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It’s very cable-news-brained to believe there must be sides at all. Report facts and let the readers form their own opinions.

kibwen 8mo ago
I'm not sure if I'd call the above comment cable-news-brained, but it's entirely possible to push a misleading or outright false narrative while only presenting factually true statements. Remember, nearly everyone who's ever died has had a history of exposure to dihydrogen monoxide.
- maratc 8mo ago
  Not only that: it's impossible to report on everything that happened, so any outlet only reports on the important stuff. What is and what isn't considered important is a matter of bias, too.
  - AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
    All true. But you can choose what and how you report in order to give one side a boost, or you can choose what and how to report in order to give the best, most accurate picture you can of what's actually going on. The difference matters. Yeah, nobody ever does it perfectly. But trying to do it right rather than trying to do it wrong surely means that you'll come closer to doing it right.
laughing_man 8mo ago
I would love a paper like that. Don't tell me what to think -- just tell me what happened yesterday.
- edot 8mo ago
  Thousands of newsworthy things happened yesterday. Which ones do you put on the front page? You don’t have to put a spin on the news to bias it. You just report or fail to report the news that goes or doesn’t go with your agenda.
  - laughing_man 8mo ago
    We have the internet now, so column inches isn't a constraint. Give it all to me.
    - r721 8mo ago
      Maybe this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
    - throw0101c 8mo ago
      > We have the internet now, so column inches isn't a constraint. Give it all to me. But reporters' time and effort are still a constraint. And if you spend (more) time on story A but readers are interested in B and don't generate review via views/clicks, that affects the ability to pay your bills.
9dev 8mo ago
So, facts, huh. Was Donald Trump leading a violent group of traitors and looters to desecrate the capitol, or did he and thousands of others peacefully protest against the Democrats stealing the election? Were the events in Palestine of 1948 a catastrophe, the violent expulsion of the Palestinian people from their home country, or was it a heroic effort by the Israelis to establish a homestead after the horrible experience of the Shoah? Is Russia freeing the upstanding people of Ukraine from a tyrannical Nazi regime, or attacking a foreign country out of imperialistic greed? You will find many groups of people are absolutely certain that one side of these examples is the objective truth.
- bigstrat2003 8mo ago
  > Was Donald Trump leading a violent group of traitors and looters to desecrate the capitol, or did he and thousands of others peacefully protest against the Democrats stealing the election? Neither of those is a matter of fact, but rather interpretation of the facts. The facts are that Donald Trump posted on social media encouraging people to fight the election results (or something to that effect, I don't have an exact quote to hand), and that a group of people were protesting and then went past the security barrier to enter the Capitol. You can interpret those facts in different ways (as your question shows), but either interpretation admits the same facts. As one of my favorite youtube creators, Feral Historian, put it: "Most of the time, people equate the facts and their particular way of connecting them. Most political arguments are about the lines, not the dots. We think our opponents are ignoring the facts when they're just seeing different relationships between them". I think he's spot on with this observation, and one must be extremely careful to delineate between objective fact and the conclusions one draws based on facts. The latter are not objective, even if we feel very strongly that they are obviously correct.
  - 9dev 8mo ago
    That’s exactly my point: You present yet another alternative view as facts, which would get debated by the former two groups. There is no authority to establish which of the three views is the canonical truth, regardless of how much you think your own is obviously and objectively true.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
throw0101c 8mo ago
> It’s very cable-news-brained to believe there must be sides at all. Report facts and let the readers form their own opinions. "Feelings don't care about your facts." — not Ben Shapiro Who won the 2020 US presidential election? If viewers think it was A and you report that it was B, will they believe you? Will they continue to watch/read you? If not, what does that do to your revenue and ability to pay your bills? As Jason Zweig wrote: > There are three ways to make a living: 1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. 2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living. 3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke. * https://jasonzweig.com/three-ways-to-get-paid/ https://jasonzweig.com/three-ways-to-get-paid/

kibwen 8mo ago

I'm not sure if I'd call the above comment cable-news-brained, but it's entirely possible to push a misleading or outright false narrative while only presenting factually true statements. Remember, nearly everyone who's ever died has had a history of exposure to dihydrogen monoxide.

maratc 8mo ago
Not only that: it's impossible to report on everything that happened, so any outlet only reports on the important stuff. What is and what isn't considered important is a matter of bias, too.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
  All true. But you can choose what and how you report in order to give one side a boost, or you can choose what and how to report in order to give the best, most accurate picture you can of what's actually going on. The difference matters. Yeah, nobody ever does it perfectly. But trying to do it right rather than trying to do it wrong surely means that you'll come closer to doing it right.

laughing_man 8mo ago

I would love a paper like that. Don't tell me what to think -- just tell me what happened yesterday.

edot 8mo ago
Thousands of newsworthy things happened yesterday. Which ones do you put on the front page? You don’t have to put a spin on the news to bias it. You just report or fail to report the news that goes or doesn’t go with your agenda.
- laughing_man 8mo ago
  We have the internet now, so column inches isn't a constraint. Give it all to me.
  - r721 8mo ago
    Maybe this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
  - throw0101c 8mo ago
    > We have the internet now, so column inches isn't a constraint. Give it all to me. But reporters' time and effort are still a constraint. And if you spend (more) time on story A but readers are interested in B and don't generate review via views/clicks, that affects the ability to pay your bills.

9dev 8mo ago

So, facts, huh. Was Donald Trump leading a violent group of traitors and looters to desecrate the capitol, or did he and thousands of others peacefully protest against the Democrats stealing the election? Were the events in Palestine of 1948 a catastrophe, the violent expulsion of the Palestinian people from their home country, or was it a heroic effort by the Israelis to establish a homestead after the horrible experience of the Shoah? Is Russia freeing the upstanding people of Ukraine from a tyrannical Nazi regime, or attacking a foreign country out of imperialistic greed? You will find many groups of people are absolutely certain that one side of these examples is the objective truth.

bigstrat2003 8mo ago
> Was Donald Trump leading a violent group of traitors and looters to desecrate the capitol, or did he and thousands of others peacefully protest against the Democrats stealing the election? Neither of those is a matter of fact, but rather interpretation of the facts. The facts are that Donald Trump posted on social media encouraging people to fight the election results (or something to that effect, I don't have an exact quote to hand), and that a group of people were protesting and then went past the security barrier to enter the Capitol. You can interpret those facts in different ways (as your question shows), but either interpretation admits the same facts. As one of my favorite youtube creators, Feral Historian, put it: "Most of the time, people equate the facts and their particular way of connecting them. Most political arguments are about the lines, not the dots. We think our opponents are ignoring the facts when they're just seeing different relationships between them". I think he's spot on with this observation, and one must be extremely careful to delineate between objective fact and the conclusions one draws based on facts. The latter are not objective, even if we feel very strongly that they are obviously correct.
- 9dev 8mo ago
  That’s exactly my point: You present yet another alternative view as facts, which would get debated by the former two groups. There is no authority to establish which of the three views is the canonical truth, regardless of how much you think your own is obviously and objectively true.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

throw0101c 8mo ago

> It’s very cable-news-brained to believe there must be sides at all. Report facts and let the readers form their own opinions. "Feelings don't care about your facts." — not Ben Shapiro Who won the 2020 US presidential election? If viewers think it was A and you report that it was B, will they believe you? Will they continue to watch/read you? If not, what does that do to your revenue and ability to pay your bills? As Jason Zweig wrote: > There are three ways to make a living: 1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. 2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living. 3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke. * https://jasonzweig.com/three-ways-to-get-paid/ https://jasonzweig.com/three-ways-to-get-paid/