Does it mean what you think it means?

• Journalistic standards?
• How is bias framed?
  • What Fox viewers see, coverage of POTUS, the even CNN narrative
  • Research logic underlying (liberal) bias
  • What CNN viewers see , the even Fox narrative,
  • Noam Chomsky and Justin Lewis on bias
  • The president and the press; fake news
• Political “debate” as “entertainment” (O’Reilly and Geraldo, Cuomo and Giuliani), echoing off YouTube and other social media
• Parodies: Can you tell the difference?
  • Money hole parody; special campaign dispatch; McGlaughlin Group
  • Trust in news media
• Left/Right comparisons (stereotypes)
  • red and blue states, the landslide county phenomenon (and the big sort)
  • Jon Stewart mortally wounds Crossfire
  • Today: Division and partisan bias; reaching consensus vs ‘winning‘
• Another kind of bias? What makes for good ratings ‘bait?’
• Analogies: Coke and Pepsi, anyone (or disambiguation)
  • Pepsi–Pepsi–Pepsi  (okay, but this??)
  • CNN vs Fox vs MSNBC? Muslim vs Christian? Yankees vs Red Sox?
  • Republican vs Democrat?
• Other issues related to bias
  • Journalists vs their employers
  • Press and public opinion
  • Pierce’s ‘Rules‘
• Does it matter (sometimes)? What about social media? Possible consequences?
• A different question: Is the press free to report as it sees fit? Where’s the US ranked? Why?
• Some advice

News ‘filters’ (from Hermann and Chomsky)

• 1. Ownership–
  • • corporate concentration, size, cost, ‘interlocking directorates,’ pressure from the ‘top’
    • Chomsky on ownership
    • And now a word from Sinclair Broadcasting
    • Sure, but can ma and pa outfits run 24/7 cable networks??
  2. Advertising
  • • Toyota’s problems , Glenn Beck
    • Ever heard of rBST?
    • Not even PBS is immune (or always forthcoming)
  3. Source
  • • This occurs when the true nature and sources of stories are obscured, if not concealed. But with the cloak of credibility that news sources can provide.
    • How many correspondents cover the White House, Pentagon, Capitol??
    • ‘Message force multipliers’ (David Barstow’s NY Times story)
      • subsequent media coverage
      • PBS has unusual guest
      • White House response
    • Fake (hearing aid) news (credit score) videos (chocolate, and allergy tests), sometimes with attribution (and increasing sophistication)
    • Not just the US–feeding confirmation bias from TV news
    • Astroturf (more examples from organizations with interests in exploiting some aspect of natural resources/the environment)
  4. Flak–negative feedback
  • • Media Matters, PR firms (after release of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’)
    • Trump and CNN’s Jim Acosta
    • Fox’s Greg Gutfeld on the ‘legacy media’ (and January 6)
    • CNN’s Brian Stelter (before his firing) on Fox
    • Social media (trolling, doxing . . . generates much heat, little light or, as Farhad Manjoo puts it, reflexive egotism, righteous activism, and the ‘easy dunk‘)
  5. Anti-communist/terrorism
  • • Bill Maher after 9/11 (anti-terrorism)
    • Chomsky et al. on East Timor (anti-communism)
  6. Other filtering pressures
  • • Ratings bait, beats, et al.
    • Cost (especially of investigative journalism)
    • Careerism — money, fame and integrity don’t always get along
    • News cycle (24/7 and attention spans) and (who has?) access
• A bit more on fake news

Propaganda and persuasion

• Strategies
• Heuristics
• Another example: Global warming
• Techniques  used by, on news media
  • PR and the 3rd party technique
  • Astroturfing
  • Imagery and propaganda
  • Mighty Wurlitzer / social proof
  • Spin
  • And many, many more (wait til you see number 72 …)!
• Edward Bernays, the most influential person you’ve never heard of
  • An updated version of ‘torches of freedom’
• Now. Imagine those techniques and that knowledge fed into an algorithm (AI-enhanced propaganda, that is).
• What is there to be done (he asked, innocently)?
• The spin journal