Irishsean

I've seen it bandied about quite a bit lately that this news source is republican, that one is democrat, and have a question.

What news source isn't biased? Getting the news out depends on many different people, and people are not the most infallible beings out there. No matter what, theres going to be a little bit of leaning towards one side or the other somewhere.

It's a given that some news sources are more biased than others, but what sources really try to give you facts without adding that extra helping of rhetoric to it?

__________________
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
Leon Trotsky

Mephisto2

Very very few.

I like to rely upon BBC, as it is legislatively mandated to be objective. Indeed, recently there was a huge scandal due the fact that it was accused of being anti-Government in the UK and there were several resignations, sackings (and even one loosely related suicide).

The BBC is objective (http://news.bbc.co.uk/). That means it posts some pretty damning stuff about US policy sometimes and is therefore lambasted by many conservatives, but objective it is nontheless.

I also believe some of the "webosphere" sites are considered reliable. Once again, that's only until some Democrats/Republicans contest its findings.

Some of these include

www.infoplease.com
www.factcheck.org


After that, I'm not so sure. I think CNN is closest to a non-biased mainstream news agency the US has, but that's my opinion. Conservatives hate it.

See a pattern here?


Certainly MSNBC, CBS, Fox (lol!!!!!) are not objective in any reasonable sense of the word.


Great idea for a thread.


Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

You know, after reading this thread, I went back and visited www.factcheck.org.

God, I love that site. Every poster here should be compelled to visit it before posting (myself incuded!).


Mr Mephisto

Irishsean

Factcheck is pretty interesting, I'm gonna read thru some more of it.

CNN unbiased? It is commonly known as the "Clinton News Network" after all, its pretty anti-republican for the most part imo.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

__________________
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
Leon Trotsky

Redlemon

The only way is to get "unbiased" news is to read biased news from both sides, and draw your own conclusions on where they mesh.

Mephisto2

As I said, it's my opinion that it is the least biased network of the mainstream media networks in the US.

Put another way, it's a lot better than the others.

Of course, I completely forgot ABC, and especially the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. We even get that down here in Australia and, whilst quiet "dry", I find it very interesting and balanced. They always have pundits from both sides to argue the topics.


Mr Mephisto

irateplatypus

our domestic cnn isn't bad... cnn international is just awful. while traveling in japan and europe i was embarrassed to watch their coverage. bbc isn't the baseline for sober journalism that some people claim it to be... but if bbc reports something i consider it to be generally reliable.

i'll treat any developed story from a major news source as reliable. i do, however, have trouble stomaching some of the "news" stories cited with partisan motives. it's just not in me to rely on a story from www.marxgivesmeahardon.com or www.bloggingforrubyridge.com If you want a story to be given serious debate from this TFP'er... usually you'll have to wait till it appears in the mainstream.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Mephisto2

Well personally, I find BBC the best international news site. As I said, they are legally obliged to be objective. How many US networks can claim the same?

And if they're not the "baseline", who is? There has to be some standard.


Mr Mephisto

roachboy

i dont think there is a baseline source.
i think we are stuck taking in a range of sources and balancing, comparing, eliminating.
all i know is that for almost any major story, i do not rely exclusively on the american press. bbc is a decent source to shift outside with, but the stories are relatively short on their website.
sifting takes quite alot of time....that is why i assume lots of folk do not do it...

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

We could mention the right slanted also. Why is it everyone comes up with the left but mention the right and you get a fight.

But of course there is my favorite:

Washington Times = owned by a Cult Leader that has given millions to N. Korean leaders to help their nuke programs, sold N. Korea military subs (how Rev. Moon got military subs is a good question), basically called Christ a fuck-up and believes he (the Rev. Moon) is the new messiah...... AND the right loves this man, so much so that Bush has called him a "great American" and "a great visionary".

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Mephisto2

You know, you're absolutely correct. The stories are rather pithy and don't have the depth of some other sources.

This is a very fair and accurate criticism of the BBC news site. You can get more in depth analysis if you dig enough, but it's not easily available.

What other good non-partisan sites are there out there?



Mr Mephisto

iceburn

The onion is actually really bipartisan in its jokes. They straddle the spectrum pretty well.

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... and shit.

ARTelevision

It seems far more useful to me to state simply that no news sources are objective and leave it at that. In other words, all news sources are biased.

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create evolution

pan6467

I agree, and it is more a good thing than a bad thing, IMO. Because every writer will inject his take on the news (sometimes a lot, sometimes maybe just in the descriptions), it's only natural, and I would prefer that over a dry stating of just the facts. Plus, 99% of the stories wouldn't be more than a few sentences without the bias.

It's one reason I do listen to Limbaugh and others. I read fairly Liberal papers (the Plain Dealer, Akron Beacon Journal), prefer MSNBC, NBC or ABC for national news. Limbaugh will point somethings out that I didn't know and I from there do my own research and make my own decisions. Like everyone Limbaugh puts his spin on things but after researching and trying to see both sides I can then decide who is closer to the truth.

I will say I like places like Yahoo or Excite where you have multiple news sources available.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Mephisto2

Whilst true, this kind of avoids the point.

Everyone knows some are far more biased than others. Therefore, logically there are others that are less biased.

I see no problem in trying to identify those.



Mr Mephisto

pan6467

I think the only way to avoid bias, if you are truly looking for the truth and not something to feed your own bias, is to get your news from multiple sources.

Go to say CNN and watch their coverage over whatever, and then watch Fox News and see what they say. Somewhere in between the 2 is the truth, it truly is then up to you to decide.

If you read Time or Newsweek then read the US News and World Report and agian compare the spins and decide.

The problem I see is that people don't want to think or depend on 2 or more sources, they want everything balck and white while living in a technicolor world. If you get all your news from 1 source or 1 side then you are going to be totally 1 sided on everything, and you are missing the whole picture.

Hell, every now and then when I am home I may watch 700 Club's news. Just to see aspects I may not have seen before. The only truly good belief and decisions are those that are educated choices that you, and only you, have researched both sides of.

If you choose to vote for Bush/Kerry choose to do so because he represents more of what you want than the other.

In the long run I think bias is needed to some degree to keep the other side honest.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Mephisto2

Very good advice Pan.

BTW, what is 700 Club?


Mr Mephisto

Irishsean

The 700 club is Pat Robertson's right wing, christian conservative show.

http://www.cbn.com/

__________________
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
Leon Trotsky

jimbob

Bias is best guaged from what stories the news outlets decide not to run as well as how they approach the ones they do.

The BBC was found to be the most pro-government news outlet (in Britain) over the Iraq war - they relied more heavily than the rest on uncorroborated government-supplied information. The BBC was indeed accused of being 'anti-government' and there were resignations over a story which has turned out to be very substantive but not entirely proven. The government put out a dossier which claimed that Iraq could launch missile strikes on British interests in 45 minutes. The BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan met with the security services' chief weapons expert Dr David Kelly and later reported that the 45 minute claim was fabricated to make the case for war. At first the government claimed that Gilligan had spoken to a low ranking intelligence officer but then released Kelly's name to the press. In a parliamentary questioning session Kelly denied making the statement and, about 6 months after telling friends "I'll probably be found dead in the woods", was found dead in local woods. The 45 minute claim was a key part in convincing parliament and the public of the need for war but it was recently dropped by the security services. It was then that the public found that the claim originated from an Iraqi dissident living in South London. Why would a security service with the resources of a major world power rely on information from such a person we wonder? Well it all worked out nicely for the dissident, who's now the interim leader of Iraq.

http://www.FAIR.org is another good place to uncover the truth.

Mephisto2

Despite the Kelly affair, the BBC remains the most repected news service in the world.

And I would disagree that it was "found to be the most pro-government news outlet" during the war. The Blair government consistently accused it of anti-government bias!

How can you reconcile your assertion with the fact that the BBC report (that resulted in Kelly's breakdown) was an attack upon the government and an expose of the claim they "sexed up" the reports?

You're contradicting yourself.

Mr Mephisto

PS - Thanks to the link. Very interesting site.

quicksteal

I think CNN's website is unbiased. Their TV side seems more critical of the Republicans, however. I try to read my news, that way I can read over the article again if something doesn't sound right.

jimbob

The BBC report that sparked the Kelly affair was essentially true and undoubtedly in the public interest. I hope the BBC would be respected because of this report. It is unfortunate that the government out-manoeuvred the BBC, made the issue into an 'affair', and covered up its wrongdoings with an 'independent' inquiry, chaired by the same man that helped clear British soldiers of the Bloody Sunday massacre, because the BBC's reputation did not deserve to be besmirched in that way.

"Many British academics believe now that the BBC was too sympathetic to the government's pro-war stance and that accusing it of an anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis. In three different academic studies by three distinguished institutions in the UK, the corporation appeared to have displayed the most "pro-war" agenda of any broadcaster in the two main areas of media coverage: information sources and news content."
Taken from http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/op...ticleID=112220

In the run up to the war the BBC did question what was being put before it but once the war began that seemed to stop.

It's assumed that it was the pressure put on Dr Kelly as the affair grew that lead to his death. There was much discussion of that in the Hutton Inquiry and the BBC's report shouldn't be directly related to Kelly's breakdown.


My pleasure.