Brian Stelter out at CNN

Herdfan

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Looks like the domino's are starting to fall with the new ownership's desire to go back to hard news and away from opinion.

Will be interesting to watch to see if it works or if people only want to hear news they agree with.
 

GermanSuplex

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Problem is, any news that doesn’t glorify Trump will be automatically seen as “liberal media”. That ain’t going to change just because some talking heads get shuffled.

There’s plenty of criticism to be had about the media as a whole, but anyone who has any respect for Fox News has automatically lost that argument. It’s like being a fan of Tucker Carlson and calling Bill Maher a racist because he used the n-word a couple years back.
 

AG_PhamD

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I for one am happy to see CNN dumping Stelter. He came off to me as the most disingenuous personality on the network and frankly among all the TV media in my opinion. He was ultimate propagandist for excusing CNN’s faux pas. To call his show “Reliable Sources” implying objective, unbiased reporting is a joke. It’s no wonder as of recent Stelter was only pulling in less than 80,000 viewers in the key demo.

I’m glad to see CNN is trying to clean up its act. I would love to see a reasonably unbiased, objective cable news network. I’m not convinced that they will be successful though- there’s a lot more money in feeding in the bias and outrage of one side or the other.

It’s hard for me to see how a network can have credibility when they participate in things like the Cuomo brothers scandal, Chris Cuomo’s pretend COVID reveal after being publicly being seen out of the house with COVID, not firing Jeffery Toobin after pleasuring himself in front of co-workers, hiring people like Peter Strzok and Andy McCabe as contributors- as well as promoting many others with completely shot credibility like Michael Cohen.

Frankly, all of our media is a mess. Journalism seems to be far more about activism than actually reporting the news. It’s not surprising that our media is among the lowest rated in credibility. At least MSNBC and FOX don’t pretend to be unbiased (though IIRC it was only a couple years ago FOX dropped the “fair and balanced” line). I just don’t understand why people want news that only reinforces their beliefs rather than actually unbiased information. I suppose that’s what sells. But I see this as an increasingly dangerous road to go down.
 

Colstan

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Let me preface this by saying that I live in a blue town, in a red district, within a purple state. My politics match my neighborhood, in that I agree with the left on about 50% of issues, while agreeing with the right on about 50% of issues. I'm not someone who fits neatly within any ideology or political party. I'm not a "joiner" and I'm fine with being captain contrarian who doesn't always go along with the group.

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."
- Groucho Marx

About two weeks ago, Eric announced that the mods had temporarily closed the politics section of "Talked About". This was met with a wide variety of intense reactions. At the time, I was surprised by this announcement, because I had assumed that this forum was intentionally meant to cater to "tech liberals", and that contrary viewpoints were discouraged by design. Even though I am not a conservative, I am also not a liberal, so I decided to stay quiet about my 50% right-leaning beliefs, because I didn't want others to subconsciously dislike me because I disagree with them on "X" issue or voted for the "wrong" person. The only exception I made was a number of posts I made during the Ukraine invasion, in support of the international efforts against the Czarist dictator, because there aren't many Kremlin boot-lickers arounds these parts.

Otherwise, I haven't participated in the news/politics sections because I didn't want to stray into my 50% right-leaning viewpoints. Politics are important, but that can be found in thousands of forums. However, the technology discussion here is far more unique and valuable to me. There are numerous individuals here who are extraordinarily knowledgeable and experienced in the tech sector. For instance, how many other forums provide me with easy access to the mind of a CPU architect, one whose work impacts the lives of billions of people every single day? I didn't want my political leanings, whether that be left or right on any given issue, to impact my tech discussions, even if on a subconscious level.

On the other hand, I have noticed that there are some posters here who I have never interacted with at all, because they only post in the politics sub forums. Until the debate about Talked About's future happened a few weeks ago, I had no idea that this site was founded by left-leaning people who wanted to have such discussions without the gaze of the all-seeing eye of the MR moderators. My original, incorrect assumption, was that Talked About existed so that we could discuss tech topics without bad-faith individuals hiding behind forum rules, which they carefully tailored their messages around in order to cause as much strife as possible among Mac users, while being actively protected by that site's moderators. It never occurred to me that this was originally a refuge for left-leaning folks who thought that MR was being biased toward their viewpoint, so this was a revelation to me.

This notion was further reinforced during that discussion when a poster said that it's "been comforting" to hear from like-minded individuals, but were fine with hearing alternative viewpoints, as long as they are presented in a rational manner. The problem is, of course, what is "rational"? For some posters here, voting for Donald Trump or watching Fox News automatically disqualifies that's person's views from being rational, thus eliminating roughly 50% of the population of the United States.

As a trial balloon, I mocked Fox New in a separate post, but also pointed out that I haven't watched cable news in years, and was curious how many people still watch cable news and how influential Fox News really is. The followup was a reply about MSNBC, and admitted that network has its own bias, but because the opinion of the presenter was of the correct variety, then it's okay for MSNBC to have that bias. This response was heavily upvoted, far more than my snarky potshot at Fox News. So, I satiated my curiosity, and the result is what I expected: cable news is biased, but it's okay, as long as that channel agrees with the majority here.

To be clear, I'm not singling out MSNBC because of their left-wing presentation. I could have just as easily done the same with Fox News at a right-leaning forum, and would have gotten a mirror result. It's matter and anti-matter, I just hope nobody gets annihilated in the process, but that's unlikely because humans tend to stick to their tribe.

I personally don't identify as conservative or liberal. I've voted for Republicans and Democrats. I don't subscribe to the daily outrage that Trump/Biden is supposedly responsible for at any given moment, depending on the ideological leanings of the presenter. I stopped watching cable news when it became a reality show echo chamber.

That's why I am hopeful that CNN will return to its roots of being a hard news organization, not opinion masquerading as unbiased press. For those of us old enough to remember, CNN's coverage of the first Gulf War was groundbreaking, and showed the real potential of a 24/7 news outlet. CNN's recent shift in presentation was obvious. Liberal and conservative audiences already have channels dedicated 24/7 to their beliefs, where they can find comfort in listening to people who agree with them on everything.

I don't know if if there is a large enough market for hard news, "just the facts, ma'am", but if that is the case, I'll start watching cable news for the first time in years. Before they tried to become "MSNBC Light", I regularly watched CNN, perhaps I will again. I'm going to at least give them a shot, because CNN, at least historically, had the best international coverage among major news outlets. If it doesn't work out, and partisan pie is what consumers want to consume, then that would be a shame for me personally, because it's easy to find programming designed to reverberate across multiple echo chambers that make viewers feel good about themselves. It will be a curious experiment; do cable news viewers want facts to inform, or warm feelings to reinforce already hardened beliefs?
 

Eric

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Let me preface this by saying that I live in a blue town, in a red district, within a purple state. My politics match my neighborhood, in that I agree with the left on about 50% of issues, while agreeing with the right on about 50% of issues. I'm not someone who fits neatly within any ideology or political party. I'm not a "joiner" and I'm fine with being captain contrarian who doesn't always go along with the group.

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."
- Groucho Marx

About two weeks ago, Eric announced that the mods had temporarily closed the politics section of "Talked About". This was met with a wide variety of intense reactions. At the time, I was surprised by this announcement, because I had assumed that this forum was intentionally meant to cater to "tech liberals", and that contrary viewpoints were discouraged by design. Even though I am not a conservative, I am also not a liberal, so I decided to stay quiet about my 50% right-leaning beliefs, because I didn't want others to subconsciously dislike me because I disagree with them on "X" issue or voted for the "wrong" person. The only exception I made was a number of posts I made during the Ukraine invasion, in support of the international efforts against the Czarist dictator, because there aren't many Kremlin boot-lickers arounds these parts.

Otherwise, I haven't participated in the news/politics sections because I didn't want to stray into my 50% right-leaning viewpoints. Politics are important, but that can be found in thousands of forums. However, the technology discussion here is far more unique and valuable to me. There are numerous individuals here who are extraordinarily knowledgeable and experienced in the tech sector. For instance, how many other forums provide me with easy access to the mind of a CPU architect, one whose work impacts the lives of billions of people every single day? I didn't want my political leanings, whether that be left or right on any given issue, to impact my tech discussions, even if on a subconscious level.

On the other hand, I have noticed that there are some posters here who I have never interacted with at all, because they only post in the politics sub forums. Until the debate about Talked About's future happened a few weeks ago, I had no idea that this site was founded by left-leaning people who wanted to have such discussions without the gaze of the all-seeing eye of the MR moderators. My original, incorrect assumption, was that Talked About existed so that we could discuss tech topics without bad-faith individuals hiding behind forum rules, which they carefully tailored their messages around in order to cause as much strife as possible among Mac users, while being actively protected by that site's moderators. It never occurred to me that this was originally a refuge for left-leaning folks who thought that MR was being biased toward their viewpoint, so this was a revelation to me.

This notion was further reinforced during that discussion when a poster said that it's "been comforting" to hear from like-minded individuals, but were fine with hearing alternative viewpoints, as long as they are presented in a rational manner. The problem is, of course, what is "rational"? For some posters here, voting for Donald Trump or watching Fox News automatically disqualifies that's person's views from being rational, thus eliminating roughly 50% of the population of the United States.

As a trial balloon, I mocked Fox New in a separate post, but also pointed out that I haven't watched cable news in years, and was curious how many people still watch cable news and how influential Fox News really is. The followup was a reply about MSNBC, and admitted that network has its own bias, but because the opinion of the presenter was of the correct variety, then it's okay for MSNBC to have that bias. This response was heavily upvoted, far more than my snarky potshot at Fox News. So, I satiated my curiosity, and the result is what I expected: cable news is biased, but it's okay, as long as that channel agrees with the majority here.

To be clear, I'm not singling out MSNBC because of their left-wing presentation. I could have just as easily done the same with Fox News at a right-leaning forum, and would have gotten a mirror result. It's matter and anti-matter, I just hope nobody gets annihilated in the process, but that's unlikely because humans tend to stick to their tribe.

I personally don't identify as conservative or liberal. I've voted for Republicans and Democrats. I don't subscribe to the daily outrage that Trump/Biden is supposedly responsible for at any given moment, depending on the ideological leanings of the presenter. I stopped watching cable news when it became a reality show echo chamber.

That's why I am hopeful that CNN will return to its roots of being a hard news organization, not opinion masquerading as unbiased press. For those of us old enough to remember, CNN's coverage of the first Gulf War was groundbreaking, and showed the real potential of a 24/7 news outlet. CNN's recent shift in presentation was obvious. Liberal and conservative audiences already have channels dedicated 24/7 to their beliefs, where they can find comfort in listening to people who agree with them on everything.

I don't know if if there is a large enough market for hard news, "just the facts, ma'am", but if that is the case, I'll start watching cable news for the first time in years. Before they tried to become "MSNBC Light", I regularly watched CNN, perhaps I will again. I'm going to at least give them a shot, because CNN, at least historically, had the best international coverage among major news outlets. If it doesn't work out, and partisan pie is what consumers want to consume, then that would be a shame for me personally, because it's easy to find programming designed to reverberate across multiple echo chambers that make viewers feel good about themselves. It will be a curious experiment; do cable news viewers want facts to inform, or warm feelings to reinforce already hardened beliefs?
This is well thought out and fair feedback. You're right that we originally started out as a left-leaning political site because that's what it was rooted in long ago and I revived it, but I had my sites set far beyond that from the gate. My goal was to move it out into tech and open discussion on other topics, as well as giving everyone with a differing political viewpoint a voice as well.

So the fact that you originally saw this as tech and open discussion speaks to the work put into giving it that appearance. I would far rather this site just be those things without all the politics and it's fair to call me out on that considering it was the original basis for this site, but we've progressed into something different.

As not to upset many of the otherwise decent posters on this site I opted to leave that section open and it remains the most popular area, granted we are now seeing more people open up that were originally afraid to say anything publicly that wasn't left-leaning, and that was the goal. So if we're going to have it, everyone is going to get a voice no matter who they support without fear of being publicly lambasted for it.

As for cable news, I do agree that it's a perception of which side one is on. Fox News for the right and MSNBC for the left, both are extremely biased IMO and I've always looked for CNN to be the middle ground but at the moment everything is so divisive that I can't watch any of it. I personally watch the nightly news on either ABC or NBC to get the headlines and their narratives seem to be more about news than opinion so that's what I'm sticking with for now.
 

JayMysteri0

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This is well thought out and fair feedback. You're right that we originally started out as a left-leaning political site because that's what it was rooted in long ago and I revived it, but I had my sites set far beyond that from the gate. My goal was to move it out into tech and open discussion on other topics, as well as giving everyone with a differing political viewpoint a voice as well.

So the fact that you originally saw this as tech and open discussion speaks to the work put into giving it that appearance. I would far rather this site just be those things without all the politics and it's fair to call me out on that considering it was the original basis for this site, but we've progressed into something different.

As not to upset many of the otherwise decent posters on this site I opted to leave that section open and it remains the most popular area, granted we are now seeing more people open up that were originally afraid to say anything publicly that wasn't left-leaning, and that was the goal. So if we're going to have it, everyone is going to get a voice no matter who they support without fear of being publicly lambasted for it.

As for cable news, I do agree that it's a perception of which side one is on. Fox News for the right and MSNBC for the left, both are extremely biased IMO and I've always looked for CNN to be the middle ground but at the moment everything is so divisive that I can't watch any of it. I personally watch the nightly news on either ABC or NBC to get the headlines and their narratives seem to be more about news than opinion so that's what I'm sticking with for now.
Originally I was going to address the previous poster with some counter points, but since you weighed in I'll take my break from "vacation" here.

Going with the history of the site, bear in mind that many of us came with you BECAUSE of the fallout from PRSI, so for many of us, it was about discussing things political with adults. Something some of us did exclusively with a here & there post elsewhere on MR. I myself may have missed when the pivot became about being a "tech" site that has nothing "tech" related in the title. Which came as a pretty blunt shift with no warning with the heavy posting from a couple of posters. Which of course didn't phase me because I didn't care about the topics, so I didn't pay attention to them. It's not my site, I have no say.

No big. Until it is.

Which is what brings us to the xxxx xx ( my opinion ) with the politics section. I keep hearing about "echo chambers" & "bullying" and I'm completely missing it. For supposedly obvious reasons it seems. I think for myself though, I don't get those things because that was once what PRSI WAS. A lot of tech bros whining about diversity & why PoC don't comply with the authorities. Because when they ( if ) interact with authorities nothing bad EVER happens to them. I myself and a few others here weighed in anyways there, often debating multiple posters at a time with some bizarre ass nonsense they cribbed off of 4Chan or Reddit. I didn't feel "bullied". If I did I probably would have just ignored the section and just kept posting in the iPad sections. To ME, if anyone feels that can't express themselves on a forum that does not physically stop them from posting, you have all the power you need. USE IT! If the strength of your convictions is enough & you got facts in your back pockets, who gives an 'F' what's being said. You got you. To me if one is complaining about "echo chambers" and some fear of posting, it maybe they need an echo chamber. Who cares if anyone likes you here? I'm not sure how many of us meet outside of this forum for that to be a real issue.

On that point though, the difference I saw from here & over there, was that we have a clear separation in parts. Will @Herdfan ever agree with me on 100% of political leanings. No. But they can still laugh at the stuff I posted in "random things" & "I didn't know this"? Why? Because they aren't holding what I say in the politics section as a grudge against me in every other section of the forum. Which was the petty crap that still happens in MR. The same with me I don't judge all of @Herdfan posts based on what they wrote in the politics section. Was I drinking buddies with @yaxomoxay? F' no! Did we often mention our mutual respect for the work we did in presenting our sides of the discussion? Yes we did. TA is a forum for adults, who can behave like adults. We didn't have the MR forum rules for PRSI, because we didn't need them. There maybe eye rolling at some posts, but there was always respect. It may not have felt like that respect was there in heated moments, but that's often a personal hot take. Or as I liked to say "you do you", no one is holding that against you. Where here to discuss & learn.

I get it, for the site to grow it needs to attract a more diverse audience. Growing a more diverse audience should not come at the cost of a previous audience. That literally is not diversity, it's a culling in the hopes of presenting what seems like an idyllic field. Until that one goes ablaze for whatever reasons. I just question if people are truly afraid to post what they feel, if fear of dissenting opinion is the real issue. Like PRSI, you have to go into the politics section to read things you don't care for. No one stops you from rebutting. If it's a fear of numbers, that was the unfortunate byproduct of how the site got it's crop of consistent posters. They are what helped the site grow. That shouldn't be an impediment to weighing in on discussion if your discussion is honest and can be backed up. At the end of the day, all we have is fact over opinion for true honest discussion.

What happened with the political section was a very specific pivot for specific reasons.

departie-wcthsnark-departies-biting-my-tongue.gif


I'm stopping there and going with a tie back to CNN.

Anyone who thinks CNN pivoting to hard news or whatever for whatever their real reasons isn't going to still make the right wing cry, is fooling themselves. We mention "projection" often because it's a very real thing with the 'snowflake' & 'f your feelings' crowd. To put it bluntly "echo chamber" became the refashioned word for "safe space" for many of those people. If they didn't feel completely comfortable, then somehow it prevented them from expressing themselves. No. What's preventing them from expressing themselves, is them. Just like the left control EVERYTHING, but we still got a 2X impeached former president, an insurrection, a tilted Supreme Court that now leans religious, and a congress that can be thwarted by an obstructionist minority worried more about political points than people. There will NEVER be completely 100% objective new sources anymore, because we won't allow that. At the other place when I would ask what sources would be acceptable for some posters, I would get an ever shifting list. Why? Because when I was told Reuters was acceptable & would use that, if it made my point, it was suddenly leftist. Vox was unacceptable not because they got anything factually incorrect, but because the people behind it. One half of the political spectrum has an obsession with a CNN that never really existed after the Gulf War, the other half doesn't give a crap because they aren't in depth enough. CNN is plainly the victim of our increased tribalism, which means they will never truly please everyone.

Something that takes awhile to learn.

Now back to my drinks & "vacation". 🤙

beach-beach-day.gif
 

Herdfan

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On that point though, the difference I saw from here & over there, was that we have a clear separation in parts. Will @Herdfan ever agree with me on 100% of political leanings. No. But they can still laugh at the stuff I posted in "random things" & "I didn't know this"? Why? Because they aren't holding what I say in the politics section as a grudge against me in every other section of the forum. Which was the petty crap that still happens in MR. The same with me I don't judge all of @Herdfan posts based on what they wrote in the politics section. Was I drinking buddies with @yaxomoxay? F' no! Did we often mention our mutual respect for the work we did in presenting our sides of the discussion? Yes we did. TA is a forum for adults, who can behave like adults.

Yep. You nailed. Because you are an adult. Or at least play one on this board. :)

But I do think you might have a bit of a Twitter addiction. ;)
 

Hrafn

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It can be hard to have a rational discussion when 25% of one side starts with "the earth is flat, so you must respect my opinion of fact, and give me equal time to express it..."
 

Eric

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But I do think you might have a bit of a Twitter addiction. ;)
It's like having a Twitter bot constantly posting to the site, I get it for citing a source here and there but essentially every post with little other real contributions otherwise is just spam. Aside from that, the board functionality loading them jacks up the page experience. Glad to see this has stopped.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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I don’t get the mentality of people who like to spend their weeknight evenings getting pissed off via a talking head on a news network. “This is the guy/woman I trust to get me pissed off the most and I really enjoy that.” And as network ratings and viewership are going down the toilet they are all competing for the same programming cliché.

Not a big Obama fan here, but he produced a series on Netflix explaining what some of the different government agencies do. Why not run shows like that instead? Or dedicate a primetime hour to international news. Or a behind the scenes news network reality show. Or literally anything that’s not an opinion outrage machine.
 

Eric

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I don’t get the mentality of people who like to spend their weeknight evenings getting pissed off via a talking head on a news network. “This is the guy/woman I trust to get me pissed off the most and I really enjoy that.” And as network ratings and viewership are going down the toilet they are all competing for the same programming cliché.
I just can't watch any of it from either side when they're just spouting anger and pointing fingers, I did it for a while but after I stopped watching cable news in general and started looking at it from the outside, it ALL seems so partisan.

Not a big Obama fan here, but he produced a series on Netflix explaining what some of the different government agencies do. Why not run shows like that instead? Or dedicate a primetime hour to international news. Or a behind the scenes news network reality show. Or literally anything that’s not an opinion outrage machine.
My guess is because thoughtful coverage and analysis lacks drama and hyperbole, news that isn't bombastic doesn't sell unfortunately.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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I just can't watch any of it from either side when they're just spouting anger and pointing fingers, I did it for a while but after I stopped watching cable news in general and started looking at it from the outside, it ALL seems so partisan.


My guess is because thoughtful coverage and analysis lacks drama and hyperbole, news that isn't bombastic doesn't sell unfortunately.

I don't have problems hearing about the massive flaws in the system. I have problems with saying it's entirely one party's fault night after night.

I think the Discovery Network (I lost count of how many channels they have) proves that non bombastic educational shows have a market and a lot of it could fit well on a news network. I understand content like that may cost more to produce but I don't know if it's more than they pay their outrage bait primetime hosts.
 

lizkat

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Looks like more changes coming sooner than later:


Hah, I made a hilarious misreading of a Columbia Journalism Review newsletter this morning, they had extensive coverage of media reaction to CNN's decision to fire Stelter, and at one point I ran into this phrase:

"Licht’s plans for CNN remain somewhat unclear"​
but i misread it as "....remain somewhat nuclear."

I might not be way wrong on that either, ya think?
 

GermanSuplex

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Great, when will Fox get back to being merely opinionated news instead of an insurrectionist cult propaganda network that tells easily proven and bald-faced lies to its viewers?
 

lizkat

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Great, when will Fox get back to being merely opinionated news instead of an insurrectionist cult propaganda network that tells easily proven and bald-faced lies to its viewers?

Probably if and when CNN goes back to its heyday of presenting news as

"This happened. Here's a map. Here is some context for those unfamiliar with this part of the world. More on this topic at 9pm. Here's an ad for a car."​

Just news. Imagine if it started drawing ratings from Fox by word of mouth.

Fox will never be CNN (because Murdochs) but it will move towards whatever format is picking up ratings points a week at a time.

So then eventually if you want partisan takes, and the equivalent of a shouting match in "a news interview" hashing out WHOSE FAULT IT ALL IS... go on down to the bar and pick yer own fight. Maybe by then it will only even be a dicey experience if you're drunk enough to say something stupid like "How 'bout those Mets" in some bar in the Bronx.
 

Yoused

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I think the Discovery Network (I lost count of how many channels they have) proves that non bombastic educational shows have a market and a lot of it could fit well on a news network.

Discovery? Last I saw them, about a dozen years ago as C-Band was basically shutting down, it seemed like they were trying to race History to the bottom. I guess they must have got better
 
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