Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle’s protests, CHAZ | Hacker News Reader

Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle’s protests, CHAZ

seattletimes.com

99 pointserentz32 comments

It's abundantly clear at this point that the media leverage their power and reach to push their agenda and manufacture consent. This is just one new milestone. Not just Fox News either. It was pretty clear that during the democratic primary that MSNBC and NYT were putting their thumb on the scale to select news and design coverage to favour their candidate of choice.

Of course media with an agenda is nothing new, early newspapers were straight up published by political parties, but due to media consolidation they now have an incredible ability to bend reality.

Remarkable that the media world we live in in 2020 was predicted by of all things, a video game released in 2001, Metal Gear Solid 2. The assertion made by that game that in the future thanks to the internet and deluge of information, it will be impossible to know what is true or not.

You're right about mainstream media, but remember that in 2020 we have many alternative media sources.

A lot of them are hideously slanted garbage, but I they make for it in volume :)

Hopefully in a few years, some new reliable news institutions will have emerged.

Hate to be "that guy" here, but do you see any market mechanisms that will/should lead to more solid, factually reliable outlets? All the ones I see seem to point in the "get much content out fast" direction.

Yeah, I'm more expressing a hope than making a prediction :)

It seems like such an essential thing that something is bound to appear. If not though pure market forces, maybe through billionaire philanthropy or something.

At minimum, I expect much to change in this field. If in good or bad ways, we'll see.

I keep saying market incentives are limited and have issues with being gamed. Good faith is important. But in the US we've decided that acting in good faith is somehow immoral.

It's possible we could see a reversal like we did in food, once people catch on and realize how empty it all is. The health food/organic craze came out of a disenchantment with the old guard. Realness and integrity became the thing to market yourself as.

Of course, many companies just changed their marketing without changing their actual product. But the consumer taste changed, at least.

The best market mechanism is to ignore faulty sites. On the web, that means 'no clicks', for the printed news that means 'no sales'.

There is a good reason that the number of newspapers printed around the world is a mere shadow of what it once was.

I don’t believe that has anything to do with newspapers not having integrity and everything to do with much more competition in many more, and convenient media types.

Media outlets have always "put their thumb on the scale", but there's a big difference bias and lies. when they portray stories in a way that highlights one side over another, or choose to cover certain events and not others in a way that pushes a certain narrative, they are still publishing true information. As long as they're publishing biased but true information, it's possible to get a more accurate picture by consuming news from multiple sources to try to balance out the biases. If fox news were honest, you could read Fox to try to balance out the bias you know exists on MSNBC.

Publishing straight-up lies is another thing entirely. When news sources publish lies, reading multiple news sources doesn't give you a more accurate picture, it gives you a less accurate one.

... and in conclusion, the only way to stay informed is to not read repeat offenders at all.

Which is why I have completely blocked the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal from my system.

Several other news sources are hanging on by a thread.

Why do many 'news' sources think we have no memory of what they have written? It doesn't take very long to discover which news sites are unreliable and which ones are mostly correct.

I agree, but one word of caution...

> If fox news were honest, you could read Fox to try to balance out the bias you know exists on MSNBC...

You cannot properly derive the truth with two opposite biases. We need reputable journalism.

agreed, the 2016 elections were a real jumping-the-shark moment for 'lefty' news. it was bubbling up before, but the new normal of agenda-driven editing and editorializing of those media outlets make them no longer reliable for news. it's frustrating because it leaves no really reliable national news options.

That's a false equivalency. Fox News is way way worse. They argue with science, refuse to acknowledge that racism exists, etc

"ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria" (2019) [flagged]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21262462

I dislike Fox News. They are clearly using these pictures to push a narrative and they absolutely need to be more clear about where and when the pictures came from.

However... that first picture was very obviously a collage, complete with inconsistent lighting and a gradient fade. You'd have to believe in ghosts to think that was an undoctored photo.

I wouldn't say believing in ghosts is beyond Fox News's audience. The other day, iirc, they even had to warm people against injecting bleach.

Something tells me "phantom protesters" was not the angle they were going for.

The only reason they don't go for it is because they don't find it useful.

Journalistic standards would dictate that it be clearly labeled photo illustration, in that case.

I 100% agree. But isn't a competing news outlet writing an article about a missing label just a bit on-the-nose? Particularly when considering the photo in question.

I think the fact that it happened 3 time to describe one event warrant a pat on the head and a "we got you" article.

I don't follow the "on-the-nose" comment in this context.

In theory, the media serves as the public watchdog for government. If media violates the ethical standards they should be called out.

The truth is television media has always had low standards for these rules versus print media. That it transfers to their digital properties is no surprise.

Television is called a medium because it is neither rare nor well done.

Ernie Kovacs sometime in the '60s

> You’d have to believe in ghosts...

Looked at supermarket checkout tabloid covers lately?

https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/styles/scale_w1024/s3/st...

The believability bar may be lower than you’d hope.

I think the first photo was posted as a collage, and the issue with it is more that the photos come from May 30th. The gun carrier's second photo is where the alter is important.

If you scroll further in the article, the second image, showing a man in front of the CHAZ sign, is not clearly an edit.

It may be obvious if you are watching the full size version on a desktop/laptop screen, but it is not that obvious when you are scrolling through a bunch of thumbnails on your phone and specially if your vision is not 20/20. Also what you perceive as "inconsistent lighting" other can think of it as a flash.

I'm bewildered by what line the Seattle Times thinks they're trying to draw here. Looking at the "CRAZY TOWN" headlines in the image in the article is like looking at the covers of tabloids in the checkout aisle. I don't know how anyone could consider what they're seeing there a trustworthy source of factual reporting.

The last week or so YouTube has consistently pushed Fox news feeds into my suggested view list. The only 'political' content I occasionally watch is stuff by Mark Blyth... Now I get that Google is just pimping the general outrage addiction and delights in the easy profits from that, but how many times do I have to down-vote a video, and report it as 'inappropriate' before the algorithm gets that i'm just not into this particular brand of horseshit. Come on google, give it a rest. And please 'antifa' is not a thing, and it absolutely means fuck-all to an Australian who could not give a bee's dick about what happens in Trumpistan.

thats interesting, I remember seeing that too & I never watch fox. at first I thought maybe my kid has clicked some video but even after flagging not interested and disliking it still keeps coming up. plus all the trump outrage.. just fuck off.

If Fox News gave a real shit about truth in journalism they’d either have people in the middle of CHAZ getting the story, or they should be broadcasting that they’re being denied access to a supposedly free zone. As with many media companies, it sounds like they’re sitting back and pushing a narrative.

Would you fear for Fox News journalists’ health and welfare in CHAZ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com