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.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?
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.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.
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.
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.But I do think you might have a bit of a Twitter addiction.
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.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.
My guess is because thoughtful coverage and analysis lacks drama and hyperbole, news that isn't bombastic doesn't sell unfortunately.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.
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.
Looks like more changes coming sooner than later:
CNN not waiting to make more changes at network, insider says: 'They’re not going to wait out deals'
CNN's Brian Stelter's exit last week despite signing a new contract shows CEO Chris Licht won't wait for existing contracts to expire before making changes.www.foxnews.com
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?
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.
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