I see nothing about bias in this website and knowing that Wales probably has a liberal bent, this makes me worry if he only cares about fake news and not biased news. A true solution has to fix both, the latter being more important imo.
The top print publications aren't "biased", except for the well-known slant of their editorial pages (WSJ: Conservative, NYT: Liberal). "Unbiased" just doesn't mean what people think it does.
If, for example, some segment of the population starts believing that a presidential candidate is running a child prostitution ring from a DC pizza joint, it isn't "bias" when the media does not afford it equal weight to, say, a joint FBI/NSA/CIA/DJ statement regarding a crime.
Half of these are editorials, yes. Editorials have been part of journalism for as long as words were printed onto paper. The media is the forum where such debates happen. Also, /r/politics isn't news. Do such a list with the headlines on the NYT cover.
On each point:
- Trump was demanding "border wall money" and it was threatening to derail the debate over a budget CR. If he had not caved, the US government would have shut down on Friday. How is that not real news?
- If the State Department is spending money to promote MAr-a-Lago, how is that not corruption? How is corruption not news?
- same as (1). Also, check the URL: wp.com/opinion
- Giving powerful jobs to family members is the definition of nepotism. This is certainly commentary
- same as (2)
- Politicians make decisions based on poll data. Should the public not be told of poll results?
- Yeah, it's an opinion. It's not pretending to be news.
- Same as 2
I don't actually get the complaint. Do you consider everything negative about the President "biased"? What if he dies? Would reporting that be considered "biased", because it could have an impact on his chances of reelection?
Moderation / curation / selection is present in every single organization; this cannot be helped. Not only is it human nature (humans are tribal, and newspapers / magazines often target specific demographics or mindsets). but the sheer quantity of news makes it impossible to do otherwise.
I expect, in other words, the Wall Street Journal curated headline list to look different from the New York Times headline list, and likewise for the New York Times headline list to look different from the Economist headline list, and that to look very different from my local city paper headline list.
To me, "unbiased news" therefore does not in practice exist (and most complaints about bias are merely complaining that something exhibits "the wrong" bias.) The only true way of coming close to "unbiased news" is probably via meta-analysis. Humans probably cannot handle this for all articles -- a single person would be overloaded with information.
Realistically, the best you can do is limit yourself to a few select news sources that you find the most trustworthy, or that you care about personally (eg more specialized news sources). There is bias even in that, but as long as your curation isn't in one silo, you are probably more informed than most.
(Maybe machine learning could be used to generate meta-analysis of news items with as little "bias" as possible, however even here there's a strong possibility that the bias of the "trainer" would end up dominating...)
How do you define "unbiased" that doesn't also apply to Fox news? For instance, on the foxnews.com homepage there's a feature "FATCATS' FRIEND Obama pulls in $400G with Wall Street speech" which is factually correct. While a casual perusal of nytimes.com homepage has a "There Are More than 2 Jobs in Solar for Every 1 Job in Coal" article, which is again factually correct.
"Bias", such as it is, is entirely in what stories are presented, and the slant given to them.
As another example consider this NYTimes article[0] "Free Market for Education? Economists Generally Don’t Buy It", which refers to a study where 36% Economists surveyed think vouchers would be good, 19% think they would be bad, and 45% are undecided. By lumping together "undecided" and "bad" the article can correctly make the claim "generally don't buy it", but another way of interpreting the data would be "about twice as many economists are pro-voucher as anti-voucher". But that's a headline you'd expect on Fox rather than NYTimes. But both are true!
How come? There are frequently two sides to an issue, both with contradicting evidence (Global Warming, for example). Presenting only one side of the argument might adhere to the evidence-based principle, but that would nevertheless be a biased presentation.
There are never two sides to an issue. That would imply the solution is to "show both sides" on any given issue and then you're done, BBC-style. We consider this to be a flawed form of journalism - it substitutes "A vs B" for nuanced journalism and any deep understanding of the subject matter. You'd never know of the disagreements between climate change scientists because the whole problem is presented by the media as "does it exist at all vs doesn't it?". It also ignores the most prevalent form of bias - simply running stories on a given subject more/less often, or pointing out certain characteristics of people more/less often, and so on and so forth.
Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources.
The source for the 97% claim is usually the Cook2013 survey. Is a phrase like '...carbon sequestration in soil is important for mitigating global climate change' in a paper abstract really enough to be counted part of the 97%? Some of the surveyed authors disagree with their classification [0,1].
The most recent study (2015) on your second link that is a literal survey has 93.7% consensus.
The next valid study in (2014) is 87%.
It then throws in a study that includes people who aren't scientists with lower numbers.
Then you have Cook.
Then you have another study with 90% consensus.
Then another two more that includes non-scientists.
Then one with a different question.
Then one with a 100% consensus based on published scientists.
Then another one that includes non-scientists.
The range is from 87% to 100% consensus with 2 of 5 at 97% or greater.
I understand you are trying to argue I'm wrong but the moment you start referencing personal blogs and studies that include non-scientists, you aren't really debunking what I said to any great degree and none of the years overlap sufficiently so its really a charge of a trend of belief over time combined with different methodologies.
100% -> 90% -> 97% -> 87% -> 93.7%
That makes perfect sense given science is always going to uncover new evidence that there was some variation over a 15 year period.
Using that logic, when presented with the perspective from 20 doctors reaching two different conclusions, you present both perspectives and conclusions. Furthermore, you do not suggest whom to trust.
Also, it is somewhat ironic that you chose doctors as an example, as this is the area where it is common practice to get a second opinion when presented with a material conclusion.
> Also, it is somewhat ironic that you chose doctors as an example, as this is the area where it is common practice to get a second opinion when presented with a material conclusion.
A second opinion doesn't require a 20 person sample size to have a a reasonable chance of landing on someone who shares your views.
There is a reason it is to get a second opinion, not 20 opinions.
The basic problem here isn't the irony you perceive but the fact literally _nothing_ in modern medicine functions if you require 97% consensus.
A doctor that manipulates you for some purpose that has nothing to do with your health may very well end up losing a license and go to jail. A journalists doing the same just calls it Tuesday.
> A doctor that manipulates you for some purpose that has nothing to do with your health may very well end up losing a license and go to jail. A journalists doing the same just calls it Tuesday.
So your argument is scientists are equivalent to journalists who solely exist to manipulate you?
You are free to stop using a computer, taking medication, and driving a car in that case.
> So your argument is scientists are equivalent to journalists
Erm, what? How is that my argument?
> journalists who solely exist to manipulate you?
I don't say they exist "solely" to manipulate - I say they consider manipulating part of allowable and normal behavior, and this should be corrected. Until this is done, the level of trust we allow to a journalist should be much lower than one allowed to a doctor. Because the doctor is supposed to be on your side, and the journalist is not.
> You are free to stop using a computer, taking medication, and driving a car in that case.
You seem to be answering something completely unrelated to my comment in any way. Please don't do that.
Your last sentence is my point, particularly this phrase: 'but that would nevertheless be a biased presentation'. Who cares? Trying to eliminate bias from everything is a fool's errand that will tie people up in pointless minutiae - just like whatever happens when warming sceptics are let near anything resembling a debate. These people want to sow confusion and division, so much better to ignore them, especially when their position adds nothing to the discourse.
We've already solved this problem: Professionalism. Quality professional culture is preferable to pointless nitpicking anyday.
The point is not eliminating bias in each message. The point is adequately representing what's going on and providing tools for people to make informed decision. If some information source hides parts of information and distorts another parts of information, this goes contrary to that goal.
> We've already solved this problem: Professionalism
You say it as if it explains something. But it doesn't - what's "professionalism"? There are a lot of people that are literally paid millions to deliver news, and if you're interested in news (and not, for example, in making fun of the person you disagree with or reinforcing your preconceived notions about people disagreeing with you being evil and stupid) they are doing a spectacularly crappy job. Are they "professionals"? And if not, where does one gets them? Are people that fake scientific data "professionals" (happens all the time)? Are people that make grand political claims based on shoddy research or no research at all "professionals" or not? Where does one get that "quality culture" which would eliminate those common occurrences?
You seem determined to focus on outliers rather than averages. There are lots of examples of professional news gathering and reporting organisations around the world that are trusted and reliable sources of information. A key part of this professionalism is that they have robust internal processes for self-criticism.
You seem to have an agenda to try and prove that journalism as a vocation is fundamentally broken, and this leads you to make hyperbolic statements and clutch at strawmen.
Take a look a little deeper and you'll see that journalism is a profession with ethical standards and is actually pretty robust and, perhaps, even honourable - it's the funding and business models that are the issue, but the actual practice is quite sound.
> A key part of this professionalism is that they have robust internal processes for self-criticism.
I am not observing any evidence of such processes existing. In fact, I am observing exactly the opposite - people freely moving between being political operatives and newspeople, political parties coordinating propaganda campaigns with friendly news anchors, known news personalities being openly hyper-partisan and not being challenged on it in their organization, independent thinking people being forced out (e.g. Sharyl Attkisson) and so on. I don't see any self-criticism going on.
> You seem to have an agenda to try and prove that journalism as a vocation is fundamentally broken
Journalism as a vocation is not broken. Journalists as a practitioners of the profession as it is practiced now are. Yes, there exist professional journalists, who do what they are supposed to do, honestly. Many of them. But now they are going against the stream, and working against the odds. And one has to be blind to not see that situation is getting worse, the trust in media reporting is dropping and the quality of news content coming from major outlets is terrible. You can call it "broken" or you can call it "temporary difficulties which do not influence averages which are still excellent" but its in plain view for everybody to see. And it's not my agenda - there are a lot of people around recognizing the same. Otherwise we wouldn't need special startups to do what journalists were supposed to do.
> you'll see that journalism is a profession with ethical standards
Ideally, yes. However, I don't see these standards being really enforced or even seriously heeded to. Very rarely I see any analysis done on bad reporting, and only in a case the organization was externally caught and called out on it.
Maybe you're right and I am focusing on the visible outliers, but it seems to be that there are too many "outliers"...
