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For on-line news, what sites do you avoid and which ones do you seek out as being trustworthy?
Thanks to my position as an editor on SoylentNews, I've had the privilege of viewing story submissions which have referenced a veritable plethora of different sources. It has been a privilege to serve you these past few years. My goal has been to provide stories that cover a diversity of areas but always with an attempt to provide level-headed background. I strive to avoid shrill in-your-face!!!!elevnty! diatribes. To invoke a common mis-quotation "Just the facts, ma'am." Full confession: I'm not above posting an occasional funny or feel-good story, either.
Over time, I've come to learn that some sources are more reputable than others. News outlets are comprised of people who have their own biases; some try to remain objective whereas others use their position to push an agenda.
For example, I've learned here that RT is a mouthpiece for the Russian government (A modern-day Pravda, if you will).
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), on the other hand, is funded primarily through a television license costing £147 per year per household. But, it has received a funding boost from government to expand its global reach.
Fox News has had complaints about its content and has had its share of controversies. But even some commonly-held beliefs about Fox News have proved exaggerated and not fully supported by the facts.
ScienceDaily, phys.org, CNET, Quora, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), ESA (European Space Agency), Spaceflight Now, weather.gov, and Hurricane Prediction Center are just some of the sites that I have found especially helpful.
So, I turn to the SoylentNews community:
- What biases have you found with MSM (main-stream media)?
- what 'news' sites do YOU avoid? Why?
- where do YOU find trustworthy, unbiased, fact-supported news?
Bonus question: What would you think of a news story on SoylentNews whose only supporting link is CNN? Fox News? Breitbart?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @05:38PM (3 children)
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_novedades.htm#december2018 [bibliotecapleyades.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @05:45PM (1 child)
Also, Sorcha Faal: http://whatdoesitmean.com/ [whatdoesitmean.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @11:28PM
This one is interesting, the new secretary of defense is a UFO expert:
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index2744.htm [whatdoesitmean.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday December 28 2018, @06:23PM
"Exopolítics" - I love it!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday December 28 2018, @05:40PM (10 children)
There are tons of biases that all people purporting to be news outlets have, but from the big main-stream media in capitalist countries, the most important biases are:
1. "Everything is basically fine. Any problems you may be experiencing right now are your own damn fault. People who negative stuff is happening to aren't like you, so you can sympathize with them but don't feel like their problems are your problems."
2. "The government is generally right. There may be some scandals here and there, but nothing is seriously amiss. Especially on foreign policy, there's a general consensus that shall not be questioned. If there is a problem, it can be fixed by replacing the Democrats with Republicans or vice versa."
3. "Any problems you have and are unable to fix on your own can be fixed by buying something. More news about this after these messages from our sponsors ..."
Noam Chomsky's classic Manufacturing Consent is worth a read for more on this. These biases I just listed are much more important than any left or right bias you may detect.
And no, this doesn't mean that the non-mainstream news sites aren't also biased as all get-out.
Slashdot, of course!
But more seriously, I'd probably avoid anything that's from The Daily Stormer, InfoWars, or HuffPo, because all of those organizations have a pattern of misrepresenting facts to suit their ideology. I'm sure there are other nutjobs out there worth ignoring, though, so don't make that the definitive list.
More to the point, determining what is and isn't true isn't a matter of what site the story is hosted on. For example, there were completely false stories planted in the New York Times in 2001-3 when the Bush administration was trying to convince us that invading Iraq was a good idea. Fox News personalities are paid bonuses to say certain talking points as many times as they can during their time on air, and those talking points are determined by politics, not truth.
No single source has it. When you're considering running or believing a story, the right thing to do is go through the good old Baloney Detection Kit, which includes seeking out corroboration of the facts from as many diverse sources as possible. Ideally with organizations that have an ability to know first-hand: 5 local papers running the same AP story about something going on in Israel / Palestine aren't corroboration in the same way as the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and Al Jazeera all being in general agreement about what happened.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday December 28 2018, @07:07PM
Oh, and in case it's not clear what my answer to the bonus question is, there is no single source I would trust completely, regardless of whether it's CNN, Fox, Brietbart, Sinclair Broadcasting, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, or a random dude's blog.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Friday December 28 2018, @08:46PM (7 children)
I think Thexalon's answers are pretty good.
There is always a certain amount of bias in the news, but I think it's much worse now than in previous decades. The reason is probably due to a shift in how we are consuming news, which is driving how news is being paid for. It basically comes down to clicks. Infowars and Huffpo, to use two of your examples, are terrible news sources, but they are also very successful because they get people to click. And when people click, they see the messages that the advertisers are paying to be shown. Even the cachet of individual journalists (or should I write "journalists"?) goes up or down based on clicks. "Journalists" who get a lot of clicks get paid; those that don't can't make a living.
Given such a click-driven environment, objectivity doesn't stand a chance.
My personal strategy is to avoid news sources that are the obvious outliers and consume a variety of better quality sources from which I can derive my own picture of what is probably (hopefully) really happening. It's very wearying, but I don't know any other way to do it these days.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday December 28 2018, @09:35PM (5 children)
I'm not sure when this halcyon era is supposed to have occurred: For instance, in 1991 it was basically journalistic suicide to suggest that maybe the war in the Persian Gulf wasn't a good idea, and a few decades before that journalists daring to report on anti-Vietnam War protests got their heads bashed in by cops. Read up on William Randoph Hearst and yellow journalism if you want to know what things were like around 1900. And before that, there was rarely much pretense of objectivity. Clickbait is bad, but it's no different from the sensationalist headlines of yore.
Some things that maybe made a difference on this front, although for good or for ill can be debated:
- The "Fairness Doctrine" that was part of FCC rules from 1949 to 1987, that required that radio and TV broadcasters had to provide chances for multiple sides of an issue to be heard, and to refrain from editorializing on the air during what were supposedly news broadcasts.
- A related FCC requirement that TV networks in particular had to operate their newsroom as a public service and typically at a loss in return for their broadcast license, rather than as a for-profit operation. This went away with the advent of cable news networks like Fox News and MSNBC.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:49AM (3 children)
Thank you for those reminders.
Perfectly true that there was no golden age, that ended one, two, or six decades ago. I try to remind people of that myself.
But, there were qualities to the news that are missing today. The "public service" bit probably has a lot to do with those changed qualities. And, the fairness doctrine, although, it still left an echo chamber for the news services to operate in. It's just that the echo chamber was much different than it is today.
And, perhaps, things really are better in some ways today. When I was a youth, whatever you heard from ABC, NBC, and CBS was Gospel, with that capital "G". Essentially, they all told the same story, in that Government is Good, and you can Trust Washington.
With or without conspiracy theories, I think we all know today that you don't just trust Washington.
It's not all good though. Depending on your favorite channel(s), most Americans seem to still know that they can Trust the Party.
If/when we, as a people, wake up, and reject those two parties, maybe we'll get real news from the MSM. Or not. Maybe it's time to replace all of the major news sources with something better. At one point in time, I though CNN was that "something better". Alas, CNN today is eaten up with the same cancer that all the rest of CNN suffers with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:10PM (2 children)
Wake up? Runaway has lost what little mind that he had! Early onset Faux News?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:27PM (1 child)
Are you drooling, or do you need to wipe your nose?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @11:56PM
Shut up, Runaway! You're ruining SoylentNews again! I hear banjo music. Strange.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Saturday December 29 2018, @02:14AM
A foreign perspective really demonstrates the weight of the political hand on news, even in allegedly free-speech areas.. Here in Canada, journalists did make negative reports on the Persian Gulf war and the Vietnam war without getting their heads bashed in.
I wonder what Canadian news we weren't being told.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:07AM
It's not just a shift in how news is paid for...unless you interpret that pretty widely. A large part of the problem is an increased concentration of ownership...the editor may not be "controlled", but he generally knows what those who hired him want said. Another element is the increased focus on news that can't be checked locally. Local papers used to focus on local news, but since being bought up by chains, the same story will run word for word the same on the entire chain of papers. That's not local news. It usually isn't even news from the same city, and often not news from the same state. It's true I don't have a great deal of interest in the scores of the local high school basketball team...but at least that news was usually reliable, and it could be (and was) checked by those with first hand knowledge.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by mmarujo on Wednesday January 02 2019, @11:36AM
Easy rule of thumb to validate or disprove this:
* How long is the "news segment"? Is it predetermined or is it long enough to tell the news?
* How many times do you wonder "How is this news?" ?
I consider these to be simple clues that the news segment is not about news but the business of selling news. Nowhere have I seen something like "That's all for today, the XYZ segment is shorter today because today nothing major happened."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Friday December 28 2018, @05:54PM (2 children)
Phys.org is shit. Always use ScienceDaily instead.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @08:53PM (1 child)
For science news, Science News https://www.sciencenews.org/ [sciencenews.org] has been a reliable source written by those with some clues and familiarity with various scientific fields. It's published by a non-profit with the aim to increase public scientific literacy.
Buy a subscription, especially if you like to have paper copies. You will be contributing to a worthy public cause.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @09:28PM
Or get a digital subscription to Science News that comes out before the paper edition and costs half as much.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 28 2018, @05:58PM (23 children)
Let me echo part of your post back at you, and add a little to it.
There is no "reliable" news source. "Reliable" is probably the most used term in these discussions, and there aren't any, because everyone has their own slant, viewpoint, and opinion. And, that is discounting outright dishonesty.
Here in the USA, most of the media has a hard left bias. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Turner, Hearst - almost everything. Or, if not hard left, then pro-Democrat and/or "progressive". Then, there is Fox - just about as bad, but far right instead of left.
One America News Network is some different than the rest. They seem to be right, but less goofy-right than Fox - https://www.oann.com/ [oann.com]
The BBC is, I feel, pretty reliable. Their biases are quite different from American biases, and their take on American events seems - uhhhhh, cleaner? for that reason.
RT news has a different perspective, but most people here fear them because "RUSSIANS!!" - https://www.rt.com/ [rt.com]
Al Jazeera has it's own fearing crowd, but they give news that no one else seems to give in the English language. Their slant is not entirely deist, as most people seem to expect - https://www.aljazeera.com/default.html [aljazeera.com]
Almost the obverse of Al Jazeera is Jpost - https://www.jpost.com/ [jpost.com]
Times of India. Those folk have roughly 1/4 the population of the world, their voice is worth listening to - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ [indiatimes.com]
Toss a Chinese news source in, for the same reason we want India - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/ [xinhuanet.com]
There are any number of more "specialized" news sources. For instance, the violence in Mexico and along the US/Mexico border is covered extensively by borderlandbeat - http://www.borderlandbeat.com/ [borderlandbeat.com]
But, I can't make it clear enough: My mostest favoritest and bestest news source is not "reliable". Even if I agree with a news source 99 times out of a hundred, I'm watching for the crazy shit. You have to read the news with a critical mindset, and separate the wheat from the chaff.
As for tech and science, your list is good - you might want to add https://www.sciencenews.org/ [sciencenews.org] https://www.engadget.com/ [engadget.com] https://techcrunch.com [techcrunch.com]
News sites that I avoid? I suppose that CNN leads the list. It's 24/7 hate on Trump these days. The other left leaning MSM hates on Trump plenty, but they are less rabid.
Bonus? Is there a bonus? OOOOOHHHHH, I'm so excited!!
News stories with one link are a bit on the lame side. I've done it, I think we've all done it. But, on the other hand, someone throws the story down, anyone can go "fact checking" on it. You can offer me a story from Fox, and I'll probably read it, then place some important-seeming terms into a search box, and read what other news sources have to say. You would be surprised at the results, sometimes. Let-leaning MSM may not carry the story at all, but some foreign paper(s) may offer more in-depth news.
Long story short, getting news is a very mixed up grab bag. This week, Fox might do a good job, next week CBS may be on the ball, and the following week, not one American news source has anything believable. So, put those foreign news sources into your feeds. You need them, to make sense of this world. Yeah, even the crazy ass British sources. They're just as crazy as we are, but being cousing, their crazy has a different flavor. ;^)
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 28 2018, @06:22PM (5 children)
The purpose of the News is to inform. And, Fox News viewers are the least informed. [forbes.com]
Therefore, Fox is objectively worse than other networks.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 28 2018, @06:31PM (4 children)
Oh, wow, you found one opinionated news source's opinion on another opinionated news source.
I can easily argue that CNN is the worst of the lot, but what's the point of arguing? As a group, American MSM news sources suck ass. You have to get out of the mainstream to find newsworthy news.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @08:21AM
Found an opinionated and backwards Arcansaws hillbilly, you mean.
(Score: 1) by D2 on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:04PM (2 children)
Irony: short-circuiting to 'can't trust the source' when Forbes (NYC, wealthy establishment conservative) calls Fox (right-wing & outright muckracking propaganda) a biased hot mess. Frankly, unlike Thesawozname (uid 636), your lengthy diatribe reveals you're a deeply biased consumer of news, and lacks their nuance.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:44PM (1 child)
Didn't my original post tell you that all news sources are biased? By extension, I'm biased. And, by extension, you're biased. All that you have stated here is, you don't like my bias.
Regarding Forbes - why, exactly, should I wish to fall in with New York's wealthy establishment conservative crowd? I've met them, rubbed shoulders with them, worked with them, worked for them. Their views are not my views. When we speak of people with entitlements, Forbes readers are the embodiment of entitlement. Where half or more the population avoids the police as much as possible, the people you have described are the people who call the police to keep the rest of us in line.
See if you can point out the Forbes readers in this story - https://www.wired.com/story/joi-ito-ai-and-bus-routes/ [wired.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30 2018, @12:03AM
Take away: Runaway is biased so clearly we can't take his word that all news sources are biased as the unbiased truth. There's an obvious rebuttal in here somewhere, but the point is that Runaway has no clue of what he is opining upon, as usual. I trust his evaluations of news sources as much as I would trust his taste in barnyard anmals.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday December 28 2018, @06:31PM (4 children)
You know, you could save yourself a lot of trouble and just admit that you took the blue pill...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 28 2018, @06:44PM (3 children)
I don't do drugs, man. You can ask my compadre, Bob Bitchin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8IQnHFKTA [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday December 28 2018, @07:25PM
Hey, you wanna get high, man?
Does Howdy Doody got wooden balls, man?
Actually all that boilerplate "left/right" stuff you posted up there is an anti-drug. A real downer, man... Just fogs the brain
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @09:06AM (1 child)
I have a sneaking suspicion you drink some form of alcohol on occasion, probably caffeine as well.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 29 2018, @09:31AM
How insightful. Are you psychic? Oh, wait, I've stated as much many times in discussions here. So much for that - you thought you had an idea, but it wasn't even yours. It just walked in one ear, and out the other, and you thought it was yours.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday December 28 2018, @07:07PM (3 children)
Nice summary, thanks!
Perhaps you or somebody could suggest a news aggregator phone app similar to what google news once was? I am not looking for a good summary, but rather for a summary that most people read. The new google news app is dangerous because it started to use flashing and moving appearance which is designed to pass through mental defenses. I need static text representation that looks as dull as possible. A friend of mine wrote an app filtering google's feed, but they recently castrated the api so it stopped working.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 28 2018, @07:35PM (1 child)
I'm unable to recommend any phone app. On my desktop, I use Liferea https://lzone.de/liferea/ [lzone.de] It relies on GTK3, so if your phone has GTK3 installed, it may work. Trying to find a more definitive answer . . . sorry, nothing obvious. I don't think it's supported on any phones.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday December 29 2018, @06:32PM
Reports have it that the Purism Librem 5 will have GTK installed. Are there any others?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @11:33PM
don't use the apps. not too hard.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @07:40PM (3 children)
>Here in the USA, most of the media has a hard left bias. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Turner, Hearst - almost everything.
No, mainstream news is by-definition the center, and is right-wing compared to Western nations. It only looks hard-left if you're so far to the right that you've rejected Western civilization.
> Or, if not hard left, then pro-Democrat and/or "progressive".
Mainstream. The far-right has embraced propaganda from trash like Fox, so real news was left to the rest of us.
>Then, there is Fox - just about as bad, but far right instead of left.
Much worse. People who watch Fox know nothing, but do have their racism reinforced by scumbags like Tucker Carlson and Shawn Hannity.
>One America News Network is some different than the rest. They seem to be right, but less goofy-right than Fox - https://www.oann.com/ [oann.com] [oann.com]
OANN is for people who are so hopelessly lost that they call Fox Liberal because Shep Smith made them mad with a dose of reality. They're full-on goofy-right.
You seem like a right-winger trying to both-sides our Republican disinformation problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 28 2018, @08:59PM (1 child)
So - by your own definition - Nazi propaganda during the decade of 1935 to 1945 was center? You are at least partly correct though. Our left isn't really left, it's alternative right. Oh yeah - ALT-RIGHT!! That's what the term has been hiding all along! Alt-Right is a progressive movement!
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Friday December 28 2018, @09:21PM
Actually, I think the alt-right is so fucking intellectually offensive, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, and genuinely scared of a war against white men that doesn't really exist. Simultaneously, the far left is just as intellectually offensive, authoritarian snowflakes with their free-speech-good-unless-it-hurts-my-feelings, infinite gender spectrum idiots with required criminalization of perceived pronoun assaults.
It's not a flat line with a consistent center anymore, but a circle :) Those on the far left and far right have merged to become the two sides of the same idiotic and divisive fucking coin.
Nice list though, I really like the international sources you put in too. Best contribution to this post so far.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @06:38PM
shepard smith is a fucking mole and should have his head bashed in like one.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @08:20PM (2 children)
Shouldn't you be recommending your your journal [soylentnews.org] as a news source? Where else can we get insights into which side your junk hangs, or your petty rant at Amazon about Michele Obama's book, or your hatred of some animals, or your fantasy background check bullshit?
I say we all should read RunAway's journal because it will help us understand not to take his news source recommendations seriously.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 28 2018, @09:00PM (1 child)
Actually, I'd like to recommend YOUR journal. Please, provide us with the link!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @10:16PM
Even if my journal was empty it would be more newsworthy, and have more literary value, than your junk pondering, dog hating, lie telling, book whining dumping ground of mindless blather. Think of my journal as a Rauschenberg, while yours lines the bottom of the cage of the world's unluckiest bird.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday December 29 2018, @07:27AM
OANN is one of the greats. One of the truely greats -- a much needed Conservative voice. Highly recommended!!!
(Score: 2) by CZB on Friday December 28 2018, @06:01PM (1 child)
The best news source I've found for telling the whole story about things that are important but not in the mainstream news is: https://www.strategypage.com/default.aspx [strategypage.com]
But they only cover international conflicts.
I get general tech news here, hackaday and https://arstechnica.com/ [arstechnica.com]
I get general public news from the radio, and local news on Facebook.
Currently I get news analysis from Youtube.
Politics: Tim Pool, Scott Adams, Daily Wire.
Tech: LTT, Level1Techs, Gamers Nexus.
Conspiracy theories: Owen Benjamin, Ancient Architects.
farm and garden: Diego Footer, Living Web Farms
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @11:32PM
"Currently I get news analysis from Youtube."
Oh, dear me! You poor thing! How did that happen? Surely no one should deserve such a terrible fate!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @06:11PM (2 children)
I used to really like news.bbc.co.uk, until became "American BBC" because of GeoIP. Which is one of the reasons that GeoIP was always a really bad idea. It facilitates propaganda. But anyway, if I wanted a numbnuts viewpoint I would watch American news. Fucking pricks at the BBC are localizing the news for me like I'm a retard because I happen to be in the U.S. I still check sometimes, but try not to.
There are many foreign news sites that are in English. Almost all of them typically speak to a higher education level than American news sites. I am an American, but I prefer news from a foreign viewpoint. They are critical of all of us, not just blue or red. And we should appreciate that more. That is part of how we know whether we are living up to our own ideals.
Any of the trinity of cabal news or any of their member stations is a no-go for me. Context is the function of the human mind. To assume that somebody needs it, is to assume they don't need a mind. So CNN,Fox,MSNBC are all just uniparty propaganda.
Generally I like ARS technica, Futurism, The Verge, Hackernews. I liked Slashdot before it became MSdot. I liked Masnicks site before he got too full of himself. NPR sometimes has good articles, but they are very Chicago about everything, and awefully full of themselves.
Good news should have a ref depth of one. Which is to say it should refer to the person who actually did the work, not reffed to some douche who heard it from some douche who heard about somebody who did some work.
Washington Post, or Washington Times is definately out. Sorry Bezo, but if I wanted to watch race bating dipshits obsess about themselves I would go to the protests and watch in real time.
I like law news, but hate political news. The difference again, being the reference depth. If you're going to have an opinion have an opinion on the law, not what the trinity says the law is. Because the job of the trinity is to conceal the importance of the law.
RT is a weird one. They've done interviews that nobody else has done (Richard Stallman for example) and they should get props for that. Though yes they do a lot of statist propaganda as well. And sometimes they've reported off-the-wall shit that nobody else carries that SHOULD be reported. I recall them reporting stolen nuclear waste once, that never made any American news outlet.
Any science news is great. More environmental news would be cool. Again, for me it is mostly about the ref depth.
Articles that ask questions are better than articles that take positions. I like the debate, but hate the uniparty trolls who try to make everything about blue v. red. They are just trying to conceal the purple. And I mean "purple" in the Roman sense of the word.
My two cents.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 28 2018, @06:34PM (1 child)
I really don't have trouble sifting out the good and the bad on BBC.com. They are usually good, but sometimes they go off the deep end, like on niche subjects.
Washington Post has exclusives that are impossible to ignore sometimes. But their paywall is pretty bad. Archive.org will sometimes have it but otherwise it won't load consistently.
RT is situational but a hard pass most of the time.
I think Science Magazine [sciencemag.org] does a pretty good job. Sure, they will make you cringe sometimes, but on the whole they have some good stuff, as well as some news about science institutions (such as institutions joining the open access movement).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday December 28 2018, @07:06PM
You can get around most news paywalls with the toggle reader view with firefox.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Friday December 28 2018, @06:27PM (1 child)
It's not just the MSM, either. Smaller outlets and government outlets are just as prone to most, sometimes all, of this.
My approach is to try to look at multiple sources and try to work my way down the lowest level of underlying presumption and question from there on up. I find it quite difficult; but I also find that it works better than just sitting there drooling and accepting whatever the pablum of the day the news source is trying to serve up.
Sure. There are pretty much always untrue allegations thrown by people who severely dislike pretty just about any focus of attention. However, the fact is that Fox News is guilty of presenting its audience with such severely biased outlooks and reporting that quite aside from any untrue allegations about them, there is more than enough factual assessment of their agitprop vending to assemble a solid assessment of them as one of the very worst of the worst.
Saying some allegations about them are exaggerated doesn't exonerate them in the least; it's like saying "well, but mass murderer John Doe never actually strangled kittens" — he's still a bloody mass murderer.
The fair and balanced truth is: Fox News really, really sucks. If accuracy is even slightly on your information-gathering agenda, you need a different information source.
--
If you enjoy TV, you have a stake in a medium rarely well done.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @11:25PM
Oblig:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvcJMknXgAANtAN.jpg [twimg.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @06:35PM (2 children)
I’m British so it’s almost de rigeur to use the Beeb as a (if not “the”) news source.
It’s clearly so vomit-inducingly PC, that it hurts. (Check it out, there’s always one LGBTQA-Z story on the front page. And they go on about women/black rights disproportionately. I had to stop listening to Radio 4, because the PC-to-actual-news ratio was so high.)
I also understand that it promotes a western-ish view of the world (with self-hatred/post-colonial guilt drizzled on top).
However, I generally trust the stories it puts out. Yes it may have filters, biases and blinkers on, but I don’t view it as actively lying to me.
I really wish Wikitribune would pick up a bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:46AM (1 child)
NPR is the equivalent in the United States.
Stories are frequently posted about homosexuals, trannies, and illegal aliens. Their "Code Switch" articles are a never-ending torrent of identity politics and race baiting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:06AM
Don't forget a constant forcing of the "climate change" angle, sometimes obviously discomforting their interview guests in having to take a public position on a political hotbutton while not having strong personal convictions on the subject.
There are fires every year in California, is there really a connection to climate change? Maybe? But there still will be fires every year in California.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Friday December 28 2018, @06:45PM
If you rely on one source, you are already in trouble. That goes for anything. When "news" is copy/pasted, then it is not from multiple sources...
Your own skepticism filter should be in the ON position at all times, regardless what you hear, read or see and from any place.
If you cannot make up your own mind, then you have already lost.
If you cannot bother to to research a bit more, you have already lost.
If you accept your filter bubble, you have already lost.
If you have not yet read Carl Sagan's "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection", you are at a severe disadvantage (you've lost).
And all of this is true because /I/ am telling you...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Friday December 28 2018, @06:58PM
I read RT occasionally because it is interesting seeing things from the Russian government's side. No doubt it is propaganda, but it is nice to get the full picture by reading their sources and reading other sources as well. RT often covers events that are not covered by western media or carried to a much lesser extent, after reading the RT article you can try and toss out the propaganda to get to the raw news.
I also like the https://chinadigitaltimes.net/ [chinadigitaltimes.net] for covering events the Chinese government restricts.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
There is no unbiased news source There maybe less braised, but never none. You
For me it is the voting method of sites like spylentnews that helps to take the basis out of the news. Now if this site starts to get one way or another then second voting method will come into play and people will just leave. We left one before and we will leave again.
If nbc or cbs or or or. Had a democratic method to vote they would lose the basis right now the comments if any are name calling.
My fav purity home din to watch is sky news via Roku app. I nice to see US piloted with a fun twist of British humor
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 28 2018, @09:22PM
Voting just takes centralized bias and crowdsources a bias instead. Never use a site that doesn't link its sources and always check both the sources and contrarian sources yourself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Funny) by TheFool on Friday December 28 2018, @07:35PM (1 child)
Wait, we're supposed to be reading the articles? I just respond to the title and the comments.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:24AM
That's what I thought :P
Of course, I ignore the articles most of the time because I already read my "version" of the article on my "biased MSM site" about 2-3 days before it hits Soylent News.
note: Kinda funny, but usually true... though not a complaint, because first there is a delay between the time someone here reads and submits a story. Then another delay before an unpaid overworked editor logs in after their normal job. Then there is a delay for the editor to decide if it is actually news worthy and to actually change the submission to a summary that makes sense instead of the one extreme of a full article quote to the other of a single line "check out this story". Its no wonder that there is such a long delay before articles actually get here.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @07:37PM (1 child)
I will read news from as many sources around the world as I can. I always thought American MSM sources produced softball material for domestic consumption, but international editions were a bit more informative. Witness the Newsweek cover from 12 years ago "Losing Afghanistan" everywhere in the world, but "My Life in Pictures by Annie Leibovitz" in the US. Of course US media knows that they cannot be rocking the social stasis in America...
I liked Canadian media, the stories are generally more highbrow, that country and its industries don't have a spot of the influencing power the US has, so there is not a high degree that they can drive the narrative by themselves. The regular snark against Americans can be funny too.
I used to really enjoy German media, they used to be quite rational with healthy skepticism to whoever was in power in Berlin or Washington, and generally took positions of promoting peace in the world. That changed sometime between 2005 and 2015. German MSM now generally promotes the same lines as the MSM in the US, i.e. vilifying Trump and Russia. Other space is occupied by invective against national leaders that don't support whatever policies the German government feels it is allowed to stand for: Orban is evil! The Polish government is evil! Putin is evil! Erdogan is evil! Assad is evil, we need to get rid of him!
I don't know when they last did an in depth investigation of the endless Merkel government, i.e. discovered something that would have endangered her rule. They did manage to do that several times during the Kohl years. Instead, they lament that people don't go vote anymore "because it won't change anything", but slander people who politically engage, disagreeing with unchecked immigration, decline of social services and safety as neo-Nazis. Often, I will ignore the articles themselves, and go directly to the comments, where (if permitted) one may still see good points among accusations of "Whataboutism!" and "Russian troll!".
I noticed the change in discourse in the early 2000s, when I met a Dutchman, who told me it was "Good that the US invaded Iraq, because Saddam Hussein was a bad man". I really just stared at him, that kind of simplistic reasoning was fit for an American, but alas it has become normal in European MSM reporting.
Where are the propaganda lines coming from? I have to guess the larger framing comes from the same interests as behind the US MSM, with the pro-interventionism wrt Syria and Ukraine and constant Trump and Russia-bashing.
There's Aljazeera and RT, which I'll read for different perspectives, but I am aware that those outlets may have an interest to drive the narrative the way their funders want. I'll consider looking at Times of India - the country is a major democracy which has kept out of the orbit of the US and its satellites.
Of course, there is our beloved SoylentNews, where we have a select community of good people give expert commentary :)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @10:30PM
Forgot to mention: the German MSM by 2015 was faking its reporting to push the pro-migrant narrative. At a train station in Hungary, a migrant who did not want to be processed in Hungary (wanting the better social benefits available in Germany) threw his wife and kids off the platform. Hungarian police then got the people off the tracks and arrested the man. This was reported by a major news organization as "Evil Hungarian police manhandle refugee!", with a video clipping of a policeman making the arrest.
Thank god for truth, a facebook commenter was able to provide video of the entire occurrence. Crickets when the news org was challenged to correct its story. If it had been their website, they would have just disabled comments.
It's not just that there is a bias, there is outright lying. Lügenpresse indeed.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @07:50PM (1 child)
Yes, it has a very right wing viewpoint. But...
Considering that most Americans are unaware that we are still fighting under the declaration of war from 9/11, we should be more considerate of the dogfaces. The apathy that mainstream news has towards the plight of these guys is remarkable. We should know where they are, and what shit they are eating, and why they are eating it. We should know because the government seems to forget where they are, and the mainstream media obviously feels no obligation to remind us or them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by donkeyhotay on Friday December 28 2018, @08:57PM
Veteran here.
You make a very good point about those that are getting forgotten. And to my mind, some of those who want to remind us of the plight of our service men and women often do it in such a way that it is unhelpful. Imagine having to do things that are distasteful or morally reprehensible, and then being met by indifference on one hand or cheerful "attaboys" on the other. Maddening -- literally.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday December 28 2018, @07:53PM
Left and right bias is definitely secondary to drama bias. So many news organizations report a polite disagreement as if it had been a shouting match and was a whisker from becoming a fist fight or a shooting. Or, they zero in on a trivial matter that has more potential for drama and blow it totally out of proportion. A government bureaucrat's indifference and bungling on one case that results in hardship and loss gets all the airtime, while all the rest of the cases go unmentioned.
When I get sick of the dramatized political crap, I turn to the most objective news there is, news about science. sciam.com and sciencenews.org are favorites. Could do with a few more niches, like a good site for mathematical and computer science related news would be nice. (I was very interested to learn that the largest Mersenne prime yet was found earlier this month.) Well, there's the old Usenet boards such as all the comp ones. Sometimes just randomly reading the summaries of the latest preprints on arxiv is interesting. News about chess is readily available.
I read alternet.org, rollingstone,com, propublica.org, gregpalast.com, motherjones.com and other leftist news sites. They link to still more sites such as tomdispatch.com, independentmediainstitute.org, salon.com, theatlantic.com, and Huff Po. The way Alternet tells it, you'd think Trump is about to collapse under the weight of all his mental problems and be hauled off to a funny farm, if he's not impeached and convicted first. They've been reporting on the impending collapse of the entire Republican party for years.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @08:05PM (6 children)
When CNN bashes trump, it is not news because CNN bashes trump. When CNN praises trump it in news, even without any supporting links needed. When CNN bashes trump my default assumption is they got everything wrong. When CNN bashes Hillary Clinton my default assumption is that it is really bad because they are trying to put it in the best light. When CNN Talks tech or science . . . well almost everybody but hackaday and a couple others get tech and science wrong.
But in general if someone is reporting against their bias, it is worth looking at. Just consider what if the Daily Stormer put up a piece that was pro Israel?
P.S. for all those who think Fox is hard Right, What do you say to those who think fox is too liberal?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @09:22PM (2 children)
To answer your question at the end, "Please move to North Korea where you will find a solid gov job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @09:28PM (1 child)
um, isn't north korea communist, you know on the left?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Friday December 28 2018, @10:34PM
Let me guess..... you're on the idiots who fell for the propaganda that Communism = Socialism, even though North Korea is not Communistic? :)
Don't go by what others label a country, but by the actions of that country. North Korea = Totalitarian Dictatorship under the guise of Communism, which isn't Left. USA = Advanced Feudalism under the guise of Free Market Capitalism.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:19AM
"P.S. for all those who think Fox is hard Right, What do you say to those who think fox is too liberal?"
They are out of touch and need to get out more. Much more.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday December 29 2018, @03:12PM
Fox is hard neocon which is dead outside of well funded propaganda outlets. The modern "alt" "mainstream" "new" "trump" right finds them kinda funny in the sense of laughing at grandpa yelling at the TV.
There are hard neocon positions that are pretty leftist-cucky in the old fashioned sense but this is a traditional anecdote vs average argument. On average they're right, but they have weird single issues where they're synoptic with the NYT or 80s era Pravda.
I recall one specific anecdote from the last election where a whole panel of trashy Fox newsreaders were crying on camera (literally) when Trump crushed Jeb in some primary or another, LOL.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday December 29 2018, @03:17PM
They have. I don't have a specific link but generally the New Right loves Israel's ethnostate policy, their racial superiority complex and apartheid-like laws, and their big beautiful border walls. For some odd reason white taxpayers need to fund Israel to support those policies but we're not permitted to implement those same policies to support ourselves, what an interesting thing to think about.
The idea of a Jewish ethnostate is quite appealing as a role model for other ethnic groups, although I'd prefer it be geographically located in Israel, far far away, than the current attempt at creating it in the USA.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Friday December 28 2018, @09:33PM (8 children)
Wouldn't take it seriously. CNN has had some problems with facts, Fox News isn't a news source but a hate & fear machine pushing white nationalist propaganda, and Breitbart is thinly veiled white supremacy like a cleaned up version of the Daily Stormer. The latter two were created and funded to manipulate the people with fear and anger, and to divide the nation. You need look no further than their owners/founders, Rupert Murdoch and Steve Bannon. Those are NOT news sources, but instead the propaganda that rich right leaning fuckwads want to put out. They're political tools wholly divested from journalism, where you can safely put all of their articles under the category of "opinions based on feel-facts". If that's the news source, there's zero reason to read the articles.
Also not included in that list is HuffPo. I skim it occasionally for headlines to talk to relatives, but beyond that, it's just a mouthpiece for liberal snowflakes. Ohh, and everybody except the far-right white nationalist owned "news" sources hate on Trump, not because of politics, but because Trump is a true piece of shit. So that isn't a reason in of itself to discount it, especially when a percentage of Fox News itself goes against Fearless Leader on a regular basis. Everybody hates Trump, even the right, but they do so quietly because of tribalism and they can't admit he was a disaster.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @11:19PM (5 children)
Steve Bannon was in on HuffPo too.
but because Trump is a true piece of shit
why? Please state your reasoning.
I keep hearing this from 'everyone' but his actions speak differently. The only 'disaster' I see is the news being called out on their shit (which I have been yelling about for years). Yet they keep telling me how bad he is. But not really. They keep mixing up things to stick bad things to him (easy to see if you look for it). I know what it is like to be gaslighted. This feels exactly the same. We in the tech industry watch how they get zillions of things wrong every day with our stuff. Yet somehow magically they get it right on politics? I am, lets just say, incredulous.
I challenge you to watch 5 of his speeches. Heck how about 2 or even just 1. Why do you let others tell you what he is thinking. Why not watch it for yourself. You are doing the equivalent of reading book A that is talking about a book B that is reviewing another book C. Then saying you know everything about book C. Go read book C and cut out the middlemen. The other two want to change what C says in some way to make themselves look good. Always remember that. It is like people who talk about the charlie browns the great pumpkin as some sort of deep metaphor about christmas (many paragraphs have been written about it). Where if you ask Charles Shultz he said he thought it was funny a kid mixed up Christmas and Halloween. People always like to puff themselves up on their intelligence by pontificating about others.
I skim it occasionally for headlines
Good god you do not even bother to read the material? No wonder you hate the man. You can not even be bothered to read an article. I hate to say but you are being manipulated, and quite easily. Now now do not get mad. It is hard to hear that you have been mislead especially when everyone around you tells you how smart you are. Misleading people is easy. Con artists have done it for years. I can even give you a blow by blow how the media does it if you like and how Trump is using them to put his agenda in place.
Not even close. You say that to make your brain not explode. That is your bias trying to reason with you that others think differently (but not really right?). The dude is filling stadiums. There are many out there who think he is amazing. You are literally deluding yourself. Once you realize your brain will trick you, you are one step closer to realizing the truth. There is no truth, only bias. Yours (if I may) is at some point you decided you do not like Trump. Your brain at that point needed to justify that.
Here are some interesting vids on how your brain tricks you. It is literally your brain making up a movie that fits the facts as you have seen them and does not upset yourself much. Then explaining away (or ignoring) anything that does not fit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx53Zj7EKQE [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9u6cQYcOHw [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:52AM (4 children)
Blah, blah, blah, fucking blah. If you can't figure out why Trump is an absolute piece of shit, there's no reason to have a discussion. You're Tribal. Period. Before you accuse me of the same, I have a great dislike for Obama and the Clintons as well.
Trump is a corrupt narcissistic piece of shit that is a complete embarrassment to all Americans. From how he treats women, minorities, immigrants, and anybody that he perceives has offered the slightest of criticisms. He has zero respect for the office, tearing up documents and refusing to abide by the Presidential Records Act, ignores the recommendations of the US intelligence community for his own "intelligence", and flouts the corruption of him and his evil spawn. Our taxes paid to take his children-of-the-corn to the Middle East to negotiate properties, and also pay for his business trips to his resort. Where you can pay money to influence the President of the United States. A fucking travesty is what it is.
Dear Lord, I don't have enough time to go through it all. From his utter disrespect to the military, his cowardice in escaping the draft, his politicizing of presidential duties and visits that should be dignified, solemn, and bipartisan. He whines like a complete fucking toddler that "poor me is all alone in the White House for Christmas", where his narcissism and complete disconnect from reality makes him fucking oblivious to all the pain he caused with the shutdown. He further compounds that with lying about whether or not federal workers support him, a completely fictional raise for the military, and then gloats saying most of the people losing a paycheck are Democrats and therefore is okay.
The emoluments clause alone should have him impeached. Whether there was Russian collusion or not, he's never released his taxes and divested himself of his wealth. Jimmy Carter had to give up a peanut farm that wasn't making him rich. Orange Anus cannot even be bothered to disclose his taxes, or to not abuse his position to further his own wealth.
Instead of doing his fucking job, he golfs and rages on Twitter, while blaming everyone else for his failures. The great negotiator? Gimme a break, that assclown and a fully Republican Congress and Senate couldn't get shit done. Making Mexico pay for the wall was his whole shtick, and now because that was patently absurd, he's terrorizing American politics until he gets what he wants. That's not a negotiating, but strong arm tactics to force other people to do what you want. Which doesn't work outside of his little empire of abused and unpaid contractors/employees.
He is not only the worst president the US could ever have, but a truly disgusting human being, and a pox on humanity.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Informative) by stretch611 on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:31AM
I'm saddened by the fact that by the time I got to read this that you were at max mod points and I could not mod you up any higher.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:29AM
He treats women, minorities, immigrants with the same cruel ridicule that he dishes out to everybody else.
You want him to treat them nicer? Heh. That would be sexist and racist. It seems you feel that such people are less able to cope with cruel ridicule than other people, such as white males. You assume that white males have a superior ability to tolerate cruel ridicule. Shame on you for being so sexist and racist.
(Score: 2, Troll) by VLM on Saturday December 29 2018, @03:24PM (1 child)
The whole rant seems to be a projection of what the Clintons objectively historically did, rather than anything "Orange Man Bad" ever did. No, the Clintons were not Trump wearing a mask the whole time.
Do you have anything thats no thinly veiled "Bill and Hillary" ? They are somewhat different in a few ways, Trump isn't merely one of Hillary's kids.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 29 2018, @10:08PM
Fuck you, and your whataboutism. This isn't about the Clintons or Obama, and I made that statement to make it CLEAR that I'm not Tribal and hate Trump simply because I'm "Left" or Democrat.
This is about Donald Trump, and the behavior of Donald Trump. Period.
Provide retorts to the specific claims, or shut the fuck up. I already know that you can't, because I didn't state opinions. I stated facts. Most of documented on social media, or in sparingly few press conferences at the White House.
I'm not the only one saying it. GOP members say these things often in public, and more often off the record. "Toddler Logic" perfectly describes Trump, and some of the most scathing critiques come from conservatives. The only people that refuse to admit he is a fucking dumpster fire, are the people like you that have all the hate and fear boxes checked off by the man's repugnant behavior and statements.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:24AM
"CNN has had some problems with facts...."
Could you give us a few examples? Please be specific. I'm genuinely interested.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:03PM
breitbart is right wing, but not about white supremacy. breitbart was jewish and so are many of the people who run that site. it doesn't compute that they would push white supremacy. in fact the comment section often has laments about people being tarred with the anti-Semitic brush by the site.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 28 2018, @10:22PM
My algorithm for news sources is simple: separate the facts from the opinion, throw the latter into the trash can, and substitute your own, as well-informed as possible, and the amount of strength you hold said opinions with should be directly proportional to your knowledge on the subject.
That said, I flat-out refuse to watch Fox, and can only stand the other big broadcasters with a huge shaker of salt.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thesis on Friday December 28 2018, @10:24PM
If using a "fact checking" website of any kind, do your own due diligence... Most of these places have their own agenda, and will color a story or fact for convenience. Some will outright lie, to protect income or a goal, just as the main stream media will do. Blindly using such a site can make you look uninformed by some, and show a lack of critical thinking, which is sadly a skill that is lacking in this modern world we live in.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Friday December 28 2018, @10:25PM (2 children)
Instead of a sterile useless debate on news sources, we can have a nice aristarchus submission.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @08:32AM (1 child)
No, we cannot. There are none!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday December 29 2018, @09:24AM
Resurrect an old one [soylentnews.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Friday December 28 2018, @11:05PM
Given that errors are inevitable whenever humans are involved, it seems to me that a "reputable" news source would be one that adheres to journalistic norms, methods and ethics [wikipedia.org].
There are a variety of organizations which attempt to quantify the levels to which sites adhere to such methods and ethics. For example, NewsGuard [newsguardtech.com] details their analytical process for identifying those that do:
Whether or not you give Newsguard (and Steven Brill [c-span.org]) validation and agree with the ratings they provide, the criteria listed are both valid and can be applied by using common sense, a modicum of critical thinking skills and an open mind.
That's not to say that a "reputable" news source won't ever make mistakes, because they will. Whether they've been deliberately misled by sources, incorrectly stated facts or some other boner, how they deal with such issues is also quite important.
If you apply the criteria above, you will likely find that some sources you dislike/disagree with are, in fact, reputable sources of news. Contrariwise, you will likely also find that some sources you like/agree with aren't.
Can you be open-minded enough to apply criteria like the above when assessing the reputation of a news source?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:11AM
There is a very strong correlation between the number of logical fallacies per hour/page and just how crappy and biased a sources is (he asserted)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Funny) by mendax on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:23AM (2 children)
For me what's important when making use of mainstream media is knowing whether a media outset makes an effort to maintain an excellent reputation. All media outlets have their own biases. That is a given. However, when I want to catch up on US national news for me it's the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both papers have excellent reputations for reliability (yes, they do make mistakes, however) and, most importantly, they are papers that continue to work at maintaining the reputation they have.
Compare this to Fox News, which has long been a conservative shill, especially now in Trumpworld, or MSNBC, which is a mouthpiece for the liberal and progressive left, both major media outlets that do not seem to care all that much for good journalistic practice. The jury is still out in my mind with regard to CNN. CNN is an enigma to me. The same can be said for the BBC. All that government money it receives in addition to the license fees paid by the British taxpayers has to have some effect upon its editorial bent.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:26AM
Fox tries to stay just a tiny bit to the right of the other news outlets. When they move left, Fox moves left. When they move right, Fox moves right. This gives Fox all of the audience to the right of the other outlets.
In recent years the non-Fox outlets have completely jumped the shark, moving hard left. Fox has responded as described above, and is now very slightly left of typical American views. This explains why Fox is doing so well lately: over half the population has no other mainstream choice.
OANN may someday be big enough to force Fox back to the right a bit. Today however, not every cable provider carries OANN, so OANN isn't yet something Fox has to seriously consider as a threat.
BTW, if you aren't yet convinced that CNN is fake news, look up the koi feeding that Trump did with the Japanese prime minister. Trump DID NOT rudely dump the koi food; he followed the example set by the Japanese prime minister. Absolutely everything CNN does is like that.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday December 29 2018, @03:30PM
Outsiders do a pretty good job on coverage.
Don't read DW for German news, thats pure propaganda. But they're really good for Australian news because they don't have funding or a dog in the fight.
So I'd recommend against your NYT and Post because they're part of the problem/system they're supposedly reporting upon. BBC not entirely half bad although they lie and propagandize about internal British stuff all the time. RT usually has an axe to grind because the neocons seem to think the American Empire extends across the entire world to the borders of Russia (if not into Russia, LOL) but aside from the axe grinding topics, they provide decent coverage.
The American Empire hates Russia because they used to financially support our leftists back in the commie russian era, and now they don't, so they see Russia as a traitor to the leftist cause; given how leftist most journalists around the world are, its hard to find good coverage of Russian issues that isn't mere anti-russian propaganda.
(Score: 1) by MrBoogers on Saturday December 29 2018, @03:10AM
Verge / Vox and family plus their ad networks are all blocked at the router because they harass Pewdiepie.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @07:44AM
The problem with most 'news' is that facts are generally absent. By facts, I mean the kind of thing that you can really only find out after a serious investigation that could only be done months after the 'news' breaks.
The 'facts' that are contained in news are all filtered through sources 'alleging' something, or a scatter gun of random bits of information vaguely pertaining to a topic. Even something that you'd think is 'hard evidence' generally turns out to be wrong in some way when you research "what ever happened to ..." three months later.
In general, most news is negative value information that has no bearing to anything but being able to have "what did you think about..?" conversations at the water cooler. A random sampling of some fear mongering or faux triumph amidst the thousands of other equally valid events that aren't reported is only useful to turn general opinion on some random topic/agenda.
Actual useful news is generally localised. Like Tsunami/Tornado/etc heading towards city X. Water restriction / rolling blackouts over the next week due to Y. And maybe, L signed into law, so the current and future regime can now do M.
But instead we get a tirade of 'Z' arrested for doing something 'alleged'. Here's their address, we have no actual researched facts, but go lynch them anyway. Or 'bad shit' happens somewhere remote like it does everyday of the year, but today we want you to be shitting your pants so you keep voting for the next authoritarian law to 'keep the children safe'.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @08:38AM (1 child)
I get all my news by reading the aristarchus submissions in the submission queue. They never, or, rarely make it to the front page, but they are there for all to see and read in the queue. And there are no nasty alt-right comments in the story queue! Win-win!
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Saturday December 29 2018, @10:24PM
They should be careful to keep them away from RealDonaldTrump submissions. I have this suspicion they will invoke e=mc^2 if they come in contact.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Funny) by Apparition on Saturday December 29 2018, @09:44AM
Sinclair Broadcasting announced a couple of months ago [cordcuttersnews.com] that they will launch a new over-the-air television and video streaming news service called STIRR sometime in 2019.
Finally, America will soon have the one true, unbiased news network it so desperately needs and deserves!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:00PM
* The Guardian [theguardian.com]
* New York Times [nytimes.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:08PM
i check theintercept.com site once in a while, because their raison d'etre still seems to be skewering the high and mighty.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by idiot_king on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:12PM
The best one I've found, by far, is called spidr.today [soylentnews.org].
Sure, lots of right-wing morons in the comments, but I can get all my Alternet and HuffPo articles lumped together on a given topic.
Supports LOTS of languages and countries, as well. Very well put together.