Yahoo: Do they just make stuff up?

The answer to the thread title.... if it sells, yes. (or in yahoo's case, if it builds traffic, yes... those people here who click your link and see the ads on that page are why)

If you see an accurate report out there, it's because someone who cares sent a press release to a reporter that he/she minimally dressed up and published. Reporters themselves don't have time to care anymore now that none of us pay any money for their product anymore. It's all about generating traffic, which means sensational, or selling the content to the advertisers under the table (see most travel articles, for instance)

 

Yes, it is bad journalism. But it is also partly true. The Prius is considered one of the more expensive hybrid vehicles. Some even equate it to a yuppie car.

Hey, the author basically said you drive a nice car. Take it and be proud.

 

Oddly, I'm not so disturbed by that article.

The cliche, or propaganda that bother me most in relationship to Prius Ownership, is when I'm TOLD that people buying Prius are just doing so to project an image or make a statement. Then that statement is defined as either I want to project "green cred" or "intellectual superiority".

What really irks me about that is it is most often presented as a negative, and IMO people have been buying automobiles to project an image since the first Horseless Carriages.

Secondly it's such a huge blanket cliche. The reasons people buy a Prius, consider a Prius and own a Prius are diverse.

But it's always presented that Prius owners are these smug, poor, misguided rich elitists that want to salve their economic and enviromental concious by owning a Prius. Not saying that's an impossible scenario and for a percentage maybe it's even accurate, BUT it's not the only people buying Prius and it's hardly the only reason people buy Prius.

End Rant

 

Yes.

Journalism is dead. "Reporters" do literally just make stuff up. It's gotten so bad that I hold Jerry Springer on the same level as today's journalists.

Look at the 24 hour news channels. To say they were biased would be an understatement, often airing more editorial opinions than newsworthy facts.

(FoxNews was actually found to be the most objective in their *reporting* of all the major networks...that tells you how biased the others really are!)

Remember the old saying "Don't believe everything you read?" Well, it's only increased in relevance in the last few years.

Chuck

 

I would love to see the source of any study that considered FauxNews objective. They make more shit up than any other network I've ever seen. How many hundreds of times did we find WMD's in Iraq according to FauxNews?

However, the quotes from the Yahoo article were so absurdly factually incorrect that I'm not even bothering to click the link.

 

I'm with you there brother, I'm with you there. Actually in the style of modern journalism, I found the whole article full of errors of fact, without reading it.

 

I don't know if it was hundreds of times, but I distinctly remember watching a "Special Report" on Fox News during the initial invasion of Iraq where the reporter on the ground was telling us that they had discovered a building which was a storehouse for WMD's. I was watching with interest because I actually believed them for a while, but the reporter wandered around for 30 minutes or so without actually providing any evidence. I finally gave up because I had other stuff to do and figured I would read about it later when it had been all fleshed out. I looked for references to the discovery a couple of days afterward and was not able to find any other reports on finding WMD's. As far as I know, Fox never retracted or apologized for the "story".

They do actually make shit up.

 

I read the article I am not sure what the big stink is. I did not get the impression the author was bashing the Prius. Even though the writer is no Prius expert, his point seems to be there are other options for people who want to buy a more efficient vehicle. For me this is good news and indirectly benefits all of us.

 

I would like for you to show me that report that says FOXNEWS is the most objective in their reporting. I hope there are sources that can be checked and verified.

 

They did this MANY times. Worst of all, for years afterwards their own commentators would make claims as if they were found...even when Dubya himself contradicted it later. Then there the neocons they would "interview" who would make the claims that WMD's were found and NOT be challenged by Faux.

I was hoping that we would find something since that was the rationale provided for the war. It's not that I didn't believe it was a worthy cause to eject Hussein, it's that I didn't believe it was worth losing our international credibility over providing justification that proved Faux...I mean false.

 

Actually, the article came from "E / The Environmental Magazine" via "The Daily Green". Hearst owns The Daily Green, so you can see how much you can trust that (which is to say, not at all). Yahoo! just picked up a bad story.

 

I wouldn't usually respond to such a post, especially since it involves a politically charged issue which is completely irrelevant to the original post. And, especially, since I'm relatively new to this forum. (Hope I don't make too many enemies with this one)

BUT, since you did ask, here are some links...one discusses their coverage of the 2008 election (a useful metric), and the other discusses the demographic makeup of the audiences. They're just 2 links I picked up from google...took almost no searching.

http://www.cmpa.com/releases/07_12_21_Election_Study.pdf
Partisanship and Cable News Audiences - Pew Research Center

Having watched FoxNews, their editorializing (Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, for example) is clearly biased, but does not pretend to be anything else. Their reporting of the actual news, however, appears to be well received and more generally balanced than the other "big" news outlets, based on any number of data points.

http://www.journalism.org/node/13436

This is another site which visually graphed the difference between FoxNews and MSNBC. Try to tell me, from this data, that Fox wasn't the more even-handed outlet.

I think that justifies my earlier statement.

Please remember...perception is not always fact. FoxNews is a right-wing channel? Maybe...but that's perception. Just like the so-called "fact" that Priuses (Prii?) are driven only by gay celebrity eco-weenies looking to make a statement.

Chuck

 

I will let Jon Stewart handle the rebuttal:

Video: For Fox Sake! | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

 

I figured it would be a study by the university of "i can't remember" :loco: