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US politics, definitely. But also any other topic that attracts an internet mob large enough to infiltrate the editor community. Take the first few paragraphs

US politics, definitely. But also any other topic that attracts an internet mob large enough to infiltrate the editor community. Take the first few paragraphs of Donald Trump [0] vs. Joe Biden [1] and try to compare the way they're presented: Donald John Trump [...] and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six business bankruptcies. Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist and many as misogynistic. [...] He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, used political pressure to interfere with testing efforts, and spread misinformation about unproven treatments. There's not a single positive sentence about him. He must have done something positive in his 4 years of reign, but Wikipedia doesn't tell me that in an objective manner. Meanwhile... Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. [...] has addressed the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recession. He signed the American Rescue Plan Act, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified protections for same-sex marriage and repealed the Defense of Marriage Act. He appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Biden restored America's membership in the Paris Agreement on climate change. There's not a single negative sentence about him. He must have done something negative in his 4 years of reign, but Wikipedia doesn't tell me that in an objective manner. Whenever someone tries to portray someone as completely evil or completely saint-like, I call bullshit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden

jrockway 3y ago
The article covers allegations of corruption and mentions his "gaffes" a number of times. Sometimes where there's no smoke, there's no fire. The guy is very boring and has a weird kid. That's about it.
- smegsicle 3y ago
  i know you're being sarcastic, but do i think its interesting that centrist politics is sometimes viewed as less corrupt just because the bias is harder to articulate
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    Regarding centrists: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism One POV on it: * https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centrism-insidious-bias-unjust-status-quo https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centri...
UberFly 3y ago
Exactly. This is the tip of the iceberg.
GeneralMayhem 3y ago
Your [...] are very convenient, because you skipped over the part in paragraph 3 of Trump's article where they go over some of his main "achievements", which are presented neutrally and some people might consider positive: [Trump] signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed 54 federal appellate judges and three U.S. Supreme Court justices. He initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. and you also cut out a mention of a pretty significant Biden failure (in outcome, at least): [Biden] oversaw the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that had been negotiated and begun under the previous administration, ending the war in Afghanistan, during which the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. But moreover, the introductory paragraphs of a Wikipedia article, like the introduction to most pieces of writing, are meant to establish an overview. Assuming that the reader reads nothing else, what basic idea should they have of the thing? Donald Trump spent his four years in office much like he spent most of his previous business career: lying and committing various forms of fraud. While president, just for variety, he added lying and committing fraud about COVID, and, oh yes, inciting a violent insurrection to overthrow the American government. That should be the first thing you take away. He may have accidentally done some positive things, but none of them make the lead paragraph, because they won't be in the top 3-5 things that history remembers him for. "Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history" appears near the end of the introduction (right before jumping back into more recent events), because that's a germane summary. Joe Biden has spent his 2+ years in office being a relatively uninteresting mainstream-to-slightly-progressive Democrat. That should be the first thing you take away. He's not perfect, but he's doing normal president stuff. Once he's no longer president, no doubt his article will be updated to look like Obama's, which currently ends the introduction with: Rankings by scholars and historians, in which [Obama] has been featured since 2010, place him in the middle to upper tier of American presidents. ...that is, not saintlike, but, you know, fine.
- bheadmaster 3y ago
  > Donald Trump spent his four years in office much like he spent most of his previous business career: lying and committing various forms of fraud. While president, just for variety, he added lying and committing fraud about COVID, and, oh yes, inciting a violent insurrection to overthrow the American government. Interesting that I can't find any reference for such claims in the Wikipedia article. The whole introductory paragraph contains the total of 2 sources - one a politico.com article [0] and the other a Siena College Research Institute post [1] - neither of which provide any claims other than that Trump was unpopular and "rated as worst". You can't with a straight face claim that this is unbiased writing. [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/trump-cspan-president-ranking-497184 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/trump-cspan-preside... [1] https://scri.siena.edu/2022/06/22/american-presidents-greatest-and-worst/ https://scri.siena.edu/2022/06/22/american-presidents-greate...
triggerity 3y ago
I mean trump is a gigantic clusterfuck. Why is this not objective enough?
cookieperson 3y ago
This is actually a pretty sound summary of the two. The one guy just got charged for rape, recently another one of his companies went down for fraud, he invited a riot on j6 to overthrow democracy, is under investigation for stealing hundreds of classified documents, lied tens of thousands of times(people take the time to count these things with references for presidents), issued dozens of legal challenges to try to overthrow democracy all of which were found to be based on nothing across the country, called racists dressed up as Nazis fine people, defended adversarial dictators, ate classified materials, national archives had to pull some out of toilets, etc. The other guy mostly eats ice cream and hangs out in delaware... They tried investigating him already a few times and his son and came up empty handed. Maybe time will prove he's not the best guy ever, but it's pretty safe to say the other guy should be in jail because he's a prolific criminal.
- tatrajim 3y ago
  Award for best understated comedy on this thread.

jrockway 3y ago

The article covers allegations of corruption and mentions his "gaffes" a number of times. Sometimes where there's no smoke, there's no fire. The guy is very boring and has a weird kid. That's about it.

smegsicle 3y ago
i know you're being sarcastic, but do i think its interesting that centrist politics is sometimes viewed as less corrupt just because the bias is harder to articulate
- throw0101b 3y ago
  Regarding centrists: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism One POV on it: * https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centrism-insidious-bias-unjust-status-quo https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centri...

UberFly 3y ago

Exactly. This is the tip of the iceberg.

GeneralMayhem 3y ago

Your [...] are very convenient, because you skipped over the part in paragraph 3 of Trump's article where they go over some of his main "achievements", which are presented neutrally and some people might consider positive: [Trump] signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed 54 federal appellate judges and three U.S. Supreme Court justices. He initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. and you also cut out a mention of a pretty significant Biden failure (in outcome, at least): [Biden] oversaw the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that had been negotiated and begun under the previous administration, ending the war in Afghanistan, during which the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. But moreover, the introductory paragraphs of a Wikipedia article, like the introduction to most pieces of writing, are meant to establish an overview. Assuming that the reader reads nothing else, what basic idea should they have of the thing? Donald Trump spent his four years in office much like he spent most of his previous business career: lying and committing various forms of fraud. While president, just for variety, he added lying and committing fraud about COVID, and, oh yes, inciting a violent insurrection to overthrow the American government. That should be the first thing you take away. He may have accidentally done some positive things, but none of them make the lead paragraph, because they won't be in the top 3-5 things that history remembers him for. "Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history" appears near the end of the introduction (right before jumping back into more recent events), because that's a germane summary. Joe Biden has spent his 2+ years in office being a relatively uninteresting mainstream-to-slightly-progressive Democrat. That should be the first thing you take away. He's not perfect, but he's doing normal president stuff. Once he's no longer president, no doubt his article will be updated to look like Obama's, which currently ends the introduction with: Rankings by scholars and historians, in which [Obama] has been featured since 2010, place him in the middle to upper tier of American presidents. ...that is, not saintlike, but, you know, fine.

bheadmaster 3y ago
> Donald Trump spent his four years in office much like he spent most of his previous business career: lying and committing various forms of fraud. While president, just for variety, he added lying and committing fraud about COVID, and, oh yes, inciting a violent insurrection to overthrow the American government. Interesting that I can't find any reference for such claims in the Wikipedia article. The whole introductory paragraph contains the total of 2 sources - one a politico.com article [0] and the other a Siena College Research Institute post [1] - neither of which provide any claims other than that Trump was unpopular and "rated as worst". You can't with a straight face claim that this is unbiased writing. [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/trump-cspan-president-ranking-497184 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/trump-cspan-preside... [1] https://scri.siena.edu/2022/06/22/american-presidents-greatest-and-worst/ https://scri.siena.edu/2022/06/22/american-presidents-greate...

triggerity 3y ago

I mean trump is a gigantic clusterfuck. Why is this not objective enough?

cookieperson 3y ago

This is actually a pretty sound summary of the two. The one guy just got charged for rape, recently another one of his companies went down for fraud, he invited a riot on j6 to overthrow democracy, is under investigation for stealing hundreds of classified documents, lied tens of thousands of times(people take the time to count these things with references for presidents), issued dozens of legal challenges to try to overthrow democracy all of which were found to be based on nothing across the country, called racists dressed up as Nazis fine people, defended adversarial dictators, ate classified materials, national archives had to pull some out of toilets, etc. The other guy mostly eats ice cream and hangs out in delaware... They tried investigating him already a few times and his son and came up empty handed. Maybe time will prove he's not the best guy ever, but it's pretty safe to say the other guy should be in jail because he's a prolific criminal.

tatrajim 3y ago
Award for best understated comedy on this thread.