Commentary
Cable News Networks: Alternative Facts Are Your Fault
- by Steve Sternberg , Featured Columnist, February 1, 2017
"No matter how absurd one side of any given discussion is, the network will give them equal time to make their point, often normalizing some crazy views.
"If CNN put on a well-known astronomer to explain how he discovered the earth was not flat, the anchor would say, 'Just to be fair, we found this guy who thinks the world is flat.' Then they would give him an equal amount of time to make his ridiculous point. The banner on the bottom of the screen would likely read, 'The debate rages on about whether the earth is flat.' CNN does not seem to understand that every issue does not have two equally valid sides."
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To be fair, there is a big difference between news bias and presenting alternative facts (that is, lying). MSNBC and Fox News are biased in both the way they present and analyze the news. That mostly has to do with how they select what to report, what they choose to highlight, how they edit interviews, who they get for their panel discussions, and how the anchors question them. CNN is generally seen as either biased (if you are right-leaning) or more neutral (if you are left-leaning).
When President Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway used the phrase “alternative facts” when being grilled by NBC’s Chuck Todd, few people who had been following the news throughout the election season should have been surprised. Numerous surrogates for the candidates would be invited onto all the cable news channels on a daily basis. They would lie right to reporters' faces and almost never be called out on it. The response would invariably be something like, “OK, that’s what she says, let’s see what someone with the exact opposite point of view has to say.”
Given that these surrogates lied to reporters with impunity for a year and a half leading up to the election, why wouldn’t they think they could get away with continuing to do the same thing after the election? Why wouldn’t they continue to think that the facts don’t really matter to the media (or to the voters who elected them)?
Well, there is the obvious answer that Donald Trump is now President of the United States. The world, not just his base supporters, is paying attention to everything he or his spokespeople say or tweet. They can’t continue to operate as though they are only playing to the Fox News and Breitbart audiences. The other reason, of course, is when you use a phrase like “alternative facts,” it almost requires ridicule, which the press has been more than happy to heap on.
As I’m writing this, CNN is actually airing a segment where an anchor is interviewing a guy who claims to have evidence of massive voter fraud -- despite the fact that 1) in the previous segment, the network acknowledged there is no such evidence; and 2) this person is not presenting any evidence to support his claim. Leading into the segment, the anchor had said he’s going to talk to this guy anyway and let viewers decide. I’m sure that some people who were just tuning in thought that there was credible evidence of massive voter fraud. This type of thing is a major reason why so many people believe alternative facts (that is, lies). Cable news networks present them as just another point of view.
Going forward, networks and newspapers need to once again be vigilant. Do more than the occasional fact-checking segment. Call out lies wherever you find them. Go back to the pre-1996 days, before MSNBC and Fox News debuted, before cable news networks saw that the path to profits was through getting their viewers to hate the other side, before the time when facts started to blur with opinion, before the time when reporters’ own political leanings were so obvious.
There is something called objective truth. How about reporting that?
I enjoyed your article, but since you asked for objectivity, here's some:
For as long as both Fox News and MSNBC have been on the air, there has been one very important difference. MSNBC has been careful not to identify itself as a news outlet. It delivers commentary, and unless there is an immediate vital news story that all news outlets are covering, MSNBC sticks to commentary.
Fox News, on the other hand, presents both commentary and daily "news." The problem is that their "news" is always, ... ALWAYS, slanted right.
The proof of this requires very simple and basic fact-checking. Fox will fail that test, every single time.
I enjoyed your article, but since you asked for objectivity, here's some:
For as long as both Fox News and MSNBC have been on the air, there has been one very important difference. MSNBC has been careful not to identify itself as a news outlet. It delivers commentary, and unless there is an immediate vital news story that all news outlets are covering, MSNBC sticks to commentary.
Fox News, on the other hand, presents both commentary and daily "news." The problem is that their "news" is always, ... ALWAYS, slanted right.
The proof of this requires very simple and basic fact-checking. Fox will fail that test, every single time.
oops. My fault. Sorry.
Sorry Chuck, I have to disagree. MSNBC clearly sees itself as a news network, even using NBC news reporters on its own shows - MTP Daily is just one example. Both have opinion shows in primetime, but you can't say that the network sees Andrea Mitchell or Chuck Todd as commentators. And MSNBC is just as left slanted as Fox News is right slanted.
The Associated Press ran a story Tuesday using a fake-news transcript of a phone call from Trump to Peña Nieto, from an unnamed source, claiming Trump threatened to send troops. Then later Mexico completely denied the story. There was no threat. Negative comments did not occur, Mexico told the AP on Wednesday. Rumors are not news. Unverified phone transcripts are not news. But blue-ribbon news outlets run the rumors anyway and then speculate on whether they are false. Mexico's foreign relations department denied the Tuesday account calling them "absolute falsehoods" -- but on this website only Fox gets a bad reputation for fake news. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-mexico-phone-call-20170201-story.html
The phrase "we can't independently verify, but..." has become an all-too-often preamble to presenting something that may well be untrue. CNN and MSNBC actually do this at least as much, if not more, than Fox News.
Steve: Thanks for the reply. I can only express my own opinion, and I have never considered MSNBC a news outlet, other than for important breaking news. Nor have I ever seen them identify as a pure news outlet.
As far as leaning left or right, I'd compare Fox and MSNBC to a courtroom situation. On the whole, Fox always takes one side or the other, prosecution or defense, while only presenting, and often bending, the facts that support their side, while hiding facts that don't support their side.
MSNBC, on the other hand, is like the judge, taking both sides into consideration and weighing all the facts. MSNBC fact-checks to verify before reproting. Fox, when it actually does any fact-checking, does so to protect prejudice.
That is a very important difference, especially when Fox calls itself "news."
The main problem for CNN, Fox, MSNBC and everyone who depends on them is that they have to fill time with stuff that keeps viewers interested past the next raft of ads for the aged. Fake or real matter less than value as bait.
It'll be interesting to see what happens when nearly everybody formerly somatized by TV is either dead or preoccupied with other stuff, including billions of sources of content for the screens of glowing rectangles that are under people's own control, rather than the control of what we quaintly still call "networks."
Douglas: You wrote that "there was no threat" as if you have verifiable facts to back that claim. Do you? I doubt it.
What you should consider doing is learning how to read news reports. The AP article never once claimed that the transcript was verified fact, and knowledgeable readers would understand that. Here's part of that story:
"You have a bunch of bad hombres down there," Trump told Pena Nieto, according to the excerpt given to AP. "You aren't doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn't, so I just might send them down to take care of it."
"A person with access to the official transcript of the phone call provided only that portion of the conversation to The Associated Press. The person gave it on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public.
"The Mexican website Aristegui Noticias on Tuesday published a similar account of the phone call, based on the reporting of journalist Dolia Estevez. The report described Trump as humiliating Pena Nieto in a confrontational conversation."
You'll notice that there are no absolute claims anywhere, nor are there any such claims in the entire AP article. The AP article clearly explained the origin of the content, without any claims or even hints that they considered the transcript excerpts to be 100% accurate. That is not, nor is it anywhere near "fake news." On the other hand, claiming that the AP "lied", without any hard evidence, is definitely "fake news."
I would hope that anyone associated with a college would know that.