4 ms·

News companies all have owners and management. I think it is important to be informed about who the owners of newspapers are, and what their political views are

News companies all have owners and management. I think it is important to be informed about who the owners of newspapers are, and what their political views are, because ultimately the owner will hire and fire the Chief Editor who sets the tone for the paper. It is also important to know what the Chief Editor's political views are too. Its important to ask yourself why you trust a certain news outlet.

jonathanstrange 10y ago
I disagree with you (a lot, actually). You can never trust just one news outlet alone, but only ever several news outlets+reputed press agencies. That doesn't mean that you need to compulsively check all of them constantly, though, and that was my whole point. If there is some real news to share, all newspapers will quickly jump on it anyway, which a quick comparison will easily confirm. You can read any reputable well-established newspaper in the world whose language you understand and be well-informed enough for anything except for making particular business decisions. It doesn't matter at all whether the newspaper is right wing and conservative or liberal and progressive. That's because they report the same daily news which is based on the same reality, and any newspaper worth reading clearly distinguishes between opinion and news. I've compared many newspapers during my lifetime, and the only differences between them in the news sections is in the selection (what goes to front, what's on page 3) and some bias in the presentation, and neither small differences in the selection nor any bias in the presentation is of much relevance to any adult with a brain of his own. The tone of the paper is vastly irrelevant for its news contents, it only influences whether you personally like editorials and invited opinions or not, and these are not news, of course.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  That may or may not be true in the US. It's very much not true in the UK. The far-right crazy papers, specifically the Mail and the Express, are notorious for leading with spurious non-stories and for making up post-factual "journalism" when it suits them. You'll get a very distorted view of the world if you rely on them for accurate news reporting. Non-political stories - major accidents, earthquakes, and so on - are more likely to be reported in a consistent way across all the outlets. But anything with even the faintest hint of a political angle - which includes a lot of news - will be mangled by each outlet's political slant.
  - jonathanstrange 10y ago
    That's interesting, I didn't know that. I didn't have yellow press (aka "boulevard journalism) in mind, though, to which I would definitely count Dailymail, Express or the German Bild. They tick differently and I wouldn't recommend any of them as a source of any information.

jonathanstrange 10y ago

I disagree with you (a lot, actually). You can never trust just one news outlet alone, but only ever several news outlets+reputed press agencies. That doesn't mean that you need to compulsively check all of them constantly, though, and that was my whole point. If there is some real news to share, all newspapers will quickly jump on it anyway, which a quick comparison will easily confirm. You can read any reputable well-established newspaper in the world whose language you understand and be well-informed enough for anything except for making particular business decisions. It doesn't matter at all whether the newspaper is right wing and conservative or liberal and progressive. That's because they report the same daily news which is based on the same reality, and any newspaper worth reading clearly distinguishes between opinion and news. I've compared many newspapers during my lifetime, and the only differences between them in the news sections is in the selection (what goes to front, what's on page 3) and some bias in the presentation, and neither small differences in the selection nor any bias in the presentation is of much relevance to any adult with a brain of his own. The tone of the paper is vastly irrelevant for its news contents, it only influences whether you personally like editorials and invited opinions or not, and these are not news, of course.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
That may or may not be true in the US. It's very much not true in the UK. The far-right crazy papers, specifically the Mail and the Express, are notorious for leading with spurious non-stories and for making up post-factual "journalism" when it suits them. You'll get a very distorted view of the world if you rely on them for accurate news reporting. Non-political stories - major accidents, earthquakes, and so on - are more likely to be reported in a consistent way across all the outlets. But anything with even the faintest hint of a political angle - which includes a lot of news - will be mangled by each outlet's political slant.
- jonathanstrange 10y ago
  That's interesting, I didn't know that. I didn't have yellow press (aka "boulevard journalism) in mind, though, to which I would definitely count Dailymail, Express or the German Bild. They tick differently and I wouldn't recommend any of them as a source of any information.