I forget where this study is so I can’t post it. But I did post it once and I remember it.

The way the study worked was this. First they divided people into how they primarily got their news–tv, print, or the internet. The internet source was not just blogs. It especially includes things like basically headlines sites–where you go and daily they provide new headlines and you click on the articles you want to read.

They then asked people a series of questions based on statements. It was basically a true/false format. Many of the statments were deliberately based on common and active misperceptions. For example, one was, the USA did find the WMD in Iraq, true or false.

They divided the people into who had the most and who had the least percentage of misconceptions, based on their answers. They then matched them up with their primary news source.

The group with the highest percentage of misconceptions in their answers got their news primarily from tv. And mostly it did not matter what the source was–Fox, CNN, NBC, etc. Within the tv category, the group that had the lowest percentage of misconceptions got their news primarily from The Daily Show.

Print was better than tv but it was not the best. All sorts of sources counted–newspapers, news magazines. The people who got their news primarily from print were better than those who relied primarily on tv but they still had a fairly high percentage of misconceptions.

The internet group had the lowest percentage of misconceptions.

The theory was this. Those who rely primarily on the internet for news tended to get their news from headline sites. The reason this was the group with the lowest percentage of misconceptions was because internet readers tend to read more than one source on the same issue. So they click one headline, and it’s in The New Zealand Herald, and the next article on the same topic is from the LA Times, and the next article on the same topic is from the Belleville News-Democrat, etc.

Print readers stick with a narrow range of sources (for example someone who always reads the local paper). As a result they tend not to notice slant or ideological vision.

Internet readers, in contrast, by getting their news from (as it always turns out) a wide range of different sources (because they click more than one headline on the same topic_) are very used to seeing stories reported in different ways with different frames. So they are used to looking for differences in framing and take it that that is just a normal part of reading news. They are always comparing accounts, not simply passively absorbing a single account or 2. They read with this “comparing differences” mindset.

AND among those who tend to get an array of sources on any given issue–which as we all know is easy to do on the internet–it does not matter as much WHAT the sources are. It can be just the LA Times and the NY Times. By reading news this way, these people are always in a position to actively compare accounts. They don’t just passively absorb one favorite source or 2. So reading comparatively trumps the source. For example, the NY Times article you pull up might approach the issue one way, the McClatchy paper you read next might approach it another way, and each has things in it the other doesn’t (even if they are minor things). Doing it this way means people are less likely to have misonceptions about the news than someone who just reads the Chicago Sun Times every day. So someone who relies primarily on print can get unconsciously absorbed into a particular way of framing the news, while the comparative reading on the internet type is well aware of framing and so is used to sorting through and accounting for differences.

.

BT—for a future fun debate/discussion, I don’t buy the “deep state” concept.

I think the left version of it is no different from the right version of it, just inverted.

Well I’d like to see an article like that showing the NYTimes narrative about Hillary compared to their narrative about Bernie.

I just cant take the NYTimes seriously anymore.

That’s all true, but with this difference. Fox, you can count on them lying no matter what, and in doing so they serve direct particular partisan interests.

With the NYT it depends on the topic, writer, and article in question. You actually have to find out. They can be as blatant as when they backed Bush in the run-up to that war. I remember at the time there were some who did not believe you couldn’t just count the NYT as golden. BUt then with them, it’s a different thing. It’s not direct lying in the name of partisan interests. Rather it’s a general pro-establishment ideological framing that begins in their own heads and looks like reality to them. It’s not lying, it;s predetemined ideological framing. Though recently the NYT was rightfully blasted for hiring an anti-climate change columnist. So at times they do provoke scandal.

But we learned long ago the way to deal with these issues is to read different sources all at the same time and sort out what the best “real story” is. Quite often there won’t be an actual article that does what we need/want.

There were articles about how the mainstream giants covered Hillary v. Bernie btw.

Zooey wrote:

And…..back to the right-wing narrative stuff. A subject I find very interesting. They have a completely different picture of what is going on in Trumpland. They are hearing that Comey is a revengeful prick who will be going to prison sometime in the future, and that all this stuff is backfiring on the liberals and the media.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/18/15646098/right-wing-media-collective-memories

We tracked the Trump scandals on right-wing news sites. Here’s how they covered it.
We’re experiencing these historical events very differently.

The past week of Trump scandals for people reading mainstream news outlets has gone something like this: President Trump fired the FBI director who was investigating his campaign’s connection with Russia — and then the next day, Trump shared classified information with Russian officials.

But on conservative news outlets, the narrative was very different. It was about an FBI director whose firing was long overdue, and a liberal media desperate to take down Trump.

To pinpoint exactly how this played out for a reader visiting only conservative-leaning sites, we analyzed the front pages of Breitbart.com and FoxNews.com and compared them with NYTimes.com. We wrote a program to screenshot the front pages of these sites every three hours after the Comey firing using the Wayback Machine’s internet archives.

Here’s how the Comey firing played out:

And here’s how the past week of scandals played out:

That means the conservative media narrative went something like this:

Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for his mishandling of the Clinton investigation and his stubborn insistence on continuing the Russia investigation despite no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The liberal media drove this narrative to take down Trump, who only wanted the investigation “done properly,” and then started to question Trump’s mental stability.
The “deep state” leaked classified info to the Washington Post. Plus, Trump has the right to disclose classified information to Russians, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster agrees.
Comey is getting revenge with memos that reveal Trump asked him to shut down the investigation into his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
My colleague Jeff Guo watched Fox News for an evening and has a brilliant piece on how Fox News covered Trump sharing classified information with Russian officials, which explains how some of this happens. But here, I want to focus on two strategies that create these splintered memories.

The first is the context that conservative media just sidesteps; this obfuscation allows an audience to form a different account of events.

The second is the role of additional characters in these storylines — specifically the “liberal media” and Democrats colluding to manipulate the public.

Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: Right-wing media is creating coherent alternate storylines with different characters and different context — but a narrative that competes with contextual facts that support a more accurate story. Even amid some of the most troubling presidential news in decades, a huge portion of this country is having a very different experience of these events, and repeating it over and over. Our collective memories — and, in turn, our shared culture — are being splintered.

One way to form an alternate storyline: by ignoring context
Let’s focus on the Comey firing here.

The New York Times stayed laser-focused on how Comey wanted to expand the Russia investigation just days before his termination. This framing falls in line with reporting from several other outlets, as well as Trump’s interview to NBC saying that he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation.

But Breitbart and Fox News removed that context from their coverage.

Breitbart only mentioned the Russia investigation to reiterate that Trump’s connections with Russia — or lack thereof — were a settled matter. The big red “enough about Russia” summarizes their coverage.

Fox News barely mentioned Russia. Instead, it focused on Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation and who would replace Comey — and then ultimately pivoting to other stories to lead the site on Thursday, May 11, before coming back to focus on Trump saying he supports a Russia probe “done properly.”

These are fundamentally different stories. One is about a president who is interfering with an investigation, and the other is about an FBI director whose firing was a long time coming.

It’s quite disconcerting when a major piece of context is missing from your understanding of a story. This is a literary technique many TV shows use to keep the audience on their feet. (Game of Thrones comes to mind.) But in this case, the reveal might never come. After all, according to a poll, two in three Republicans still believe Comey was fired over the Clinton investigation.

The additional character in the right-wing storyline: the liberal media
The major player in right-wing media is the villainous “liberal media.”

If you happened to stumble upon on some other news source, you could connect the dots and perhaps believe Trump wanted to muzzle the FBI probe. But the character of a liberal and manipulative media — in cahoots with the Democratic Party — helps resolve the dissonant information. These stories essentially serve as a vaccine against other information.

When the Washington Post broke the story about Trump revealing classified information to Russians, the headline on Breitbart was about the Post — and how it was colluding with the “deep state” to leak information:

Breitbart ran a piece during this news frenzy quoting conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, who said on Newsmax TV that the media is the “opposition party.”

“There is a cultural left and a political left and a media, if you will, [that] are a conglomerate,” he said. “They were determined to break and bring down Nixon from the day he was nominated. … And the same forces, similar forces, are trying to break and bring down Trump.”

Newsmax TV
Fox News’s Tucker Carlson said the mainstream media’s reaction to the Comey firing was “media hysteria.”

Tucker Carlson said, “There was a run on Xanax supplies in CVS Pharmacies around Washington over the last two days as the press absolutely melted down. The media, committed to finding the legal coup d’état under their beds.”

And in covering the interview where Trump admits to firing Comey over the Russia investigation, Breitbart’s headline was about how NBC’s Lester Holt interrupted Trump nine times in two minutes.

It is coherent with the storyline that the media is colluding with Democrats to obscure information from the public. While news was spreading about Trump sharing classified information with Russian officials, Fox News and Breitbart focused on a story about DNC staffer Seth Rich leaking material to WikiLeaks before he was killed — a story that Rich’s family refuted, and that other outlets didn’t cover.

There’s been plenty of ink spilled about how “fake news” is affecting current discourse, but something more disturbing is happening: We’re experiencing different realities of the same event — and that reality is solidified every time these alternate storylines are repeated.

.

Just a couple of additions tossed into the discussion. FWIW. This is awkward cause while yes I agree with them, I am posting them because they are out there…it’s not a warboard style “this expert is on my side so I is right” thing. If there’s an article that says different I will post that too.

===

From Robert Klemko –MMQB

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/05/19/nfl-alex-smith-patrick-mahomes-kansas-city-chiefs

** I think Sean McVay is going to find out that Tavon Austin is best suited for the gadget receiver role he played under the old Rams regime, not the field-stretching, downfield role McVay envisions for the fifth-year receiver. As Numberfire.com notes, just 15 of Austin’s 181 career receptions have traveled more than 15 yards in the air. Even so, Austin struggled with drops in 2016 and too often catches passes in his chest rather than with his hands. Just a hunch: I don’t think L.A.’s deep threat of the McVay Era is on the roster yet.

—

Tavon Austin may have tough transition as Rams’ deep threat

https://www.numberfire.com/nfl/player-news/42318/tavon-austin-may-have-tough-transition-as-rams-deep-threat

Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Tavon Austin has seen only 15 of his 181 career receptions travel more than 15 yards in the air.

WHAT IT MEANS:

New Rams head coach Sean McVay wants Austin to be more like DeSean Jackson in 2017, but the supposed big-play threat has averaged 9.1 yards per catch for his career. His 2016 mark of 8.8 was third-to-last amongst wide receivers, and Jackson averaged literally twice as many yards per catch. Part of it has been Austin’s usage, but the odds of him suddenly developing into a viable deep threat are slim.

waterfield wrote:

You are not the privileged one to only know about the stuff this agency has done. I know as much as you do and many others do as well. My opinion is that notwithstanding the stuff that we find hard to digest this country still needs it in the same manner we need the NSA and the FBI.

Depending upon the CIA director and the attitudes of whomever happens to be the U.S. President (or in GW’s case, VP Cheney who had his own CIA within the CIA without informing Congress), the CIA does play a vital role in keeping the U.S. safe, but in some areas has been evil or poorly used. We don’t always get to choose our bedfellows.

As it happens W I pay close attention to CIA history and there is a ton of information out there on their various stages in history (when they were different things), insider accounts, congressional oversight and so on. We know a great deal about what they do and so on.

And whether or not we need a CIA, it has often been on the side of very bad things. For example during the cold war the CIA had a long and very well-known record of overthrowing democracies and helping dictatorships suppress dissent and loyal opposition. In fact it’s a long horror-show of being on the side of atrocities.

I get the impression this discussion is getting borderline nasty. Let’s try and make it a little less personal. If I have to I will stay out of the discussion precisely in order to monitor that.

Zooey wrote:

I think he has trampled all over their holy service and sacrifice, and shown total disregard for the meaning of all they hold dear. His actions have told them that he doesn’t respect them or value what they do.

I don’t agree with that.

His incompetence jeopardizes what they do.

I don’t think it’s a peevish emotional thing.

He’s brazenly and irremediably incompetent. It fucks things up for them.

And that’s of course whether or not we approve of all the policies he fucks up.

Zooey wrote:

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

But ‘something’ about Trump just made some faction in the CIA go nutz.

This is so simple.

They’re professionals and he is dangerously incompetent when it comes to those issues.

It’s nothing more than that. Notice none of the dissent is about policy (unlike in the courts with immigration). It’s about procedures.

I think that’s 90% of it, but I can’t help but think there may be a bit more to it than that.

I can’t remember the exact Nixon quote, but he said something to the effect that the FBI had enough dirt on everybody to bring all of Washington down. And I am sure the FBI and other intelligence agencies went to work on DJT when he announced his candidacy, and probably already had a pretty thick file even before that.

Trump has some pretty suspicious connections around the globe, and I will bet that the intelligence community knows more than it has said. They have to be careful, of course, because the whole thing is a tangled web of money and power. But I think their distrust of him is based on more than his incompetence.

Everything I said has to do with every OTHER conflict with the intel professionals.

HOWEVER, the Russia/campaign thing is its own, different deal and directly has to do with breaking laws. In fact by any definition of the FBI we can think of, we would have to conclude they were negligent if they weren’t looking into campaign issues where laws got violated.

BUT I do not link THAT to the overall general resistance Trump gets from intel people including the CIA.

I do not see a “deep state intel conspiracy” and in fact I not only think that’s inaccurate, I think the entire concept of the “deep state” is fuzzy, slogany, empty, and useless.

As a rule the entire idea of deep conspiracies by surprisingly like-minded people acting in concert across agencies is just science fiction. Heck you can’t get an ordinary CIA professional and an ordinary FBI professional to agree on where to have lunch, let alone show this multi-faceted unlikely robotic like-mindedness.

Like all other institutions you look at policies and be aware of factions and policy disputes within the institution.

Anything else, IMHO, is conspiracy theory about at the same level as right-wing conspiracy theory.

U.S. HuffPost
Bill O’Reilly Says Nation’s Hatred Killed Former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes

Good.

.

sanbagger wrote:

The other item is…LaFleur comes from ATL and they utilized Gariel in some of the same ways STL used TA….so it’s not an unknown to him….we’ll see if McV is hard and fast with his system, as you believe, or is willing to let his system evolve, which is more of my belief.

Ah I see. What YOU want is a full-blown BOARD WAR.

Jokes aside, you make a good point about LaFleur.

To me, though, right now, the writing on the wall is suggesting something different.

But I would be happy to be wrong about all that…I like what Tavon brings.

.

.