What year did journalism start to be "unrealiable"? What happened?

October 25, 2017 | Guava Cheese Puff

[blueplum]

Johnson, but especially Clinton

[Theodore R.]

I don’t recall Douglas Edwards being biased, but Uncle Walter surely was!

[Intolerant in NJ]

1974 - the tag team of Sam Donaldson, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw day after day going after Nixon - perhaps even more disgusting than what’s happening to Trump today because it was unprecedented and unapologetic.....

[Twink]

The 90s were also the era when entertainment (tv, movies, etc.) became the political, pc, platform it is now. Or at least when some viewers started noticing. The 70s (All In The Family for example) is notable because most of the viewers didn’t realize they were being preached to and that Archie Bunker was a slam on the fans/viewers/America at that time.

Yeah, the Dan Quayle potato incident took it to another level.

[AmericanVictory]

You are right, sir.

[poinq]

There is not a date that the press became so fake. And some may say it was somewhat fake no matter how far you go back. But modern day press was formed as early as the 1990’s when media started to lose money. Cable TV news started to take viewers away from TV and newspapers. The internet exacerbated the problem as the media started to lose viewers.

During this time the funding for newsrooms dropped to the bare bones. Reporters were replaced by news feed writers who simply took AP news feeds and rewrote them to look like local reporting. Today most news rooms only have a small hand full of reporters, not the large news rooms you see in movies like All the President’s Men. In the current news rooms there are some reporters who rarely leave their office. And several copy writers. And in many cases reporters just work from home, many are paid by the story.

Now add that to today’s situation as the readers have left newspapers. And viewers have stopped watching broadcast TV in favor of cable. But now the cable companies are losing audiences to cord cutters. The cable companies who owned CNN and MSNBC used live broadcasts to retain audiences. Sports was a big part of that, as was reality TV. But a big part of live, much watch TV are the news channels including Fox. They decided that the best news, fastest, most honest and complete was not important. What was important was to be “must watch TV”. So they skewed their news to get the most sensationalism possible. And to get the most partisan news possible. Non partisan news can be produced by anybody. And the audience is not loyal. But partisan news develops a very loyal audience which grows in size depending on how well the views of the news channel matches those of the potential audience. The same approach was applied to the remaining newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

So now we are not watching news. We are watching propaganda, cheaply produced in order to produce the largest audience. And the fact that it is so cheap to produce means that billionaires are influencing the content as most large media don’t cost any more than a pro football team.

So, as

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Let's go back a bit farther...

1770 - The Bloody Massacre

Paul Revere's engraving and his poem below did a lot to stir up anti-British resentment in Boston.

Unhappy Boston! see thy Sons deplore
Thy hallow’d walks besmear’d with guiltless gore
While faithless P_n and his savage bands
With murd'rous rancour stretch their bloody hands
Like fierce barbarians grinning o’er their prey
Approve the carnage and enjoy the day.
If scalding drops from rage, from anguish wrung
If speechless sorrow, lab’ring for a tongue
Or if a weeping world can ought appease
The plaintive ghosts of victims such as these
The patriot’s copious tears for each are shed
A glorious tribute which embalrns the dead.

Paul Revere’s Engraving of the Boston Massacre: Interactive has some great embedded links in the engraving showing the subtle propaganda techniques employed in the art to sway opinion.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The NYT could be relied upon in the 20s and 30s to extol the wonders of Soviet collectivization and communism.

[fatima]

I think during the Clinton Presidency. The networks announce they would no longer investigate stories.

[Art in Idaho]

Walter Cronkite. Vietnam.

Close. For me if was after Kennedy was killed on Nov 22, 63 and the start of the Vietnam involvement. The media from the get go politicized Vietnam with a leftward slant. It kept getting worse in the late 60s and the MSM inflamed all the protesters, demonstrations and hippies. Plus I think the MSM and Hollywood promoted the free love sexual mores and drugs. Worse yearly since then and here we are.

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

1960 not 63.A lot of things changed in those three years.

[cpdiii]

It started with Walter Cronkite back in the sixties and became worse year by year.

[bitt]

looks good...

ah, Kuypers - I just realized he wrote ‘Bush’s War’.. I read it back when I admired Bush..

[Mozilla]

Someone should have noticed during Reagan. CNN was owned by idiot Ted Turner who married Hanoi Jane. So this goes back a ways. Fox News and then Republican hatred by the media blew the lid. Took till Trump to become the most clear.

[Mozilla]

I should add that a defining year was 1987, 30 years ago. The Bork confirmation and Iran Contra hearings, plus the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. All three sent the left overboard.

[davius]

I have articles in my files from the late 60's which I flagged for bias contortions (spin in the current vernacular). Most of them pertain to Vietnam but some deal with the CIA and/or the USSR. My primary interest was identifying articles wherein the truth was 'massaged' rather than misrepresented.

In the early 80's I first noted stories in print and broadcast which contradicted empirical data (lies). By the mid 80's, the network news was disgraced. By the century's turn the print media fully departed from truth to pursue propaganda. At this point, the correspondents are incapable of even perceiving their deficiencies.

Except for the rise of the internet and alternative news sites, this nation would have devolved into civil war and IED no-go zones.

The only defense is to learn and encourage critical thinking. Teach your loved ones to weigh, evaluate, analyze, and compare and contrast. Even if they only think about what they hear before they open their mouths to pass it on, there is hope.

[Chgogal]

I second that. Also, when Wallace from 60 Minutes said that he wouldn't help a US Soldier when in need.

[Chgogal]

1931-1034 when NYT lied about Stalin and the Famine. Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize for lying. It was debunked in 2003 but NYT did not give back the Pulitzer.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/pulitzer-winning-lies/article/4040

[Hojczyk]

Since the founding of the country.....

Newspapers have always been political....

In my life time they hid there bias better in the 50’s through 1980..

Now with the Internet you have fake news with every story

[Boomer]

Out in the open leftist? I’d say the 60’s is when they took a hard left and sided with the hippies screaming at the American servicemen coming back from Vietnam.

Blatant in your face leftist? 2015 Presidential election is when the last facade fell from the thin veneer of their pretend unbiased claim.