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Should Newscasts on Talk Stations Match Hosts' Biases?

News should be objective ! Am I suppose to find some nutjob who agrees with Rush that second hand smoke is not a health hazard- and with he and his ilk that climate change doesn't exist ?! PUH-LEEZE !
 
i think the news should be a straight up reporting of the days events.not opiniated.
 
I find it terribly amusing and ironic that the guy who wrote the "no" piece based his entire argument on false and biased notions of the Occupy movement. A case of making a good point while being entirely wrong at the same time.
 
There’s really no such thing as completely objective. Even if all the stories are read straight-up, the choice of which stories to run is still a subjective matter.
 
There should be no bias, but straight up reporting of what is happening, maybe sighting both views of what's happening to keep it balanced. An example is the Occupy movement in NYC. This morning NPR aired a one sided presentation as they played an interview of an Occupier who essentially said the cops moved in and wiped out their "settlement" in that park. It's a shame that NPR didn't have someone there to also report on what the cops actually did prior to moving in. It seems to me that the cops did ask those folks to leave so the park could be cleaned, and when they were ignored then warn those folks to leave so the park could be cleaned all prior to them actually taking any action.

The point is, sure, I'd expect MSNBC to offer a biased version in their talk shows with a liberal spin; just as I'd expect Fox News to do the same thing except from a conservative spin. But I'd also expect both MSNBC and Fox to offer unbiased news accounts of what happened during their newscasts. There are two sides to most stories so both should be presented in coverage of a news event vs being talk fodder for the entertainment talk shows. There is a difference. News is not entertainment, but information. It should be unbiased as much as humanly possible. NPR, has in the past, been fairly decent in offering both sides in coverage in their newscasts, this morning they allowed their liberal leanings to show.
 
Bias is impossible to remove completely. The best news organizations do their best to minimize it. That's usually not hard at the local level. Most local radio news is for the most part fair until you get into some of the really radical Part 15 stations.
 
I agree, there is always a point of view somewhere. I used to like it when a talk show host and a news man did not agree on something, sometimes it got interesting.
 
All of this whining about bias is based on one assumption: that people are too stupid to pick out the bias and use their internal BS detectors to discern the truth in a story. I think the modern media consumer is much more savvy than a lot of people think. A reasonable person can watch Fox News or MSNBC and be able to pick out the spin and know what the real story is.
 
I find it very amusing when a listener calls in and excoriates me for a story, because I don't tout "the party line". (The comments usually start with "Isn't he listening to what (talk host) said??!?!?!?")

News is news. And news is supposed to be "down the middle". You report both sides of the story and (under your breath) wish that you could tell such listeners to get a life.

If you're doing news properly, someone will not like what they hear on your station, left or right, about once a day, at least. It comes with the territory.

And, oh yes...no, I am not listening to the talk shows, for the most part. The newscasts don't write themselves, you know...
 
KXNT/Las Vegas runs promos for their morning news block (although under the new PD they seem to promote other dayparts as well). The news topics on the promos seemed almost too apolitical, too vanilla for my tastes.

The last I heard the morning news block doesn't get good numbers. The concept didn't work when KDWN tried it a few years back either. So why not spice it up a bit and when the story happens to be political, have a conservative bias? Not over the top, but on the level of FOX news. This would please the core listeners and make them more likely to tune in.

My disclaimer is that only talk stations that run all/mostly conservative political talk should try this, especially if they have a low rated news block. They have nothing to lose. A less political news-talk station with a strong news reputation should stay unbiased.
 
^jay, then doesn`t that make it more comentary durring the newscast then news?

if it`s news it should be straight up unbiased news.if it is to be with a concervative or liberal direction to it keep it in the comentary shows.
 
flashback said:
^jay, then doesn`t that make it more comentary durring the newscast then news?

if it`s news it should be straight up unbiased news.if it is to be with a concervative or liberal direction to it keep it in the comentary shows.
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I can see your point. But there are a lot of sources to get straight news. Unbiased news could be boring or a tuneout for many political talk listeners. Why not give them a newscast that they will actually look forward to?
 
I don't perceive really noticeable bias on local newscasts on either Pittsburgh commercial news-talk station. KDKA-1020 and WPGB-104.7 both appear to be straight-arrow on that count. Occasionally, I do hear KDKA newsmen and talk show hosts having differences of opinion in the banter that might follow a newscast.
KQV-1410 also has been fairly straight-arrow in its local reporting. It is all news all day though it does have Laura Ingraham on tape in the evening and now runs an ABC talk show overnight.
WESA-90.5 probably will wind up just as straight-arrow, though I do question that certain sorts of topical coverage get funding, much like the old days (and even some new days) when certain types of commercial TV and radio news and sports programming had sponsors.
My belief is that WESA (the old WDUQ) still is shaking down under new management. There are more local news breaks, given the additional news-talk programming there, from NPR, American Public Media, the BBC and some combines that include the BBC.
The other news-talk outlets in the market, WAVL-910 and WMNY-1360, do not do local news, though WMNY runs an hour of WTAE-4's newscast (Channel 4's audio is the basis for much of the local news on WPGB, too).
 
radiobum said:
News should be objective ! Am I suppose to find some nutjob who agrees with Rush that second hand smoke is not a health hazard- and with he and his ilk that climate change doesn't exist ?! PUH-LEEZE !
Click to expand...

First, the attack on Rush Limbaugh is ambiguous; like O'Reilly, Matthews and Cooper, Rush is a News "Analyst"/Commentator, not a News"caster", so the rules are different. Newscasters are responsible for delivering facts. Only facts can be patently inaccurate or unobjective, not opinions. Opinions are sovereign to the speaker delivering them. Opinions enjoy immunity from the litmus test of "right" or "wrong", and are subject only to their worthiness for debate.

Back to the thread-- YES, newscasters on any venue should be objective and non-biased.
 
Jay F said:
I can see your point. But there are a lot of sources to get straight news. Unbiased news could be boring or a tuneout for many political talk listeners. Why not give them a newscast that they will actually look forward to?
Click to expand...

Because then it's not news. It's opinion, or worse yet, propaganda. News should be as objective as a group of trained journalists can possibly make it.
 
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