New Day for Evening News?

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast.

Related Post Roulette

7 Responses

  1. DODI says:

    What about the PBS news hour? It’s fairly bias free. It’s a bit dry but refreshing. Frankly, I’m tired of the emotionally overwrought news presenter choking back sobs from the outrage of the dayReport

  2. greginak says:

    “We’re in the first tank…” So he is saying they will be the one trip a mine or run into an ambush. Or maybe he is saying they will attacked first along with the back of the column to trap the middle on a clogged road. Okay maybe i’m thinking through that analogy a little to much.

    While i agree in general i disagree that everybody understands that each person has a POV. I think there are people who believe there is some mystical “just the facts ma’am” kind of approach. That is wrong, but there are people who think that is out there and want it. Granted those people often choose heavily biased news and dont’ see the bias either. So there is that.Report

  3. Pinky says:

    I don’t understand this article. Zirinsky literally says “that’s who we want to be”, an aspiration to being trusted and unbiased. Nobody thinks they attain perfect objectivity, including her. Are you arguing that the pursuit of objectivity is wrong? You say that some bias is inevitable, and that people don’t mind it. I agree. But you seem to be taking it a step further, implying that the goal itself isn’t worthwhile.Report

  4. LTL FTC says:

    IMO, there is a demonstrable difference between the output of people who strive to be unbiased and people who who say that being unbiased is impossible. In practice, the latter give themselves a lot more latitude to do things like motivated uncharitable readings and glossing over facts that don’t fit the narrative.

    Can we get back to Cronkite? Do we want to? I’m not sure. But the replacement of a milquetoast temperament that tries to avoid dividing the audience with a hate-read-or-flatter-your-priors dichotomy as a replacement hasn’t made anyone better informed.Report

  5. Jaybird says:

    still watched by 23 million viewers every night

    (CBS lags in third with 6 million of the 23 million that tune it every evening)

    This number doesn’t have context for me.

    How many people, say, watched the Game of Thrones finale? A quick google tells me “13.6 million”. (That’s from The Verge.)

    That’s a little more than half of what watches the evening news and a little more than double what watches CBS.

    Now, sure, in 2029, I don’t know who or how many will be tuning into watch the news.

    But it’s 2019.Report

  6. Richard Hershberger says:

    FWIW, I am not in that younger cohort, and it would never occur to me to turn on the evening news. Were it evening, and I wanted to read the news, I would pull up a news site on the internet. Probably The Guardian, which I find more reliable than most US news sites.

    As for The View From Nowhere, I am largely past that. Having a point of view isn’t something you can opt out of. The selection of what stories to provide, and how prominently to place them, is a viewpoint. Far better to acknowledge this than pretend–especially to yourself–that you don’t have one.

    That being said, there is a lot of space between The View From Nowhere and Fox News hackery.Report