Thursday, March 18, 2010

Six Media Tricks, by Cracked.com

6 Subtle Ways The News Media Disguises Bullshit As Fact

When you browse the news today, Cracked.com warns, beware of Weasel Words, Implying Without Saying, Burying Inconvenient Facts, Biased Photos, The Active Voice, and Guessing the Motives Instead of Reporting The Facts.

Give us your examples! (I was gonna give some but I'm too tired.)

3 comments:

Katie said...

Too tired to think of any either, but I loved the article!

Anonymous said...

Said bookisms!

Substitutes for "said" that is. Always watch which side "explained" its claims and which "claimed" its explanation.

L. said...

Yeah, there are these people called EDITORS, who are supposed to catch all that crap. In theory, that is.

I have to say, after spending the better part of the past 2 decades working in MSM jobs, I've seen plenty of reporters with biases on BOTH sides of the fence -- but you know what I think is the number one barrier to objective reporting? Good old fashioned stupidity!

Combine that with massive budget cuts across the whole industry, and no wonder you can't believe what you read in the papers (or on the Internet).