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News is reported by humans and humans have bias, nobody doubts that. A responsible consumer of the news should know that, and take it into account, but it's not

by paulgb 7y ago

News is reported by humans and humans have bias, nobody doubts that. A responsible consumer of the news should know that, and take it into account, but it's not in and of itself an excuse for throwing out the fact-finding that journalists do. One of the publications I trust the most (WSJ) is one that is editorially least aligned with my own biases. It doesn't make me doubt their factual reporting.

keiferski 7y ago
The thing is - reporting “the facts” means different things to different people. It’s very possible to write two contradictory articles that each contains only facts. The trick is to only select certain facts that support your point of view and omit facts that don’t. Lying by omission isn’t really a detectable or punishable offense. It gets even more complex when “the facts” are based on a previous narrative which itself isn’t investigated for truthfulness. This phenomenon is easy to see if you compare two ideologically opposite media websites, like Vox and Fox. I’m not sure if there is any solution other than to read multiple news sources, which unfortunately just feeds the media machine even more.
- paulgb 7y ago
  I mostly get my news from paywalled sites, which I find less pushy on their own biases than Vox and Fox and other free sites. The bias is never completely gone, but it seems that sites that don't have to compete for social media shares are better incentivized to find the truth instead of creating it.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    That is probably true. WSJ does have its biases of course, but I have also found them to be reasonably fair with most things, probably because there are legitimate business interests and real money relying on their information, rather than just clicks and “influence.”
    - paulgb 7y ago
      I think what's most telling is the twin study of WSJ and Fox. They both feed up into News Corp, so the top-down institutional biases are the same, and yet one is respected and the other is not.
      - big_chungus 7y ago
        WSJ isn't biased overall: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/wall-street-journal-media-bias https://www.allsides.com/news-source/wall-street-journal-med... The editorials are sometimes right-leaning, but mostly fiscally so.

by paulgb 7y ago

keiferski 7y ago

The thing is - reporting “the facts” means different things to different people. It’s very possible to write two contradictory articles that each contains only facts. The trick is to only select certain facts that support your point of view and omit facts that don’t. Lying by omission isn’t really a detectable or punishable offense. It gets even more complex when “the facts” are based on a previous narrative which itself isn’t investigated for truthfulness. This phenomenon is easy to see if you compare two ideologically opposite media websites, like Vox and Fox. I’m not sure if there is any solution other than to read multiple news sources, which unfortunately just feeds the media machine even more.

paulgb 7y ago
I mostly get my news from paywalled sites, which I find less pushy on their own biases than Vox and Fox and other free sites. The bias is never completely gone, but it seems that sites that don't have to compete for social media shares are better incentivized to find the truth instead of creating it.
- keiferski 7y ago
  That is probably true. WSJ does have its biases of course, but I have also found them to be reasonably fair with most things, probably because there are legitimate business interests and real money relying on their information, rather than just clicks and “influence.”
  - paulgb 7y ago
    I think what's most telling is the twin study of WSJ and Fox. They both feed up into News Corp, so the top-down institutional biases are the same, and yet one is respected and the other is not.
    - big_chungus 7y ago
      WSJ isn't biased overall: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/wall-street-journal-media-bias https://www.allsides.com/news-source/wall-street-journal-med... The editorials are sometimes right-leaning, but mostly fiscally so.