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>There is no such things as neutral news.

That's a big statement, can you elaborate?

Surely there can be objective reporting on events. So do you mean that filtration that a news organization must perform (i.e. it's impossible to report on every event) will have some bias?



Every algorithm for promoting certain articles over others favors some groups over others. Even if you evaluate on neutral grounds, you're still favoring the groups that are in fact able to get you to consider things as news (eg, news wire services, active contributors, etc).


>Every algorithm for promoting certain articles over others favors some groups over others.

You could present articles in chronological order.

>you're still favoring the groups that are in fact able to get you to consider things as news

Yeah, that's essentially what I was saying.


Let me elaborate and be more concrete. Suppose a special interest group - say, Comcast's PR team - wants your organization to consider their press release as "news". Either you accept their claim of newsworthiness and have more of a "for" slant, or reject or modify their claim and have more of an "anti" slant.

Or another example: the website itself is far easier to contribute to with stable electrical supply, broadband internet access, and an ample supply of free time. You can bet that the news is going to be more relevant to white-collar first-world educated folks than subsistence farmers in rural India. I mean, yeah, Indian subsistence farmers could contribute in principle, but in practice, you're going to get a lot of news suggestions from other folks, and those suggestions are going to wind up as news articles.


You just put together the clearest examples I've seen for illustrating this point. When it need to make it from now on, I'm linking to this comment :)


Your first paragraph is, again, essentially what I initially stated.

Your second paragraph is a separate, and good, point.




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