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I'm getting downvoted for my post, so perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough. I know there are numerous left-leaning publications that are unreliable, like
by teachrdan 8y ago
I'm getting downvoted for my post, so perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough. I know there are numerous left-leaning publications that are unreliable, like the Huffington Post. But there are ample others, like the NYT, Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News, etc. I can read instead. I realize none of these publications have a perfect track record, but they are relatively transparent in admitting to and correcting their errors.
On to the point of whether publications like the Economist are left or not. This may be a matter of whether you consider neoliberal policies to be conservative. I personally believe that the Economist's position on privatizing industries, selling national assets, minimizing worker protections in the form of minimum wage laws, etc. to all be extremely conservative.
I happen to be more sympathetic to opening borders to immigration, which the Economist supports. And the Economist is very much anti-death penalty, and, as others have pointed out, they are socially liberal (in the US sense) in a number of other ways. But at the end of the day this is a magazine called The Economist, and their economic views are mostly in direct opposition to mine.
But I'll still read it, because I think it's a mostly fact-based publication.
- oldcynic 8y agoMy preferred sanity check was the FT but sadly they stopped letting you read a few pieces free a month. Since the Telegraph remade themselves downmarket behind a paywall the only other I can think of is Reuters. Reuters' coverage of environment and climate change is dubious. Economist describe themselves as "extreme centre" and have supported both right and left at different times. So they're likely to remain hard to precisely pin down. :)
- vorpalhex 8y agoSo the general method for analyzing political leaning/bias is by analyzing not the stated policy positions but the self declared leaning of the audience. The reason for that is the bias of any given position is very difficult to calculate and political identities are heavily nuanced across the entire spectrum. In addition, most people don't subscribe to well fixed ideological positions on most issues - and the line of being moderate shifts over time. But yes, as I said earlier, most news is a bit liberal leaning so news isn't perfectly aligned and in general there are much more liberal news sources then conservative news sources. In general your best bet is to read a lot of news sources, understand that all news has some bias (towards increasing readership, as well as a slight liberal lean), and do your best to kind of meet in the middle. Be aware of general logical fallacies and try to correct for them as best you can, and always question everything.
- lopmotr 8y agoThis might not appeal to you but there are a lot of reasonable non-nutty right wing news commentators on Youtube. It's not really news but they inform you of news stories and put their opinion on them. They seem more sensible than Fox News and don't have quite the same rigid set of political beliefs. They also have their opposition Youtubers who do their best to find fault in what each other says. I've started to think the idea of left and right wing are grossly over-simplistic. They might have made sense in the days of mass media where there was no room for personal differences but now you can find popular Youtubers who support a mixture of traditionally left and right ideas.