SKEPTIC’S GUIDE TO INVESTING

Breaking News: Media is Broken

• Steve Davenport, Clement Miller

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We explore how news media affects investment decision making and identify reliable sources of financial information in today's fragmented media landscape.

• Traditional media networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX) prioritize sensationalism and local stories over global context
• Bloomberg and Reuters provide better global perspectives on how various markets interconnect
• News media has shifted from educating viewers to entertaining them for ratings
• Corporate ownership of media creates conflicts of interest with government oversight
• Seeking Alpha offers valuable investment data and subscriber articles without political bias
• Wall Street Journal delivers quality factual reporting alongside opinion sections
• Social media and TikTok spread misleading investment information, particularly about cryptocurrency
• AI-generated content presents growing concerns for verifying authenticity of news
• Geographic divides in media consumption reinforce regional biases
• Verifying sources and being selective about information consumption is essential

Take a few minutes to evaluate your news sources and focus on channels providing accurate, global perspectives that can truly inform your investment decisions.


Straight Talk for All - Nonsense for None

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Disclaimer - These podcasts are not intended as investment advice. Individuals please consult your own investment, tax and legal advisors. They provide these insights for educational purposes only.

Clement Miller:

Hello everybody and welcome to Skeptic's Guide to Investing. I'm Clem Miller and I'm here with my partner, steve Davenport, and today we're going to talk about the news media and how we should be looking at different sources of information in order to guide our investment decision making. So, Steve, let's just start right off. Tell me who you like to look at. Which news media do you like to look at for information?

Steve Davenport:

Well, I find the main three media of four networks ABC, NBC, CBS, I guess it's five CNN and Fox in the United States to all be covered in this very local view and everything in the US is what matters and what happens in the rest of the world not so important. You know, I use the example of you know, when there was a typhoon in Thailand and 100,000 people were killed, I watched the evening news and they showed me a casket coming off of a plane from Iraq because one soldier had been killed. And I looked at that and I thought are we really comparing?

Steve Davenport:

The second news story was about the 100,000 people killed in Thailand, but I was like is this really a number one story that people should see at the beginning of the news, or should we have a perspective that, when more lives are affected, if a plane goes down in Michigan and three people are killed and a plane goes down in India and 240 are killed, what's the story? Is the story local or is it a story about bigger things and bigger ideas? And that's where I kind of feel like the media in the US is a little bit too complacent on trying to provide extreme violence and other harrowing tales that are going to be good for ratings and they keep it local and in that way, I think if we're looking for sensational storytelling, that's the media that we have. If we're looking for information to try to make better decisions, I look to Bloomberg or Reuters, bbc, a group who has a perspective, that is, more global groups that look at things in terms of how they all interplay. How do commodities affect interest rates, how do interest rates affect currency rates, how do those things affect the price of oil and what's going to happen to our portfolios if we have a client who has a lot of energy? That, to me, is our role is to find the best information to lead to the best decisions.

Steve Davenport:

And what I would say is news media used to be a source for a lot of good things, and what I feel now is their shows, their hosts or entertainers, the people on, are just trying to push their brand or their product, and it's a commercial on a different level. And I feel that when we look at writers and newspapers, we're losing a key part of the news cycle where people sat down every day and said what can I write to help my reader understand the world and do a better job of living in it? A pretty big goal, but I don't think we can just say well, we're going to get rid of these local newspapers because the AP provides most of the news that we need to know. Well, yeah, I think you might, but there is something about people trying to help people and it used to be that positions in media positions, you know, used to have a lot more respect because people are affected by that ability to be a little bit smarter, do a little bit better. That's been the goal in America for hundreds of years trying to move forward.

Steve Davenport:

And what I think we're doing here is we're battling each other as if the world is a, you know, winner-take-all event instead of saying, in a growth mindset, we all win if we all help each other. And I think that that fundamental difference has made media to me a liability for people instead of something that is going to help, and therefore I look at it and say we got to get back to helping people and that's part of the reason we do this podcast. Think that having a voice out there that says things that aren't said other places, that tries to get people to move their wellness IQ higher, that's important and the media isn't doing it. So I think that podcasters are trying to step in the void and provide regular sources of good ideas to try to make lives better. Do you agree, glenn?

Clement Miller:

I agree, in fact, what I would do. I think it's important to look at history. It's always important to look at history, and you know, for many of us of a certain age, you know, history began with like three or four networks, right? But if you look further back in time, before the existence of television and radio, way long time ago, back towards the American Revolution, prior to the Civil War, you had many, many, many different newspapers. Cities would have half a dozen newspapers no-transcript, and so I I don't see anything particularly wrong with the fact that we're moving into this era of a multiplicity of of pod of podcasters doing things. I do think, however, that there's a problem in that people who are less well-educated, people who don't know much about civics, are not going to be able to distinguish opinion from fact, and aren't going to be able to distinguish opinion from fact and aren't going to be able to distinguish true facts from so-called alternative facts, right, you're just not going to be able to do that. If it says social truth.

Steve Davenport:

by definition, it's going to be the truth, hasn't it? I don't know, Can you use a word like that?

Clement Miller:

and not use it properly. No, going to be the truth hasn't it?

Steve Davenport:

I don't know.

Clement Miller:

You use a word like that and not use it properly. No, there's only one truth. But even even with, um, even with any kind of news or podcasts or whatever you know, just the information you leave out is just as important as the information you leave. You know you actually present. So there's always going to be some slant or some opinion embedded even in seemingly straightforward news. So the problem is not the proliferation of it's a good thing to have a proliferation of podcast views. It's a good thing, uh, but we need to have a more educated populace in order to be able to understand what's going on.

Clement Miller:

You know, one of the things, one of the things I noticed is um, you know, in various travels within the United States, is that you know, if you go to a restaurant, like a sports bar or restaurant or bar or whatever, or you know even like a haircut place or whatever, you have the news on right If you're on the East Coast or the West Coast, it's more likely to be CNN. If you go to the vast middle of the country, it's more likely to be Fox, and so the fact that you've got this, you know these particular networks, you know broadcasting in their particular areas, reinforces opinions in those areas, right, I mean.

Steve Davenport:

I look at this as cycles. Everything is a cycle, it's a sine wave, whether one is going up and one is coming down, and I believe we're in the down strike right now. For what is news and media? I don't think the values are wonderful. I look at Hearst and what Hearst did with his news empire, and he basically was about sensationalism putting pictures of burning buildings, putting pictures of people on the ledge, putting all of these things that were thought to be journalistically improper at the time, and he pushed the boundaries because he was getting more sales. Surprise, surprise, money motivates behavior, and so my problem with what you just said is that you're saying hey, individuals, you need to do better. And what I would say is first, the people who have the licenses, the people who are given government power to run media, they need to do better, because we can't get to I can consume If I, if I teach people how to consume better we still are producing garbage.

Steve Davenport:

Steve, are you saying?

Clement Miller:

are you saying? Are you saying that podcasters should have FCC licenses?

Steve Davenport:

No, I'm saying that we are here for educational purposes, right. And I thought, silly me, I'm just being a little bit crazy here. I thought that the news media was there for educational purposes, right. I didn't think they were trying to get million dollar contracts by being on the morning show.

Clement Miller:

Well, the problem is is that the media is now run by corporations big corporations and so they answer to their shareholders and you know if they're trying to get big contracts, you know what happens when Verizon wants to have more phones in South Dakota.

Steve Davenport:

They need to get Spectrum. They need to apply for Spectrum. They get Spectrum. They need to get spectrum, they need to apply for spectrum, they get spectrum. They open up an office and they says, hey, why does Congress not say anything about media? Because they want media to cover them positively. Boy, that seems like a conflict. How?

Clement Miller:

do we get around that?

Steve Davenport:

conflict. If we don't solve the problem of the information that's being distilled, I don't know how good we can get at the people who are distilling it. It's a problem that needs to be solved from both directions. It's not unidirectional. They're producing good information. People aren't just finding the good information. That's not the problem in my mind. Flunk, the problem is the producers, and the producers have been producing something that is not good. Therefore, shouldn't there be somebody who takes this to task? Isn't there an ombudsman in government that says hey, people, this is. I thought that was Doge. I thought Doge was going to clean this whole stuff out.

Clement Miller:

Do you, do you really want Stephen Miller controlling our, our media?

Steve Davenport:

No, I don't. I want somebody though Clint, I want somebody I don't want anybody.

Clement Miller:

I don't want anybody controlling the media. Okay, I don't want anybody controlling the media.

Steve Davenport:

Okay, I want somebody helping the media to do a better job of serving the listener. Our job is to service the listener. Listener doesn't want to download. He's not going to listen to us. How do we make sure he does? By providing information and details and education that makes his life better. Correct, If people aren't doing that, I mean, do we need another QVC? Do we need another channel to consume more Like? If we look at obesity consumption, the general problems of civics in society and how we treat people, are all these networks additive to the quality of life of Americans?

Clement Miller:

You mean the corporate media?

Steve Davenport:

Yeah, I mean it just keeps growing right. What do you have now? A thousand channels. I mean you can go on and get almost anything right, and it's Steve.

Clement Miller:

You know, I got to say I have given up television. Okay, the only time I turn up Well, first of all I can get I mean I use but you're looking at, first of all I can get, I mean I, I use but you're looking at media on your phone, so that's not really true? No, I have media on my phone but I don't use. I don't turn on the TV and watch the you know, CBS ABC. I don't watch any of those, because I think they're useless.

Clement Miller:

Correct but do you watch CNBC during the day to see how the market's going. Sometimes I'll turn it on to see what's going on with news in the markets. I do that right, but I completely ignore their more sensationalist. So you've given up. I've given up with the conventional corporate media. I used to like CNN a lot. I don't like them so much anymore. Um, fox, I've never been, um you know, attracted to their propaganda.

Steve Davenport:

So, um, if we're trying to help people, where should they go? What should they do? Um, do you have one source that you like to look at for investment ideas and things?

Clement Miller:

So, when it comes to investment ideas, I'm a premium subscriber to Seeking Alpha, which is an investment I don't know what. You would call it an investment online service. Let's call it a service and they you know they provide a lot of data. I use their data, but, at the same time, they have a lot of articles that are written by their subscribers, and these articles are very, very useful to understand what's going on with markets and with particular companies. So I mean, yeah, some are more useful than others, right, but in general, they're quite useful to and what's going on with companies I'm already investing in. So, yeah, that's, and that source is purposefully nonpolitical. Let me put it this way. What they do is they say you know, we have a, we have a special channel within seeking alpha where you can debate politics, and we're going to keep politics out of our main, out of our main channel so I think, it's good.

Clement Miller:

So seeking alpha is is is what I use. I mean, I know this sounds like an advertisement for them. Believe me, it's not an advertisement for them, because there are some.

Steve Davenport:

We don't take any advertising dollars. We don't have advertisers.

Clement Miller:

There are weaknesses to it as well, but I think I'd say my primary is Bloomberg.

Steve Davenport:

I think Bloomberg does a good job of taking an international approach. I think they have their biases, they have their opinion, people who are one side or another, but I think they are very clear that that person is this is his own opinion. It's not the opinion of Bloomberg.

Clement Miller:

Bloomberg is very good. Bloomberg is very good. I'm a subscriber also to Wall Street Journal. I think the Wall Street Journal is excellent in terms of providing commentary or facts and news. Sometimes I disagree with their opinion page.

Steve Davenport:

Yeah, I mean you mentioned another group that you look through for legal questions and legal issues. What's that?

Clement Miller:

Okay. So you know this is more on the legal side and and and I know some of you know this are going to think, oh, clem's just a raging liberal when, because he watches this, but I think it's. I know of no other place to get opinion about legal issues. You know sort of some of the things that came out of the, the does regulation and so on, uh, and the courts, and that's uh, that's Midas, uh, m E, I, d A S, uh, just be aware, when you, when you uh look at that, that they do come at it from a distinct, uh, liberal, anti-trump, uh perspective. You can view them as, like the anti-Fox. You know CNN is no longer the anti-fox, midas is the anti-fox, and they're actually one of the biggest online presences around in terms of providing mostly legal news, and so you know, I found it, you know, a very fascinating place to understand what's going on with all of these legal cases.

Steve Davenport:

Yeah, I mean, I think there's pockets of good information out there. I think there are pockets of of real value that people can find, and that's what I think we need to probably do a little bit more of is sharing links and sharing ideas about where people could find good information. I would love to say that we're you know, I don't want to give up and turn off the TV and say we're just going to ignore this piece of media and say it's not relevant, because, guess what? There's still millions and millions of people watching. So if we make it less relevant and we just let it exist in a state that's of disrepair, then I don't think as a country we're going to be well served. So I think there needs to be a media act that says, first of all, I'm starting to worry about how much of the media itself could be influenced by AI-generated images and AI-generated stories. It feels like that's the next level. And how do we make sure that it's true? How do we make sure it's real? How do we make sure?

Clement Miller:

I hope, just like they require a secondary source, they also do a secondary source for some of the images and I and videos right, but I I'd hate to even ask how this is done currently yeah, you're, you're on to something and I know that we want to wrap up this segment pretty soon. But you know, don't believe, don't believe the things that you see, uh, on posts. You know, like these memes, you can tell what a meme is right away. Right, don't believe these things. They're like short snippets, they're misleading or they're just factually inaccurate. They're meant to create emotional reactions. People react to them and it spreads like wildfire, virally in their networks.

Steve Davenport:

Yeah, I mean, I haven't mentioned TikTok and these things as news.

Clement Miller:

TikTok's the same thing. I think it's entertainment, I don't think it's news. At one point TikTok was infiltrated by Hamas supporters and Hamas was creating all sorts of content for that spread like Wildfire and TikTok, and probably was responsible for generating some of the campus unrest and other things in part.

Steve Davenport:

I don't want to talk about the bad. I'm trying to talk about the main pieces that we can do something about.

Clement Miller:

I think you know we can list five or six places that we know are just cesspools. Also, there's a I mean, TikTok is not investment connected in particular, except in one area, and that's with regard to crypto. And if you're going to get your information about investments off of TikTok and focus on crypto, then you need an education then about what really an investment is, Because crypto is not investing.

Steve Davenport:

Right. I think that this is a good point to probably say goodbye. I think that what we're trying to do for people is, as the media starts to get louder and the talk starts to get more involved, try to do a few minutes of just verifying your sources and verifying the channels that you're watching, and watch less of the channels that you think are inaccurate and read more of the areas that you think are giving you good information, and we're going to try to share that on our podcast today and we'll provide some links and we really appreciate you listening and we really appreciate you listening and we really appreciate your support. So, for the Skeptic's Guide, I'm Steve Davenport and my partner, clem Miller here and we're going to say have a great day and we look forward to talking to you next about Canada. Thanks, Steve.

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Clem Miller, CFA

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Steve Davenport, CFA

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