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Comment by leereeves | Hacker News Reader

I see some claims that PV edited videos, selectively removing portions to give a particular impression, which may well be true.

But when CNN did that[1,2], changing "take that shit [violence] to the suburbs" into "a call for peace", the left wing media ignored it. Wikipedia editors didn't add it to CNN's page[3] or add a message that CNN has a history of deceptively editing videos.

That's why it's so important to get information from many sources, because every source (including Wikipedia) is selectively edited to favor an agenda. At the very least, by choosing what stories to cover, but sometimes more blatantly.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-8Cn6boqcA

2: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/cnn-sorry-for...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN

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Two wrongs don't make a right – but more importantly, Project Veritas deliberately uses lies and deception to obtain its footage, which it then edits to remove context. That crosses a line far beyond run-of-the-mill reporting bias.

The point of that story isn't "two wrongs make a right", but that the left wing still accepts CNN just as the right wing still accepts PV.

"Gotchas" and "gaffes" are taken out of context all the time. And when reporters lie to go undercover and obtain a story, they're usually hailed as heroes.

These objections are only used to "discredit" opposing viewpoints. People don't object when sources they agree with use the same tactics.

Why the assumption of left or right, when at least in the US most people identify as independents?

And to be even more fair, you aren’t talking about “people” here but the OP who can clearly state their own personal preferences, without the need for you to construct a theory of hidden bias.

> Why the assumption of left or right, when at least in the US most people identify as independents?

Most people don’t identify as independents, and, anyhow, studies of voting behavior show that most independents have a clear party leaning between the two major parties and are just as consistently attached to the party they lean toward as people who identify with the party.

So not only is it the case that most people don't identify as independents, most of those who do aren't distinguishable from self-identified partisans when it comes to voting behavior.

On the contrary, according to relatively recent Pew numbers from 2018 [1], around ~38% of American's identify as independents, with ~%31 democrat and ~%26 republican. To be fair many of them lean towards one party or another (your last point acknowledged), but independents are much more important in politics than they are usually given credit for.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/15/facts-about...

> On the contrary, according to relatively recent Pew numbers from 2018 [1], around ~38% of American's identify as independents, with ~%31 democrat and ~%26 republican.

That's not “on the contrary”; 38% < 50%; most Americans don't identify as independents.

Heck, even 43% (the number that don't identify as either Republicans or Democrats) is less than 50%; most Americans specifically identify as either Democrats or Republicans.

> but independents are much more important in politics than they are usually given credit for.

On the contrary, independents are given outsize importance by the major media, because they are treated as just as large of a group as they actually are, but are treated as if their voting behavior was much more different from that of self-identified partisans than it actually is.

You got me in a technically correct way, which is as they say, the best kind of correct. I think the keyword "majority" being defined as more than %50 being the crux, so I should have worded my statement better with a "most", "plurality" or "relative majority" instead.

> most Americans specifically identify as either Democrats or Republicans

Now you just did the same thing I did but in reverse! See my comments about more specific words for plurality such as "most".

> independents are given outsize importance by the major media

I don't think independents are given much importance at all by the major media, but I have increasingly disconnected from that circus too so I might not be a good judge of it.

> Now you just did the same thing I did but in reverse!

No, I didn't.

> See my comments about more specific words for plurality such as "most".

“Most” (as an adjective applied to a group) is for a majority, not a plurality, but that's okay, because 57% is an absolute majority, anyway, which is why my reference, which did use “most” for a majority, was not what you did.

I disagree with your definition of most.

https://electowiki.org/wiki/Majority

Maybe not the best source, but quite a few sites returned similar verbiage about most usually but not always referring to a plurality. I'm open to correction on this point, and am genuinely curious about this meta argument now. Having a hard time finding a statistical dictionary that references the words we are using here (majority, most, etc).

Can I even reply beyond this point?

Are you asking rhetorically in a facetious way or a real question? If the former am I missing something (like maybe I said something dumb, it's happened before)?

  Why the assumption of left or right, when at least
  in the US most people identify as independents?

Do you wish to cite a source for this or do you wish to gaslight here?

  Voters declaring themselves as independent of a major
  political party rose nationally by 6 percentage points
  to 28 percent of the U.S. electorate between 2000 and 
  last year’s congressional midterm contest in states 
  with party registration, analyst Rhodes Cook wrote 
  in Sabato’s Crystal Ball political newsletter at the
  University of Virginia Center for Politics.

  But as few as 19 percent of Americans identifying as
  independent truly have no leaning to a party, according
  to the Pew Research Center.[1]

[1]

'Difference-maker' independent voters in U.S. presidential election crosshairs

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-deciders-ind...

The pew polling numbers posted higher in the thread are a fine source.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/15/facts-about...

The gist of it is that for any given party, more people are not members of it (e.g. 70%+ of Americans are not Democrats) so you are not safe in guessing someone political affiliations. Stats wise, you will likely be wrong.

Secondarily, saying that someone who leans to a party is basically in that party is wrong.

For example, I am an independent. I lean republican on the local level, but in the Federal elections I lean Democrat. If you polled me, I would say I lean republican since that’s usually what’s on my mind

No, I'm not only talking about the OP here.

Look up the story I'm talking about and you'll see that it was ignored by left-wing sources:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cnn+edited+video+of+sister&t=ffab&...

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cnn%20edited%20video%2...

The entire media establishment ignores these tactics when used by other organizations they agree with.

I'm sorry, whataboutism doesn't actually lend credence.

You're free to select the occasional time when a news agency gets it wrong (and apologizes and issues a correction)...but to try and compare it to an intentionally biased organization that always, intentionally gets it wrong (by willfully setting up people, then editing their responses, to paint things in a particular light), and never backs down, never apologizes, well...at best, your bias is showing.

Actually I'm not a fan of PV. Gotcha journalism doesn't appeal to me. But I see that low quality "journalism" every day, so I don't see PV as particularly noteworthy. Certainly not worth altering search results for.

And I'd say you are mistaken when you call changing "take that [violence] to the suburbs" into "a call for peace" merely getting it wrong. What CNN did could hardly be anything other than intentional deception from an organization with a strong left-wing bias[1].

1: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/

PV isn't "gotcha journalism". They've repeatedly committed felonies and completely fabricated things (ex. when they tried to trick WaPo into pushing a fake #metoo story about Roy Moore) in attempts to create their content.

> They've repeatedly committed felonies

That's quite a claim. If that's true, why aren't they in jail?

I'm sure they have many powerful enemies who would love to see them convicted of these multiple felonies.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100531174024/http://neworleans...

O'Keefe plead out to a misdemeanor and served probation + a fine. But the crime he committed was a felony.

> In January 2012, O'Keefe released a video of associates obtaining a number of ballots for the New Hampshire Primary by using the names of recently deceased voters.

That's probably a felony in most parts of the US, although O'Keefe claims it wasn't since he didn't actually vote.

Michael Moore films and edits his documentaries in a similar fashion.

I agree. I watched one of his newer docs and anytime I heard something that just seemed too crazy to be true, I researched it. And in all cases, I found that important context was missing and in some cases, the evidence for the point being made was almost completely fabricated.

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