CNN getting a taste of its own medicine

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Black employees file class-action lawsuit against CNN, Turner

CNN is not a news organization at this point and should not be treated as such.

CNN will of course refer to the fact that blacks make up 30 to 35 percent of CNN’s mid-level managerial and staffing positions which is much higher than the 13% of the population they represent. From that perspective there is no evidence of discrimination in employment.

On the other hand the lawsuit said, “they are drastically under-represented at higher pay grades and senior positions, while still being required to generally labor three times as long as Caucasians [for promotions.].”

Looks like the lawsuit is going to be a tough one...

CNN, MSNBC and Fox are all establishment media propaganda outlets and should be treated as such.

I often prefer BBC news, because I think they're good and hopefully more objective regarding US politics.

Last edited by EzraS on 09 Dec 2016, 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How do you feel about National Public Radio?

Too. Damn. Liberal.

I agree, if you want supposedly unbiased reporting, go with the Beeb or with Deutsche Welle. (Although, frankly, unbiased reporting does not exist.)

This is a really important thing to keep in mind. Every news source, think tank, and NGO has some angle. Even if you agree with that angle, it's important to be aware of what it is, so you can know how credible what they're saying is, or if it's worth seeking out other sources to get a less biased perspective.

For example, in terms of sheer newspaper writing, the New York Times is pretty much the gold standard, but perhaps nobody exemplifies the establishment liberal perspective more than them. For evidence, look at how much they screwed up with the presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal is another great newspaper, but similarly, they're the definition of the conservative establishment. As evidence, look at how bad they screwed up with the recession.

I like Al Jazeera and I think they do great coverage, but it's important to know their association with the Qatari government. Basically, while they do great coverage in Africa, Europe, and elsewhere, I can't really trust anything they say on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And since they're sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, I have to keep that in mind whenever they discuss Islamic politics.

I love The Economist, but they're basically establishment libertarians (albeit leaning liberal). Libération does a lot of good stuff, but it's basically a socialist paper. Le Monde is good, but again, super establishment. Truthdig is a great counterculture/anti-establishment source, but they very clearly have an agenda. I love Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs, but it's worth keeping in mind that they tend to go with the major current academic trends in political science. The Guardian has done some really nice stuff, but again, worth keeping in mind that they're basically the paper of liberal/Labour Britain. The BBC does great stuff, but they do seem to be slightly biased toward liberal views. Vice has done great war coverage, but they're blatantly left wing. Alternet has done some really cool stuff, but they're so open to anything "counterculture" that they sometimes let in some really weird, off-base BS. The Nation has done some neat stuff, but again, very liberal.

One source that really does take great pains to be unbiased is Reuters. But even that has its downsides, because everyone has biases. A while back there was a minor scandal because Reuters wasn't giving proper coverage to climate change, and it turned out it was because they had an editor who was a climate change denier who would intimidate and block any reporters that tried to write about it.

I think CNN's issue is that they've pit themselves into a corner. They follow the establishment narrative so solidly, follow the money so well, and try to be appealing and "vanilla" to every politician they can, that they don't have friends in the public anymore. Nobody trusts them. They are everything the left hates about the right (a platform for reactionary views, substance-free "analysis", personality politics), and even more everything the right hates about the left (dismissive/arrogant, disconnected from the people, stuck in its own bubble, irrelevant). What audience do they have left?

Just to add one more paragraph to this indulgent post, I do find it really worrying how much influence crazy reactionary sources are getting. Fox now looks almost moderate compared to some of the insane hard right, often conspiracy theorist sources like Breitbart and InfoWars. One of the strangest turnarounds I've seen has been RT - years ago they were actually a pretty thorough, progressive news source. I'm not exactly sure when, but at some point they suddenly turned into a ridiculous, dumbed down platform for the Putin government, and now they do idiotic, inane stories, and have none of the substance they used to. And now RT, which has effectively become the propaganda arm of Putin's government, is getting tons of attention over here.

As opposed to Fox, or Breitbart?

If you're not a liberal, most news sources feel the way Fox and Breitbart feel to you, i.e. not trustworthy. Imagine that for decades, FOX news was the only news, and all their stories were backed up by studies from Liberty University, and you might gain some insight into the conservative view of the media.

It's not just because I'm a liberal, though. Fox, and even more so, Breitbart, have demonstrably been proven untrue again and again. It can be argued that the people who don't get their so called news from mainstream - not liberal - media are in fact looking for something that will confirm their biases rather than looking for facts.

Huffington post and the Guardian make use of evidence based news
Fox and Breibart use unrepresentative samples and biased methods that highlight highly sensationalised events in order to push a view that is almost always based on factually incorrect data

Demonstrated by who? Liberal reporters reporting on studies from liberal universities performed by liberal professors at the behest of liberal donors? Maybe you shouldn't throw around accusations of confirmation bias without looking in the mirror.

Wow, FOX and Breitbart must have some amazing ability to be almost always incorrect, that sounds like more work than being right all the time.

This concept of "liberal professors" and "liberal universities" is silly. I mean, certainly there are fields where people involved tend to be on the left, but those fields are obvious - women's studies, social work, etc. But likewise, there are plenty of departments where people are on the right - security studies, criminal justice, and so on.
The whole point of academic research is to follow the scientific method, which is that you test things, then make conclusions based on your results. The idea that research conducted by universities can't be trusted is absurd, it's literally a denial of reality. Climate change is a fact. If a politician says it's a hoax, he's factually wrong. He can have his opinion, but his opinion is wrong. His opinion is not as valuable as that of a scientist who studies this.

I am a liberal. I am in an international relations program with strong ties to the military - it offers more courses on security and intelligence than pretty much anywhere else. A lot of my classmates are in the military or have worked in intelligence. Of my professors, one is an ardent anti-communist from the former Yugoslavia, and another is an expert on the Middle East and a harsh critic of Islamism. They're respectful of conservative and liberal opinions. If you'd call them the "liberal elite" you'd be laughed at, and rightly so. I will grant you, though, they all seem to think Trump is an idiot, even though they avoid saying so outright. If you think academic research has a liberal bias, then you think reality has a liberal bias.

I think Amebix answered your question thoroughly.