2 hours ago, qqwertz said:

Let's just say that I beg to differ.

Agreed.

I get my news from the old fella down the pub. Knows everyone, knows everything they do.

4 hours ago, SayAgain said:

Financial data I would look at Banks

Yes, this data will be more reliable.  Govt. economic data is not to be trusted at all.  Govt. will always cherry-pick and manipulate the data to make things look as good as possible for the ruling regime.  The inflation rate, for example, is a totally fudged and false figure.  Same goes for employment numbers.

 

4 hours ago, SayAgain said:

Healthcare trends are VERY difficult to pin down due to patient privacy and minimal regulation within that industry on the financial side.

The healthcare industry probably uses "privacy" as a shield to hide the true, exorbitant cost.  The govt. has been promising price transparency for years but we still don't have it due to massive lobbying efforts.  They really don't want the public to know how badly they've been ripped off compared to most other developed nations.  With the inflation onslaught of the past 5 years, more people are asking questions and looking into why our healthcare is so expensive, so the truth is slowly starting to emerge.  This vampiric industry sucks the life out of the rest of the economy and is more like a medieval guild than a benevolent service that is supposed to help people.

Dave 

12 hours ago, LHookins said:

 

@birdguy you forgot Walter Cronkite. 🙂 "The most trusted man in America." 

 

"Reports are coming in from our correspondents in from every nation that Birdguy did not mention you..."

 

 

 

The news dream team.

 

🤣 🤣 🤣

20 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

There’s plenty of news that isn’t political. Providing you keep away from politics and perhaps concentrate on your favourite newscasters or how particular non-political stories are covered things should be fine.

When a major story breaks I always switch to the BBC.

In America, those options are really limited.  Outside of the Associated Press, there's really not much that isn't... influenced one way or another.    

It started in a very subtle way and over the last 10 years has really cranked up.  At the very least, our major media is watered down and filtered very heavily.  They can't simply get facts flat our wrong, but they can just not report certain facts, and double down on others.  They also love to quote someone who's lying without fact checking, which is technically not them lying.  "The moon is made of cheese", according to Mr Smith.  It is a fact that Mr Smith spoke those words, but of course they should be fact checking those words, not repeating them.  

 

 

2 hours ago, kerosene31 said:

Outside of the Associated Press

The AP is just as biased as all the other "news" outlets.

There isn't one that I know about which is not biased in some way nowadays.  Actually, I doubt that any journalist or news media has ever truly been impartial or non-partisan in all of human history. 

This isn't even necessarily an intentional thing.  We all have some sorts of biases that come out in our words and writings, and it requires focus and effort to overcome their influence.

Dave 

I have to admit I am pretty biased myself Dave.  There are things I like and support and things I don't like and wish would away.  I think everyone is like that, especially in politics.  But now that I am in a retirement community I see personal biases all around me from the food that is served in the dining room to the activities we participate in.

But having said that, when I address a group I have to be careful not to let the my biases show depending on the subject.   

If I were reporting on an event I think I would simply say, "Mister Jones said,"xxxxxx" and Madam Smith said. "yyyyyy"" without commenting on who I might agree with more.  That would be the commentator's job attempting to sway his or her listeners to adopt the commentator's point of view.

It seems today's news people are reporters and commentators rolled into one.  It is impossible to be both at the same time.  

Noel

 

Suppression of topics is essentially giving false information an advantage ... there is right and wrong it's not entirely context of perception at a specific point in time ... just as there is fact and fiction.  Stereotyping is by far the most insidious human occupation.  The idea that if you see 1 or 10 or 100 people doing something you don't like and then project that onto an entire culture/race/gender (of millions or even billions) ... I really don't understand why some humans do this ... it's such a road block to a good successful and fulfilling life and only festers irrational hate.  A case of looking for data to "validate" rather than "discovery".

Edited January 16Jan 16 by SayAgain

2 hours ago, SayAgain said:

. I really don't understand why some humans do this

It gives one a feeling of superiority.

Noel

Over the past five years, trust has drained from national government leaders (–16) and major news organizations (–11), and flowed instead to personal circles: neighbors, family and friends (+11), coworkers (+11) and "my CEO" (+9).

https://www.axios.com/2026/01/16/edelman-trust-barometer-2026-shared-reality

 

Noel

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

family and friends (+11), coworkers (+11) and "my CEO" (+9).

Sadly you are likely correct in the shift of trust ... however, what is one really trusting?   Someone (friend/family) else that is using the same untrusted sources etc. etc.?

All the above would be a negative trust for me, especially my CEO ... and my wife for that matter (she has a moments or "opinion as fact" triggered by those very same media sources without doing more research).  

Friends and relatives (especially relatives) and coworkers have the same tendency to not do the leg work on accurate information.  Sadly we have very limited legal recourse on information sources that post false and/or misleading information "on purpose".  These sources hide behind "opinion" or "free speech" or "they say" or "experts say" or the thousands of other ways to attempt to state something as fact without providing a methodology of discovery nor supporting sources (Facebook/Twitter/X are not a supporting source) and data. 

Opinions are fine and good, but that's all they are "opinions", they're NOT facts.  Nothing inherently wrong with having opinions, the problem comes when they are being passed of as facts and important decision are being made that affects a population.

If everyone spent the time on information discovery rather than information validation to an agenda bias, we would all be in a better place ... the onus is on us, not them or anyone else, we need to do the leg work by ourselves for information accuracy. 

OR, we put a system in place where people are held accountable for information they attempt to pass off as factual without sufficient supporting evidence and methodology of how that evidence was collected (we partially have this defamation ... but it is very broken and lengthy legal process that is expensive and most can't afford to go thru the process). 

We need an entity that is entirely independent of a governmental (house/senate/president) that has NO political ties or swing or anything that adjusts the information discovery with 100% transparency ... a true Public service that we are already paying for via out taxes.  A justice department needs to be completely independent.  Laws that have gray areas or ambiguous should be under constant improvement to remove the ambiguity (24/7 process not just wait for a case to come up to judge on the ambiguity).  

Any public representative that "we the people" vote into office should be REQUIRED to be 100% transparent (no hiding of anything) with everything they do ... you want to be in control of people and set laws then we want to know EVERYTHING about you ... opting to be a public figure with "power and control and taxation" should require they give up all their private life (from taxes to European trips).

Gerrymandering needs to be abolished ASAP ... making someone's vote worth less because of a district or state one lives in is not a fair voting system. 

Electoral college should be abolished also ... it was setup centuries ago when the US population was in a very different demographic.  A voter in California has less importance than a voter in Wyoming because of the electoral college point to population assignment system ... what is fair about that in 2026?  It's not fair, that is a statement of fact.

US has an Ethics committee but it can be defunded by congress, so it's entirely pointless and holds little or no backbone at all.  An attempt was made to force elected officials to disclose gifts and put limits on gifts (see here) but was killed off which should have raised EVERYONE heckles, but once again slip thru the radar due to other governmental distractions.  

My post might get deleted as it tip toes on government policy even though I'm trying my best to avoid politics of "left", "right", and anything else.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by SayAgain

This thread makes me remember Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters on ABC news.  Harry wouldn't even look at Barbara Walters.  You could feel his loathing right through the TV.  He was such an old school reporter and couldn't accept a women anchor on the national news.  Thankfully times have changed.

There have been numerous excellent female anchors and reporters since those days of Harry Reasoner, too many to mention.  Congratulations to the women!