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All news media has a bias, it's literally impossible to serve a finite news set and not exert some editorial control. However, if you describe a news site as (v

by yareal 2y ago

All news media has a bias, it's literally impossible to serve a finite news set and not exert some editorial control. However, if you describe a news site as (very political ideology) I think it's fair to consider it slanted.

roenxi 2y ago
While that is philosophically true, but this thread is illustrating why that isn't a helpful perspective . Consider a media organisation has a bias towards accurate reporting with a view to helping readers achieve the best outcome for themselves and good outcomes for society. We could correctly call such an organisation "slanted", but it is missing the point that there some slants are privileged by virtue of leading the reader to act in a reasonable and rational manner while others don't. I'm not sure if the US - or the world - has any of those. But the generic "there is a slant" point is useless. What matters is what the slant leads people to do, what information the slant is omitting and whether said slant is a good one on balance. If calling a media organisations "slanted" doesn't imply "slanted [in a way I think is potentially bad and relevant]" then the word is useless and shouldn't be used.
- klausa 2y ago
  > Consider a media organisation has a bias towards accurate reporting with a view to helping readers achieve the best outcome for themselves and good outcomes for society. I think you'll find that literally every media organisations thinks it's doing exactly that — the issue is that people have _wildly_ different conceits of what "best outcome" for them is.
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    The correspondences revealed in Fox News court cases do not paint a picture of a company with their own principled view to having a positive impact, that included respect for facts. All companies "serve" their customers, including news organizations, and inevitably have subjective ways of organizing their efforts. But there is a big difference between ones that have a mission geared to a positive society outcome, a commitment to customer well being, and respect for facts, with profits following from that service, vs. a mission to print whatever they can legally afford to, to maximize profits. And of course, that difference is a continuum. Some companies take value creation seriously. Others optimize for opportunities to extract value and prey on dysfunction.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    They might believe it but anyone not engaging in motivated reasoning can see they aren't. But it just isn't reasonably possible to match up major news reporting with someone who sat down and asked "what reporting is important and helpful to the readers?" outside maybe financial journals. They're pretty obviously trying to gin up hate, fear and misunderstanding. The reporting on Trump alone during his presidency was jaw dropping, let alone all the low-level warmongering that threads through the corporate press. My rule of thumb is to go read what any politician actually said, because I've only seen it reported accurately by a journalist in rare cases. That rule simply isn't something a productive reporting slant would require.
- yareal 2y ago
  > Consider a media organisation has a bias towards accurate reporting with a view to helping readers achieve the best outcome for themselves and good outcomes for society. Are there media organizations that don't believe they are doing this?

by yareal 2y ago

roenxi 2y ago

While that is philosophically true, but this thread is illustrating why that isn't a helpful perspective . Consider a media organisation has a bias towards accurate reporting with a view to helping readers achieve the best outcome for themselves and good outcomes for society. We could correctly call such an organisation "slanted", but it is missing the point that there some slants are privileged by virtue of leading the reader to act in a reasonable and rational manner while others don't. I'm not sure if the US - or the world - has any of those. But the generic "there is a slant" point is useless. What matters is what the slant leads people to do, what information the slant is omitting and whether said slant is a good one on balance. If calling a media organisations "slanted" doesn't imply "slanted [in a way I think is potentially bad and relevant]" then the word is useless and shouldn't be used.

klausa 2y ago
> Consider a media organisation has a bias towards accurate reporting with a view to helping readers achieve the best outcome for themselves and good outcomes for society. I think you'll find that literally every media organisations thinks it's doing exactly that — the issue is that people have _wildly_ different conceits of what "best outcome" for them is.
- Nevermark 2y ago
  The correspondences revealed in Fox News court cases do not paint a picture of a company with their own principled view to having a positive impact, that included respect for facts. All companies "serve" their customers, including news organizations, and inevitably have subjective ways of organizing their efforts. But there is a big difference between ones that have a mission geared to a positive society outcome, a commitment to customer well being, and respect for facts, with profits following from that service, vs. a mission to print whatever they can legally afford to, to maximize profits. And of course, that difference is a continuum. Some companies take value creation seriously. Others optimize for opportunities to extract value and prey on dysfunction.
- roenxi 2y ago
  They might believe it but anyone not engaging in motivated reasoning can see they aren't. But it just isn't reasonably possible to match up major news reporting with someone who sat down and asked "what reporting is important and helpful to the readers?" outside maybe financial journals. They're pretty obviously trying to gin up hate, fear and misunderstanding. The reporting on Trump alone during his presidency was jaw dropping, let alone all the low-level warmongering that threads through the corporate press. My rule of thumb is to go read what any politician actually said, because I've only seen it reported accurately by a journalist in rare cases. That rule simply isn't something a productive reporting slant would require.
yareal 2y ago
> Consider a media organisation has a bias towards accurate reporting with a view to helping readers achieve the best outcome for themselves and good outcomes for society. Are there media organizations that don't believe they are doing this?