3 ms·

This is another case of bizarre false equivalency. On the one hand, I can see why you would quibble with the New York Times' wording here. B y saying that only

This is another case of bizarre false equivalency. On the one hand, I can see why you would quibble with the New York Times' wording here. B y saying that only a third agree, they imply (though weakly, I think, that two thirds disagree). But is this really in the same league as, e.g.,: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/01/03/dortmund-mob-attack-police-church-alight/ http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/01/03/dortmund-mob-atta... I might be with you if your claim was just that the New York Times sometimes exhibits a liberal slant. And your citation would provide a perfectly defensible case in point. But to defend the claim that the New York Times is in the same league as Breitbart? Absurd.

CWuestefeld 10y ago
Have you any suggestions about how we might quantify this for a meaningful comparison? I don't.
- pdabbadabba 10y ago
  Well, I guess it's obvious how one could do this. Read everything that both have published in the last 18 months, and rate each on a scale from "completely true" to "makes a few misleading claims about relatively unimportant issues" to "makes a few misleading claims about important issues," to "blatantly reports misinformation about events in the world that never occurred, but would be significant if they had, in a way likely calculated to inflame the passions of its readers." (And possibly some intermediate scores to differentiate between falsehoods published as hard news, and falsehoods that are discussed within editorials.) But I don't have the time to do that. And frankly, I don't have to in order to make a "meaningful comparison." I read the New York Times (and a few other outlets) every day, so I have a good sense of how much nonsense they publish. (I admit that I probably don't detect all of it, but I also don't read it completely uncritically.) And while I don't read/watch Fox News or Breitbart regularly, I look at them from time to time. One doesn't need to resort to quantification to see the difference. If it were a close question it might be necessary to have a more robust methodology. But it isn't. Fox News, and especially Bretibart, are clearly much much worse.

CWuestefeld 10y ago

Have you any suggestions about how we might quantify this for a meaningful comparison? I don't.

pdabbadabba 10y ago
Well, I guess it's obvious how one could do this. Read everything that both have published in the last 18 months, and rate each on a scale from "completely true" to "makes a few misleading claims about relatively unimportant issues" to "makes a few misleading claims about important issues," to "blatantly reports misinformation about events in the world that never occurred, but would be significant if they had, in a way likely calculated to inflame the passions of its readers." (And possibly some intermediate scores to differentiate between falsehoods published as hard news, and falsehoods that are discussed within editorials.) But I don't have the time to do that. And frankly, I don't have to in order to make a "meaningful comparison." I read the New York Times (and a few other outlets) every day, so I have a good sense of how much nonsense they publish. (I admit that I probably don't detect all of it, but I also don't read it completely uncritically.) And while I don't read/watch Fox News or Breitbart regularly, I look at them from time to time. One doesn't need to resort to quantification to see the difference. If it were a close question it might be necessary to have a more robust methodology. But it isn't. Fox News, and especially Bretibart, are clearly much much worse.