5 ms·

Reuters is consistently my favorite news source. What I love about them is how they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased as

Reuters is consistently my favorite news source. What I love about them is how they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased as possible. Of course, like any news organization, they have a few biases, but I think that purely because of the position that they're in they are the least biased news source today. They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al Jazeera, and the Times of India, so they can't cater to one crowd's political biases. I'm serious; all these news sources pay for Reuters articles. And even if you don't like Reuters, you've got to respect the speed at which they get out correct news. Before the Twittersphere erupts, before CNN loses its mind, before the alerts on the radio, Reuters has it. And if they don't know something, they say that they don't know it. It can make for frustratingly light articles, but any time I'm annoyed how empty the article is I realize that if it was bigger it'd be fluff or unverified claims.

ErikVandeWater 10y ago
As a supplement to that, it's also good to get news from diverse perspectives (not just left/right). For example, Techdirt and Reason might have ideas that neither NBC nor WSJ are going to give you, and talk about niche topics that don't otherwise hit the radar. R/neutralnews is also a great community for people who want to discuss news with documented facts as a requirement.
- malnourish 10y ago
  NeutralNews is all right, but there are some substantial biases in the comments that people get away with.
malnourish 10y ago
I almost exclusively read Reuters and have turned all my friends onto Reuters. If I could read the AP feeds I would read those too. I'm not looking for what to think, I'm looking for what happened, and Reuters tends to give me that, even if I miss out on some stories.
- akeck 10y ago
  I read AP here: http://hosted.ap.org/ http://hosted.ap.org/
  - malnourish 10y ago
    Excellent! Thank you very much
- masonic 10y ago
  AP is probably the most partisan of the USA wire services. Here's an example: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3c437475b6384b91913d5ffee2b91a22/trumps-secretary-state-pick-headed-senate-approval http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3c437475b6384b91913d5ffee2b91... Note the partisan wording and contrast that with their past, fawning articles about the Pelosi-run House. "GOP pushes..." "Republicans jammed..." "... a warning shot that they might deploy brute political muscle..." "With a near-toxic vapor of divisiveness between the two parties across Capitol Hill, nasty showdowns broke out..." "Busting through a Democratic boycott..." "...dominated by confrontation, even as lawmakers braced for an even more ferocious battle..." "...fueled the fire by urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to 'go nuclear'..." (note that AP calls it the "nuclear option" when Republicans even consider it but used no such terminology when Reid actually implemented it in the last term) "...Wednesday's abruptly called Finance Committee meeting..." etc. Today's SF Chronicle used a more severe headline for this article: "GOP Pastes 2 top Cabinet picks..." ("pastes" being American slang for a violent, successfully-landed punch, not adhering two items together)
  - malnourish 10y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the information. Seeing as I haven't read much of direct AP content I wasn't aware.
gumby 10y ago
> What I love about them is how they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased as possible. As a side point: this is the origin of the "unbiased news" stance: the rise of the third party reporting agencies (Reuters, then AP UPI, AFP), massively accelerated by the telegraph. Previously papers were connected to parties (as they often still are in many countries), but the appearance/practice of being impartial increased sales opportunities. It since became cited as an inherent virtue; obviously not everybody agrees that it is (or if it's even epistemologically possible). Personally I think it's worth trying for.
- mlmlmasd 10y ago
  > but the appearance/practice of being impartial increased sales opportunities. Is this based on any real data? Have there been any credible studies that show unbiased reporting = higher sales?
  - vorotato 10y ago
    You can sell an article to both fox and cnn... duh
tokenizer 10y ago
> They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al Jazeera, and the Times of India, so they can't cater to one crowd's political biases. All of that is mainstream news. This whole fake news thing is a part of the cultural war. Religious/Conservative people simply don't trust Mainstream media. To them, all of them are liberal and highly bias. Enough to omit facts for their narratives. Example: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2012/05/19/just-another-example-of-how-the-media-lies-reuters-this-time/ https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2012/05/19/just-another... Sources, Reports, Officials, Reporters, etc - News is HUMAN god dammit! No such thing as non-bais, and every story should be investigated, and not appeal to the authority of the organization publishing it.
- mikestew 10y ago
  When you follow Reuters method of manipulation you end up with this analogous example: If a stranger said she saw you at McDonald’s eating a cheeseburger; and your neighbor said he also saw you eating a cheeseburger at McDonald’s; well……. ….. as long as the CCTV system at McDonald’s is broken then you can say “evidence fails to show that I ate at McDonald’s”. Though I am not a trial lawyer, it seems to me that the last sentence would be absolutely correct. But when you have a narrative to support...
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  "Religious/Conservative people simply don't trust Mainstream media. To them, all of them are liberal and highly bias." People on the left don't trust the mainstream media either. To them, the mainstream media is way too far to the right and highly biased. For many examples, listen to CounterSpin, a show created by media watchdog group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting).[1] Also, though it's not specifically media-focused, Democracy Now! often reports many instances of right-wing bias in the mainstream media.[2] [1] - http://fair.org/counterspin/ http://fair.org/counterspin/ [2] - https://www.democracynow.org/ https://www.democracynow.org/
smsm42 10y ago
Reuters is certainly not nearly "unbiased". It may be better than US partisan news sources in covering US events, but their biases show elsewhere. E.g. when a terrorist attack by vehicle happened in Israel, Reuters reported it as "Palestinian dies in ramming attack"[1]. The Palestinian who died was the terrorist, but Reuters found that unimportant to mention. Another instance is where Reuters invented a quote from Israel officials out of the blue [2]. There are more examples of this, I just took first two I had at hand. Reuters relies on local freelancers and local reporting bureaus, and some of them fall way short of their proclaimed standards. [1] http://honestreporting.com/reuters-headline-palestinian-car-attacker-victim-of-his-own-assault/ http://honestreporting.com/reuters-headline-palestinian-car-... [2] http://honestreporting.com/reuters-turns-rocket-fire-into-fibs-fabrication-and-fraud/ http://honestreporting.com/reuters-turns-rocket-fire-into-fi...
- chengiz 10y ago
  From a site whose raison d'etre is "Defending Israel from media bias", these examples are not very convincing.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    Why not? It's like saying "surely, from the guys whose raison d'etre is to research nuclear physics, these accelerator data are not very convincing". These people find examples of media bias and publish them. How the fact that they are specializing in doing it somehow invalidates their results?
    - chengiz 10y ago
      Your analogy is not quite correct. I'm not saying Reuters didnt slant those articles in those particular examples but it could be a honest mistake; this site will never report when Reuters slants towards Israel because that is against its raison d'etre, so your examples are unconvincing as to Reuter's purported bias.

ErikVandeWater 10y ago

As a supplement to that, it's also good to get news from diverse perspectives (not just left/right). For example, Techdirt and Reason might have ideas that neither NBC nor WSJ are going to give you, and talk about niche topics that don't otherwise hit the radar. R/neutralnews is also a great community for people who want to discuss news with documented facts as a requirement.

malnourish 10y ago
NeutralNews is all right, but there are some substantial biases in the comments that people get away with.

malnourish 10y ago

I almost exclusively read Reuters and have turned all my friends onto Reuters. If I could read the AP feeds I would read those too. I'm not looking for what to think, I'm looking for what happened, and Reuters tends to give me that, even if I miss out on some stories.

akeck 10y ago
I read AP here: http://hosted.ap.org/ http://hosted.ap.org/
- malnourish 10y ago
  Excellent! Thank you very much
masonic 10y ago
AP is probably the most partisan of the USA wire services. Here's an example: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3c437475b6384b91913d5ffee2b91a22/trumps-secretary-state-pick-headed-senate-approval http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3c437475b6384b91913d5ffee2b91... Note the partisan wording and contrast that with their past, fawning articles about the Pelosi-run House. "GOP pushes..." "Republicans jammed..." "... a warning shot that they might deploy brute political muscle..." "With a near-toxic vapor of divisiveness between the two parties across Capitol Hill, nasty showdowns broke out..." "Busting through a Democratic boycott..." "...dominated by confrontation, even as lawmakers braced for an even more ferocious battle..." "...fueled the fire by urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to 'go nuclear'..." (note that AP calls it the "nuclear option" when Republicans even consider it but used no such terminology when Reid actually implemented it in the last term) "...Wednesday's abruptly called Finance Committee meeting..." etc. Today's SF Chronicle used a more severe headline for this article: "GOP Pastes 2 top Cabinet picks..." ("pastes" being American slang for a violent, successfully-landed punch, not adhering two items together)
- malnourish 10y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the information. Seeing as I haven't read much of direct AP content I wasn't aware.

gumby 10y ago

> What I love about them is how they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased as possible. As a side point: this is the origin of the "unbiased news" stance: the rise of the third party reporting agencies (Reuters, then AP UPI, AFP), massively accelerated by the telegraph. Previously papers were connected to parties (as they often still are in many countries), but the appearance/practice of being impartial increased sales opportunities. It since became cited as an inherent virtue; obviously not everybody agrees that it is (or if it's even epistemologically possible). Personally I think it's worth trying for.

mlmlmasd 10y ago
> but the appearance/practice of being impartial increased sales opportunities. Is this based on any real data? Have there been any credible studies that show unbiased reporting = higher sales?
- vorotato 10y ago
  You can sell an article to both fox and cnn... duh

tokenizer 10y ago

> They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al Jazeera, and the Times of India, so they can't cater to one crowd's political biases. All of that is mainstream news. This whole fake news thing is a part of the cultural war. Religious/Conservative people simply don't trust Mainstream media. To them, all of them are liberal and highly bias. Enough to omit facts for their narratives. Example: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2012/05/19/just-another-example-of-how-the-media-lies-reuters-this-time/ https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2012/05/19/just-another... Sources, Reports, Officials, Reporters, etc - News is HUMAN god dammit! No such thing as non-bais, and every story should be investigated, and not appeal to the authority of the organization publishing it.

mikestew 10y ago
When you follow Reuters method of manipulation you end up with this analogous example: If a stranger said she saw you at McDonald’s eating a cheeseburger; and your neighbor said he also saw you eating a cheeseburger at McDonald’s; well……. ….. as long as the CCTV system at McDonald’s is broken then you can say “evidence fails to show that I ate at McDonald’s”. Though I am not a trial lawyer, it seems to me that the last sentence would be absolutely correct. But when you have a narrative to support...
pmoriarty 10y ago
"Religious/Conservative people simply don't trust Mainstream media. To them, all of them are liberal and highly bias." People on the left don't trust the mainstream media either. To them, the mainstream media is way too far to the right and highly biased. For many examples, listen to CounterSpin, a show created by media watchdog group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting).[1] Also, though it's not specifically media-focused, Democracy Now! often reports many instances of right-wing bias in the mainstream media.[2] [1] - http://fair.org/counterspin/ http://fair.org/counterspin/ [2] - https://www.democracynow.org/ https://www.democracynow.org/

smsm42 10y ago

Reuters is certainly not nearly "unbiased". It may be better than US partisan news sources in covering US events, but their biases show elsewhere. E.g. when a terrorist attack by vehicle happened in Israel, Reuters reported it as "Palestinian dies in ramming attack"[1]. The Palestinian who died was the terrorist, but Reuters found that unimportant to mention. Another instance is where Reuters invented a quote from Israel officials out of the blue [2]. There are more examples of this, I just took first two I had at hand. Reuters relies on local freelancers and local reporting bureaus, and some of them fall way short of their proclaimed standards. [1] http://honestreporting.com/reuters-headline-palestinian-car-attacker-victim-of-his-own-assault/ http://honestreporting.com/reuters-headline-palestinian-car-... [2] http://honestreporting.com/reuters-turns-rocket-fire-into-fibs-fabrication-and-fraud/ http://honestreporting.com/reuters-turns-rocket-fire-into-fi...

chengiz 10y ago
From a site whose raison d'etre is "Defending Israel from media bias", these examples are not very convincing.
- smsm42 10y ago
  Why not? It's like saying "surely, from the guys whose raison d'etre is to research nuclear physics, these accelerator data are not very convincing". These people find examples of media bias and publish them. How the fact that they are specializing in doing it somehow invalidates their results?
  - chengiz 10y ago
    Your analogy is not quite correct. I'm not saying Reuters didnt slant those articles in those particular examples but it could be a honest mistake; this site will never report when Reuters slants towards Israel because that is against its raison d'etre, so your examples are unconvincing as to Reuter's purported bias.