What this one lacks in audio quality it makes up for in musicianship
Yes @peejayhercules, definitely some intrigue to go around. This all sounds very familiar...it is indeed a very small world in some ways. So small in fact that I became well acquainted with a lovely lady who spent much of her journalism career at ABC. She was always a sweetheart to me and everyone else I saw her interact with. One day I was talking to her and in my abject ignorance of the history of the skirmish, said something like: "as we know, news/information production necessarily involves an inherent bias… [Owing in part to the top down formation of the editorial system and the simple fact that humans are individuals]".She looked me straight in the eye and with the most genuine tone and earnest expression said she didn't think that was an accurate assessment. I was grateful for her company and nodded my head out of respect for what seemed a genuinely felt opinion. The things that informed her opinion were foreign to me and, as such, incalculable. She is a gentle soul that any pre-knowledge of her world view couldn't have diminished my interest in what she had to say.
The takeaway was that such individuals had been earnestly fighting that notion of bias in state funded journalism -- from a technical standpoint. That is to say, equal coverage of divergent opinions was the ostensible antidote to that inherent human bias. But as we know, the expression of an underlying premise can be complex, sophisticated and so subtle as to be undetectable to the uninitiated. One can give equal time to both the bull and the bear case for treasuries or stocks at a given juncture, but if we have a slight bias it is usually detectable.As for ad-financed financial news channels, the bias is of course bullish by default -- and for obvious reasons. But they do have shame. You will see a gradual but then progressively exponential change in tenor deriving from their editorial staff with the break of each SPX level. There comes a point in any market move where the top kickers at the AM staff meetings might have to say something like "we owe our viewers the truth" or "there will come a point where if we don't portray the situation as we honestly see it, they won't trust us again". Financial news, as numerically based as it is, can be very prone to editorial bias.
As you point out, we in the US have similar divisions of news consumption based on core ideology and it is getting more polarized each day -- dangerously and wantonly polarized, in fact. In addition, we now have a different kind of government influence over particular news outlets. It is based not just on money but also on the thrill of influence. There is a silver lining, though. At risk of falling victim to my own subjectivity, I've noticed that many journalists who are traditionally far from the center have been speaking in generalized, patriotic tones and making historical references that are less self-serving, less revisionist and more "glass half full" than I have before noticed; particularly in regard to the subjects of legal process and national security. The current climate seems to have smoothed out a few hard ideological edges and congealed a kind of historically-based pride in journalistic integrity; particularly the good faith underpinnings of a diverse collection of agents of the independent free press. Despite the difficulties inherent in news dissemination, recent events seem to have fostered an increasing appreciation for the basics that so much of the world never enjoyed.
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