I don't often watch news programs that talk about polls. but when I do, I always hate that they say "40% of Canadian|Americans say ___" or "60% of Canadians|Americans prefer ____"

Polling is such a mis-used technique of getting public opinion. The media/news want to pretend that its this very precise way of getting to know the electorate and it's just not. It's one tool that can help you if you already have other means of getting in touch with the people.

And I know the news/talk shows knows this, but I think their wording intentionally does not reflect it cause they rather bring on pundits to discuss the poll results and use that to take up airtime. Really wish they would change their wording to "40% of Canadians|American who responded to the poll say ____" every time they bring up a poll result, and then each time they do that, I feel like they're also ethically responsible to provide people with an easy to remember link to a website that elaborates on the methodology used for the polling that is broken down in a way that is easy for lay-people to understand for people who care/have time for that.

Although personally, in my ideal world, poll results would not be publicly available and would be known just by the campaigns of the politicians they involve but :shrug:

Cause maybe this is just my skewed perspective but I am the only one I know in my social circle that answers calls from unknown numbers that half the time turn out to be pollsters and I actually take the time to answer their questions. I don't know of anyone else in my social circle that does this and I am in my thirties. So I get the feeling these pollsters just are not capturing a major part of the population and they don't want to admit that.

Obviously, Canada and U.S. are entirely different political systems with different media environments and so forth, but as someone who likes the content of podcasters like The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, Hasan Minhaj and podcasters/tech journalists like Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher and "free thinkers" like Bari Weiss and her ilk, I am wondering if Canada has any similar content that I am just unable to find with google/duck searches? As a Canadian, I think I should be consuming more content that goes over Canadian news rather than American but our media environment seems really barren if you are trying to avoid CBC produced material.

The closest I could find was Canadaland but after a few episodes, I found that host is of a particular brand of "progressive" that I don't particularly care for.

so, Trump's first term, from what I remember, the news media didn't try to kiss the ring or pay him off to stop him being mean. they took an antagonistic (maybe too antagonistic) role to the trump presidency. Which fair enough, that's their job, to hold the government to account.

But this time around, I never fully understood why the left leaning news media is kissing the ring?

• Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski flew down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring
• Trump and CBS '60 Minutes' near settlement in $20 billion lawsuit

There is also Jeff Bezos revamp of the 'Washington Post' although that one surprises me a bit less given the tech oligarchy and Bezos being a modern day Lex Luthor. Surprised that soulless sack of s**t left the Washington Post alone as long as he has tbh.

There may be more instances of the left-wing media kissing the ring but these are just the ones I am aware of.

An easy answer to the second instance is: cause the executives at these news agencies didn't want to deal with a lawsuit by Trump and the money it would cost them, but if that is true, then how come this didnt happen the first time around? Did Trump just not sue the news agencies until this time? Any ideas why?

And that doesn't answer the first instance of those MSNBC hosts flying down to Mar-a-Lago to appease the baby in chief?

I know he is full of shit when he says he believes in freedom of speech and he just whines and complains and accuses the left/trans people of abusing victimhood cause apparently he believes the label belongs to the richest man on the planet instead.

But I am genuinely curious if the guy who kept saying he wanted his critics on Twitter as well to call him out, ever sat down for an interview with a critic who didnt feed his ego like Faux News or Bill Maher. Cause say what you want about Bill O'Reilly (and there's not much to say) I gotta give it up to the guy for going on left-leaning shows and actually engaging with the other side of the aisle.

the closest I can think of is that one he did with Don Lemon where his feelings were so hurt by the pushback, he cancelled the show after it :joy:

But I wonder if he ever did a hardball interview after and I just missed it?

Heretofore, I have held the idea that, 1)Russia is a despotic aggressor, 2)Ukraine is largely innocent holder of resources and land, and 3)Ukraine is largely winning due to a combination of pluck and western supplies.

But I heard a recent podcast, however, that caused me to question my line of thinking. The podcast was Chapo Trap House* and they had guest podcasts hosts War Nerd or something, who seem to have some expertise in the slavic world. And they presented a very different narrative. Namely, 1)Ukrainians really want the war to end, even if the country loses some land, 2)There’s tons of corruption in the military, as bad as leaders demanding payment from soldiers to avoid deployment to the front lines, 3)There are fascist units in the military, and they shake down the civilians, 4) Zelensky was of a mind to deal with Russia until Biden asked him not to, 5)Russias economy is very resilient and has adapted to sanctions, and 6)Russia has been very adept at neutralizing new western military tech, and 7) there is a conspiracy of silence about Ukrainian casualties. Side note, there may be problematic funding of all the open source intelligence arms, especially bellingcat, by US Governemtnt intelligence interests.

I managed to confirm at least partially one of the objections:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html

But some of the claims seem less strong:

https://kyivindependent.com/a-very-bloody-war-what-is-the-death-toll-of-russias-war-in-ukraine/

Mixed on some of the others:

https://theintercept.com/2024/06/22/ukraine-azov-battalion-us-training-ban/

The podcast was a useful reminder, at least, to retain a humility about my beliefs, and that news media is especially suspect in our present moment.

It’s not like I have any power to influence the outcome, but I do still buy into the myth that a responsible citizen retains some degree of information about events around them. My query to tildes is, what’s your narrative about the war, and what sources of information are you drawing upon?

*I’m vaguely aware that there’s somce controversy around these guys. I find the podcast entertaining, however, and they seem to share some of my values about how a sane society would function, and, like this report, they sometimes really challenge my understanding of what I think is going on.

I was watching this clip of The Daily Show where Desi Lydic highlights the change in how Dr. Oz has been portrayed over the years, and it got me thinking about the perception of public figures over time.

I remember watching CBS Sunday Morning segment in 1998 where Elon Musk was painted in a fairly good light as a sort of rebel taking on Microsoft. This was around the time that Microsoft was seen in a pretty bad light for the Internet Explorer anti-trust case.

Musk as he appears in the media I consume today is almost unrecognizable from the 1998 segment.

I also recall a time when Rudy Giuliani was seen in a good light (disclosure: I'm mostly going off of my memory of how he was perceived by the nation as Mayor of New York. I never lived in or near New York, so I can't really speak to how he was perceived locally).

I'm sure I could come up with other examples if I thought about it some more.

All of this has me pondering the nature of my own perception. I don't know any of these people personally, so I rely on what I see online and in the news to guide my image of who these people are. But when I see this stark contrast it makes me wonder what is real.

Did these figures change over time, perhaps corrupted by power and/or fame?

Have they always been this way, and I'm just seeing the media paint them differently over time?

Are they just in a Harvey Dent / Batman "live long enough to become the villain" situation?

Maybe all of the above?

I also think about this in context of aging. My views on the world have definitely changed over time. I think I've mostly grown in a positive way as a person. But I've also seen my own parents change their views and become disturbingly conservative. It worries me that I may also have a regression as I age. They are still mostly the same loving parents I grew up with. The only real obvious cause of their shift in views is the media they consume.

So I'm curious to hear other points of view on this phenomenon.