Someone on a radio show said that most people outside the United States get their news about the United States from CNN. If so, that might explain why so many people outside of the country hold to the viewpoints they have of us. Of course, that's true of a lot of people within the United States too, in that they get their news from CNN, MSNBC, ABC, or other extreme liberal media outlets, but if CNN is the primary outlet for US news for people outside the country, that might explain some of the biases, as CNN is one of the most biased of our broadcast media outlets.
I'm not so sure they watch CNN international, but as a frequent observer of BBC live, Sky News, France24, Der Spiegel, etc. etc., I have observed CNN is frequently quoted as sources for information, even when the news is outside the U.S. CBS and ABC also get some play, although I rarely see NBC being quoted. The Post, Times etc. are also sources. I am also interested in the origin of their U.S. News.
I seem to recall that some "founding father" expressed the belief that reporting of news must be carried out factually and without bias based on any conclusion-making by the reporting source. Maybe Ben Franklin? Frank
Pretty much all the newspapers in the early years of our country were the publishing arms of the political parties and factions, and even carried the names of the parties they represented. They weren't biased in the way that the media is biased today because no one expected them to be objective. People who supported a party would buy the newspaper of that party, while the same city or area had another newspaper published by rival parties.
Just reading de speigal, a German magazine, which is one source of Germany's news about the USA.. They have foreign reporters just as we do, I was reading an article titled, "The Enemy In the White House." and how they ought to treat us the same way as Trump is treating them. Foreign sources monitor us as we monitor them in today's digital world. And, like China's, German intelligence is pretty good.
BBC - they have reporters all over the globe Don't read newspapers, also prefer to see footage and hear people concerned put their foot in their mouth, rather than being told they did
I'm pretty sure all countries have more than one news source just like here. Although I don't live in the UK I do have the DM, The Telegraph, The Guardian, and the BBC on my iPad. I look at all of them. People in other countries are just as smart if not smarter about how to judge a news story. I like the DM the best....even though it's sensational....it's been accurate most of the time. It's neither pro or anti Trump...I see both sides shown on there. A mix of Fox and CNN...
I like news that is not biased too Chrissy, you get a better picture and even better to hear and see the horses mouth
How you inform yourself as someone not living in the US seems to depend on whom you ask. In Germany there are three groups of people in our generation: the west Germans and the east Germans who were divided by the access to west German TV. It makes a tremendous difference whether you grew up with west German TV as a major source of information all the way back to the sixties and seventies as I did or whether you couldn't receive it at all for technical reasons which meant that the only source of information was communist indoctrination through state-owned TV channels which would hold true for a lot of east Germans. Those were the ones who were overwhelmed by what they saw in west Germany after the wall had come down. Therefore, a lot of people of my generation would have quite a different view on the US than I have. Some of you may know by now that I grew up under communist (Russian) rule in eastern Germany living there until the wall came down in 1989. At least I was among those who were able to watch west German TV from the beginning in the 50s. As a young boy I used to adore the US for its history, scientific achievements, nature, living standard, etc. getting some glimpses of it through westerns, crime movies and TV-series (e.g. Congressman, Flipper, Fury, Lassie) and, later on, through other, more demanding movies and TV documentaries and I tended to be quite uncritical at that time. As a teen I was longing for Levi's jeans and would have killed to get them - all in vain - no dead people, no jeans! I still feel deeply indebted to the US for what they did in west Germany during and after WWII. I just wish I'd had the luck of the west Germans and would've been able to benefit from that influence as they did. No such luck and, thus, a personal tragedy. For the last 28 years all channels of information have been open to all Germans. American sources are, however, rarely used because English seems to be a challenge to many of them. That's why most people over here rely on German sources of information either TV or newspapers. I also use them but do include a variety of English-language sources. I'm not an audiovisual type of person. So I strongly prefer reading to listening to and watching something. There's no such thing as objective media, there never was, they are all biased. The question simply is against whom? I do not have any favourite sources of information but rather inform myself subject-related not source-related. I would scan the internet for information and, based on several sources which I critically assess, I then form my own opinion about a subject of interest.
In Canada we have CBC and CTV news networks which is what I us usually watch and sometimes Aljezzera. We also have access to US channels but I rarely watch them.
OMG @Thomas Stearn , I had no idea you grew up on the East side of the Berlin Wall... how fascinating and awful at the same time... Oh I would love to hear your stories of it.. and whether you knew you were being deprived of what was available in west Berlin...or didn't know the extent until after the wall came down. ( I was there btw, on that momentous day) How did you cope with the sudden freedom.. ..was it difficult?
I appreciate your personal interest, @Holly Saunders . I think I'd mentioned my origin elsewhere but it's a large forum... Much as I'd like to answer your profound questions I'm afraid the answer would have to be longer and go beyond the scope of this thread about sources of information and thus be OT. What shall I do? Perhaps on some future occasion where the answers would fit the topic?
You did mention it in passing, Thomas, but it could have been easily missed. It is really good to have your insight here.
Unbiased and factual reporting was never something that seemed to concern the founders. If you ever have the chance to read any newspapers from the era, you should do so. It will change your opinion about such things. All newspapers had a bent and an agenda -- or more than one. When I was in school, lo those many years ago, journalism class taught that Thomas Paine and Sam Adams were considered journalists, despite the detail that they published pamphlets. Then again, our founding father John Adams authored the Alien & Sedition Acts, which allowed the government to jail anyone who spoke out against Adams or his positions. The first person tried under this law was Republican congressman Timothy Lyon (VT), whose crime was publishing letters in Republican newspapers during his election campaign; letters which were alleged to show "intent and design" to defame the government and Adams. He was sentenced to pay a $1,000 fin and to spend four months in jail, which is where he was when he won re-election. Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of that founding father Benjamin Franklin, founded the Philadelphia Aurora. His leanings were Jeffersonian, as were the leanings of his newspaper. He published his opinion that "the blind, bald, crippled, toothless, querulous [John] Adams" practiced nepotism and accused him of wanting to be king. He was arrested in 1798 but died of yellow fever before he could be tried. A journalist by the name of James Callendar was sentenced to nine months for "false, scandalous, and malicious" writings against Adams. (You might know his name, as he was the first journalist to allege the relationship between Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson's lover and the half-sister of his dead wife Martha, and President Jefferson. All in all, at least 26 people were prosecuted under that Act in the three years it was in existence on the day Adams left office in 1801. Rambling, I know, but I cannot help myself. The Alien & Sedition Acts are, in my opinion, one of the most interesting pieces of our history, for a lot of reasons.