Online, Everything Is Alternative Media

So the author does not think that CNN is purely aggressive and partisan?

I use to think of the New York Times as a truly journalistic news organization. Now I view it as nothing more than a propaganda arm of the left. the only reason I read this article is that I saw it on Breitbart. How could you or any other news outlet not see a movement when you have such a underdog candidate filling coliseums with exuberant peoples from all walks of life? Why did you publish article after article labeling me and millions just like me as racists, homophobic, bigots, misogynist and so forth. Right now I have an absolute and complete hatred for every mainstream media outlet for talking down to me and for despising me. You think I am stupid, you think I am backwards, you think I am not informed. I would pit my history and government knowledge against your so called journalist any day. Oh well, I am done with my rant. I need to move on as I really don't even want you to measure a read off of me.

At the onset of Tuesday evening I figured Trump was the lowliest man in America.

All the press, both the Dem and Rep establishment, all the polls, all the cable news channels knew Hillary would win. I'd even resigned myself to this choosing MSNBC over Fox figuring it would be a nicer to watch the election with happy people.

Trump believed in himself of course and there was one guy in Illinois. As the night wore on, I realized there were a few others out there like me because he started winning state after state.

I could tell the unthinkable was happening when the commentators on MSNBC became quite sad.

Lesson for me is, I should have watched Fox as I would have been with happy people.

Way back in the 90s I read an article in an engineering journal that stated "the internet is an open sewer". How true that has become. Say what one will about "bias" in the NYT or Wash. Post, national publications do fact check. When wrong they usually recant (re: Judith Miller). Read 5 national newspapers per day plus the local, throw in one or two international sources, keep and open mind, and read books! After all that you will still have a bias, everyone does, but you will be in a superior position to discern truth from lie. I for one am happy that responsible journalism still exists for truth, but I still erect my sewer filters accordingly.

Wow! You just figured this out? Internet marketing is the most powerful phenomenon today and it is disintermediating all news organizations and most polling organizations. Clearly, and I'm a Hilary supporter, the Democratic party ignored this factor and Donald Trump dismantled them. How very, very sad.

The news media has sold it soul for the all mighty dollar. Ratings were fantastic and it was all a joke...until it wasn't. That includes all news oulets FOX, NBC, CBS etc. and print. The peope want the entire truth not that particular institutions opinions, well some do anyway. Too many were unaware of Breitbart and what the alt-right's agenda is and now we're stewing in it.

Suggestion to The New York Times. Your stated attempt to bring down Donald Trump failed miserably. Why? Because you are supposed to be the "Newspaper of Record." Don't you understand what that means? And it's not about your lead editorial. It's about the bias on the entire front page, and not have a single opinion writer supporting Trump.

We already have the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and dozens of other sites for those who want the left-wing slant (and dozens for the right-wing slant). We don't need or want you to be another Huffington Post.

Facebook ought to reinstate it's original UP and DOWN ranking of content. Perhaps add category for UP/DOWN rank of TRUTHFULNESS. Although dimwits might UP-vote false information, others will DOWN-vote. Even if UP > DOWN incorrectly, lots of DOWN-votes would signal to future readers there is a problem with the quality of the content.

As I read this article as well as Will Rahn's brilliant piece on CBS news ("The Unbearable Smugness of the Press"), I now realize why I just cancelled my subscription to The New York Times...

Way back, too long ago now, Jon Stewart visited one of these Spy vs. Spy talk shows, and took them apart for holding onto partisan lines despite facts, understanding, or the willingness to listen. Or as we used to say when I was a debate kid in high school, "Rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric." "Oh yeah? Well rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric." No one listens.

I am angry with the media. I'm angry with pollsters. I'm angry that, even this week, the NYTimes assured us that there were no "missing white voters" coming out for Trump.

The electoral model has changed. We should have noticed that, despite a deep war chest, both Sanders and Jeb lost primaries. Voters can zip through commercials, so ad buys don't matter. For that matter, whether we overturn Citizens United or not, nothing changes. Money and access to paid media aren't how we win elections any longer.

Neither are issues. Voters don't care about issues, especially not if they have to research them.

Candidates have to have a simplified vision that plays well on the news, and nothing else. No number of celebrity endorsers will change the minds of the electorate, or get them to the polls. No matter our opinion of his ideas, Trump had the right tactic - talking directly to voters, big rallies, small ideas expressed in small words. No specifics. And lots of media coverage.

Lol, The leftist NYT calls the Breitbart website a "brutal" leveling of social networks...

You can't even see or admit to your own bias, can you Mr. Herrman? It isn't a "brutal" leveling, it is an fair and welcome leveling.

What doesn't seem apparent to the writer is that readers believe what Breitbart publishes.

Truth is, the corporate media sacrificed its gatekeeper status because they became purely partisan to the point of being very dishonest. Trump called them on it and it was clearly true. Even today, the NYT and WaPo is ignoring violent attacks on video of Trump supporters while pursuing hoax hate-crimes against leftists and favored groups. Your lies have no currency any more.

Breitbart was just as off as every other media outlet about a Trump victory. The NYT ran a great article in June of 2015 about how useless modern polling is and the lack of any statistical or scientific basis to modern polling assumptions. The media then treated the polls as gospel. In ascending order of wrongness the villains are 538, the NYT's Upshot and, winning the ultimate prize for ineptitude, the Princeton Election Consortium. Princeton had Clinton's chances at greater than 99%, the same odds as wagering $10,000 to win $100. The absurdity that hocus pocus can convert flawed polling data into a reliable statistical outcome was always forseeable.

It's a failing of established media that obscure alt-right sources alone were actively challenging the key poll assumption - Clinton turnout. The consistent question asked by Twitterer Bill Mitchell was: Other than the polls, what evidence is there that Clinton is winning? Mitchell consistently pointed out that in the polls that revealed actual raw polling data, the adjusted assumptions assumed significantly greater democratic turnout than Obama had in 2008, let alone 2012! This is where the polls were predictably wrong. Obama received 10,000,000 more votes in 2008 than Clinton would in 2016. Trump received about the same number of votes as McCain's 2008 total. In the lexicon of business this story was "low hanging fruit" but was completely ignored by the NYT and other leading media.

"To focus solely on holding power to account is as concise a definition of journalism as I can think of."

Yes. And that function very markedly does not conform to the absurd "fair and balanced" notion duplicitously promoted by Fox et alia. I count on journalists at this point to review and reaffirm their commitment to their real mission. More than ever now it's the press that must protect us from the sort of misinformation campaigns waged by demagogues. I have to count on them - and the perhaps now-obsolete idea that the traditional principles of journalism triumph - because without that we are truly sunk. That's why I've protested so vigorously when venerable newspapers have published factually incorrect stories on small issues not related to elections and larger politics. It's time for journalists to remember the word 'impeccable". And that means that some coherent set of values needs to be in place, transparently, because even the selection of what's to be reported and what not is subjective. Subjective is inevitable, and just must be governed by real principle and girded with fact. Under tyrants the truth-tellers are blamed, undermined, contradicted with agit prop and rendered ineffective. But history remembers. Don't blame those news sites (like the NYT) that really did try to walk that fine line between biased partisanship and false equivalency overmuch. Blame the propagandists that turned this into a writhing mess of viral misinformation.

As an individual taking in a lot of news from different sources, the old battleships of trust - PBS, the NYT, for example, no longer feel reliable to me. And they feel more dangerous than the blatantly ridiculous websites and FB pages that pop up with names like truthusa2016elections.com, publlshing undated articles with no authors. Duh.

Take today's politics section in the Times, for example.. Right next to each other are two images, one of a single white woman, a Trump supporter, in what appears to be her home, a partial reflection of her back oddly shown in a mirror. Then there is a photo of 6 racially diverse women closely grouped together together in apparent solidarity, out in a public location, expressing their protest and grief about the Trump election.

This kind of innuendo is now the bread and butter of the Times.

Right or wrong, I view the NYT, in its political coverage, as a media wing of the Democratic political establishment - Clinton, Schumer, Durban, Obama, etc. And then, sometimes, I am still surprised to find something that feels like informative, objective reporting. But that is now the exception.

I am glad I studied Soviet history in college, because I think I am able to recognize our culture of propaganda, where, as the old Russian saying went, There was no truth ('Pravda') in the news ('Izvestia'), and vice-versa.

why wasn't this article printed BEFORE & DURING the election? it was so obvious to many of this, that this was going on.

A fair potion of "Alternate media" can certainly be construed as "propaganda". But, nowadays, so can nearly all of the "mainstream" media.

We have reach a point where the The New York Times is balanced by Breitbart. And it is the lack of balance, lack of integrity, and across the board politicising (rather than keeping editorial within the editorial section) on the part of the New York Times that has brought this about.

The mainstream media's (longstanding but now very) open bias during the election was compounded by the inaccuracies of the polls that it controls and manipulates.

By deviating from professional standards in its zeal to push its political agenda, the media has none to blame but itself.

Of course, the media elite will try to comfort themselves by self-righteously blaming the 'stupid' Americans -- as racists, bigots, uneducated, etc, blah blah blah.

If the media seeks to regain its standing as a respected institution within the country, then it must act in a less politicised manner. I doubt it will happen.

Yes, facts no longer matter, just like experience and expertise no longer matter. Just say anything over and over to people who want to hear it and it becomes fact. We've just elected a person to the most important governmental position in the world who has no governmental experience. The new media assisted with this process. It's healthy that the NY Times is attempting to analyze the new reality we live in. I hope it helps. I am frightened by the empowerment that has been given to those who elected Trump and to the messages they've been hearing.

This piece really hits the nail on the head. And those responsible for the editorial content of the Times and other high end media should interrogate themselves if the innumerable opinion columns by so many politically correct journalists-turned-commentators that they have published haven't helped the fortunes of the populists-turned-journalist online, the so called Alternative Media. Less smartly opinionated columns and more reporting among the American people, everywhere in America, would have helped you (and your readers) to be more prepared for this electoral outcome.

If the mainstream media want to learn a lesson here is one.Open up more of your articles to comment.You are particularly restrictive in this respect.Compare yourselves to the Financial Times for example.All you get is an echo chamber of opeds and editorials reinforcing your own views/biases.

It was not Breitbart or Facebook that elected Trump. The rural, high school educated, older white men (see your exit poles) who came out in force were galvanized by the AM/FM radio in their trucks, cars, and vans that they work in everyday. There is no computer on their desk and they can't work an iPad with a hammer in their hand.

Technology has plunged the information disbursement field into the risk of Tower of Babel situation where nobody can distinguish between facts, misinformation or blatant lies. Mainstream media, including the NYT, has its bias in terms of what is covered and how it is covered. Maybe to the extent of putting forth propaganda or lobbying. Having said that I don't believe the mainstream media actually tells lies. Alternative media has no constraints, moral, legal or regulatory to adhere to any standards. Worse, alternative media can attempt to become an actor in events and not necessarily in a constructive way. Of course Freedom of Speech is sacrosanct. However, the media should have no problem and looking at itself and critiquing each other. For example, no reason for the NY Times to formally and regularly analyze, review and report on say Breitbart or Breitbart to do the same to the Washington Post or the Boston Globe at CNN or Huffington Post. All that process can do is throw light on a currently murky world and give people a chance to separate the truth from the propaganda from the lies. Also to separate the dispenses of information from the actors/manipulators.

Breitbart is not a place to get the news or read about issues. Neither is Huffington Post or Facebook. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NPR are most reliable for me, but there is still a need to read books and magazines to grapple with the bigger questions. I do visit sites occasionally like Breitbart (although I had not heard of that one until a couple weeks ago)and Huffington Post to see what is passing for "news". And then I shudder...

Hopefully, like an infection, the alt-right and its alt-media will be wiped out by exposure to the best disinfectant, the light of scrutiny.

CNN failed its audience in the most profound way during this election, giving trump unfettered, unfiltered and unquestioned free access for months before the election. CNN "reporters" sat mostly mute while right wing trump surrogates lied about Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. CNN repeatedly set left and right surrogates against one another and called it "news" while policy differences were largely ignored and focus was on "pundits" goring each other. CNN, or as I call it, Certainly Not News, in their greedy pursuit of profit, FAILED the American public so massively that they helped elect trump. I have shut them off and urge others to do the same.

The 2016 election cycle will prove to be an epochal moment in the history of mainstream media. It is the point where, as an example, the Times dropped any pretense of fairness and objectivity and openly and aggressively worked to secure the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton and then to help Hillary win the general election.

In doing so, the Times itself became the creator and purveyor of ‘false news.’ Stories like the Times’ “Crossing the Line” — about Trump’s purported maltreatment of women was immediately rebuffed by Rowanne Brewer Lane, the woman featured in the article — made it apparent to all that the Times was no longer (if it ever was) a reporter of election news, but instead a partisan organization whose offerings should be viewed with more than a grain of salt.

The so-called MSM is squandering its credibility with the public by compromising "traditional" standards of reporting to satisfy an increasingly disfunctional business model. Bigger is not better. This has been proven time and again. It's time to reboot these "traditional" hamstrung business models with fresh perspectives and increased public imput/participation.

This trend might be of concern if the mainstream media had parlayed a constructive role in this election.
Other than David Farenthold's investigations of Trump Foundation claims in the Washington Post, and the New York Times' analysis of the few pages of Trump's taxes once it received the gift of them in the mail, I recall little of substance.
Where was the thoughtful analysis of policy proposals? Replaced by an avalanche of email stories and gossip.
All I remember from CNN is a bunch of ideologues filling the screen and shouting at each other.
Yes, we do need a substantive, thoughtful source of information. The mainstream media failed spectacularly to be that source. No wonder so many turned away.

We need to recognize that nothing is truly free particularly on the internet. I used to think that I paid for using social media by giving the companies my personal data that they were able to monetize. It seemed somewhat innocuous and at worst was an annoyance. After contemplating the causes of Trump's presidency and the role played by propaganda such as Breitbart I realized that the cost of my social media was much greater. I was perpetuating a business model that was actually the perfect conduit for this propaganda that may have ultimately elected Trump and all of the horrible likelihoods that would bring. I decided to boycott facebook, twitter, etc, not because these businesses were intentionally complicit in the dissemination of this propaganda but because they are responsible nonetheless.

For me, the latter half of this opinion piece devolves into opaque aphorisms. "For legacy news media operations to behave as outsiders could be invigorating. Treating access as strictly transactional, rather than as some sort of norm, could reduce, or make transparent, its role in the reporting process." For the life of me, I cannot parse this statement. I gather that the author takes issue with "mainstream" media's presumption that they are somehow arbiters of the issues for a fast-disappearing audience abandoning their outlets for "alternative" media in which truth, countervailing facts, and rational, reasoned argument is irrelevant. "To accept marginality as fate was one difficult option for those in the media; to defy it was another. To ignore it, however, was not." So, is the author's point that "mainstream" media is ignoring that it is now irrelevant? Mainstream media is a dinosaur? Hell, why bother to read anything that contains critical, objective analysis? That activity is now immaterial to the brave new decision-making process and influence of alternative media? If this is the point of the article (and I'm not entirely sure it is), we may as well hang up the social experiment known as the USA.

Many on-line media outlets remind me of two drunks in a bar--one a Yankees Fan, and one for the Red Sox--playing against each other on some video game. That just take turns zapping each other with missiles, dropping bombs, sending-out drone strikes, etc. But, mind you, they do this all between chugs on their beers. And, when they finish the game, they shake hands, agree to meet again, and go home to the wife and kids.

That's about what a know from a few trips to Breitbart. But, the commenters own most web sites--even one on CNBC about Monetary Policy--and there are similar comments, insulting each other, writing as if they knew the difference between M1, GDP and Fed Funds. My point is that they would act as ignorantly on virtually any topic and, they believe, that it has no impact on the real world.

But, when Kindergartners ask teachers if The Wall has been built yet, or go home, fearing deportation, that's something to be concerned with. This is not the Wild, Wild West. And both Actions and Words do matter!

https://thetruthoncommonsense.com

https://thetruthoncommonsense.com

Facebook and Twitter have made us now officially a post-fact nation. Nothing/anything is true if it goes viral. Congrats, Zuck.
Next virtual reality will obviate the smartphone---and Breitbart too.
MSM let us all down this election.
Because: shareholder profits, bottom line. Forget journalism. Chasing the $ you all lost sight of a primary duty to the nation.

Facebook *should* shut itself down and Zuckerberg *should* apologize for his outright attacks on privacy and basic human dignity. His IMs alone would disqualify him in a sane country from being a CEO of any corporation (though as we've learned early Wednesday, this is no sane country anymore).

Until they do, though, they can end both this ridiculous wrong-wing self-promotion and the all-around-annoying commercial Like War by removing share and like counts, and the Like tracker-button, from all posts so counted. Twitter can follow (no pun intended).