A new survey by Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that half of
Americans believe that the national news organizations that we rely on for
information intentionally mislead the American people.
Intentionally misinform or
persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting.
Now listen, we do know that the media, regardless of where you get your news,
whether it's legacy media outlets, cable news, even independent media,
there's always gonna be bias involved.
The question is, are they being honest about their biases?
Are they being honest about their political preferences and what have you?
Legacy media is still playing this game where they're pretending like no,
we're super objective, swear to God.
But of course they're biased,
of course there's a slant and typically tends to be a pro corporate slant.
We'll get to that in just a moment, but let's get to the results of this survey.
Asked whether they agreed with the statement that
national news organizations do not intend to mislead,
50% of respondents said they disagreed, okay?
Only 25% agreed, so only 25% of the respondents in this nationally
representative sample said that the news organizations do not intend to mislead.
Now, 52% disagreed with the statement that disseminators of national
news care about the best interests of their readers, viewers and listeners.
It said 23% of respondents believed the journalists were acting in
the public's best interest.
So less than a quarter of respondents thought that the journalists are actually
looking out for the public looking to inform the public,
pretty devastating Francesca.
>> Yeah, no, that's huge,
I am super curious as to the political inclinations of each person responding.
Because I do think that while I have major critiques of mainstream
outlets like CNN and MSNBC.
I do think that a lot of what we are working with right now is
468 years of slowly whether the Maga movement effectively
chipping away at the credibility of news organizations.
And news organizations gladly contributing to that,
you've got CNN filming an empty podium for 30 minutes waiting for
Donald Trump to speak when they could be covering literally anything else.
So there's that but the kinds of violence, the kind of rhetoric,
the kinds of the fake news crap that wasn't really part of the source in 2015,
we had all the same problems but before the Trump era we didn't have that.
So I am really curious and I wanna be able to hold two things at once.
Once, I wanna be able to say there should be credible journalists,
I wanna believe journalists.
I think we need to re establish the credibility of a lot of media outlets,
but then also hold them accountable when they're clearly biased or
in the case of Fox news, just right wing propaganda machines.
>> Yeah, absolutely, and you make an important point here because look for
all the critique we have in regard to legacy media,
corporate media and the cover they provide for corporate America.
It's also important to acknowledge that there is a very real interest by
powerful people, elite individuals to discredit media.
Specifically so when there's any reporting that might be negative about them,
you don't believe it, right?
So that's what I saw happening during the Trump era where any time there was
accurate reporting about his behavior.
He just call it fake news and his supporters just went along with it because
they didn't want to believe the negative news stories about their daddy, right?
And so that is a problem, but at the same time,
I think the bigger issue really is the lack of media literacy in the country.
Because we need to ensure that people are able to read news and
kinda analyze it for what it is.
For instance, Noam Chomsky,
this really was a memorable thing he said in my opinion.
He had mentioned how, he reads the New York Times every single day, and
I mean the New York Times has banned Noam Chomsky.
But he reads it every day because he knows how to read media and
kinda decipher where the biases are.
If I read a story for instance, in the Washington post and
they cite a think tank as an authoritative source.
I know not to buy it because think tanks are just a front for lobbying groups,
you know what I'm saying?
So these are not things that most people know about because they don't learn
about it.
It's not like their classes in school about media literacy, there might be in
college, but certainly not in like high school or anything like that.
>> Yeah, and I think one thing that's really insidious that
the New York Times does.
But I feel like especially outlets like NPR participating and
I know this because I know people who have worked for NPR and PBS and
public outlets like that, is that let's say they're covering climate change.
Which is very rare, but you might see it more on NPR,
PBS than you will in other places.
They are told that they must cover the other side,
that they must always offer two sides of the same to the same story,
which is actually not objectivity, right?
If you are talking about, let's say the derailment in east Palestine and
then you have to say, well, let's talk to a toxic chemical here.
So you provide acrylic nails in New Jersey, is that correct?
This is the kind of absurdity that we're talking about, and this happens right now,
interestingly, I've tried to do this.
I had a special on MSNBC talking about private health insurance,
I tried to talk to health insurance companies,
they don't talk to you on the record ever, nobody talks to you.
Instead they rely on the fact that you're never actually gonna cover their
story anyway.
And that they'll never be fingered because the mainstream news doesn't talk to them.
But yeah, so it happens in this really insidious way
under the cover of objective journalism, right?
But I think that it's important to say that the corporations have a vested
interest in just what, making more and more and more money.
So they're never necessarily going to be honest, they have PR machines,
they have spend etc.
And we don't always have to offer equal air time to the corporation
as we are to the community choking on toxic chemicals.
>> Yeah, I know I totally agree with you on that,
there is I don't know if it's intentional, unintentional, it doesn't even matter.
But what I see happening is in an effort to be objective,
what a lot of these outlets do is mistake neutrality for objectivity.
Neutrality doesn't make any sense because especially in reporting where you wanna
give people facts, right?
Because if you treat two sides as if they're the same one side says this,
the other side says that you decide no, but it's not up to the the reader or
the viewer to decide.
It is your job as the journalist to figure out where the truth is.
It's okay to report what both sides are saying, but your job is to figure out
what the reality is not just take what two sides say at face value.
Print it at like and be a stenographer for these folks and then publish it for
people to decide for themselves, I don't think that's helpful a lot to be honest.
>> But I also think Anna that we all read if you read the New York Times, the best
the juiciest graph in the New York Times, any article comes at eight or nine.
So it's always like, let's say they're covering the Ohio story, right?
Okay, well, this derailment and in there, okay, so the governor said this and
everyone's back in their homes and we don't know blah blah.
Paragraph eight will be like and by the way the company
lobbied to have regulations obliterated in the year 2017.
Moving on, and for us for TYT for you and that's the truth.
That's- nugget that we're that's the lead.
That is the lead, they treat their audience like groundhogs where every
single day is a new and we don't connect things that happened yesterday.
We don't put pieces together, and so the truth is very different.
>> Absolutely, where is the focus of the story?
I think that matters as well, such a good point.
And then what about independent media, or how the Internet has really
exploded with endless options for where you get your news.
Well the survey said that 61% of Americans believe these factors actually make it
harder to stay informed, while 37% said it's easier.
And I don't blame them for feeling that way, there are a lot more options
now with independent news sources and what have you online.
And the one other thing I'll add to it is the filter bubbles really,
really bother me and it's becoming more difficult for
me to do my job because I didn't even realize how deep
the filter bubbles are, right?
So I'll give you an example, I'm embarrassed to say
that I didn't know until yesterday that Finland and
Sweden have basically stopped their puberty blockers for adolescents.
And I think that's important to know about because I'm embarrassed to admit this too.
I just kind of took the left line on this at face value,
puberty blockers are reversible, there's no problem, yeah.
And then it turns out no, there's actually no real body of evidence,
the data isn't there yet, there needs to be more research into it.
And I do feel uncomfortable experimenting on kids when it comes to something that
actually be pretty detrimental to their bone health, to their fertility,
that kind of stuff.
Now that's not to say that I'm against gender affirming care, but
we do have to be careful, right?
And so depending on where you're getting your news if you're maybe
watching right wing news or whatever, that's probably all you hear about,
how dangerous the puberty blockers are.
If you're watching left wing news, you don't hear about that at all, and
I think that's an issue.
>> Yeah, no, and that's what I appreciate about this network and the many
different voices that are showcased on it is that there is room for disagreement.
There is room for debate and discussion, and the moment there isn't and
we find ourselves all kinda yes in each other to death.
That's when we kinda you all you should all be a little bit wary of that, right?
And I think it is important to bring that piece of information into the story,
the problem is, is it always gets weaponized.
It's like Anna just brought up a fact, okay, let's incorporate it into our
nuanced understanding that is led by human rights and
people's ability to make decisions for themselves, whatever.
Live in the bodies they wanna live in, but instead it gets weaponized.
And it's like Anna hates trans kids or
Anna loves transit kids, and it just, it's no.
You don't always have to filter everything and this is good or this is bad.
But for sure God 2016 we're in our bubbles, we need to break out.
2023, are we not even more in our goddamn bubble and
I have to say though, look,
it is not lost on me that AT and T funded, was it OAN?
I believe it was OAN, they were like, we need another right wing channel.
They poured tons, billions of dollars into that channel.
>> Jesus. >> And yet here we are,
we're in some bonus content, we rely on you all this is, it's yes,
we're all in our bubbles, but one side has all of the money.
>> Yes. >> All of it.
>> Absolutely, you're so right about that.
Anyway, look, we're doing our best, I love the point that you made about,
there's a lot of diversity of thought at TYT.
This is not a monolith, right?
We all might be progressive, but in terms of various issues,
oftentimes there is disagreement and I love that.
I love that we're able to engage in these kinds of conversations and
also feel comfortable maybe even changing our opinions based on new evidence.
I think that is a sign of a news organization that actually
gives a damn about informing people rather than just having a bunch of hosts
that are driven by ego.
Don't really care about being proven right all the time,
but I do care about making sure that I'm not misleading you guys.
So thank you to our members for allowing us to do the jobs that we do.