Downvoters, please feel free to explain what in this post you find wrong/objectionable. Posting this with a throwaway appears to have been the prudent decision.
After the story was revealed to be false, she was given favorable treatment. At no point did I attack Ms. Logan's "personality", but yes I did strongly criticize her reporting.
This is an argument by example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_by_example.
Even if that’s true (sorry, I’m too lazy to fact check stuff about a person I didn’t knew existed 1 hour ago), what she reported in the past is still not too relevant to this particular story
With sufficient motivation and modern internet, people can find unpleasant things about the past of any person, including you and me.
Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Also doesn’t mean we should stop discussing any subjects at all, and instead discuss what the article authors did 15 years ago.
The argument I'm making is simple: in the originally submitted article, Ms. Logan is making a claim:
> We dismiss conservative media outlets for their political bias, but we don’t hold liberal media outlets to the same standard. Many journalists who claim to be objective have publicly taken a political stand, saying the urgency of the time justifies a departure from journalistic standards. Yet they ask us to believe their reporting is still unbiased?
Please actually read what was linked and sourced, and see if this isn't just a little bit ironic. She was given special treatment to report a story that conservatives very much wanted to be true. When it turned out not to be, she was spared punishment that one of her very prominent liberal predecessors endured.
Secondly, this didn't happen 15 years ago. The Benghazi story is literally Lara Logan's last significant journalistic piece of note. The fact that you are "too lazy to fact check" is your own issue.
Right, and I provided none. Maybe if will search I’ll find counter-links. Maybe your links are 100% unbiased and accurate. Who knows?
> and see if this isn't just a little bit ironic
I don’t see irony but I see a confirming fact. The OP is a professional journalist herself, she never claims she is, or always was, free from the political bias she writes about. Quite the opposite, she confirms she has bias herself: “There is nothing more human than opinions and bias. To say we have none is dishonest.” She also admits the responsibility: “Frankly, I don’t blame them. Responsibility for this begins with us.”
> She was given special treatment to report a story that conservatives very much wanted to be true.
I live in Europe and therefore I don’t care too much about US politics. But based what I read on US media, the story seems true objectively. If you’ll read other comments to this HN post, you’ll see many anecdotal evidences.
These are just anecdotes, but based on multiple opinion polls, US population in general also thinks so. Couple links: https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-med... https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/334897-poll-majority-s... https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/tr...
The first one has “by party” graph, which shows the trend has started around 2006, long before Trump, and while the results indeed correlate with party, the downward trend is same across all respondents.
What happened in 2006? Many things, but one among them, Facebook opened free registration to general public and its user base has exploded. Was 6m monthly users in 2005, became 58m in 2007. Might be related.
> I live in Europe and therefore I don’t care too much about US politics. But based what I read on US media, the story seems true objectively. If you’ll read other comments to this HN post, you’ll see many anecdotal evidences.
Again, you misunderstand. She reported a Benghazi story, that if true would have damned the Obama administration for a potentially criminal cover-up. If you paid any attention to the 2016 US election, one of Trump's primary attack lines against Clinton was her handling of the Benghazi attack and subsequent investigation. This is the "story" I'm referring to.
> I live in Europe and therefore I don’t care too much about US politics. But based what I read on US media, the story seems true objectively. If you’ll read other comments to this HN post, you’ll see many anecdotal evidences.
Take a look at some real academic studies on this matter: https://observer.com/2018/06/media-bias-can-readers-trust-me.... http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/10/heres-how-much-americans-tr....
Americans don't trust media, but ask them if they trust media outlets that are associated with their own partisan leanings, and you will see there is quite vibrant support.
Look at the polling for support for some of the largest names in American media. The support is quite robust. In fact, look at an updated version of the very Gallup poll you cite: https://news.gallup.com/poll/243665/media-trust-continues-re.... Notice any changes?
Sorry mate, I did not.
> at some real academic studies on this matter
Do you think Simmons Research, LLC are real academics and this is unlike Gallup, Inc.? Neither of them is from academia, both are commercial entities selling some B2B services.
I’ve just tried to but I wasn’t able to find academic sources on fake news, but here’s tangential research. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146 Hint: sci-hub.tw Given user base of social networks in modern world, this is not reassuring at all.
Also this http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1094.full but that’s just an overview article with little actual data.
> Notice any changes?
Some improvement indeed, but still, 55% people said they trust “not very much” or “none at all“. Don’t you think the number is a bit too high?