7 ms·

Is there any real neutral/unbiased radio or TV these days? NPR is not that "bad" but I feel I need listen to multiple radios/TVs these days to make a sane decis

by ausjke 11y ago

Is there any real neutral/unbiased radio or TV these days? NPR is not that "bad" but I feel I need listen to multiple radios/TVs these days to make a sane decision, I guess that is just the way it is now, i.e, everybody has to be kind of a news report him/herself but damn we're all short on time.

humanrebar 11y ago
> Is there any real neutral/unbiased radio or TV these days? Is that even possible? News stations that try to do this end up covering politics like horse races, avoiding actually investigating the substance of claims. Take slavery in the U.S. in the early 19th century. How would an unbiased person cover the controversy? "Calhoun said this and that in support of slavery. His poll numbers are up in South Carolina." Is that unbiased? Do we even want that? In my view, dispassionately summarizing some facts is itself taking a stance on the issue, one of dispassion. My current theory is that we just need to be diligent about getting many perspectives on issues and current events, assuming everything is biased in one way or another.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Doesn't that end up with artificially polarizing issues? To make them sound as interesting as possible. This is so common in fact, that we often talk about 'seeing the other side' of an issue, as if issues are naturally polarized. Its worked itself into our language! Larry Niven had an imaginary race in his books called the Motie. They had three arms, two for manipulation and one strong one for holding things. He had them talk of issues as "On one hand, X. On another hand, Y. But on the Gripping Hand, Z!"
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    > Doesn't that end up with artificially polarizing issues? If you only get two sources of news, it probably seems like there are only two sides of the issue, if that's what you mean. But it should be really obvious by the primary races in the U.S., if nothing else, that there's more going on than that. Ideally I would catch some perspectives from at least a news source sympathetic to each. It's pretty apparent to me that there are giant shortfalls here given how surprising the Trump candidacy in particular has been. Lots of stories guessing what Trump voters actually do and think as if they're writing xenoantropology pieces or something. I say that as someone who doesn't really understand his appeal, to be clear.

by ausjke 11y ago

humanrebar 11y ago

> Is there any real neutral/unbiased radio or TV these days? Is that even possible? News stations that try to do this end up covering politics like horse races, avoiding actually investigating the substance of claims. Take slavery in the U.S. in the early 19th century. How would an unbiased person cover the controversy? "Calhoun said this and that in support of slavery. His poll numbers are up in South Carolina." Is that unbiased? Do we even want that? In my view, dispassionately summarizing some facts is itself taking a stance on the issue, one of dispassion. My current theory is that we just need to be diligent about getting many perspectives on issues and current events, assuming everything is biased in one way or another.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Doesn't that end up with artificially polarizing issues? To make them sound as interesting as possible. This is so common in fact, that we often talk about 'seeing the other side' of an issue, as if issues are naturally polarized. Its worked itself into our language! Larry Niven had an imaginary race in his books called the Motie. They had three arms, two for manipulation and one strong one for holding things. He had them talk of issues as "On one hand, X. On another hand, Y. But on the Gripping Hand, Z!"
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > Doesn't that end up with artificially polarizing issues? If you only get two sources of news, it probably seems like there are only two sides of the issue, if that's what you mean. But it should be really obvious by the primary races in the U.S., if nothing else, that there's more going on than that. Ideally I would catch some perspectives from at least a news source sympathetic to each. It's pretty apparent to me that there are giant shortfalls here given how surprising the Trump candidacy in particular has been. Lots of stories guessing what Trump voters actually do and think as if they're writing xenoantropology pieces or something. I say that as someone who doesn't really understand his appeal, to be clear.