Has the NEWS ever lied or made stuff up?

[Dragnov]

No, the news has no incentive to make things up or lie. They do however make mistakes in trying to be the first to get the information and stuff. Rather, the media is conequential. It looks for what entertains the public, and certainly that is not government or foreign affairs. Again, not trying to affect the public, but consequentially it does. (Though of course theres your share of scandals and such, but generally no.)

Media is biased! Media is biased! Media is biased!

People really need to get over it. The problem is not that news information is biased. There is no such thing as not being biased. ESPECIALLY with the profit driven media. The problem is that there needs to be more variety of information. Of course, thats not ever going to happen because people don't want Government money going directly to media for the reason none other than... fear of biased information.

 

[PHiuR]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Anyone who says no should be put to sleep.

- M4H

 

[brxndxn]

I'm thinking today's headline of "9/11 victim families outraged by Bush's ads" is completely fabricated.. Sure, there might be a few people pissed off.. but I don't see anything they have to be outraged about. Bush's ad is simply meant to be a reminder that he did lead us through it and he will not forget what happened. One of the 'stories' I rad was titled "9/11 Families Outraged at Bush Ad" and then it basically named a few people that hated the ad (Democrats) and a few people that thought it was a good ad (Republicans.)

The other stories simply didn't mention the people that didn't mind the ad. (All the people interviewed were families of 9/11 victims, though.)

 

[AndrewR]

Originally posted by: Gr1mL0cK
No, the news has no incentive to make things up or lie. They do however make mistakes in trying to be the first to get the information and stuff. Rather, the media is conequential. It looks for what entertains the public, and certainly that is not government or foreign affairs. Again, not trying to affect the public, but consequentially it does. (Though of course theres your share of scandals and such, but generally no.)

Media is biased! Media is biased! Media is biased!

People really need to get over it. The problem is not that news information is biased. There is no such thing as not being biased. ESPECIALLY with the profit driven media. The problem is that there needs to be more variety of information. Of course, thats not ever going to happen because people don't want Government money going directly to media for the reason none other than... fear of biased information.

The news has no incentive to make things up? I guess liberals really have true disdain for the business world when they fail to see that sensational stories gain readership/viewers/sell more newspapers which in turn means higher profit both in the short term and in the long run through subscriptions or just overall reputation (until they get caught, that is, but even then it generates "buzz" that is soon forgotten). For the individual reporter, the incentive is huge to increase reputation by "breaking the big story", which just may be embellished a tiny bit to make it more appealing to a public craving anything "juicy". News outlets and reporters are engaged in a business, fundamentally, and a business does not exist without income. A massive story creates such income. There's no incentive?

Two issues are raised with the above poster's comments. First, that the news exists for entertainment. This is an interesting comment because I would venture a guess that no serious reporter would claim their work is for "entertainment". They strive for the truth, after all -- like lawyers (hah!). Reporters like to refer to themselves as the "Fourth Estate", keeping an eye on the powers that be. Second, the "people really need to get over [media bias]" comment is very interesting. It's obvious to any reader that the news outlets are biased in various ways, with mainstream media mostly biased in favor of liberal ideas (look to a survey of reporters' and editors' political affiliations if you doubt it), but it's vehemently denied almost universally by the media that such a bias exists. It's like the well-known emperor screaming that he is, in fact, wearing clothes.

 

[emmpee]

Originally posted by: brxndxn
I'm thinking today's headline of "9/11 victim families outraged by Bush's ads" is completely fabricated.. Sure, there might be a few people pissed off.. but I don't see anything they have to be outraged about.

Are you claiming that being "pissed off" and "outraged" are two distinctly different things?

Either way, the headline is certainly not "completely fabricated".

 

[sygyzy]

Originally posted by: Vincent
The New York Times convicted Chinese American nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee of espionage without any substantial evidence. They printed a formal apology after it was all cleared up.

Did you know that the judge that presided (sp?) over this case was so disappointed/upset over the US Govt trying to put an innocent man (Lee) behind bars that he apologized to Lee at the closing of the trial?

 

[arcain]

does the 60 Minutes "Unintended Acceleration" Audi episode count?

http://members.aol.com/daserde2/libel.html

 

[0roo0roo]

al gore "love canal" miquote incident where the "liberal" media claimed he took credit for its discovery he didn't. which snowballed into the claims that he was a liar etc etc...

 

[T2T III]

I thought all news was real. You mean to tell me some of what I've been watching/reading over the last several years could have been made up? Wow, I've never been so violated in my whole life.

j/k - seriously, all news has to be looked at objectively to look for the spin that is being applied to the story by the reporter or news station.

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Go see the movie Shattered Glass.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: Rage187
There was that whole incident w/ the New York Times reporter making stuff up and getting caught.

Damn what was that movie they made based on this called again ?

 

[EngenZerO]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Anyone who says no should be put to sleep.

- M4H

I concur.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
al gore "love canal" miquote incident where the "liberal" media claimed he took credit for its discovery he didn't. which snowballed into the claims that he was a liar etc etc...

Next you'll be saying that Al Gore didn't invent in the internet :|

 

[ScottyB]

Ever watch FOX news?

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: TommyVercetti
Has mainstream media ever told a really big lie?

No, Never.

 

[Ausm]

Just about as much as the government does

Sysadmin

 

[mugs]

They tend to do very little fact checking lately in the interest of getting the story on the air before anyone else. That's just as bad.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
The latest incident with the New York Times is the most famous, but a few years back there was a big to-do over NBC falsifying reports. The details escape me, but it had to do with auto crashes or crash tests.

Back in the early 90's Dateline was doing an expose on GM pick-up trucks w/sidesaddle fuel tanks and how they were dangerous because they were supposedily more likely to rupture and catch fire. Well, they kept ramming the sides of the trucks in simulated crashes and nothing happend. So they rigged a truck to catch fire when the ram hit it.

Yep, that's the one I was thinking of. There was another one from the 70's when Ford was having trouble with the Pinto blowing up when hit from the rear. Some news outfit wanted to prove that it wasn't just the Pinto, but the big cars too. They crashed a bunch of Crown Victorias and couldn't get them to explode, so they rigged up crowbars to act as spears and puncture the gas tank on collisions.

There were also a bunch of fabricated reports on the SUV rollover stories of the late 80's and early 90's. The news outlets were using high speed tests and robots to provide steering inputs that were faster and more extreme than a human could do in real life. Then they'd slow the film so that an SUV that was actually rolling over at 90* turns at 100mph would look like it was tipping under normal driving conditions.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: flxnimprtmscl

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith

Originally posted by: flxnimprtmscl

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: Mill

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Anyone who says no should be put to sleep.

- M4H

That's way to nice. I was thinking more like execution style in a fast-food freezer.

I never said how they'd be put to sleep.

Personally, I was thinking everyone's favourite - face down on the curb, two to the base of the skull.

- M4H

You're still off. Teeth on the curb. Size twelve to the back of the head. Two to the base of the skull.

You folks have no imagination. Tsk, tsk. :Q

Not true. I saw the curbstomp in American History X and I can imagine doing it to some members of the media

That's why I didn't elect the curbstomp to start with. Too AHX for me. Besides, that would take too much time to go through the thousands of morons in the world. And I'd imagine your foot would get awful sore.

- M4H

 

[SaltBoy]

Go watch the movie "Shattered Glass." It tells the true story of Stephen Glass (a reporter) and how he was caught in his lies. It was my pick for second best movie of the year, right behind ROTK, due to its fantastic script and fantastic acting.

You want to see somebody in the Media get totally PWNED? Watch "Shattered Glass." Trust me.

 

[Toasthead]

Originally posted by: minendo
Everytime I see a girl wearing those rubber bracelets, I now know she performs acts based on the color I choose.

hahahahahahaha

 

[DaWhim]

Originally posted by: Rage187
There was that whole incident w/ the New York Times reporter making stuff up and getting caught.

that was a Black dude name Blair Jason. IIRC

 

[Queasy]

The moon landings

 

[bsmithy]

AHAHAHAHAHAHA....





AHAHAHAHHA




ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha



ahahahahah no wait...

ahahahahahahahhahaha



funny guy

 

[helloedchen]

here's what Shattered Glass is based on:

Text