Does anyone report just the news now? or are people getting confused about news and editorials.
I have often had people come to me and say "did you see what X paper said about this or that topic", but when you get down to it, they had read an editorial, not what the news actually said.
Seems to be that people tend to read editorials more than what the news actually is.
They then take this reading to mark the paper as left, right or in the middle lol.
When I try to explain that was and editorial and does not reflect the views of the paper people look at you like you are crazy lol.
I stopped reading the Sunday papers in UK because of this. They are full of editorial. The trouble is i keep reading the editorial and not the news.
I actually find the US papers better at reporting straight news than the UK papers. They have much less editorial.
Can't be bothered with TV news. I only get terrestrial TV so it's all bollocks.
A lot of people actually get their news on TV from satirical programmes like the Daily Show, or The Colbert Report, or from the talking heads from Fox News or the increasingly similar trend on CNN towards blathering commentators like Lou Dobbs or Paula Zahn.
Popular network "news" shows like 20/20 or the awful new Nightline, sensationalise and sex up their content so much, it's actually difficult not to get news that hasn't been wildly distorted in some way.
I agree that many U.S newspapers still deliver reasonably straight up news, much of it taken from wire services like Associated Press. In Britain it's often the other way around; the TV news is more straight up while all the sensationalising, opinion and grandstanding is found in the press.
Can't be bothered with TV news. I only get terrestrial TV so it's all bollocks.
You should still get PBS and Newshour is, as best I can tell, fairly straight - if somewhat plodding...
Plodding is the word. Worthy but dull, is another way of putting it.
Same with NPR News. It's probably the best thing going in the U.S but they sound so bored with themselves....and for a supposedly national service so inner Washington too.
I get PBS, and they even show BBC world news at 5pm every evening. I'll watch it if I'm at home. NPR is a favourite in the car, and reminds me alot of how Radio 4 was several years ago, before it changed (back in about 1996, I think). plodding it may be, but I prefer it to the alternatives.
If I'm looking for a fight I'll listen to some talk radio.
wink
I missed Radio 4 like crazy but was glad for NPR. Now I have Radio 4 and it's a poorer cousin of NPR. I'm often surprised by John Humphrys utter lack of knowledge regards North American context.
I missed Radio 4 like crazy but was glad for NPR. Now I have Radio 4 and it's a poorer cousin of NPR. I'm often surprised by John Humphrys utter lack of knowledge regards North American context.
I think that works both ways, I've heard some pretty dumb things on NPR about Britain and Europe. Their analysis of the July 7, 2005 bombs, particularly the role of Muslims in British society was worthy of Faux News at times. I took particular offense to my home city, Leeds, being descibed as a rural backwater populated mostly ill educated Muslim immigrants.
I would agree however that, once I started visitng the US and became more aware of the Country, I would wince at some of the generalizations and misconceptions I would here in the UK media. One example that stands out was the temporary redepoloyment of UK troops within Iraq just before the 2004 elections. The BBC and other portrayed it as some sort of device to win votes by desparate Republicans. As if anyone in America even knew of the redeployment, let alone would change their vote based upon it. :roll:
That said, I still listen to the BBC. I prefer the more combative interviews to the soporific NPS/PBS approach and I find the BBC to have broad coverage of world events. As Lee pointed out, NPR/PBS can struggle to get out of DC (or even Boston sometimes) - let alone the rest of the US.