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The more you learn about a given subject, the more that subject will appear 'slanted' in a news article. Selective omission is a relatively simple form of bias
by Goladus 19y ago
The more you learn about a given subject, the more that subject will appear 'slanted' in a news article. Selective omission is a relatively simple form of bias, yet almost impossible to avoid. Even academic works are full of slant.
- gibsonf1 19y agoFor a newspaper reporting facts, I would argue that quality is inversely proportional to slant. This lack of slant is what made the NY times of old great. There were no fabricated story scandals then, no need for a "public" editor to monitor the slant then. The NY times had enormous impact as their stories were syndicated in most other newspapers - this impact is vanishing. The increasing slant is why I gave up on the Times a couple years ago, and I'm sure it explains the loss of a lot of other readers as well.
- karzeem 19y agoDepends what you mean by slant. Fox News slant is bad, Slate slant is good. The measure isn't whether the slant is in a particular political direction--it's intellectual honesty and quality of reasoning. For that reason, pulling off a slant usually means that you come down hard on everyone, so the only acceptable bias at a good news operation is an anti-BS bias.
- Goladus 19y agoOne of my biggest problems with a lot of Media is that they mistake 'coming down hard on everyone' or 'show both sides of the story' with thorough research and logic. When the focus is on avoiding bias, rather than on improving substance, that's what you get. Usually, slanted articles are bad less because they're slanted and more because they're poorly researched and contain few insights.