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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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Let's be honest, most mainstream news sources are unreliable when talking about their opposition. So Fox is unreliable regarding the left, and everything else is unreliable regarding the right, or whoever it is they dislike.

I mean, remember "Joe Rogan takes horse paste"? I do. I guess CNN is out.

How about The Guardian reporting about a terror attack in Tel Aviv, and subsequent shooting of the terrorist, as "Israeli forces kill Palestinian after Tel Aviv shooting leaves two dead"? I remember that (actually, I remembered a different time that happened, but got a more recent one).

BBC reporting on the stabbing of an Israeli border patrol agent, and subsequent shooting of her assailants, as "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem"? Well, I didn't remember that, I just found it when looking for the Guardian piece.

Is there any news source that you couldn't compile a 20-point gish-gallop on and paint it as unreliable? I doubt it.

I would be happy to specifically nix CNN talk shows in the same way that we already nix Fox talk shows and all opinion content in any medium (see WP:NEWSOPED, WP:NOROPED - parse, respectively as "NEWS section on OP-EDs" and "No Original Research section on OP-EDs").

For the other two, headlines have been banned for a while (WP:HEADLINE), and I'd imagine the bodies are more careful with their claims.

I would, in fact, love to see a list of claims for your preferred left-wing source (assuming the left-wing source is marked "generally reliable" on the big list). I'm sure one has been compiled somewhere already, but not in any of the few discussions on left-wing sources I spot-checked.

I would be happy to specifically nix CNN talk shows in the same way that we already nix Fox talk shows and all opinion content in any medium (see WP:NEWSOPED, WP:NOROPED - parse, respectively as "NEWS section on OP-EDs" and "No Original Research section on OP-EDs").

OK, how about the website? I quote from the top result: "Joe Rogan announced he has tested positive for Covid-19 and that he took numerous medications to combat the virus, including the livestock drug ivermectin" and then it's basically a link to a video. You can find CNN calling Ivermectin "an anti-parasitic drug used for livestock" here, in an article not about Rogan. The thing here, is, of course, that it's technically correct - you can use Ivermectin on livestock! There are products just like that! It's exactly the sort of half-truth that news media uses to lie without "lying". It's also what Fox is being accused of in the list brought against it - e.g. items 2, 3, 4.

Looking at the discussion, every item is just a motte and bailey. Bailey: "Fox is lying". Motte: "Fox is saying something sorta misleading, I guess, if you squint hard enough" - like item 2, where Fox uses "dismissed" as in "didn't use". It's not actually wrong, is it? Fauci didn't use data from some non-peer-reviewed working paper to recommend on blah blah blah. Whatever, I wouldn't either... but it's not a lie, just like "ivermectin is used on livestock".

For the other two, headlines have been banned for a while

May I quote from the anti-fox Gish-gallop then? From point 6: "[...] yes this is a headline, but it goes toward their sloppy journalism practices". In this case it's actually not sloppy journalism, it's intentionally deceptive. The point is to lie by omission and then move on. What the body even contains is actually irrelevant, since the point is what the headline doesn't say - and whether or not you can use that specific article on Wikipedia is also not the point, the point is that the Guardian is willing to lie. I don't keep a list of all the lies and half-truths I ever saw, it's just one that I distinctly remember that recently happened.

I would, in fact, love to see a list of claims for your preferred left-wing source

I'd like that too.

Yeah, my problem is not with considering Fox unreliable. It's with not subjecting every other major news outlet to the same level of scrutiny. CNN, NBC, MSNBC, etc. are all full of partisan nonsense.

Exactly. It's the ol' isolated demand for rigor.

And the knee-jerk claim of whataboutism to cover the isolated demand for rigor. Also 'just open your own attempt to downgrade CNN, MSNBC etc, but we aren't talking about that here."