3 ms·

This is a great point and pretty much mirrors my own views. I read the NYT but I'm under no pretense it's "neutral" or "fair and balanced". It is a highly parti

This is a great point and pretty much mirrors my own views. I read the NYT but I'm under no pretense it's "neutral" or "fair and balanced". It is a highly partisan, albeit factual, news source that is selectively edited and clearly pushes a very specific worldview, through which every story is filtered. This worldview includes beliefs like: unions are always good, capitalism is at best suspect and makes a few rich, at worse a primary driver of inequality, all inequality is bad, middle-class wage stagnation is a huge problem, all government spending is good, regulation is the answer to any problem and any who oppose it are misguided/stupid, all law enforcement is racist/generally suspect, and my personal favorite, that some cabal of powerful people meet and regularly conspire to screw over ordinary "middle class Americans" (my wife and I call these hypothetical people "mustache twirlers", generally evil white men with white Persian lap cats and snifters of expensive cognac). As a practical matter, I think the only thing a person can do is consciously seek out both sides of the story. Read a credible conservative daily (WSJ, Chicago Tribune) and a left-leaning Sunday paper (WaPo/NYT)/news magazine. Get both sides of the issue and see which you find more persuasive.

throwaway87378 7y ago
> a left-leaning Sunday paper (WaPo/NYT)/news magazine. The fact that either the Washington Post or the New York Times is considered left-leaning is one of the problems in US media. They are both corporate rags pushing the neo-liberal plutocrat agenda. Try Jacobin or the London Review of Books as a somewhat left of center starters.
wwweston 7y ago
More than one news source is smart. The above description of the NYT, however, is (a) not only a conservative's idea of what an opposing partisan newspaper would look like, it's almost a parody of such an idea (b) only sustainable through the lens of confirmation bias.
Ellington 7y ago
WaPo are NYT do not lean left in any way. They are neoliberal media and push a corporatist agenda. Look at how they treat Bernie Sanders, the first leftist to ever run for president of the USA in my lifetime.

throwaway87378 7y ago

> a left-leaning Sunday paper (WaPo/NYT)/news magazine. The fact that either the Washington Post or the New York Times is considered left-leaning is one of the problems in US media. They are both corporate rags pushing the neo-liberal plutocrat agenda. Try Jacobin or the London Review of Books as a somewhat left of center starters.

wwweston 7y ago

More than one news source is smart. The above description of the NYT, however, is (a) not only a conservative's idea of what an opposing partisan newspaper would look like, it's almost a parody of such an idea (b) only sustainable through the lens of confirmation bias.

Ellington 7y ago

WaPo are NYT do not lean left in any way. They are neoliberal media and push a corporatist agenda. Look at how they treat Bernie Sanders, the first leftist to ever run for president of the USA in my lifetime.