Do you trust your news source?

Today was one of those rare occasions that I was actually saw some TV news (assuming CCN counts as news, I have my doubts, but that will come later). See as I don't have a TV I don't watch the news on TV, funny that eh? Virtually all my news is obtained through the internet and the morning BBC broadcast on a local station. What is interesting is that I seem to avoid the standard US new media outlets like the plague. On the web I look for the versions of the stories by CBC, BBC or Reuters (maybe they are US based, but they are not mainstream corporate). Now some of you may ask why I avoid the big US news sources (i.e. CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC...). Well I don't trust them to give me the proper news.

Here's an example of what I mean, and how the focus of the news is blatantly wrong. Watching CNN today I was able to see some of a live broadcast of the press conference with Bush and Putin (for those not in the know, he's the Russian President). As always CNN had it's ticker taking up the bottom of the screen, as usual it was useless information (though sometimes it's just gold). The remainder of the screen was split three ways, featuring Putin behind the podium, the back of the heads of a couple of reporters and the US crest. The way the screen was split one image took up the left 2/3 of the screen the other two images were stacked in the right 1/3. So here's the million dollar question, what took up 2/3 of the screen? The President of Russia, the back of a reporter's head asking the question or the US emblem? Give up? Well it was the emblem! Not the Russian President, the US emblem! Here's another question, what the hell does the emblem have to do with Putin?

That is why I don't trust major US newscasts, they are presenting a nationalist item in a situation where it is not relevant or necessary. CNN also inserted an image of the White House on several occasions.

Now an even bigger concern that I have is the fact that some, like FOX News, have their own stores? Since when is news supposed to be a profit making business? Ok, it always has been presented to make a profit, I'm not that naive. But when you are going as far as merchandising doesn't it seem that there is a great potential conflict of interest. After all, do you want to report the bad news now, it may reduce the sales of your travel mugs? I don't think that state controlled media is the way to go, but I also don't think that news should be capitalistic to this extent. More realistically news should be a not-for-profit business, that I would trust a whole hell of a lot more. So feel free to tune into me any time, because I'm certainly not making a profit but I'll give you all the op-ed pieces you can want ;)