Want a Better Informed Public? Start by Not Using Fox and MSNBC in the Same Sentence

via TVNewser, we find media executive Larry Kramer opining that it is Fox News and MSNBC that are major contributors to a less informed but more opinionated public.

The TVNewser article points out that neither cable channel has the reach to be all that responsible for the sorry state of the media-consuming public. After all, more people still watch the major three network news than who watch cable news combined. But Mr. Kramer does show that he is nowhere near being able to access the current state of TV news since he has no idea that Fox and MSNBC are not two sides of the same coin. It is well documented that Fox sends out a memo to its staff routinely specifically asking for certain types of biased coverage — like this one for climate change denials or this one telling their staff not to use the phase “public option”, but substitute the Luntz-tested (but completely false) “government option” instead. Evidence of directed bias from MSNBC? None. And I’ll note that the conservative Joe Scarborough has more air time on MSNBC than Olbermann and Maddow combined. So if Mr. Kramer can’t tell that FOX and MSNBC are different news projects, then this bit of punditry starts off not worth much.

This bit of false equivalency aside (a false equivalency that I fear we will be hearing more of as the TV news business works harder to find its footing given the rapid decline of CNN), this is what I want to address:

It is, frankly, easier for someone to turn on either Fox News or MSNBC, listen to the frequent opinion expressed, right or left, and benchmark themselves against that opinion rather than forming their own opinion based on independent thinking.

In many ways I think that this is right, but this does not limit itself to Fox or MSNBC. The inability of some to not be able to”benchmark” themselves against what they see or read in any news product seems to form much of the basis of charges of bias against the traditional media. But news consumers are only as good as the information served up to them by their media outlets. And if our media outlets continue to serve up “he say/she say” reporting with no context and no fact-checking (both of which are key to being “informed”), or the partisan analysis that helps to jockey for the “who won the day” positioning that certainly doesn’t inform anybody, these outlets are still abandoning their audiences to whatever means they can make any sense of reporting that lets partisans say just anything with no accountability.

Cheap false equivalencies can’t hide the fact that the current model of *objective* political reporting fails to be either objective or informative.

h/t for this story to Rob Tornoe