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I know there are people who will dismiss it as bias, but you can actually assign a quality score to publications quite easily. NYT/Wall Street Journal/The Atlan

I know there are people who will dismiss it as bias, but you can actually assign a quality score to publications quite easily. NYT/Wall Street Journal/The Atlantic/Guardian/Washington Post/The New Yorker vs. breitbart/HuffPost/.... Note that all those stories you're referencing were all broken by the papers I listed. The breitbarts of the world usually just repackage what actual news organizations publish with ideological slant.

pdeuchler 10y ago
That's not bias, it's just over fitting the model
tomsaffell 10y ago
>repackage what actual news organizations publish with ideological slant. Which is what The Economist does - it's been doing so since 1843. Current circulation is over one million, and it's widely respected, though not by all...
- matt4077 10y ago
  There's a bit of a difference in that the actual facts in the Economist are probably trustworthy, but I agree that they argue from a certain (free-market worshipping) point-of-view. It's obviously a scale, and opinions will vary widely. It's not even a problem for journalism to have an opinion (I'd actually argue it's impossible). What readers should demand is a good-faith effort to argue the best version of the opposition's case. At this point, the problem with the US right isn't actually ideology. You can believe that coal is the future, and I'll vote against you, but I'm not looking at CDC statistics to find out when I can expect you to die. It's the complete disregard for the system that's alarming. All over the country, there are polling places, often staffed by the older generation, people from both parties and independents, and the ones I've met always gave me the feeling that they'd defend the integrity of the vote no matter what. I wish I could say the same about the people being elected.
thrden 10y ago
It's worth noting that the "respectable" news organizations that you listed repackage associated press or reuters stories.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Yes, I thought about adding those, then forgot. They're obviously quality news sources. I know there's a lot of criticism of newspapers using agencies, but not for a lack of quality. (And criticizing their use is also a bit questionable – it's kinda like criticizing programmers for using libraries, and nobody has an idea for a business model that works without them)
notahacker 10y ago
tbh, I don't think it's Breitbart/HuffPo's that this is trying to disassociate it from It's the likes of sites so disreputable they have to pretend to be Breitbart, like the Breitbartt.co site which was one of the sources for Denzel Washington's huge, if true (not true) endorsement of Donald Trump that was among Facebook's top trending stories recently. The cynic in me suspects this is at least as much about pointing an accusing finger at social media platforms for not getting their house in order as getting Adsense off sites which tend to opt for far more in-your-face and dubious ad networks anyway.
myowncrapulence 10y ago
Note that all those stories you're referencing were all broken by the papers I listed. Actually, Snowden was turned down by every single newspaper you just listed with the exception of The Guardian.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Wasn't it NYT/Guardian/SPIEGEL that released simultaneously? Also note that he chose to work with these organizations, even though he could have easily posted it online/given it to wikileaks.
  - myowncrapulence 10y ago
    No, they published later after The Guardian and The Washington Post had already covered a majority of the leaks.
bcoates 10y ago
The Atlantic doesn't deserve to be nearly that high; they're a Vox-tier (sub-HuffPo) advertorial garbage house monentizing out the last gasp of their dead brand's reputation. To complicate your linear model of news quality, the National Enquirer routinely publishes batshit nonsense ("Rafael Cruz murdered JFK" and "Scalia was assassinated by a hooker", recently) and has also broken several major real stories nobody else would touch. The Graunaid is even harder to fit on your line; decent-quality and mostly worth reading agitprop from an unapologetically specific slant that rejects objective truth as some sort of bourgeoisie conspiracy. The only thing worse than ignoring them is believing them uncritically. Bias itself is a bad model; everyone's slanted, not everyone is worth reading.

pdeuchler 10y ago

That's not bias, it's just over fitting the model

tomsaffell 10y ago

>repackage what actual news organizations publish with ideological slant. Which is what The Economist does - it's been doing so since 1843. Current circulation is over one million, and it's widely respected, though not by all...

matt4077 10y ago
There's a bit of a difference in that the actual facts in the Economist are probably trustworthy, but I agree that they argue from a certain (free-market worshipping) point-of-view. It's obviously a scale, and opinions will vary widely. It's not even a problem for journalism to have an opinion (I'd actually argue it's impossible). What readers should demand is a good-faith effort to argue the best version of the opposition's case. At this point, the problem with the US right isn't actually ideology. You can believe that coal is the future, and I'll vote against you, but I'm not looking at CDC statistics to find out when I can expect you to die. It's the complete disregard for the system that's alarming. All over the country, there are polling places, often staffed by the older generation, people from both parties and independents, and the ones I've met always gave me the feeling that they'd defend the integrity of the vote no matter what. I wish I could say the same about the people being elected.

thrden 10y ago

It's worth noting that the "respectable" news organizations that you listed repackage associated press or reuters stories.

matt4077 10y ago
Yes, I thought about adding those, then forgot. They're obviously quality news sources. I know there's a lot of criticism of newspapers using agencies, but not for a lack of quality. (And criticizing their use is also a bit questionable – it's kinda like criticizing programmers for using libraries, and nobody has an idea for a business model that works without them)

notahacker 10y ago

tbh, I don't think it's Breitbart/HuffPo's that this is trying to disassociate it from It's the likes of sites so disreputable they have to pretend to be Breitbart, like the Breitbartt.co site which was one of the sources for Denzel Washington's huge, if true (not true) endorsement of Donald Trump that was among Facebook's top trending stories recently. The cynic in me suspects this is at least as much about pointing an accusing finger at social media platforms for not getting their house in order as getting Adsense off sites which tend to opt for far more in-your-face and dubious ad networks anyway.

myowncrapulence 10y ago

Note that all those stories you're referencing were all broken by the papers I listed. Actually, Snowden was turned down by every single newspaper you just listed with the exception of The Guardian.

matt4077 10y ago
Wasn't it NYT/Guardian/SPIEGEL that released simultaneously? Also note that he chose to work with these organizations, even though he could have easily posted it online/given it to wikileaks.
- myowncrapulence 10y ago
  No, they published later after The Guardian and The Washington Post had already covered a majority of the leaks.

bcoates 10y ago

The Atlantic doesn't deserve to be nearly that high; they're a Vox-tier (sub-HuffPo) advertorial garbage house monentizing out the last gasp of their dead brand's reputation. To complicate your linear model of news quality, the National Enquirer routinely publishes batshit nonsense ("Rafael Cruz murdered JFK" and "Scalia was assassinated by a hooker", recently) and has also broken several major real stories nobody else would touch. The Graunaid is even harder to fit on your line; decent-quality and mostly worth reading agitprop from an unapologetically specific slant that rejects objective truth as some sort of bourgeoisie conspiracy. The only thing worse than ignoring them is believing them uncritically. Bias itself is a bad model; everyone's slanted, not everyone is worth reading.