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The Economist has a free-market bias that they openly admit, but they tend to be good at distinguishing opinion from facts and take several steps (such as makin

The Economist has a free-market bias that they openly admit, but they tend to be good at distinguishing opinion from facts and take several steps (such as making the journalists anonymous) to help minimize influence. Also, it was good enough for Karl Marx - hardly a free-market champion. The Hill is surprisingly good for DC politics news. The English version of Al Jazeera is Saudi-funded but usually covers stories fairly. (The arabic version is outright propaganda and should be avoided). Vice News is pretty good. They have a new HBO show coming out. The Intercept tends to get its facts right and sources them well. It's pro-Snowden and pro-Wikileaks but I haven't noticed any egregious slanting of the truth, or outright lies so far. Even CNN (really!) has a couple of "real" journalists left working for them. The only one that seems to have enough clout to avoid editorial meddling is Fareed Zakaria (GPS). John Oliver is biased, especially in terms of pro-Clinton content but his facts are usually correct. He's also funny. Le Monde Diplomatique (French newspaper) used to be very good but I haven't read it in some time. The BBC is generally accurate (and I give them props for funding an undercover investigation of their own director!) but I'd generally ignore it for hot-button UK-based political issues. It's one of the few sources that are legally-bound to be impartial however so they generally don't get TOO egregious. The WSJ is still excellent for business news. Similarly the Financial Times in the UK. I'd largely ignore anything else they print however. For the rest: I suggest just reading a story and then going straight to the source material to see how trustworthy it is. Any story that simply references another news outlet can be ignored - keep digging until you get to the actual sources then ask yourself if they are credible.

olegious 10y ago
As much as I respect The Economist, they have a very strong anti-Russian bias in their reporting.
tinalumfoil 10y ago
As somebody who follows about 75% of those sources, those are definitely not the places to get unbiased news. Editorials, perspectives and opinion-based articles maybe, but half those sources don't even make being unbiased a goal.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sycril 10y ago
I decided to finally make an account because some of the sources that you listed are not only biased but outright wrong. Al Jazeera is actually funded by Qatar, and you can read about the issues that they have here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_c... . This includes the English version. You can't call CNN unbiased just because one reported has so far been good. In every subject that John Oliver reported on that I knew a bit about, I had to stop due to the amount of fallacies. For example, in one of the most recent ones, he jokes about how police worry about people armed with knives. He then shows a clip of a police officer explaining why knives are dangerous, but cuts him off in order to laugh at how stupid he is. Let me explain as a former soldier exactly why criminals with knives are dangerous. While in striking distance (an arms length) it takes someone with a knife in his hand a fraction of a second to cause damage. Whereas it can take a trained soldier (I assume police as well) to draw, cock, aim, and fire a gun up to 2 seconds. 2 seconds might sound like not a lot but there was a study done that showed that if a knife man was armed and within 21 feet, he will be able to attack a gun man with the gun in the harness. The BBC has its issues as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC In the end, if you want a balanced view of the world. I would recommend listening to sources that state their bias from both sides.
- ramtatatam 10y ago
  Why people down-voted this comment? Nobody bothered to actually leave some feedback?
- toyg 10y ago
  The correct objection to John Oliver being quoted in a journalistic context is simply that "John Oliver is a comedian, not a reporter". The fact that he occasionally rises to a level of journalism that real news outlets fail to reach should be considered an indictment of such outlets, not an endorsement of Oliver's standards. > I would recommend listening to sources that state their bias from both sides. s/both/all/ , unless you're caught in the fallacy that there always two and only two sides to a story. Anyway I used to think along similar lines, but to be honest, the rise of Berlusconi, Fox News, "shock jocks" and so on, basically turned me off to the whole idea. There is no "balance" to be found when one side is completely unhinged and wilfully lies all the time. By all means learn to discern bias, but it's entirely acceptable to simply discard sources altogether when they are too poisonous.

olegious 10y ago

As much as I respect The Economist, they have a very strong anti-Russian bias in their reporting.

tinalumfoil 10y ago

As somebody who follows about 75% of those sources, those are definitely not the places to get unbiased news. Editorials, perspectives and opinion-based articles maybe, but half those sources don't even make being unbiased a goal.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sycril 10y ago

I decided to finally make an account because some of the sources that you listed are not only biased but outright wrong. Al Jazeera is actually funded by Qatar, and you can read about the issues that they have here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_c... . This includes the English version. You can't call CNN unbiased just because one reported has so far been good. In every subject that John Oliver reported on that I knew a bit about, I had to stop due to the amount of fallacies. For example, in one of the most recent ones, he jokes about how police worry about people armed with knives. He then shows a clip of a police officer explaining why knives are dangerous, but cuts him off in order to laugh at how stupid he is. Let me explain as a former soldier exactly why criminals with knives are dangerous. While in striking distance (an arms length) it takes someone with a knife in his hand a fraction of a second to cause damage. Whereas it can take a trained soldier (I assume police as well) to draw, cock, aim, and fire a gun up to 2 seconds. 2 seconds might sound like not a lot but there was a study done that showed that if a knife man was armed and within 21 feet, he will be able to attack a gun man with the gun in the harness. The BBC has its issues as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC In the end, if you want a balanced view of the world. I would recommend listening to sources that state their bias from both sides.

ramtatatam 10y ago
Why people down-voted this comment? Nobody bothered to actually leave some feedback?
toyg 10y ago
The correct objection to John Oliver being quoted in a journalistic context is simply that "John Oliver is a comedian, not a reporter". The fact that he occasionally rises to a level of journalism that real news outlets fail to reach should be considered an indictment of such outlets, not an endorsement of Oliver's standards. > I would recommend listening to sources that state their bias from both sides. s/both/all/ , unless you're caught in the fallacy that there always two and only two sides to a story. Anyway I used to think along similar lines, but to be honest, the rise of Berlusconi, Fox News, "shock jocks" and so on, basically turned me off to the whole idea. There is no "balance" to be found when one side is completely unhinged and wilfully lies all the time. By all means learn to discern bias, but it's entirely acceptable to simply discard sources altogether when they are too poisonous.