Media Bias

[Thad]

How to know what is true from the news being posted?

Came across this here

Interactive Media Bias Chart® 5.0


Does anyone have a better source or method to determine unbiased news?

[podfish]

... Does anyone have a better source or method to determine unbiased news?

use your own judgment, read many different sources, look at who cites who, and use not just the number but the quality of those at the ends of the links. For example, Fox citing Breitbart, not a great sign of credibility.

I know people love to hate on MSM and trained journalists, but they're, uh, 'trained'. Sites with lots of opinion, with people who don't retract when they make errors, with people who don't seem to try to consider multiple points of view, are generally poor. Even if they're right on the facts, without any discussion of why others might disagree with their positions they become advocacy, not journalism.

Key weaknesses that you need to guard for, even on quality sites: "if it bleeds it leads"; attempts to stage everything as a dichotomy, even if there are multiple sides or one side lacks credibility; credulously echoing statements from an interviewee without commenting on its credibility; attempts to turn everything into a horse race or other type of conflict.

I'd hope all that's obvious, but from the taste in media Americans show, I guess it's not. There is no totally reliable source. That doesn't mean there are multiple realities; it's more the blind men and the elephant. Everyone has a bias -- in the technical sense of the word: they have a perspective that interests them. You can learn a lot from totally biased people too. Just don't often believe them. Often the opposite of what they're saying is true.

[SonomaPatientsCoop]

The Pew Center does a yearly? analysis of media bias.

Numerous media sources with a decent ranking also do periodic analysis- a simple search should turn up some decent results.

The sad reality is that when we went from the reality of ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS that many of us here grew up with - to dozens if not hundreds of broadcast "news" networks- not to mention hundreds if not thousands of online sources... they increasingly had to cater to a niche audience.

And while pretty much every real news organization has had to drastically cut their reporter pool- especially foreign correspondents- I'dsay the AP and Reuters are the most unbiased reporters of "hard news"... just the facts of events.

Im the real of as it happens news and analysis... I still think NPR/PBS does a very good job (although I'll admit some of the local programs in particular can be quite biased to the left).

There is a lot of excellent reporting and analysis from periodicals. And yes, much of it has a strong bias. But it is still often worth reading...

I think the most important thing is not to fall into the trap of only viewing news that supports your viewpoints. Seek out quality news, reporting, and analysis even when, especially when it challenges your views. Spend the time and energy to understand the underlying "facts". And take the time to absorb the different analysis of the situation.

[podfish]

Im the real of as it happens news and analysis... I still think NPR/PBS does a very good job (although I'll admit some of the local programs in particular can be quite biased to the left)..

One thing that's starting to bug me about PBS, though, is the rigidity of their format and approach to interviews. They seem to have a fixed time allotment that they won't vary from regardless of how interesting or uninteresting it is, or how it unfolds. And it's kind of obtrusive when (I think it's Scott Simon who does this most) they'll cut off an interviewee, even if it's one of their own reporters, and restate what the interviewee just said, then get the interviewee to agree that "yes, that's what I meant". It sure looks like they knew exactly what they wanted to draw out.

I don't see it as ideological bias, more an attempt to shape a story like a good editor would -- make it pithy and clear -- but it's not really appropriate and can indeed create an opportunity for the media to push a message.

[tommy]

I heard part of a fascinating KPFA Project Censored show today, an interview with Prof Victor Picard, from UofP Annenberg School of Journalism, author of "Democracy without Journalism?".

In this time of fake news and counter charges of "fake news", he related how some other countries have nationally sponsored and funded media (and implied more public trust in media), such as England with the BBC and Canada with CBC. There was a proposal in the US Congress (I believe in the late 1940s) for a quarter of the airwaves to be for nonprofits. It was narrowly defeated, he said, due to associations with Communism and the Red Scare (McCarthy et al) and muckraking journalism.

He said the result has been that our media is "consumer oriented". It's dominated by advertising, consumerism, and the influence of money on the media. He highlighted a comment by CBS CEO Les Moonves that Trump's 2016 campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS" ... due to ad sales.

It was a sobering view of the US media.