Knowing me, I've probably entirely missed your point, Xelor.
No, you didn't.
I do see it as slanted, the way I define "slanted," anyway, which means the facts are 100% accurately reported but the writer has chosen only certain parts of the situation to mention.
Yes, okay, as a human interest story, the slant is toward the humanitarian side of the matter. We both know that's the underlying
raison d'etre of a human interest story. So, yes, there is that slant. I see slant as a thing to gripe about when it is present where it shouldn't be -- pure "hard" news and pure investigative reporting.
I don't have my own definition of "slant" in news and reporting. I use the relevant (to this discussion/thread topic) one in Merriam-Webster: "to interpret or present in line with a special interest; especially : to maliciously or dishonestly distort or falsify."
As I wrote, yes, the story has the human interest slant. I don't see malice, dishonesty or falsification in the story; thus I'm not going to call it "fake news," rail about the fact that as human interest piece it tells the story of the humans affected by the change in immigration/deportation policy, or deride its reporter or the network for presenting it. The story is what it is, a human interest piece, and I see it as that. In viewing that particular story, my duty, if you will, as a viewer is not "***** and moan" about the story itself and that it was published, but rather to decide whether the human interest aspects of the matter under discussion -- what to do about illegal immigrants -- are more important to me than are the non-human interest aspects of it.
When a network reports almost exclusively using "human interest" stories like the above or inviting in "consultants" to discuss [issues] in a negative way, it IS providing a biased view to the viewing public. I don't know if CBS does, but I do know CNN does.
Note: I edited your remark to keep the conversation general; I don't intend this to be a discussion about any specific issue.
If the human interest side, or the non-human interest side, is the only side a network reports, yes, but do the "majors" really do that? Before you answer, consider this....Take a political topic, for this example and hopefully not at the peril of the thread topic, I'll go with illegal immigration. There are a few angles to cover: legal, economic, and human. (One could say the politics of the matter, but the politics surround the issue, but they aren't the issue itself.)
What is there to say about them?
- Legal -- The law is what it is. News outlets certainly can report it. In the Internet age is there a need for them to do so? I Googled "what are the legal statutes about immigration" and the first result takes me straight to the place I need to go to find every federal law there is pertaining to (illegal) immigration. Even not knowing the details of the law pertaining to the immigration process, I know there's a legal and illegal way to get into the country. As goes any issue that has some law pertaining to it, Google does just fine for getting one to the right place. There's thus, IMO, not much value to news networks didactically reporting on legal statutes.
If one desires to understand and know about certain legal nuances -- precedent, interpretation, exceptions, jurisdiction, etc. -- one may have to work a little harder, and they may even be hard to find. Maybe there's at times some value in news organizations presenting those details. I can think of instances in which they do. In the "email-gate" coverage, for example, the importance of mens rea was very clearly explained by Jeff Toobin on CNN. I don't know what other networks had to say about it, but I do know that not knowing much about it, got on Google and started looking for legal discussions about it and how it's been applied in past cases having similar circumstances to "email-gate."
The news did exactly what it's supposed to do. It informed me of something I didn't know about and it told me that thing about which I didn't know is legally relevant to the "email-gate" matter. From there, the burden is mine to dig a little deeper. We all, as citizens concerned about our country, our system of jurisprudence and its equitable application, etc. had the same duty. After all, one has to know that a news program, even written news, is nearly never going to go into the full details. One has to be very naive to think that all that's worth knowing will show up in a news article/program.
- Economic -- Economic principles and laws, like statutes, are what they are. Similarly, there're scores of excellent economic resources on the Internet that explain all one could possibly want to know about how the laws of supply and demand, and the related principles and concepts interact. Like the legal aspect, it's hard to say there's a need for news outlets to report this information.
Sticking with the illegal immigration issue, one might Google economic theory, gather the data and perform one's own analysis, but most folks probably lack the tools or skills to do so. What most people should be able to do is abstractly consider illegal immigration's economic impact in light of economic theory, but I have my doubts about whether they will. Willing or not, the tools needed exist and they aren't hard to find or hard to use.
For example, here's one: The Economics of Immigration. If one took an econ class focused on immigration, the economic policy matters along with the analysis and measurement techniques used in that document is what one'd be taught and expected to perform, but since it's already been done in the document, one need only read the document. There are two downsides to the document: (1) one can't read the abstract or skip to the conclusion to obtain the information needed to fully understand the nature and scope of the economics of immigration, and (2) after reading it, one must apply its principles to illegal immigration. Additionally, the information isn't new, thus not news. It's just information.
Lastly, one can Google the analysis offered by others. Doing that obviates one's need to connect the dots, and reporting on the analysis of individuals and groups who have connected the dots is something news organizations do. On the matter of illegal immigration, among the better economic analyses I've come by is, despite it's silly title, this one: The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration.
The problem with news organizations reporting on economic matters is that their options both stink. They can report very dry and didactic content such as that found in the first linked document, or they can report the analysis of others such as that found in the second linked document. If they choose the former approach, few people will watch and then use the information. If news outlets choose the latter, people may watch, but if they don't know the information found in the first linked document (or worse, don't know basic (AP econ) economic theory) and they don't like what the analysis presented implies or states, they'll declare the news organization biased.
The principles of economics aren't biased, they just are what they are. In applying them to a given situation, the way they play out will result in there being winners and losers. There's little for an individual to do but determine in which group one, barring one's altering something about one's circumstances, will land. Journalists can't tell one what needs to be altered or in which group one is.
So what are they to say or do? Seems to me no matter what they do/say, given so many people's "shoot the messenger" mentality, they are screwed. I can understand why they don't much deal with it.
- Human Interest -- This is where the legal and economic elements come together. Right? It's where the impact, who wins and who loses, is found. The human interest side is where the measurements from the economic analysis are borne out. Accordingly, it's a legitimate story to tell.
Most human interest stories tell the tale of the losers, the underdogs. That's the American way, isn't it? The story of American independence from England -- immigration to the colonies, our Revolution and solidifying the revolt's gains in the War of 1812 -- is the story of the dreams, yearnings and triumph of the underdog. Would you have the Fourth Estate abandon that spirit?
So, yes, there's definitely a slant to human interest stories. Is it not the story that needs to be told? When the law is what it is and the economics tell us who wins, who loses and by how much, the human interest angle is the only one left for determining what to do as a nation. It's the part of the story that puts our morals and ethics to the test. Time and time again, the central question is this: is it all about oneself, or is it about something bigger than oneself? Tacitly, that is the question journalists put to us when they present the human interest story.
I want to remind readers the preceding discussion was contexted for illustrative purposes on illegal immigration. That is the context of the post/sub-discussion of which this post is a part. Of other topical contexts I may certainly conclude differently, but the principles I'd apply in those contexts are the same.
I don't know if CBS does, but I do know CNN [has a high quotient of human interest stories.]
Maybe they do. I don't know. I have CNN on most of the day, but I only pay close attention if something catches my ear. I attentively watch
Early Start, which doesn't have any panel discussion (likely because nobody's getting on there at four to five in the morning) and
AC360, which is heavily editorial, but Andy consistently puts people from both sides of an issue on his discussion panels. Looking only at the list of stories CNN have done on the illegal immigration topic, I don't see that it's all or even heavily human interest driven. (One of their stories pointed me straight to
the report on which it was based. I like when journalists do that because, as I do with footnotes in an essay, I'll read it.)
the most positive thing I could think of to start my reply
You've been here longer, but I'm must have a more jaundiced stance and a hell of a lot less patience than you. LOL
