Fake news!

[frequent]

The Donald is furious that the networks won't broadcast his advertisement about "fake news" because fake news isn't what they broadcast. It's a common theme for the one-eyed partisan. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7721256.html

scottish-guy has said he doesn't read the mainstream media (ie. the ones who scoff at the fishy pretensions about Scottish independence because it's "fake news")

The Forum itself has its own share of those who scream and rant in much the same way as Trump. One such was characterised last year as the character Jonah Ryan in the HBO series VEEP. However latterly he emerges more clearly as the Forum's very own Donald Trump, forever ready to label those who scoff at him "fake"

The statistician Nate Silver recently published a book about people who miss the point. He called it "The signal and the noise". I think of it quite often when I see our very own Donald Trump posting

[arsenal]

Well, whether you do or don't live in Bangkok is of little importance to anyone other than yourself and a447. However what is clear is that his constant goading has got under your skin. The result is that for the first time in your SGT career, you're actually posting some rather interesting stuff. Lots of it, which I like.

[scottish-guy]

Frequent, I distrust the MSM for far wider reasons than the independence issue.

Whilst I despair at the lack of balance in the press, I accept that it's owned by foreigners who are billionaires and who have an agenda to protect their interests at the expense of everybody's else's. Most often they do not even pretend to be impartial. I get that, and although I despise the direct and (more significantly) the indirect influence the printed press still has, I can at least choose whether or not to buy the product.

The BBC on the other hand feigns impartiality on the back of forcibly extracting large sums of money not even from viewers but from all households whether they want to watch the BBC output or not.

Is the comedian Bob Newhart dead? If not he could surely produce a hilarious monologue about the BBC and how an entire population is forced, on pain of imprisonment, to fund a product which an unknown percentage either do not consume at all or which given a choice would choose not to buy.

It's absolutely hilarious that people for almost a century have been forced to pay to be brainwashed by British State propaganda and at the same time contribute to keeping a small army of paedophiles well-fed and in very highly paid work whilst the organisation pulled out all the stops to cover up their activities.

I trust the above explains my antipathy towards the MSM - and as I said, it runs far deeper than the "Scottish question"

[arsenal]

There is a tendency among the politically marginalised to confuse news with opinion and they are not the same thing. Trump is politically marginalised and therefore feels the media is against him when often all they are reporting are facts. Not only Trump. Others too.

[scottish-guy]

I agree!

People are forced to fund BBC News when (as you rightly say) it's actually BBC Opinion

[arsenal]

Some of it's news, some of it's opinion. People are forced to fund lots of things they don't agree with. The alternative is Hobbes so on balance...

[scottish-guy]

There is nothing wrong with a BBC journalist expressing opinion, provided it's made clear - the problem is of course when opinion is deliberately presented as news

I think we can agree on that?

[arsenal]

Politics is 95 per cent opinion and 5 per cent facts. If you don't like the rules of the game then don't play. Most people should be able to discern the difference.

How many students graduated from Scottish universities last year? I don't know (or care) but whatever the answer is it's a fact.
Have education standards in Scotland gone down, up, or remained the same. Again, I don't care but it's opinion.

And please remember that the BBC for the most part is way more critical of the party in power than it is of the opposition. Your party is in power and with that comes responsibility for everything that goes wrong and not that much credit for that which goes well. So the crash of 2008 was totally The Labour Party's fault whereas very little credit is given for winning the Olympic 2012 bid.

[frequent]

It's absolutely hilarious that people for almost a century have been forced to pay to be brainwashed by British State propaganda and at the same time contribute to keeping a small army of paedophiles well-fed and in very highly paid work whilst the organisation pulled out all the stops to cover up their activities.

I trust the above explains my antipathy towards the MSM - and as I said, it runs far deeper than the "Scottish question"

A great example of confirmation bias

[scottish-guy]

Oh, so it's all my imagination/misinterpretation is it?

With reference to last week's local election results - one of Arsenal's favourite propaganda sheets, the Daily Telegraph now thinks nothing of saying the SNP gained council seats (which caught my attention at the time), lost them (which is what I'd expect from the DT) and gained them again (which just made me guffaw) in the space of four paragraphs

Here's the proof:

DTmay2017.jpg