3 ms·

Iirc, biased sources are avoided here even for factually correct postings

by readthenotes1 2y ago

kamikazeturtles 2y ago
All sources are biased to some extent
- aguaviva 2y ago
  There's bias, and then there's this kind of bias (from WP): MintPress News supports Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and the governments of Russia, Iran, and Syria. In one contentious article, MintPress News asserted that the Ghouta chemical attack in Syria was perpetrated by rebel groups rather than by the Syrian government, a claim pushed by the Russian and Syrian governments and rejected by much of the international community. I wouldn't trust them to tell the time of day.
  - kamikazeturtles 2y ago
    In Syria, Obama armed a bunch of "moderates" as he put it. They were all just extremist terrorists. Our media covered for him. Why don't you equally distrust our media?
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      Why don't you equally distrust our media? Because of the former's highly Kool-aidy and ideological slant, and the nonsense conspiracy theories it regularly peddles. You don't notice that stuff?
gjsman-1000 2y ago
Everything is biased; the main difference is how good they are at hiding it. Heck, Wikipedia’s cofounder calls it “propaganda” and said the site has “become merely left-wing advocacy essays.”
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  No, the difference is whether they try to be unbiased or not. Wikipedia used to try, somewhat, occasionally. Now they are indeed "merely left-wing advocacy essays.” Hardly any news outlets are trying anymore, so I can see why you think that.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    Trying to be unbiased is a futile effort, and most journalists know that. What good journalists do is take their inherit bias into account and adjust for it. The reporting should be truthful, and people should know the facts after reading it. Biased media often editorializes the truth so it conveys one message rather then another. This can be bad, or it can be good, it depends on the message. When the message is “a genocidal army is doing a bad thing”, I lean towards this editorializing being good actually.
    - AlbertCory 2y ago
      > Trying to be unbiased is a futile effort That seems to be the conventional wisdom. I sometimes get on newspapers.com (not free, unfortunately) for my articles, and for the Pullman Strike series I used the NYT for excerpts. This was 1894-95. So no, it's not futile; it's just difficult. They were doing it, and that's part of what made them the "newspaper of record" (a rep which they're busy squandering now). I'll refrain from the shameless self-promotion for a change and not include links, but I posted all of them to HN. Or of course you could use the 7-day free trial on newspapers.com. As for your last, sentence: no, the adjective "genocidal" is not OK. "Unbiased" would be a description of what the army is doing, with another story "Does this qualify as genocide?" Or quotes from organizations calling it genocide.
      - runarberg 2y ago
        Presenting both sides is not the same as being unbiased. The bias materializes in e.g. a) Giving one side a favorable treatment b) not presenting the full argument of the other c) missing the viewpoint of a third, fourth, etc. side d) when one side is just plain wrong, not presenting it as wrong, but of equal merit. e) etc. The bias can be as simple as who you present as the subject in your headline. As for the Pullman strikes, I don‘t know much about the subject but when the New York Times called it: a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital. (quote I got from Wikipedia) they were definitely showing a bias, theirs just happened be judged better by history than the rest of the journalistic world at the time who had a different and much worse bias (and as such much more obvious in hindsight).

Iirc, biased sources are avoided here even for factually correct postings

kamikazeturtles 2y ago

All sources are biased to some extent

aguaviva 2y ago
There's bias, and then there's this kind of bias (from WP): MintPress News supports Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and the governments of Russia, Iran, and Syria. In one contentious article, MintPress News asserted that the Ghouta chemical attack in Syria was perpetrated by rebel groups rather than by the Syrian government, a claim pushed by the Russian and Syrian governments and rejected by much of the international community. I wouldn't trust them to tell the time of day.
- kamikazeturtles 2y ago
  In Syria, Obama armed a bunch of "moderates" as he put it. They were all just extremist terrorists. Our media covered for him. Why don't you equally distrust our media?
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    Why don't you equally distrust our media? Because of the former's highly Kool-aidy and ideological slant, and the nonsense conspiracy theories it regularly peddles. You don't notice that stuff?

gjsman-1000 2y ago

Everything is biased; the main difference is how good they are at hiding it. Heck, Wikipedia’s cofounder calls it “propaganda” and said the site has “become merely left-wing advocacy essays.”

AlbertCory 2y ago
No, the difference is whether they try to be unbiased or not. Wikipedia used to try, somewhat, occasionally. Now they are indeed "merely left-wing advocacy essays.” Hardly any news outlets are trying anymore, so I can see why you think that.
- runarberg 2y ago
  Trying to be unbiased is a futile effort, and most journalists know that. What good journalists do is take their inherit bias into account and adjust for it. The reporting should be truthful, and people should know the facts after reading it. Biased media often editorializes the truth so it conveys one message rather then another. This can be bad, or it can be good, it depends on the message. When the message is “a genocidal army is doing a bad thing”, I lean towards this editorializing being good actually.
  - AlbertCory 2y ago
    > Trying to be unbiased is a futile effort That seems to be the conventional wisdom. I sometimes get on newspapers.com (not free, unfortunately) for my articles, and for the Pullman Strike series I used the NYT for excerpts. This was 1894-95. So no, it's not futile; it's just difficult. They were doing it, and that's part of what made them the "newspaper of record" (a rep which they're busy squandering now). I'll refrain from the shameless self-promotion for a change and not include links, but I posted all of them to HN. Or of course you could use the 7-day free trial on newspapers.com. As for your last, sentence: no, the adjective "genocidal" is not OK. "Unbiased" would be a description of what the army is doing, with another story "Does this qualify as genocide?" Or quotes from organizations calling it genocide.
    - runarberg 2y ago
      Presenting both sides is not the same as being unbiased. The bias materializes in e.g. a) Giving one side a favorable treatment b) not presenting the full argument of the other c) missing the viewpoint of a third, fourth, etc. side d) when one side is just plain wrong, not presenting it as wrong, but of equal merit. e) etc. The bias can be as simple as who you present as the subject in your headline. As for the Pullman strikes, I don‘t know much about the subject but when the New York Times called it: a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital. (quote I got from Wikipedia) they were definitely showing a bias, theirs just happened be judged better by history than the rest of the journalistic world at the time who had a different and much worse bias (and as such much more obvious in hindsight).