

Where can I get unbiased news? - bootload
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Infrequently-Asked-Questions/specialfeature.aspx?ID=68

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27182818284
There is no such thing as unbiased news. What you want instead is the Hunter
S. Thompson model where the journalist makes their opinion clear and upfront.
Then, you can judge the rest of their reporting yourself. A lot of journalism
majors I know try to pretend their unbiased, but that isn't how humans work.
Say it upfront like programmers do ("First of all I have to admit I use
Lisp/Python/Whatever but here is what I don't like about Ruby 1.9 blah blah")

edit: typos

~~~
gibsonf1
Actually, before Sulzberger took over the NYT, the Times was the gold standard
in objective reporting. I loved it back then.

~~~
bokonist
You were reading the NY Times before 1935?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hays_Sulzberger>

Jokes aside, NY Times has never been unbiased. Try reading the Power Broker.

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jackfoxy
"Scientific American" is a sad shadow of it's former self. It has gone mass
market and PC.It used to be closer to one step below a peer revue scientific
journal.

~~~
whyenot
This is also true for New Scientist, which has _really_ gone down hill over
the past few years.

The front sections of Science and Nature are pretty good for general science
news. Science News might be another option, but I haven't read it in several
years and have no idea if it's even still being published.

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swernli
In my opinion: The Daily Show and/or Colbert Report. I guess you could say
their only bias is toward comedic pessimism. Is it sad to say that a comedy
network has become what I believe to be the least biased news? Or is it just
our modern evolution of what has always been the place of good satire: to
criticize, under the guise of comedy, that which "serious" outlets dare not
discuss?

~~~
benkant
I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. Aside from not
really being news, it's hardly unbiased. Perhaps the real issue is that there
is no such thing as unbiased.

Personally I read The Economist and subscribe to a bunch of sections on
news.google.com. In the end you have to make up your own mind.

~~~
swernli
Good point. I made the classic mistake of forgetting to correct for my own
bias :). That said, I at least appreciate that they make fun of the parties on
both the left and right, which are more and more becoming paradies of
themselves rather than collections of reasonable human beings interested in
debate and compromise. However I think the most important point is exactly
what you and several other people have said: get lots of input and make up
your own mind. I'm not sure how many people are interested in doing the
legwork though...

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shrike
I always thought people who were looking for unbiased news were actually look
for news that matched their own bias. I know I read certain publications/sites
because I am more likely to read an article that presents a series of facts
couched in a (tone|bias|opinion) that agrees with mine.

Plus "unbiased" is really hard. It's been in the 40's (F) in San Francisco
today, the online paper ([http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/qws/as/qr?scope=term&sourc...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/qws/as/qr?scope=term&source=&period=30d&dmode=range&minm=01&mind=14&miny=2010&maxm=01&maxd=20&maxy=2010&term=weather&smode=and&Submit=S))
has had headlines talking about how cold and rainy its been. In this case
"cold and rainy" is biased, many people would consider our weather recently
pleasant and balmy. That makes the chronicle biased, but not necessarily not
worth reading.

~~~
shrike
See, I'm not the only one who thinks weather news in the Chronicle is biased -
[http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/what-kind-of-
wea...](http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/what-kind-of-weather-
makes-news/)

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KaiP
I'm surprised The Atlantic didn't make it on that list. I always see it
mentioned in the same breath as the other sources and have found most of the
articles fairly unbiased and interesting.

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bootload
There is always some form of bias in reporting of news. Journalists are people
so no matter how hard they try to be balanced there will be some degree of
slant. There is a difference between slant and bias. Bias is trying to fit the
facts to the story, not the other way around. So how do you check for bias and
misinformation? What about choosing what you consider to be unbiased news
sources, _"news you can trust?"_ This isn't enough you also have develop a
contrary viewpoint. [0]

How?

I read a Sciam article yesterday [1] that outlined a few hints.
Misinformation, is opinion presented as fact reported as news. See if you can
spot the following techniques used reading or listening to your _"unbiased"_
news:

    
    
      - lack of evidence
      - use of supporting imagery
      - repetition
      - framing 
      - entertainment & fear
    

When searching for unbiased news I source from many sources: print; radio; tv;
web; Favouring depth to breadth and keep my eyes shut to deceptive images.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrarian>

[1] _"How Effective Are Misinformation Campaigns to Manipulate Public
Opinion?"_ ~
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=misinformat...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=misinformation-
government-campaign-iranian-physicist-assassination&print=true)

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rpledge
Interesting to see where Bill goes for news. I may not be Bill Gates (I
certainly don't have his bank balance), but people interested in unbiased news
should check out the "No Agenda" podcast at <http://noagendashow.com>

Dvorak and Curry may not be everyones taste, but they do point out many
instances of mainstream media fail

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JacobAldridge
Slate.com is my ultimate procrastination tool - I intentionally haven't
bookmarked it, so I only go there when I'm really bored and remember to (ie, a
few times a week). As such, I've always seen it as a guilty pleasure.

Now I know that Bill Gates hangs out there ... well, that doesn't really
change anything in my life. But I'm ever-so-slightly more smug.

~~~
karzeem
Weirdly, it was owned by Microsoft until not too long ago.

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9oliYQjP
You should read biased news sources, only they should include those that
espouse the opposite of your preferred bias. If you're left-leaning, keeping
up to date with Fox News is like doing unit testing on your belief system.
Likewise if you're right leaning but can put up with Jon Stewart (yeah, I'll
go there and call him a news source).

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zzzmarcus
Really? There are no unbiased media sources. Bill Gates of all people should
recognize that every publication he mentioned is biased and be aware of, and
mention, their perspective. I read some of these publications, but I'm at
least cognizant of their leanings and know where to go for an alternative
point of view.

The Economist is great if you want the Keynesian perspective on economics and
not much else. Per wikipedia: According to former editor Bill Emmott, "the
Economist's philosophy has always been liberal, not conservative." The bias is
clearly stated.

Scientific American is purely mainstream science. It represents the cathedral
of academia.

Slate - Do they even try to be non-biased? Again, wikipedia also describes it
as liberal.

NYT/WP/FT/WSJ - No comment. Anyone who has read them can form their own
opinions.

~~~
ewanmcteagle
How is the economist Keynesian?

~~~
zzzmarcus
This isn't definitive, but search economist.com using Google for the
following:

Keynes - 1640 results

Adam Smith || John Stuart Mill (classical economics) - 992

Hayek || Milton Friedman (Chicago school economics) - 858

Mises (Austrian economics) - 431

Of course it's better to read it and form an opinion from the actual content
for yourself but I think these results are fairly indicative.

~~~
ewanmcteagle
You realize, of course, if I ran a website criticizing something it would show
a lot of hits for that thing right? Quantity alone doesn't tell us much here.

~~~
zzzmarcus
Sure, which is why I qualified those results by saying they're not definitive.
I have read The Economist, come to my own conclusions (that the publication is
strongly Keynesian) and thought it would be interesting to see if that bias
showed up in a simple search for Keynes' name. Turns out it did.

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pclark
One of the features we offer at Broadersheet that I'm really proud of is that
we can offer "all the sides" of an article to our readers. We can show you the
same article from a number of sources.

It's live right now, and I've been sketching up some pretty mad stuff
influenced partly by what ^joshu worked on:
[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/delicious-upcoming-
foun...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/delicious-upcoming-founders-to-
show-you-political-bias-of-news-sites/)

~~~
pclark
Really interested in what people think of this feat. Useful?

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noelchurchill
For current events I follow thedailybeast.com. The comments are filled with
trolls though.

~~~
pyre
You better hope that you don't typo that while your boss is in the room. ;-)

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jackfoxy
Does not exist as a single source. Try news sites with diametrically opposed
points of view and draw your own conclusions.

~~~
lmkg
I upvoted because at its core, the plurality approach is a fundamentally good
idea. However, two caveats. First, beliefs aren't on a spectrum, so get
several opinions, not just two. Second, diametrically imposed still shouldn't
mean extremist; you'll get higher signal:noise ratio in more moderate sources.

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adamcrowe
You can't.

You have to read widely and deeply, correcting for bias as you learn to spot
it.

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joubert
For me the ultimate criterion is the degree of quality _investigative_
journalism.

Congruent with that is the avoidance of sound bites.

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Anon84
For what definition of unbiased?

News are always biased. Facts are the only ones that can, potentially, be
without bias.

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Dove
stratfor.com

You have to pay for the news, but it's meaty and not particularly partisan.

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Flemlord
Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal both have a strong right-wing
slant.

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InclinedPlane
Maybe you're thinking of the Washington Times.

~~~
evgen
No, I am sure the OP was talking about the Post. The news coverage the sort of
"inside the beltway" stuff you would expect from the local paper to a one-
industry town, but the editorial board is pure neo-con.

~~~
Flemlord
Yup. In both cases it's the editorial board that drives the publication to the
right. There are great articles in both pubs but you can't call either
unbiased.

[http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/18/froomkin/i...](http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/18/froomkin/index.html)

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tmsh
And I've got some money.

