Talk:Media

	This Media related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.
Editorial notes https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/14/eaay9344

Joke

A Medes and Persians joke anyone? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The internet has proven that they didn't need to bother.

I do not agree with this sentence. Moreover, there is no justification at all for this. It have to be either expanded and justified or removed. 219.89.103.183

What is the point of this stub?

Is there any scope for expanding this into an article? If not, I think it should be a fork page instead. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:38, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid it's linked by every inclusion of Template:Media, as it's the "main article" of the category.--ZooGuard (talk) 15:24, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Could it be redirected to mainstream media without breaking anything?--Miekal 05:21, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Look on my works ye mighty, and despair

So I've done some chopping, cannabilising, editing, writing and hallucinating and produced the page in its current form. I think it would be good to provide some more links/evidence against the right wing claims of media bias (particularly complaint #3). Also it could be cool to have a section that is basically a collection of "that's what I call a colossal fuck up" mainstream media gaffs/crimes that are pertinent to skepticism and authoritarianism. Also I think Mainstream Media is about ready to be put out of its misery as this article makes it defunct. Tikitime2 (talk) 23:10, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to see some empirical evidence on Chomsky's hypothesis. I'm not going to dispute your edits because the idea is indeed plausible and I don't want to conflate my own biases here, but so far the article doesn't present any empirical evidence nor academic article from actual scholars from the área that the mainstream media has these biases because of the reasons presented, supposing they exist. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 23:46, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

On a different note, I think one important thing is missing. If you want to replace the "mainstream media" article entirely with this one, then this article should have a section on alternative media (and/or maybe "Fringe claims of bias"). Because going against the "establishment" is not only about attempts to cater to a left-wing or right-wing in-group. Don't forget all the other varieties of pro-fringe in-groups, examples of which are featured in fake news. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 00:04, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I should add a warning: do not conflate legitimate independent journalism (like Popular Front, Unicorn Riot (a libertarian left journalist collective who's factual reporting has been rated as "high" by Media Bias Fact Check), or ProPublica) with fake news outlets. That's a false equivalency and one we should strive to avoid. Carthage (talk) 01:22, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Maybe "crank" is the best word to use then, when the topic is truly such. Or maybe fringe for a broader heading, with something added to differentiate between crank and fringe endeavors. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 01:42, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I'll bite with this transparent bait: compare coverage of Bernie Sanders with Hillary Clinton in the mainstream media during the 2016 elections, and then get back to me. Carthage (talk) 01:06, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

@GeeJayK Someone has started adding a little empirical evidence regarding labour representation and correlations between right wing dominance and corporate ownership but we can certainly add more. The thing is Chomsky and Herman's model basically says "money buys apples, people with more money can buy more apples ergo the game 'who can buy the most apples' is biased in favour of whoever owns the most money". To argue that it isn't at least partially true you have to claim that either:

1. Media, unlike almost every other sphere in life, cannot be influenced by money.

or

2. The owners of media, despite their vast wealth and status, do not have any particular agenda or interest in politics.

That said this section of the article could probably do with further examples and evidence. Some chat about think-tanks and astro-turfing might help along with perhaps some more notable examples. We could link in our articles on Wing-nut welfare here. I think the UK's GB News makes an interesting case study. Alternative left news outlets like Novara media (who are well respected and have plenty of connections within their own circle) have had to grind in the cold for years, but a handful of connected conservative pundits fart into a pint glass and suddenly wealthy donors are cueing up to buy them a news network. Even though early GB News was a complete shambles of an operation it got far more support than it would seem to merit.

@ApooftGnegiol Perhaps if we add a section on media bias as claimed by conspiracy theorists and woo supporters? I agree that we probably should have something on the more 'chaotic' opposition to MSM that lurks in alternative medicine and what-not.

{@Carthage I appreciate the Sanders/Clinton example and sympathise greatly as someone who watched Corbyn in the UK get hounded from the moment his tenure began to long after it finished but I think it might be best to leave commentary on contemporary political figures and their treatment in the media to their own page. Tikitime2 (talk) 09:46, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Content for inclusion

As the editing process has gone on this article has skewed more towards being about claims of media bias, which is very much within our mission. I'm wondering what else we can add to make this more of a 'media' page and less of a 'media bias in the mainstream'. Maybe some stuff on media analysis and representation? Anything else that would make a good subsection here? Maybe some stuff on media and violence/sexism/racism?Tikitime2 (talk) 10:42, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I added a very short "Fake news" section, linking to the main article for more. Maybe a section on fact checking and related analysis (we have pages on various organizations which do such which could be mentioned)?

Also coming to mind is problems scientists often have with media who report sloppily (not knowing what they talk about, using sensationalist wording, the public attributing journalists' "science proves" phrases to the scientists who receive any flak that follows from that), similar to the bias issue but not exactly the same. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 19:16, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Fake News section looks good. I'll probably make a "Media and its influence" section and then a seperate one for "Media and Science" as that would be well within our mission. Also, once those sections are properly established it would seem to make sense to move the hostile media affect into the media bias section. Tikitime2 (talk) 22:03, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

"Media and scientific accuracy" as a section. Thinking especially (but not exclusively) about the news media, they sometimes get it spot-on and sometimes get it horribly wrong. Not too surprisingly, they're more likely to get it spot-on when the article is written by an astute expert in the given field (one reason I like The Conversation, although sometimes the writer's expertise is weirdly misaligned from the given article subject). If desired, more information could be added to such a section for other types of media such as social media, general television (History channel?), etc. Chillpilled (talk) 22:45, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I've added a section on Media Influence, it needs a bit of referencing that I will get round to next time I have a moment. @User:Chillpilled if I made a skeleton of a Media and scientific accuracy section would you be willing to flesh it out a little? Science reporting is not my strong-suit and while I'm happy to write some basic copy I'd prefer someone who actually reads a bit of science journalism to handle the nitty gritty there and make sure I'm not getting out of line! Tikitime2 (talk) 13:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Article Rating

Silver... anyone object? What would this need to go Gold? Tikitime2 (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Let's try bronze first. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 17:07, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay, are we just waiting to see if anyone kicks up a fuss? There's two citations needed but beyond that I appreciate any guidance on what needs to be done to move it up. Tikitime2 (talk) 18:00, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

For silver, you have to nominate it at RW:Articles for demotion. However, two uses of {{fact}} should be disqualifying for bronze. Plutocow (talk) 18:06, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

{{fact}}'s are fixed. I'll see if there's any tinkering to be done over the next few weeks or so before I nominate it. Tikitime2 (talk) 19:27, 10 September 2023 (UTC)