7 ms·

Because if it ain't fox news or breitbart, it ain't fer me, yeehaw. Washington comPost!

colordrops 9y ago
No, because the Washington Post is a political tool owned by Jeff Bezos, and pushes a neo-liberal agenda. It cuts both ways. They ran 16 negative stories in half a day against Bernie Sanders during the election: http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-on-bernie-sanders-in-16-hours/ http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories...
- cholantesh 9y ago
  Every newspaper has an editorial voice. It is acknowledged that the Post's is neoliberal, but as the OP is reporting and not editorial, it's a red herring.
  - colordrops 9y ago
    The problem is that the lines between reporting and editorial are severely blurred in most publications. Just because the heading doesn't say "Opinion" or "Editorial" doesn't mean that the article isn't packed full of loaded headlines, biases, willful misinformation, and convenient leaving out of certain aspects of a story, usually driven from the top of the organization. I'd suggest reading Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky for more information on the topic.
    - cholantesh 9y ago
      I've read Necessary Illusions; I had understood they covered pretty much the same ground, is that not the case? Anyway, all of the articles on FAIR's list were opinion pieces. If there's an analysis of its reporting of a pertinent event as compared to a less compromised source, it would help.
      - colordrops 9y ago
        You proved my point. Only TWO of the articles on FAIR's list are marked as "Opinion" or "Editorial". I checked every single one on WaPo's site.
        cholantesh 9y ago
        That's probably because those are the only ones that were also in the print edition. The others are blog or analysis pieces. Which, by definition, are opinion pieces. One of the section headings even includes the word blog in its name! That seems pretty clear to me.
        colordrops 9y ago
        By who's definition are blog pieces automatically opinion? That's my whole point - it's not obvious what is and what isn't an opinion piece, and your average reader is not going to know the difference or notice. Furthermore it's not like writing an article is like some closed form mathematical structure. A supposedly researched and referenced "non opinion" article is typically full of implicit opinion.
turc1656 9y ago
WaPo sucks, as do Fox News, Breitbart, and HuffPo (among others). None of them should be taken seriously. They're all rags that have so much political slant they should be eligible for tax free status as components of their respective political parties. None of them should be treated as "news" sites.
- jrimbault 9y ago
  I'm drawing a comparison with gadget reviews (MKBHD youtube), but isn't it better to get news from an outlet you know the leanings and interests of than of one you don't ? I'm paraphrasing MKBHD here, but I know his tastes and how they differ from mine, thus I can infer good information from his reviews by working out the differences. It may be less easy to do with political news -which are even more emotionally loaded than an Apple Watch review- than with gadget reviews, but it's worth it in my opinion.
  - turc1656 9y ago
    I get what you're saying, and there is certainly a place for that. For example, just this week I saw the WaPo headlines about Trump supposedly sharing classified intelligence with Russian diplomats. Now maybe that's true. But my spidey sense was tingling as I read the articles from all the major news outlets. I saw not one of them was calling for impeachment for what would absolutely be a crime if it is true. And I saw not one of them was calling for charges to be levied, which I would expect people who dislike him to be rooting for since it's precisely the same sort of crime that Trump wanted Hillary in prison for. The articles also mention how the third-party source didn't approve for the info to be shared with Russia. All of this combined indicates to me that the information isn't "classified" at all. It's just considered sensitive - and that's a massive difference. One that would make all the headlines factually inaccurate. And since none of the media outlets were calling for action to be taken, I think they are fully aware that the info wasn't actually classified. But more importantly, I find the real risk isn't in what/how they are reporting and being aware of the slant, but rather in what they are intentionally not reporting on. The issue at its core is information asymmetry. No one individual can stay on top of everything going on in the world which is why we rely on information sources to sort it out and keep us informed. But they can't be trusted - any of them. They all have agendas and biases. The only way is to expose yourself to information from multiple sources with different opinions so that you can, hopefully, wade through all the bullshit and actually get to the facts. Also, with something like gadget reviews, you can close that information gap by purchasing it and testing it yourself. You can easily determine if someone is full of crap. You can't easily do that when it comes to politics and world news. And the risk to society with our current media/news system is extraordinary. People follow the sources that they agree with and it becomes a bubble for them that they live in. Those sources rarely ever introduce anything that goes against their narrative grain so you get a positive feedback loop where people's opinions are strengthened simply because of the information they choose to consume. It's like how so many people on Twitter and Facebook couldn't comprehend how Trump won because they 1) don't associate with anyone who supported him and 2) they only followed people with the same political beliefs - so they had no idea what his true support level was. /rant

No, because the Washington Post is a political tool owned by Jeff Bezos, and pushes a neo-liberal agenda. It cuts both ways. They ran 16 negative stories in half a day against Bernie Sanders during the election: http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-on-bernie-sanders-in-16-hours/ http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories...

cholantesh 9y ago
Every newspaper has an editorial voice. It is acknowledged that the Post's is neoliberal, but as the OP is reporting and not editorial, it's a red herring.
- colordrops 9y ago
  The problem is that the lines between reporting and editorial are severely blurred in most publications. Just because the heading doesn't say "Opinion" or "Editorial" doesn't mean that the article isn't packed full of loaded headlines, biases, willful misinformation, and convenient leaving out of certain aspects of a story, usually driven from the top of the organization. I'd suggest reading Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky for more information on the topic.
  - cholantesh 9y ago
    I've read Necessary Illusions; I had understood they covered pretty much the same ground, is that not the case? Anyway, all of the articles on FAIR's list were opinion pieces. If there's an analysis of its reporting of a pertinent event as compared to a less compromised source, it would help.
    - colordrops 9y ago
      You proved my point. Only TWO of the articles on FAIR's list are marked as "Opinion" or "Editorial". I checked every single one on WaPo's site.
      - cholantesh 9y ago
        That's probably because those are the only ones that were also in the print edition. The others are blog or analysis pieces. Which, by definition, are opinion pieces. One of the section headings even includes the word blog in its name! That seems pretty clear to me.
        colordrops 9y ago
        By who's definition are blog pieces automatically opinion? That's my whole point - it's not obvious what is and what isn't an opinion piece, and your average reader is not going to know the difference or notice. Furthermore it's not like writing an article is like some closed form mathematical structure. A supposedly researched and referenced "non opinion" article is typically full of implicit opinion.

turc1656 9y ago

WaPo sucks, as do Fox News, Breitbart, and HuffPo (among others). None of them should be taken seriously. They're all rags that have so much political slant they should be eligible for tax free status as components of their respective political parties. None of them should be treated as "news" sites.

jrimbault 9y ago
I'm drawing a comparison with gadget reviews (MKBHD youtube), but isn't it better to get news from an outlet you know the leanings and interests of than of one you don't ? I'm paraphrasing MKBHD here, but I know his tastes and how they differ from mine, thus I can infer good information from his reviews by working out the differences. It may be less easy to do with political news -which are even more emotionally loaded than an Apple Watch review- than with gadget reviews, but it's worth it in my opinion.
- turc1656 9y ago
  I get what you're saying, and there is certainly a place for that. For example, just this week I saw the WaPo headlines about Trump supposedly sharing classified intelligence with Russian diplomats. Now maybe that's true. But my spidey sense was tingling as I read the articles from all the major news outlets. I saw not one of them was calling for impeachment for what would absolutely be a crime if it is true. And I saw not one of them was calling for charges to be levied, which I would expect people who dislike him to be rooting for since it's precisely the same sort of crime that Trump wanted Hillary in prison for. The articles also mention how the third-party source didn't approve for the info to be shared with Russia. All of this combined indicates to me that the information isn't "classified" at all. It's just considered sensitive - and that's a massive difference. One that would make all the headlines factually inaccurate. And since none of the media outlets were calling for action to be taken, I think they are fully aware that the info wasn't actually classified. But more importantly, I find the real risk isn't in what/how they are reporting and being aware of the slant, but rather in what they are intentionally not reporting on. The issue at its core is information asymmetry. No one individual can stay on top of everything going on in the world which is why we rely on information sources to sort it out and keep us informed. But they can't be trusted - any of them. They all have agendas and biases. The only way is to expose yourself to information from multiple sources with different opinions so that you can, hopefully, wade through all the bullshit and actually get to the facts. Also, with something like gadget reviews, you can close that information gap by purchasing it and testing it yourself. You can easily determine if someone is full of crap. You can't easily do that when it comes to politics and world news. And the risk to society with our current media/news system is extraordinary. People follow the sources that they agree with and it becomes a bubble for them that they live in. Those sources rarely ever introduce anything that goes against their narrative grain so you get a positive feedback loop where people's opinions are strengthened simply because of the information they choose to consume. It's like how so many people on Twitter and Facebook couldn't comprehend how Trump won because they 1) don't associate with anyone who supported him and 2) they only followed people with the same political beliefs - so they had no idea what his true support level was. /rant