Opinion by Kip Hansen — 19 October 2024 — 1200 words/5 mins
If your answer is: “Of course not!” then you are in the majority.
The latest Gallup Poll shows that less than 1 out of 3 people in the United States have even a fair amount of trust and confidence in the mass media — such as newspapers, TV and radio – particularly when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly.
Interestingly, Gallup chooses to combine “trust a great deal” and “trust a fair amount” into one category. This is not true, by the way, in the actual numerical results, just on the graph. I dug into the data and found that just 8% trust the media a Great Deal. As a journalist, I find that simply embarrassing. [I don’t, however, write for the mass media, even so….]
It doesn’t get better when broken down by age:
The fact that only 8%, less than 1-of-10, of the general public only trusts the news media a Great Deal means that the news media is known to have abrogated its very purpose which is to act as a source of objective, unbiased and fair information about what is happening in the world, or, as stated in the Wiki:
“Objectivity in journalism aims to help the audience make up their own mind about a story, providing the facts alone and then letting audiences interpret those on their own. To maintain objectivity in journalism, journalists should present the facts whether or not they like or agree with those facts.”
Newspapers of record are national newspapers that are known for their trustworthiness and quality reporting. In the United States, the list is: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In the UK: The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.
Readers are invited to give their opinions on those six newspapers. Biased? In which direction? On which topics?
But, my experience is this: The New York Times generally acts as a propaganda arm of the United States’ Democratic National Committee [ DNC ], as does The Washington Post. I don’t follow politics in the UK, but The Guardian is a founding partner of the journalist’s climate crisis propaganda cabal Covering Climate Now, thus on that topic publishes nothing but stories meant to frighten which are filled with blatantly false and intentionally alarming information.
According to a survey conducted every few years by Indiana University:
“According to a new survey titled “The American Journalist Under Attack,” released by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Republicans in the industry fell from 18% in 2002 and 7.1% in 2013 to 3.4% in 2022.
That’s significantly lower than the number of American adults who say they’re Republicans (26%), according to a 2022 ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Democrats in the news industry saw their ranks swell by eight percentage points in 2022 to 36%.” [ source ]
National Public Radio [ NPR ] in the 1970s was the go-to news source for well-balanced mostly unbiased news reporting, leaning only a tiny bit to the liberal side of things. By 2023, according to a tell-all by Uri Berliner, “the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think” [ source ] a change brought about by “…the extent to which people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview. And this, I believe, is the most damaging development at NPR: the absence of viewpoint diversity. “
As I let this essay sit dormant for a few days, a terrific story broke that paints this problem in broad strokes with no uncertainty. The NY Times’ take on it is here:
L.A. Times Editorial Chief Quits After Owner Blocks Harris Endorsement
“The head of The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board resigned on Wednesday after the paper’s owner quashed a presidential endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
This example comes from what the mouths of those involved:
“Mariel Garza, who held the title editorials editor, [ this is the editor who resigned] said she had quit because “I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
“Ms. Garza said that the editorial board had planned to endorse Ms. Harris, but that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of The Los Angeles Times, decided this month that the newspaper would not make any endorsement for president.”
“It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist,” she [ Garza ] wrote. “How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country, and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger — who we previously endorsed for the U.S. Senate?”
And the other side of the story? What did the owner of the newspaper have to say?
In a social media post on Wednesday, Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong, the owner of the LA Times, [@DrPatSoonShiong] said:
“So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about.
The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation. In addition, the Board was asked to provide their understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years. In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years.
Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote. “
The owner of the paper expected the Editorial Board to do their jobs and do journalism…giving the readers the information would they need to make a rational intelligent choice.
The Editorials Editor, Mariel Garza, who freely admits that they, the editors of the LA Times, had spent “eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country” [simultaneously demoting Kamala Harris to be a merely “decent Democrat challenger”] quits her job in protest when the paper’s owner asked her to do her job as a journalist ….
How dare he?
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Author’s Comment:
This OpEd is about the demise of journalism in the news media.
On politics: I abhor the political situation in the United States, in which the long-standing two-party system has short-circuited our carefully designed democratic federal republic form of government as laid out in the Constitution of the United States and left us with warring political parties which have little concern for the welfare of the citizens. The American people have not been offered the best candidates that our country has to offer – but only one each from the two parties which the party leaders think represent their best chance to hold and/or gain power.
This OpEd is not intended to promote any political campaign or support any particular candidate.
On journalism: Newspapers, news magazines, broadcast news (radio and television and cable) journalists have, for the most part, abandoned journalism as an outmoded quaint occupation akin to the making of buggy whips. These modern junior-warrior-journalists all want to tell their audiences how to think, what to think, and what to believe. Most of them have no clue.
Thanks for reading….and for goodness sake, turn up those Critical Thinking knobs to FULL BLAST!
# # # # #
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I gave up on them long ago. Of course, I gave up on “TV” 30 years ago. I’m somewhat amazed these news outfits make enough money to stay in business. I suppose some would say making a profit isn’t necessary these days. However, I know people that have CNN and MSNBC on most of the day, every day. Mind boggling.
It’s difficult to have silence when you need people to tell you what to think…
These media sites have been bought and now operate as profit centers for their owners.
The mass media are no longer funded primarily by advertising. They operate as paid promotors of Narratives for their pay-masters. Who are their pay-masters is a subject of speculation, but one can make good guesses based on the content of The Narratives.
Great article – and so absolutely true.
I walk out of the room when the CBS news comes on. It precedes some game shows I like. But I can’t stand to listen to Nora O’Donnell spew lie after lie. The last 8 years of bashing Trump every night is what did it. After Trump’s 2016 win, it was nearly every night. And people sit there and listen to it.
ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN, National Geographic, Scientific American etc. they all are 100% run by the Democrat party.
“The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move towards universal egalitarianism.” — Max Horkheimer
He didn’t say the media but that’s where the problem is.
re: “Nora O’Donnell”
Mrs. or Ms. ‘sleepy’ in my book. How some of these nooze ppl maintain employ beggars belief from this meritocracy-based ‘normie’ …
Pedantic detail, sorry. They’re not run by the Democrat party. They’re run by people who are leftist in their views and gravitate toward Democrat party positions.
The Democrats are too righty for much of the media.
stinkerp ==> The relationship is not direct, I’m sure, but like NPR — the news staffers of almost all the major media outlets have “coalesced around the progressive worldview” — and all the news is tainted by their certainty that any other view is morally, intellectually, wrong and should be labeled mis- or disinformation.
They boycotted classes in “objective journalism” and pursued degrees in “advocacy journalism.”
My definition of advocacy journalism is publishing opinions as front page news.
Sparta ==> Yes, I agree about advocacy journalism — Aristotle is credited with developing the basics of a system of rhetoric — speaking or writing to persuade others…..
Then there was Plato and the Sophists. Sophistry being the modern form.
Labeled, yes, but there is no such thing as mis- or dis-. There is only “information”. We are given minds to discern which is Truth, and which is False… and go from there.
Why do you call these vile parasites of humanity leftists? Because they’ve hijacked the name to steal the brand of people in the past who had real leftist values, socially conscious etc.? Let’s not give these greedy phonies, social thieves and animal farm pigs any credit for real left wing values.
So you are saying the Left has some redeeming values?
Extremist/radical Left, none.
Moderate Left, yes. There is value in balancing social needs and economic needs of a country. Having advocates (NOT activists) presenting both sides for discussion is of value.
Actually the Democrat party positions gravitated towards them.
Steve ==> As for the once honorable National Geographic, the magazine and its video/film arm are both owned by Disney Entertainment.….
Right, but there might be a little hope for Mickey and Minnie, as Disney is terminating their woke dangle-changer CEO for someone that can’t possibly be that bad.
Yes, a Kamala Harris personal friend.
someone that can’t possibly be that bad.
I wouldn’t bet on it.
When I was in my teens, the term was closer to dangler-wrangler. Hesitate to give a name to it, now, at 89.
The long march through the institutions.
Yes, that’s what we are living through.
The difference today is people are on to the ulterior motives of the leftists/marxists and are starting to push back. Maybe it’s not too late.
Democrat or Republican the outcome is the same. The Democrats are just less subtle about it.
The media is the doorway into the minds of the people.
Control the language, control the ideas.
Rather that being the watchdog for truth they are now the propaganda agency.
Legacy media is entirely partisan, and mostly for the Democratic Party. The narrow slice that tends Republican are mostly NeverTrumpers, like Fox or The National Review.
There is journalism out there, pretty much only on the net. An interesting factoid is that CounterPunch, openly Marxist, is only somewhat to the left of MSNBC.
Thanks, Kip. Personally, I haven’t watched TV, Listened to the radio, or read any major news paper for some 15 years now–all just a big waste of time, which at 78 yo I don’t have very much left to waste. Also I learned a long time ago that any official narrative needed to be taken with a large helping of salt, and during the last couple of decades have come to the conclusion that those official narratives are always a lie.. What was said about NPR,, which I did listen too daily (KUT in Austin was great) was really interesting in that our public education system since the feds took over have been teaching what to think rather than how to think, and that really shows if one puts any credence in national rankings. I do try to keep abreast of what is happening in the world through more than a few independent news aggregators, and by daily visits to contrarian web sites such as this one, LRC, Ron Unz, and even RT for hard news. Odd that I’ve come to trust a Russian site more than our news papers of record any more, Basically, I just read a lot and use that information to make up my own mind as to what I think.. Old fashioned, I know, but it still works for me.
jvcstone ==> My motto is “Read, Read More, Read Widely, Think Critically”. It is harmful to read only sources with which one already agrees….
I agree–you should see the divers periodicals that frequent my mail box.
I agree. I like to read stuff that challenges my thinking rather than just confirming it. Sifting the wheat from the chaff is not easy or absolute. Beside how else are you going to know what the enemy is thinking?
I attempt to read both sides, knowing that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
There are tell tail signs to watch for, too. I spend a lot of time chasing down the actual quote rather that basing my opinion on the snippet offered. Snippets inevitably alter context (and probably deliberately).
Sparta ==> My records, checking on newspaper quotes of scientists, is about 80-85% admit that they have been misquoted by the journalist. Mostly along the lines of “well, I didn’t say exactly that….” or “Maybe I said something that could have been misintrepreted as that….”
Just look at what they did with Trump’s Charlottesville quote.
“There were very fine people on both sides,
& I’m not talking about the Neo-nazis and white supremacists because they should be condemned totally.”Agree with your thought, but for me, the insanity in print is harmful to my ‘peace’, so I ‘go deep’ rarely once I determine where things are heading.
The MSM continually bash Capitalism while promoting identity politics against Conservatism. Marxist opinions have taken the place of news. It’s called propaganda.
re: “Do You Trust the Mass Media?”
.
To do the right thing, or be truthful? No.
.
To adhere to a (their) desired, favored MSM narrative? Yes.
so, nobody bothered to ask from ’76 to ’96? no wonder the msm is clueless.
heme ==> Yep, if they’d asked me, I’d a told ’em.
I wondered about tat as well, the polling results for the missing period would be interesting. My recollection of the late 1970’s was that the media bias was present, but they were making some effort to be objective. I think the rot got going with media patting themselves on their back on the Watergate coverage and becoming more a bunch of activists as opposed to reporters.
I am beginning to think that NY Times vs Sullivan should be overturned and the burden of proof for libel simply showing that the reporting was false. The role of the fact checkers used to be to protect the media against libel suits.
“I wondered about that as well, the polling results for the missing period would be interesting. My recollection of the late 1970’s was that the media bias was present, but they were making some effort to be objective.”
I think that is true.
The Vietnam War is what caused the reporters to pick a political side. The Media was basically anti-war and actively advocated against continuing the war, which put them on the side of radical leftists.
Once they got in the habit of picking a political side, they just continued it to this very day to the point that now about 90 percent of the Media is obviously leftwing and obviously actively promoting leftwing propaganda.
Without the Leftwing Media promoting them, the Democrats would be a footnote in history.. The Democrats have nothing but lies, and the Leftwing Media spreads these lies near and far.
they were making some effort to
beappear objectiveweeks of blathering on about Dan Quayle spelling “potatoe” (a valid although archaic spelling) isn’t exactly objective.
edit: ok that is out of the time period specified. But I think my ‘correction’ remains true.
Emphasis on the word “some” as the media wasn’t making a lot of effort to be objective. I do recall NBC’s Edwin Newman doing some nice investigative journalism that was relatively apolitical. The more I find out exactly what was going on during the whole Watergate brouhaha, the more disgusted I get with what the media was doing. One thing that is almost never covered was how close we were to a nuclear war and this was happening exactly at the time that Archibald Cox was fired. A very recent article convinced me that Cox should never been appointed to the position as he was a partisan hack, much the way Jack Smith is. WRT J Smith, having Scotus vote 8-0 against him really calls his judgement into question and yet the press has nothing but praise for him.
1960 Marshall McLuhan: “The media is the message”
2024 Doonman: “The media is the mess”.
Ha ha HAAAA! Mariel Garza quits in protest, saving the owner, Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong, the trouble. Self-immolation by deranged leftists is just as satisfying as firing them. I wish more were as “principled” as Garza and would quit or flee to Canada or wherever, as they always promise to do when an election doesn’t go their way.
We don’t want them we have enough idiots of our own, one of them thinks he runs the country.
Kip, excellent post.
Of the six MSM you ask about, the only one I read and semi trust (and have daily since first year HBS) is WSJ. I now get it electronically on my trusty iPad. But even the WSJ has biases one has to be careful about. For example, in MAGA terms they are distinctly Globalist rather than Main Street. I never read their editorials on anything.
The LA Times kerfuffle you highlight exposes all that’s wrong with ‘fake news’ MSM. And for those here who don’t know the man behind his reasoned statement from LAT owner Dr. Soon-Shiong, here are some facts I looked up today.
He wishes his LAT to become great again, hence nixed the Harris endorsement thus precipitating the extreme left biased editor’s resignation. Improves LAT.
A very Elon like approach.
Rud ==> Thanks for the backstory on Dr. Soon-Schiong.
Imagine the nerve of the guy to ask his journalists to do journalism!
Seconded.
I didn’t know any of that, and wouldn’t have without coming on here.
Yes, thanks Rud.
But the owner specifically ordered his editorial department to analyze each candidates past and present positions and report on them in a balanced manner. He seems to have allowed them to be insubordinate because they wouldn’t do it.
He very cleverly gave them a command to which they did not respond. So he over-ruled them, and the ‘boss’ then quit in a huff over her ‘boss’ neutral order
WSJ is mostly 20 somethings and AI. Mixing in stock advertising….that paper has lost it’s way.
True, but it is at the rear of the pack.
They know their audience and their audience is money brokers.
Publish something that results in a financial loss to their readers and lose readership.
That kind of sort of pulls them a bit closer to the middle.
Great info… Thanks.
I maintain that the mass media is frequently funded by special interest groups and governments to emphasize their sentiments and points of view while downplaying anything contradictory. That’s the reason we get such unbalanced details on the climate issue where alarmism seems to dominate, and the other side of the entire issue is often ignored. It’s also why globally consumers consider the whole climate issue to be far down on the list of their personal and national priorities.
EK, I have a slightly different take on MSM and ‘climate change’. Two things.
Also, the MSM journalists attend the same cocktail parties, and send their kids to the same private schools. They live in their own bubble.
This! A huge problem.
The Democrats will try to use taxpayer money to subsidize the propaganda press, and claim they are trying to preserve democracy.
They are preserving democracy, but it is their definition of democracy they are preserving.
aka one party autocracy with them in power.
To the Democrats, if they aren’t in control, it’s not democracy.
You understand.
Rather funny, but the reason I gave up on the mass media decades ago was the commercials. Vast majority of the commercials were for items I had absolutely zero interest in, yet were repeated constantly.
I’ve always been a news junkie, even before the Internet. Would often go to libraries so I could read the newspapers & magazines from around the world. Today, the Internet has replaced those libraries, but find that most of those newspapers & magazines have morphed into just utter stupidity and nonsense. There are so many other places for actual real news other than the vapid mainstream media.
I haven’t even had a TV or radio since the early 2000’s. Any drive over 15 minutes usually has music playing from my collection of music that I like to listen to. Actually enjoy the sounds of silence or the natural background of what is outside.
derbrix ==> Ah the days of idle in the Los Angeles County Library — with newspapers from every national capital, both in their native languages and their English editions.
I’d love to get daily paper “newspapers” but they all are too delayed for my taste.
Onetime I got paid to read three newspapers every day — scouring for news that might affect our project at IBM.
British advertisements don’t sell soap powder. They sell a lifestyle.
You do not listen to commercials? You recognize that you pre-paid for them, right?
Chuckling!
Actually, I don’t see most advertisements of any sort, even political ones. As I said, I don’t even own a TV and the only radio is in the truck which is never used as a radio. About the only advertising I ever see are the billboards along the highways. I don’t eat fast food of any type so whatever advertisements in those establishments are unknown.
I use Linux as the operating system on the computers in the house. The paid email program, Proton Mail, automatically removes any advertising and I use Vivaldi as my web browser. Vivaldi also removes advertising of most any sort, along with trackers. I use only Duck Duck Go whenever I search for something.
Other than the paid email program and the cost of Internet only service, everything is free.
There shouldn’t be any surprise about media bias. Back when ‘ink stained wretches’ dominated reporting, most newsmen (and they were mostly men, aside from reporters in ares of greater interest to women) were mainly working-class stiffs who could best achieve prominence by exposing crooked politicians and/or hoisting hypocrite socialites on their own petards. Today’s typical reporter, of course, not only lacks working class cred, but probably graduated from one of the same institutions that have long since been captured by the Left to nurture and propagandize our political and corporate ‘elites’.
And then there’s the obvious incentive wherein a vastly bloated government affords much greater employment opportunities for our ‘watchdogs’ than one that sticks to its Constitutional knitting.
Not at all.
Shoki ==> Good straight answer, I like that.
“Ditto”!
(Did I just give away my political slant?) 😎
At least Ms. Garza resigned.
In a huff, thereby saving the owner future severance. Leftists are truly dumb.
Did she Post after her Huff?
My first thought was connecting those two. Good one.
Christopher Monckton refers to the acronym MSM as Marx Stream Media. He is absolutely correct.
I’ve heard CNN referred to as the Communist News Network.
I remember when CNN first came out. Compared to the news on ABC, NBC and CBS, it seemed like a breath of fresh air.
Then Desert Storm and “Bagdad Pete” and they started to show their true colors.
You know what the ‘MS’ in MSNBC stands for, don’t you? Think about it.
BTW, I had no idea that Trump was a fascist and a modern day American Hitler. Guess I learn something new every day (sarc).
I beg to differ. The job of a journalist is to prevent all the advertising running together.
Zig ==> ah yes, got to fill that unsold space….
But the GREATER TRUTH, you see.
I don’t own a television, but can go to my friend’s place to watch games and local news. I listen to quite a bit of AM radio. AM radio is still okay, although some of the stations are ABC (American Broadcasting) affiliates, and ABC radio/ABC News is some of the most biased, leftist garbage out there. I’ll sometimes check out news clips on YouTube, with my favorites being Sky News Australia, and certain segments from Fox.
Our local “news” station is a CBS affiliate, and it is also pretty biased and leftist oriented.
hmmm who controls the
media…
academia…..
government….
finance……
Some would say ‘globalists’… Henry Ford was a little more specific (and correct)
and who cannot be criticized…..
but we’re supposed to believe them? trust them?
Interesting anecdote. My sister works in an environmental area (I’ll leave out the specifics), she was emailed about 18 months ago by a “retiree who had recently moved to the area” in regards to some aspects of the local ecology that she is involved in managing. My sister replied to this person, who portrayed themselves as nothing more than a private citizen.
However, just recently, she found that she had been named and misquoted (quotes from her email had been edited to significantly change the scope of her comments) in an article in The Guardian. It seemed to me, and to my sister, that this behavior was highly unethical. She would have been happy to answer the reporters questions if they had been asked in an open and straightforward manner.
She was obviously upset at this occurrence, however I was unsurprised and told her that now she has some idea of how the sausage is made in what passes for journalism these days. Interestingly, this experience does not seem to have moderated her trust in the left leaning media. The belief in the climate cult is very deep and any questioning of it is met with immediate hostility and an outright refusal to discuss the subject.
I personally don’t have any problems with trusting the legacy media. My level of trust for them is deeply negative, and I don’t have a problem with that. They have shown themselves to be dishonest sycophants with an overt lust to act as the mouth pieces of authoritarian power. They are largely incurious lickspittles of an ideology which, if implemented, would see them starving in a work camp.
The political classes seem to have realised that few people have any trust in the main stream media. Hence the widespread and seemingly coordinated push for censorship laws across much of the Western world. Their experience during COVID, in which they were caught off guard by their inability to control the narrative through traditional media, has taught them that the widespread open communication of ideas without their control is at least moderately effective at countering their propaganda. They cannot afford for this to happen, and we cannot afford for their efforts at censorship to succeed. Freedom of speech is a fundamental Natural Right and absolutely vital to a free society. Without it we will all be hopelessly enslaved, whether we like it or not.
MarkH ==> Oddly, I have studied a course (private, corporate) :dealing with the adversarial press” — and the first and foremost rule is “Never speak to or reply to a journalist”. Second, record any conversation ( or save copies of all letters or emails) and demand the right to preview and correct any and all quotes or statements of your position in any subsequent articles.
Without 1 or 2, write your own press release and let them deal with that.
The Media is totally Orwellian Big Brother Newspeak. Thankfully we have
sources such as this..
It’s not even about trust anymore. We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. It’s all about power.
Kip,
I spend a fair amount of time commenting on articles carried by Yahoo and MSN, primarily on the topics of climate and gun control, which I feel I have more than a passing familiarity with.
A couple of years ago it seemed to be difficult to get past their AI world filters. My submissions were rejected out of hand, without any specific reason, just a generic “violation of our community guidelines.” I discovered that it seemed to happen more frequently when I was replying to misinformation from another commenter, but also happened with what are commonly recognized as ‘politically incorrect’ words. It is difficult to reply to someone in an unambiguous way without using the word “your” or “you.” Therefore, I started using “ewe” as a substitute, and it usually worked. Today, it seems to be less effective.
Sometimes, looking for potential ‘trigger words’ has been fruitless. Copilot is offered as an option to edit, and I have tried using it. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it does not and my comment is still rejected despite being sanitized by Copilot.
However, there have been a couple of recent insidious changes worth noting. Yahoo used to allow challenging a comment as being inappropriate, as per their guidelines. I would formerly rely on that when all attempts to point out misinformation failed. It appears that Yahoo has recently taken down that option, allowing some climate alarmists free rein to abuse and bully other commenters. Thus, there is one particular commenter (I would list the ‘handle,’ but it might create problems for me and/or WUWT.) who runs roughshod over others with pretty much fact-free insults.
Another recent change seems to be on MSN, where getting past the ‘trigger word’ hurdle, generally resulted in an accepted comment staying up indefinitely, albeit responses were only allowed for 3 days. Now, however, sometimes about half of my literate, academic style comments are deleted, without being notified about their removal, making it virtually impossible to reconstruct or edit my original comment. Thus, they are being censored effectively, without demonstrating what ‘guideline’ I’m supposedly violating. If they were really interested in training commenters, they would make the transgression explicit.
I’m of the opinion that the more compelling and factual my comments, the more likely they are to be deleted. Despite complaints, I have never had MSN get back to me and explain exactly why my comments were deleted. It seems to put to the lie their claim that they don’t censor. I recently complained about one terse, fact-free ‘comment’ that used the words “orange turd.” It was removed briefly, and then re-posted.
One last item. I currently have about 3,500 comments and 7,000 ‘Likes,’ and I spend, what I consider to be too much time commenting, and have been doing so for a few years. Yet, I run across commenters with as many as 30,000 to 50,000 ‘Likes’ on MSN. It makes me suspicious that these are paid shills who MSN is trying to give credence to by a large numbers of ‘Likes’ and followers.
The playing field is not level. It seems to be downhill in every direction.
I just cancelled my WSJ subscription, after they bit=bucketed my comment on “offshoring”, that asked “did you call BS at the time?” (when the Dems suggested that autoworkers could “learn to code”).
I emailed the (AI?) in charge, and was told it was because I used the term “BS”.
My reply was “I will refrain from listing all the ways that is stupid. Bye.”.
My wife recently got a community standards violation for replying to something with “eew”
Yeah. I had to decide if I really wanted to continue paying to be part of THAT community. Nope.