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Disclosure: I work in public media. It's a pretty broad ecosystem of NPR and PBS affiliates and independent news sources like Pro Publica, The Guardian or niche

by tootie 4y ago

Disclosure: I work in public media. It's a pretty broad ecosystem of NPR and PBS affiliates and independent news sources like Pro Publica, The Guardian or niche sources like The Markup or Grist. If you follow a few big ones and few local ones, you'll get almost everything you'd need. That being said, I think it's impossible to live without the top tier papers of records like Axios, NY Times and WaPo. They definitely push profitability, but they also unmatched resources to dig up hard news and get it to a huge audience. I even love CNN (cnn.com, not the TV network) just because their coverage is so broad and exhaustive even if so much of it is fluff. There's stuff that sucks about all of them, but we'd be much worse off if they didn't exist.

PixyMisa 4y ago
Every source you mention is left-wing. They all report the same stories in the same way. And worse, they all ignore or cover up the same stories in the same way.
- sidlls 4y ago
  Nice Polite Republicans is hardly left wing. At best they’re right of center. It’s hard for me to take seriously anyone who suggests any major news media operation in the US is “left-wing”. This country doesn’t have a big or strong enough “left” to matter.
  - onionisafruit 4y ago
    opensecrets.org indicates the opposite.
- forgetfreeman 4y ago
  Actual leftist here. There is nothing even vaguely left-leaning about any of the organizations mentioned. There is, however, the minor issue of political expedience driving a wedge between right-wing politicians and observable reality. Demand better from your people.
  - least 4y ago
    If you are to insist that you are an actual leftist and that these organizations are not even vaguely left-leaning, I'd like to know how you define the term "leftist" and "left," as they clearly deviate from what many people intuit. My best guess is you think anything but pure anti-capitalism must be right-wing, but if you view the left-right ideology spectrum as a reflection one's views on economic policies, it's quite clear that would not be the case.
    - forgetfreeman 4y ago
      "I'd like to know how you define the term "leftist" and "left," as they clearly deviate from what many people intuit." You don't get to hold me accountable for others failures. If you're hazy on the definition of the term "leftist" I expect google could help you with that.
      - least 4y ago
        > You don't get to hold me accountable for others failures. If you're hazy on the definition of the term "leftist" I expect google could help you with that. I'm holding you accountable for self describing yourself as an "actual leftist," which obviously means your idea of what it leftist means deviates from what is the commonly held belief. The person you initially responded to said that all the sources the person listed was left-wing. You obviously took issue with that but you failed to explain why they're not, you simply used it as an excuse to lazily jab at the right-wingers. If you don't want people to hold you accountable for your words, don't make asinine comments completely devoid of substance.
        forgetfreeman 4y ago
        Commonly held belief by whom? Right wing extremists who think anything short of you-keep-what-you-kill libertarianism is a commie plot? Neoliberals who bandy about the term "left" while flogging center-right economic policy? "commonly held belief" being unable to accurately place political ideologies on the political spectrum is due to 4 parts political expedience (how do you accuse your opponents of being communists if they're on the same side of the political spectrum as you?) and 1 part dull-eyed credulity, none of which is my fault. Incidentally, assinine is veering off topic to try to fabricate a shit-flinging contest over easily defined vocabulary terms. You certain you've got a handle on who the ass is in this exchange?
- tootie 4y ago
  I think there's the fundamental problem that the political spectrum is subjective and not fixed. Journalism should aim to report facts as holistically as possible and (I think) be willing to bias towards basic human rights and decency. There simply are not any other news sources that uphold strong journalistic integrity, run deep investigations and align with right wing politics. WSJ is probably the closest. They don't dig into culture wars but definitely skew capitalist. The Bulwark is a decent independent source but they're small and do more opinion and analysis than reporting. Mainstream conservative news like Fox is just garbage and hopelessly corrupt. The level of direct collusion between Fox stars like Hannity and sitting republicans is utterly shameful. They aren't just biased they are downright running campaign ads disguised as news. And they're staring down a $1B defamation suit for stories they ran at the behest of the Trump admin which should bury the last shred of credibility.
  - fgdfdsgfdsgf 4y ago
- hedora 4y ago
  There is an old saying: Reality has a liberal bias. Case in point: The last time I looked at the conservative news was a few weeks ago. They were making a big deal about some lawsuit one of the states was bringing against the Biden administration. The administration allegedly censored news outlets, starting early 2020. The lawsuit even provides a specific example from October 2020, and names Biden specifically as the defendant. Reputable news agencies mostly ignored these allegations because they are complete nonsense: Biden wasn't president when the incidents occurred, so his administration could not have been responsible!
  - fgdfdsgfdsgf 4y ago
throwaway2275 4y ago
gfsdgfsdgfsdgf 4y ago
just-ok 4y ago
WaPo is owned by one of the richest ~corporations~ people (thank you for the correction) in the history of the world (~Amazon~ Bezos); it is in absolutely no way “top tier.” Imo, everything it publishes should be viewed as if it was filtered through by Bezos himself.
- MBCook 4y ago
  No it’s not. It’s owned by Bezos. You can say whatever you want about how/if you think that influences their coverage. But it is not an arm of Amazon.
  - just-ok 4y ago
    Ooh, thank you for the correction. I thought “Bezos bought WaPo” equated to “Amazon bought WaPo” back when I read those headlines, but your comment made me realize it’s a separate entity rather than a subsidiary. I don’t think it changes my point too much, but it’s absolutely a worthwhile amendment.
- tootie 4y ago
  It absolutely is and it breaks huge stories all the time. There's absolutely zero evidence that Bezos influences editorial decisions and plenty of stories critical of Amazon that they've run.
CoastalCoder 4y ago
A bit of a tangent, but since we're discussing NPR... I remember a while back (maybe 10 years?) NPR spent some airtime trying to address head-on their alleged liberal bias. I respect that, I think their effort was sincere. What left me frustrated, though, was they never addressed what I saw as their main vector of bias: they seemed to broadcast many more interviews with people unhappy about conservative policies, than people happy with conservative policies. E.g., illegal immigration was a hot topic at the time. NPR provided a lot of sympathetic interviews with illegal immigrants, both adults and children. I don't think I heard even one NPR interview with individuals in other groups, e.g. construction companies that get out-bid by competitors who pay illegal immigrants under the table, or would-be immigrants who are awaiting their turn to legally enter the U.S. Again, I don't doubt the integrity of Bob Edwards and other NPR staff who tackled that project. But I think it shows how hard it can be for liberals to accurately understand conservative perspectives.
- origin_path 4y ago
  IIRC there is some research in psychology that seems to prove this. It involves a questionnaire about political topics in which you take a representative sample of people on the left and right, then split that population into quarters. One half is told to answer the questions truthfully, as they believe. The other half is told to answer in the way they think someone with the opposite politics to themselves would answer. The results are then compared. The findings are apparently always the same when this is done: conservatives pretending to be left wingers give answers much closer to the real left wingers than vice-versa. That is, the right understands the left but the left doesn't understand the right. It's been some years since I read about this but iirc the failure mode was that the left imagined people on the right as having far more extreme views than they really do, amongst other problems. W.R.T. the construction companies - see my comment elsewhere in this thread about the quote-sourcing feedback loop. Not so many companies are willing to talk to journalists about illegal immigration, because they know journalists are left-biased and because it'd realistically have to be the CEO doing it, and he/she is busy. That in turn means journalists don't hear alternative perspectives, causing them to become more biased, and repeat.
  - 4y ago
landemva 4y ago
> I think it's impossible to live without the top tier papers of records That is a US-centric viewpoint. I'm in the US now and I don't find any need for those. Maybe because I'm too busy outside doing fun stuff most days and living. I don't know of a good reason to give those publications more than a glance once per year.
- tootie 4y ago
  You can avoid reading them but every journalist in the world reads them and when they break news it gets reported everywhere else.
  - marklubi 4y ago
    > You can avoid reading them but every journalist in the world reads them and when they break news it gets reported everywhere else. Maybe, that's literally the problem. It's become a massive echo chamber. Not hard to imagine how the conspiracy theorists have come up with the mockingbird media moniker
    - tootie 4y ago
      The term "echo chamber" refers to reinforcing opinions and exclusion of outside sources, not the spreading of facts. If WaPo or Pro Publica uncover documents and interview a source that yields probative information then getting that info spread to every media outlet is an unequivocally good thing. When The Guardian published the Snowden leaks, do you think everyone else should have ignored it?

by tootie 4y ago

PixyMisa 4y ago

Every source you mention is left-wing. They all report the same stories in the same way. And worse, they all ignore or cover up the same stories in the same way.

sidlls 4y ago
Nice Polite Republicans is hardly left wing. At best they’re right of center. It’s hard for me to take seriously anyone who suggests any major news media operation in the US is “left-wing”. This country doesn’t have a big or strong enough “left” to matter.
- onionisafruit 4y ago
  opensecrets.org indicates the opposite.
forgetfreeman 4y ago
Actual leftist here. There is nothing even vaguely left-leaning about any of the organizations mentioned. There is, however, the minor issue of political expedience driving a wedge between right-wing politicians and observable reality. Demand better from your people.
- least 4y ago
  If you are to insist that you are an actual leftist and that these organizations are not even vaguely left-leaning, I'd like to know how you define the term "leftist" and "left," as they clearly deviate from what many people intuit. My best guess is you think anything but pure anti-capitalism must be right-wing, but if you view the left-right ideology spectrum as a reflection one's views on economic policies, it's quite clear that would not be the case.
  - forgetfreeman 4y ago
    "I'd like to know how you define the term "leftist" and "left," as they clearly deviate from what many people intuit." You don't get to hold me accountable for others failures. If you're hazy on the definition of the term "leftist" I expect google could help you with that.
    - least 4y ago
      > You don't get to hold me accountable for others failures. If you're hazy on the definition of the term "leftist" I expect google could help you with that. I'm holding you accountable for self describing yourself as an "actual leftist," which obviously means your idea of what it leftist means deviates from what is the commonly held belief. The person you initially responded to said that all the sources the person listed was left-wing. You obviously took issue with that but you failed to explain why they're not, you simply used it as an excuse to lazily jab at the right-wingers. If you don't want people to hold you accountable for your words, don't make asinine comments completely devoid of substance.
      - forgetfreeman 4y ago
        Commonly held belief by whom? Right wing extremists who think anything short of you-keep-what-you-kill libertarianism is a commie plot? Neoliberals who bandy about the term "left" while flogging center-right economic policy? "commonly held belief" being unable to accurately place political ideologies on the political spectrum is due to 4 parts political expedience (how do you accuse your opponents of being communists if they're on the same side of the political spectrum as you?) and 1 part dull-eyed credulity, none of which is my fault. Incidentally, assinine is veering off topic to try to fabricate a shit-flinging contest over easily defined vocabulary terms. You certain you've got a handle on who the ass is in this exchange?
tootie 4y ago
I think there's the fundamental problem that the political spectrum is subjective and not fixed. Journalism should aim to report facts as holistically as possible and (I think) be willing to bias towards basic human rights and decency. There simply are not any other news sources that uphold strong journalistic integrity, run deep investigations and align with right wing politics. WSJ is probably the closest. They don't dig into culture wars but definitely skew capitalist. The Bulwark is a decent independent source but they're small and do more opinion and analysis than reporting. Mainstream conservative news like Fox is just garbage and hopelessly corrupt. The level of direct collusion between Fox stars like Hannity and sitting republicans is utterly shameful. They aren't just biased they are downright running campaign ads disguised as news. And they're staring down a $1B defamation suit for stories they ran at the behest of the Trump admin which should bury the last shred of credibility.
- fgdfdsgfdsgf 4y ago
hedora 4y ago
There is an old saying: Reality has a liberal bias. Case in point: The last time I looked at the conservative news was a few weeks ago. They were making a big deal about some lawsuit one of the states was bringing against the Biden administration. The administration allegedly censored news outlets, starting early 2020. The lawsuit even provides a specific example from October 2020, and names Biden specifically as the defendant. Reputable news agencies mostly ignored these allegations because they are complete nonsense: Biden wasn't president when the incidents occurred, so his administration could not have been responsible!
- fgdfdsgfdsgf 4y ago

throwaway2275 4y ago

gfsdgfsdgfsdgf 4y ago

just-ok 4y ago

WaPo is owned by one of the richest ~corporations~ people (thank you for the correction) in the history of the world (~Amazon~ Bezos); it is in absolutely no way “top tier.” Imo, everything it publishes should be viewed as if it was filtered through by Bezos himself.

MBCook 4y ago
No it’s not. It’s owned by Bezos. You can say whatever you want about how/if you think that influences their coverage. But it is not an arm of Amazon.
- just-ok 4y ago
  Ooh, thank you for the correction. I thought “Bezos bought WaPo” equated to “Amazon bought WaPo” back when I read those headlines, but your comment made me realize it’s a separate entity rather than a subsidiary. I don’t think it changes my point too much, but it’s absolutely a worthwhile amendment.
tootie 4y ago
It absolutely is and it breaks huge stories all the time. There's absolutely zero evidence that Bezos influences editorial decisions and plenty of stories critical of Amazon that they've run.

CoastalCoder 4y ago

A bit of a tangent, but since we're discussing NPR... I remember a while back (maybe 10 years?) NPR spent some airtime trying to address head-on their alleged liberal bias. I respect that, I think their effort was sincere. What left me frustrated, though, was they never addressed what I saw as their main vector of bias: they seemed to broadcast many more interviews with people unhappy about conservative policies, than people happy with conservative policies. E.g., illegal immigration was a hot topic at the time. NPR provided a lot of sympathetic interviews with illegal immigrants, both adults and children. I don't think I heard even one NPR interview with individuals in other groups, e.g. construction companies that get out-bid by competitors who pay illegal immigrants under the table, or would-be immigrants who are awaiting their turn to legally enter the U.S. Again, I don't doubt the integrity of Bob Edwards and other NPR staff who tackled that project. But I think it shows how hard it can be for liberals to accurately understand conservative perspectives.

origin_path 4y ago
IIRC there is some research in psychology that seems to prove this. It involves a questionnaire about political topics in which you take a representative sample of people on the left and right, then split that population into quarters. One half is told to answer the questions truthfully, as they believe. The other half is told to answer in the way they think someone with the opposite politics to themselves would answer. The results are then compared. The findings are apparently always the same when this is done: conservatives pretending to be left wingers give answers much closer to the real left wingers than vice-versa. That is, the right understands the left but the left doesn't understand the right. It's been some years since I read about this but iirc the failure mode was that the left imagined people on the right as having far more extreme views than they really do, amongst other problems. W.R.T. the construction companies - see my comment elsewhere in this thread about the quote-sourcing feedback loop. Not so many companies are willing to talk to journalists about illegal immigration, because they know journalists are left-biased and because it'd realistically have to be the CEO doing it, and he/she is busy. That in turn means journalists don't hear alternative perspectives, causing them to become more biased, and repeat.
- 4y ago

landemva 4y ago

> I think it's impossible to live without the top tier papers of records That is a US-centric viewpoint. I'm in the US now and I don't find any need for those. Maybe because I'm too busy outside doing fun stuff most days and living. I don't know of a good reason to give those publications more than a glance once per year.

tootie 4y ago
You can avoid reading them but every journalist in the world reads them and when they break news it gets reported everywhere else.
- marklubi 4y ago
  > You can avoid reading them but every journalist in the world reads them and when they break news it gets reported everywhere else. Maybe, that's literally the problem. It's become a massive echo chamber. Not hard to imagine how the conspiracy theorists have come up with the mockingbird media moniker
  - tootie 4y ago
    The term "echo chamber" refers to reinforcing opinions and exclusion of outside sources, not the spreading of facts. If WaPo or Pro Publica uncover documents and interview a source that yields probative information then getting that info spread to every media outlet is an unequivocally good thing. When The Guardian published the Snowden leaks, do you think everyone else should have ignored it?