
Ask HN: Where do you get your unbiased news? - bballbackus
When I say unbiased news, I refer to updates on changes in world news, politics, and economics.<p>I listen to NPR's hourly updates 2 to 3 times per day via [1]Stitcher, then I also read NPR's website on occasion.  Aside from NPR I find it hard to find an unbiased news source.
======
idan
IAMA dual-citizen of the United States and Israel. I've grown up processing a
lot of news about Israel, both local (Israeli news outfits) and foreign (most
journalism written in English). I've had more than one occasion to see an
event unfold firsthand, and later read about it in the media.

There is no unbiased news. You must read between the lines, corroborate and
reconcile different accounts, and generally think in order to piece together a
picture of an event, even with reputable sources, because even reputable
sources are really just a big organization that sent a reporter somewhere.

In fact, the reality is even worse: many topics of news have no singular
"truth" to them. As soon as a reporter ceases to be strictly recollective,
news becomes an editorial affair -- and that's ok, so long as people recognize
it as such. The problem is that few people are equipped to make that
distinction.

Most people never learn to take a piece of writing and tear it apart
critically. It's a skill that requires time and practice to acquire. Without
it, people conflate the hard news and the subjective bits. Quality journalism
_should_ include a mix of hard news and analysis, but the news market today
sells to the lowest common denominator, who generally want a simple narrative
in 500 words or less. This leaves little room for the ambiguity of the real
world.

I constantly question what I read because of my experience with reporting
about Israel, and I often think about how little I really know when reading
about other places and stories that lack a neat narratives.

~~~
edanm
Exactly what I wanted to say. Maybe living in Israel teaches a lot about how
good, and all too often bad, reporting is. Even the reporting considered the
most "unbiased" in certain countries sounds, to me, like it's incredibly
biased. Never mind which more accurate: it just goes to show that bias depends
more on what you believe going into the new piece than what it contains.

After reading Seth Godin's "All Marketers are Liars", I've come to the
realization that there _is not truth_ , not in the sense people mean when they
say "unbiased". _Everything_ worth saying has a marketing spin. _Everything_
people say to you goes through layers of previous beliefs. There is not such
thing as "just the facts".

It's not even hard to "prove": take any reasonably controversial story that
happened recently. The initial story already shows you what most people
believe based on their first reactions. Any new piece of evidence that comes
out doesn't have _any_ effect on which side of the issue people are on: the
"fact" is _always_ somehow a proof that they are right. I've seen this happen
very often, and yet people still seem to think that it's all _facts_.

~~~
pg
The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is the sum of the squares of
the other sides.

~~~
edanm
Mathematics (and certain sciences) are one of the few fields where actual
facts exist.

Most news, though, deals with with humans, humans' interactions, and so on.
You can never know what other people are thinking or feeling when they do
something, and oftentimes they themselves don't even know.

If you want to see how bad most reporting is, just see how bad it is in fields
you understand. Most reporting about the computer industry is terrible. Just
as one funny example of a "fact" by an expert (and ironic who I'm writing this
to), pg's article on PR has a footnote about how the damages figure for the
Morris worm was calculated.

Great read in any case, which sorta makes some of the same points:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>.

~~~
nitrogen
_pg's article on_

I think it's awesome that usernames are so de-emphasized in HN that one can
respond directly to a comment by the site's creator without realizing it (or
perhaps you did realize, but deliberately chose to use the third person[1]).
Though HN obviously has reputation built in with karma and well-known members
with well-deserved notoriety, it's very easy to ignore names and evaluate
posts solely on their merits. I believe this can be a useful tool when
implementing the suggestion of others to consider aggregated information from
multiple sources.

 _[1] Will grammarians one day create formal rules for forum posts?_

------
petercooper
I've seen this question pop up online a lot, and a common answer from
Americans seems to be "BBC News." Brits, however, tend to detect a liberal
bias in the BBC's output though it pales in comparison to any found in the US
media. The BBC News team recently reported that the site will be unveiling an
all new design and workflow in the next couple of weeks, including a US
focused version maintained by a separate editorial team in Washington DC.

In my experience, though, it's best to use a large but manageable number of
sources and interpret them with intelligence and wisdom to get a feel for what
the reality is.

~~~
mcknz
One reason people recommend BBC is that it's a place to get a view of the US
from the outside, from perhaps a more "objective" point of view, as opposed to
domestic coverage that is a part of what it reports. I like Newshour, and it
seems that Owen Bennett-Jones can play devil's advocate as well as anyone.

------
lionhearted
Let me ask - what's your goal from the news? Entertainment? Be informed?
Looking for a career that would require knowledge of that sort?

If your goal is get a clear understanding of how the world works, I'd
recommend you transition away from current events news and into reading
history. Current events gives equal time, sometimes greater time, to people
that are incredibly stupid and will be thoroughly discredited in a short time.
If you were about the War on Drugs in the 1980s, you were getting some now-
discredited nonsense. You would've been much better informed and able to
predict outcomes by reading up on Prohibition in the USA or what happens
during any era with a ban on a desired product.

History repeats itself - bans and prohibitions pretty much always go the same
way. Black markets emerge to deliver the goods if they're desired, this
increases the price of the good and makes it lucrative. But disagreements in
this lucrative trade can't be arbitrated in court because the trade is
illegal. Thus, disputes are settled by violence. The need for enforcers, arms,
and protection outside of the law is conducive to gradually centralizing
gangs, cartels, mafia, and other organized crime. This is pretty much always
the way with prohibitions on desired goods throughout history - and you could
easily predict that if you study history, but it's far too easy to get
distracted by charismatic talking points in a debate over current events.

If you want to learn about the American financial crisis, you'd do well to
learn about banking crises throughout history. If you want to learn about
public education, you could do worse than starting to learn about the Prussian
education system.

I've found much more insight in looking back at largely resolved things than
trying to sort through the mess of what's going on. Then when I find myself
out at dinner and it comes up, I can say something like, "Well, at XYZ time in
Japan they did ZYX, and the result was ABC. Do you think that will happen with
this policy in America?" Thus, you're useful to the discussion because instead
of rehashing one of the two mainstream viewpoints you can get on the news, you
introduce new facts, and you'll inevitably hear about the mainstream
viewpoints during conversation, debate, and discussion anyways. History isn't
as sexy or charged as mainstream news, but you wind up becoming much better
informed in the end, and you'll most likely still pick up the main viewpoints
of events as they unfold.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Sigh... You've just pinpointed for me my biggest frustration with the current
"news" industry. They _could_ easily provide a lot of that historical
background to help their viewers/readers actually _understand_ current events.
But they don't.

~~~
noctrine
Facts, and real, unbiased data would probably cause the major 'news' industry
to loose big ratings money.

------
prawn
Almost a year ago, I quit reading local news. Stopped hitting the main news
sites 10x/day, stopped picking up a physical paper when I happened across one.
I'd already stopped watching televised news.

I'd found that too much of what I was seeing was simply irrelevant and it
either frustrated me or pissed me off.

Since that point, research into the influence of PR/publicity companies on
local news showed that our primary newspaper in South Australia was comprised
of 30% content pushed by PR/publicity. The online versions of the main paper
here have devolved into eye-ball seeking trash - bikini galleries, celebrity
gossip, etc.

Through this experience I've learnt how little I really miss. 99% of what's
going on just doesn't need to be known.

I check Al Jazeera English once or twice a week and CNN a little less often.
Other than that, I feel like I've saved some time and cleared my head a little
(especially of some of the negativity that comes from news).

~~~
waterlesscloud
This is fine, as long as you take the next step and also don't vote.

If you choose not to be informed, it's really irresponsible to inflict your
opinion on others via the voting booth.

~~~
ars
In Australia everyone is legally required to vote.

~~~
philwelch
Is there any law against submitting a blank ballot? If so you can just write
yourself in for every office for which you are eligible, and pick a friend to
write in for any others.

If there's a law against a blank ballot AND write-ins are disallowed, you live
in a sham democracy where an elite wants to legally compel you to signify your
assent to its illegitimate rule, and it is your democratic duty to boycott any
such elections in order to highlight their illegitimacy.

~~~
tjmc
You can certainly submit blank or invalid ballots. One bloke I know has been
writing "You must be joking" on his for years.

Technically, you're only required to attend a polling station and get your
name crossed off.

~~~
biafra
What happens if you don't?

~~~
tjmc
You get a letter asking for a reason why you didn't turn up and they fine you
if they don't think it's a good enough excuse.

My mother once wrote "I think compulsory democracy is a contradiction in
terms". They fined her.

~~~
tome
How did they know it was her?

~~~
tjmc
They send letters to everyone who hasn't had their name crossed off the voting
list.

~~~
tome
I assumed you meant she wrote "I think compulsory democracy is a contradiction
in terms" on her ballot.

~~~
ars
No, he meant she wrote that on the excuse letter.

~~~
tome
Yes I completely misunderstood! Thanks both for setting me straight.

------
wglb
It isn't clear that there is such a thing. I remember a friend used to listen
to NPR on the way home. At one point, he realized that he was getting home
angry. Once he figured this out, he quit NPR and started listening to easy
listening jazz (which I reinterpret to mean non-threatening jazz, but that's
another story).

See, what most news channels do (TV, newspaper, web) is to strive to alarm
you. NPR stories about central american coups, financial press predictions of
doom with taxation proposals, valley press warning of the upcoming total
shortage of venture capitol, bloggers warning of the impending death of
microsoft, prince predicting (hoping?) for the death of the internet itself.

When we talk about bias, we are more likely to think left-leaning vs right-
leaning vs libertarian. Let me suggest another way of looking at this.

Are you looking for a source of news whose thrust is to alarm you? I claim
that is the common bias shared by most news sources.

So I suggest this simple experiment. As you listen to a newscast/blogger
podcast/tv broadcast or read a blogger
post/newspaper/news.google.com/news.combinator.com ask yourself "is this story
informing or alarming".

Then check out utne.com or the Christian Science Monitor.

Better yet is to read several, or none at all.

Who is it that said "if the information is important, it will find me"?

------
MichaelSalib
I've picked some policy blogs written by smart people. When news happens, they
often write posts about it and link to articles plus they often add their own
analysis.

This is something that I don't think is well understood: the most broken
component of most news organizations is the editing. News editors tend to
be...not smart. They don't have nearly enough subject matter expertise to make
intelligent decisions about how to asses factual claims in articles or how to
put the news in context. If I want to read about economics, I know for a fact
that any econ blogger on the planet knows a hell of a lot more than 98% of
newspaper editors. What's far worse is how news organizations present
politics; they behave as if political science doesn't exist. Everything is
explained in terms of fictional narratives that often contradict polling while
ignoring fundamentals. Reading news articles about politics makes you more
ignorant, not less.

For example, I read Lawyers Guns and Money ( lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/ ) and
when, say, a war in Georgia breaks out or a South Korean warship sinks, I know
about because the LGM guys write posts with links to news sources. But since
some of them are security studies professors who specialize in international
relations and global security, I get the added context to make sense of it.

So pick some subjects that interest you, find some subject matter experts with
blogs and toss them into an RSS reader. The result will be better than any
newspaper and you'll still get notified when an "important" article gets
published in the NYT or WAPO or LAT or WSJ or anywhere else.

~~~
MrSafe
Would you mind posting some of your own resources and recommendations?

~~~
MichaelSalib
Sure. Looking over the list, I'm reminded why I enjoy reading these people.
Even when I disagree with them, it is obvious that they love their field. They
have a lot of fun with it. There's a kind of joy found in doing something that
you love and have devoted your life to that comes out in their writing. As a
result, these writers make actual value judgments. They don't write sterile
corporate prose guaranteed to offend no one.

* Lawyers Guns and Money, global conflict, international relations, political science, some legal history: <http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/>

* The Monkey Cage, real political science by political scientists: <http://www.themonkeycage.org/>

* The Edge of the American West, mostly history professors but some philosophers too, but less academic than Crooked Timber: <http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/>

* Brad Delong, econ prof at UC Berkley; strong focus on economic history; leans left: <http://delong.typepad.com/>

* Tyler Cowen, econ prof at GMU, leans right: <http://www.marginalrevolution.com/>

* Marc Lynch, foreign affairs prof who talks about the middle east; unlike pretty much every middle east expert, he actually speaks Arabic and has some idea about what actual Arabs are talking about: <http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/>

* Matthew Yglesias, foreign policy, some economics and politics: <http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/>

* Ezra Klein, health care and economic policy: <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/>

* Felix Salmon, a former bond trader who talks about finance: <http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/>

* Julian Sanchez, national security law, background in philosophy, leans right (but not in terms of national security): <http://www.juliansanchez.com/>

* Ryan Avent, who also writes for the Economist but his personal site is more focused on urban planning and transportation economics, especially with regards to climate change mitigation: <http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/>

* Brad Plumer, environment and climate change: <http://www.tnr.com/blogs/the-vine>

* Cosma Shalizi, statistics, social science that uses statistics, lots of book reviews: <http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/>

Also, here are two sites I use to find random long form articles to read on my
Kindle using Instapaper. These are more hit or miss but they cover a much
broader range. These sources won't tell you about hot news stories per se, but
if there's some weird NYT Magazine article that everyone is talking about,
you'll find it here.

The Browser: <http://thebrowser.com/>

Long Form: <http://longform.org/>

------
cgranade
Short answer: I don't. Never mind the insanely conservative bias to every
major media outlet in the US, I don't really trust news that claims to be
unbiased. I prefer it if instead you get reporters and editors being __honest
__about their biases. The whole idea of an unbiased news media being the ideal
kind of news has caused a lot of problems, as can be seen from the firing of
Weigel:[http://crooksandliars.com/ian-welsh/court-eunuch-standard-
bl...](http://crooksandliars.com/ian-welsh/court-eunuch-standard-blogging-
exposed-d). We need to get past the idea of an unbiased news and move on to
having an honest news corps.

------
kscaldef
I tend to go with NPR and The Economist. Both are biased, but their biases are
relatively mild and out in the open (and, more-or-less in opposition to each
other).

~~~
MichaelSalib
I think this depends a lot on what your biases are. I see both the Economist
and NPR as pretty ideological sources, and that's fine. The Economist is a bit
more open and up front though. NPR's central ideology is bland American
boosterism and an absolute refusal to ever make value judgments. That's why
you see NPR being completely incapable of making truthful statements that make
the US government look bad:
[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/22...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/22/npr)

As far as ideologies go, that's a whole lot better than Stalinism, but I
personally aspire to higher standards. Nevertheless, it is a very commonly
held set of ideological priors, especially among the tote bag set (i.e., the
group of people that regularly donate to NPR/PBS and thus got an NPR/PBS tote
bag). Just because their ideological priors mostly match up with yours doesn't
make them "unbiased".

------
kungfooey
There is no "unbiased news." Period.

If what you want to do is get information without an overt bias, then yes, NPR
is fairly good. Others have recommended The Economist, I second that. I would
recommend getting your news from a variety of sources (preferably not
American-centric, if you wish to hear international news).

I tend to lean heavily on NPR, The Economist, and the NY Times (the last two
are seriously contradictory, but I find that to be useful). I have heard good
things about The Atlantic, although I cannot vouch for it myself.

------
jbrun
BBC, Al Jazeera English, and the Financial Times.

In my opinion, those are the three most journalistic institutions remaining -
they report the facts as cleanly as humanly possible.

~~~
xenophanes
Is this a joke? Al Jazeera!? And BBC? BBC is sometimes even more anti-Israel
than Al Jazeera...

~~~
corin_
Without getting into an Israel vs Palestine debate, consider this: would you
call the BBC biased for being anti-nazi in the 1940s? Or American journalists
being anti- the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks? And, are there surely not
Palestinians out there who would see BBC's coverage as overly pro-Israel?

~~~
xenophanes
You disagree with me by comparing jews to nazis (and to the 9/11 terrorists)
and I'm the one getting down voted. Fun.

Well, come on, reply saying you didn't say "jews" and comparing _Israelis_ to
Nazis is legitimate. Except it isn't.

Or maybe you'll deny you compared them, and say it was purely an example of
how being anti-X doesn't prove bias. But I didn't say being anti-X indicates
bias for all X. I said taking a strong anti-Israel stand on a _controversial_
topic does not constitute unbiased reporting. See the difference? You said
opposing uncontroversially bad things is legitimate. But either you missed the
point or you think Jews are uncontroversially bad.

~~~
corin_
My personal view: when they stop killing palestinians I'll stop comparing them
to people in the pastw who killed people of a certain race.

My view on bias ignoring my personal view: "I didn't say being anti-X
indicates bias for all X" - just being anti-Israeli indicates a bias against
Israel? Seems you're being biased against the coverage because you're pro-
Israel to me...

~~~
xenophanes
So now you're comparing Jews with Nazis _more_ and saying they both did/do
racial genocide. Why don't you take your anti-semitisim to Kos or DU? There's
plenty of appropriate websites for you.

~~~
corin_
1.) Where did I accuse Israel of Genocide? 2.) I said Israel kills
palestinians. Feel free to argue with me that it's a war so it's fair, or that
it's neccesary. Don't tell me I wasn't truthfully saying what does happen,
unless the entire world's press, and the Israeli goverment, have all lied
about the fact that Israeli soldiers DO kill palestinians.

~~~
bballbackus
Do you really view Israel as the only one in the wrong in the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict?

~~~
corin_
No of course not (I do however think they're vastly more in the wrong in
general)

------
wyclif
There is no such thing as a lack of bias.

~~~
noonespecial
If you're hearing news that seems unbiased to you, what you are hearing is
news that conforms to your bias.

~~~
whatusername
When I woke up this morning (Aus) my first action was to google for World Cup
2010. Seeing the Netherlands:0, Spain:1 was certainly news. I'm not seeing any
bias though..

There is such a thing as "just the facts".

~~~
zbanks
Well, bias also comes from withholding facts. "Netherlands:0, Spain:1" doesn't
mention the dramatic game between Germany & Spain.

Although it's pretty harmless here, it can make a difference when you talk
about bigger things, like unemployment. Fox News might be apt to stress the
fact that X Million Americans are unemployed this quarter, whereas NPR might
note that unemployment rates are down Y%.

They're both true, and plain facts. Yet, highly biased. Even if you state
both, you're ignoring other, larger factors. Did a government program
start/expire? Did a set of large companies undergo layoffs? Etc.

So theoretically, if you read enough (true) information, you don't have to
worry about bias. (Very hard to do practically)

------
awolf
I love The Economist. It's the only magazine I subscribe to.

I think British culture is close enough to US culture to do a great job
capturing the subtleties of American politics; at the same time they remain
less biased since, for the most part, they don't have a horse in the race.

BTW: I also find that while they do try to remain unbiased, NPR slants a
little more to the left than the right,

~~~
albertsun
The Economist isn't even close to unbiased. It has a very clear view and
interpretation of the world.

~~~
mquander
I think there's a big confusion in a lot of this discussion between bias and
general rationality. The Economist has a much more rational, well-thought-out
point of view than most American newspapers and periodicals, but it's also a
very ideological one, and while reading it one should be trying to consider
ways that the facts presented could lead to different conclusions which the
editors would not be promoting.

I ultimately agree that this is a much better place to be in than trying to
publish irrational but "unbiased" news, however.

------
physcab
I really enjoy the Christian Science Monitor. Despite its name, it seems to be
relatively unbiased. I also like its approach to news- They tend to work on a
local level, but cover broad issues from a different perspective than you'd
typically find from the AP or Reuters.

~~~
waterlesscloud
CSM tends to have a much more thorough perspective than the big news sources.
I'm not sure how that came to be the case, but I do appreciate them for it.

------
pinchyfingers
There isn't such a thing as an unbiased news source. One solution is to get
de-constructed news from a source like No Agenda -
<http://www.noagendashow.com/>, and then you'll start to recognize the slant
behind new stories more readily.

All professional new outlets have sponsors, and so they are biased. NPR for
example, has shows sponsored by Monsanto, GE, and Archer Daniels Midland - so
good luck avoiding bias!

~~~
kacy
Yeah, I like to listen to their stream in the morning. Good stuff! ;-)

~~~
pinchyfingers
ITM! :)

------
theBobMcCormick
PBS Frontline is amazing. Very in depth, very informative.
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/>

------
_flag
Why do people feel the need to label news sources as either "left" or "right"
wing. Why do both sides always have to have valid points? Either the news
source has good reporting and its opinions are logical and supported by facts,
or not.

That said I don't really read much news but I prefer Al Jazeera English and
the BBC.

------
bjmarte
I like the PBS NewsHour program. They seem to have a slight left bias that I
find tolerable. I really like the way they pick two or three issues daily to
go in-depth with and try to get opinions from multiple sides. I also like that
the people they get opinions from seem to be the well thought, well spoken
type rather than the "I can talk the loudest and make the other guy look dumb"
type that the cable news networks seem to use.

------
corin_
As a Brit I find that I just need to tune into pretty much any American news
channel (like Fox), and after five minutes of that right wing hilarity any
other coverage in the world seems 110% unbiased in comparison.

------
rmundo
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Watch it for yukks and for a general take on
what occupies the American psyche. It's in your face frivolous, but so much
news these days is frivolous while pretending not to be that in comparison,
The Daily Show actually feels like straight talk. They seem to really do their
homework when it comes to researching past news. And the interviews are gold.

The Economist has a decent survey of what's important to different peoples
around the world, but I try to keep in mind that a page or two of commentary
often doesn't capture all the nuances of a local situation. Other times I just
scan the front page of Google News.

All news is biased. Just choosing the verbs and nouns in a news report makes
it so. Things I try to avoid these days are outright dishonesty, unfair
judgement (different standards when judging Party A vs Party B), and hidden
agendas. Having a value system is alright if you are honest and forthright
about it.

~~~
MichaelSalib
_And the interviews are gold._

Um, what? Daily Show interviews tend to be awful. Most of them are random book
authors hawking their latest book or actors hawking their latest film. Stewart
often acts like an attention-starved puppy. When he decides to actually
confront his guests, things often go badly because he's so unprepared. Did you
see his interview with John Yoo? Yoo wiped the floor with him. Did you see how
he sucked up to Musharraf? I mean, when you have a dictator on your show, you
can at least ask one or two challenging questions.

------
roboneal
I personally use Twitter to subscribe to a variety of individual journalists,
news makers, wire services, lawmakers, media personalities, etc. Thus,
essentially building my own "news aggregrator".

I try to follow +just enough+ people that infuriate me from time to time -
just to challenge my own well established biases.

------
SamAtt
NPR is pretty left leaning. I certainly wouldn't call them unbiased.

As for where to go I agree with the other comments. There is no unbiased news.
I say check both. Add Fox News to your NPR habit and you should be fine.

~~~
mambodog
Haha, now come on, surely* NPR wouldn't be equal to Fox News' level of bias
and sensationalism... how about NPR + HuffPost?

...okay, yeah, I don't get why NPR is in there, either.

* _As surely as a non-American who just samples a lot of American media could say, at least._

[edited: I guess that came out wrong... not intended to slag off NPR. Or are
people just sensitive about HuffPo?]

~~~
cgranade
Certainly doesn't help to pick two right-leaning sources, anyway. I've never
gotten where this whole idea that NPR is a liberal outlet comes from.

~~~
mambodog
I don't know why anyone would be regularly consuming any such
obviously/strongly biased sources. I'd be concerned that spending too much
time amongst poor journalism and extreme views, they might just start to seem
more 'normal' or 'acceptable' when they are really potentially very
damaging/hurtful our (your?) society as a whole.

Certainly, sample some of it from time to time, to get a feel for what people
are consuming, but there are more sensible options. For example, here in
Australia I read a mix of The Age (moderate left bias) and the Australian
(moderate right bias), and also sometimes the Australian Financial Review
(surprisingly centrist, pleasantly free of sensationalism).

------
Diogenes
Those claiming here that Fox news are lying bastards are probably going to be
equaled by the number of people here claiming that NPR leans left. As
objectively as I can observe, the real outliers (far to the left) are the
entire NBC/MSNBC set of stations and Newsweek (which is about to go under
anyway). Among ABC and CBS, I think the only valuable sources are 60 minutes
(which can lean left) and CBS Sunday Morning (which isn't hard news, but is
informative and entertaining).

Again, in my opinion, NPR <i>leans</i> left. Fox news <i>leans</i> right. And
if you want to watch the NEWS programming on Fox, then it is usually accurate
as opposed to the OPINION programming on Fox like Glen Beck and O'Reilly.

Surprisingly enough, the most worldly, unbiased, informed and thorough daily
news sources are the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Unfortunately, both of them use some combination of pay-for-service access -
which changes regularly as the newspaper industry figures it out. They're both
very close to centered, although the editorial boards lean left and right
respectively. The big difference, however, is that both also give voice to
dissenting opinions (where appropriate - on the OPINION pages) and publish
well-thought-out, if contrary, letters to the editor.

Some of the other commenters are right - you need to take a look at multiple
sources and discern for yourself not only where they sit on the political
spectrum, but also the percentage of news to bullshit each chooses to publish.

~~~
cgranade
Those claiming that Fox News are lying bastards (such as myself, though I
didn't use "bastards" originally) likely are doing so because the evidence is
on our side. On Fox, there is no division between the opinion and news
programming, and both are riddled with so many outright lies that it is an
insult to journalists to apply the word "news." To then equate that total
butchering of facts with an upfront and honest ideological bias such as those
espoused by Olbermann and Maddow (whom I am assuming you mean when you refer
to MSNBC, as they don't really have very many liberals at all) is no more than
false equivocation. Liberal-leaning watchdog groups such as Media Matters
(<http://mediamatters.org/>) do a damn fine job of documenting and citing
evidence of Fox's lies, and so I will not get into it here. Rather, my point
is that there is a huge gulf between having two or three liberal hosts of
fact-based shows and having an entire channel twist and abuse facts into
subservience to the Republican/Tea Party.

~~~
MikoD
Despite all of the conflicting research around the TP, the one thing that I'm
fairly sure of is that 100% of them watch the Fox News & Entertainment.

------
lefstathiou
bloomberg is my favorite news source. its no bull shit and data driven.

i remember once comparing a NYT's article on apple's earnings a little while
back. one had to skip past the 10th paragraph to actually discover what their
EPS was and by how much they beat expectations. those figures would never be
found past the first sentence on a bloomberg piece.

in general i consider it safe to read articles with goggles that filter any
hint of an opinion provided by the author. i look for the numbers and the
facts, the rest is just noise.

------
philwelch
I like to read FiveThirtyEight.com, not because I care about the issues but
because I enjoy seeing issues explained with numbers and statistical
reasoning.

------
geuis
Honestly, HN is primarily my source. With the exception of some hard science
and astronomy that I get from more direct sources. I usually hit msnbc once or
twice a day and find nothing worthy of the name news. I dislike the layout of
nytimes.com, so that prevents me from reading much there. Overall, if
something hits HN it's usually of interest.

------
starkfist
I gave up on all news about 10 years ago. If something is important, or
unimportant but popular, I cannot escape hearing about it. Once in a while I
buy the economist to read on the plane.

That said, I recently started reading the New York Post. There's something to
be said about a really trashy, tabloid take on the news.

------
mbotta
no such thing as unbiased news. also, no such thing as left-leaning mass media
outlets. think about it: mass media implies mass funding - you need to be a
corporation to be a mass media outlet. nuff said.

if you want to learn about what is happening in the world, you could do worse
than start at the forums of media watch sites such as <http://medialens.org>
(for uk-centered media monitoring) or <http://fair.org> (for us-centered media
monitoring). from there, you can refer to the original articles in the mass
media and contemplate on the validity of the criticism by the media watchers.

that way, you incorporate a critical view on the news medium right from the
moment you read the news.

------
rmk
The Wall Street Journal. * Their opinion columns are slightly against leftist
policies. I've been reading the Journal since Obama took charge in Washington,
and the opinion pieces have been highly critical of the present
administration. But then, anti-business sentiment among the people is high,
and the present administration reflects this, so I would still say that the
Journal is a great source of news AND opinion.

The New York Times, on the other hand is very much a left-leaning
publication... I read it during the Bush years, and I am planning on reading
more NYTimes, come November ;)

Edit: Oh yeah, forget about TV as a source of unbiased news... It's far better
to go to the papers for your news :)

~~~
evgen
It's really a shame that the WSJ has gone down the toilet since Murdoch bought
it. I subscribed from college until its recent decline and modulo the
hilariously biased opinion pieces ("we have both sides of the story: the
right-wing opinion, and the far-right-wing opinion...") it was a good source
of information about what was happening in the world because its subscribers
had a vested interest in getting information about what was really happening:
when real money is on the line you want a no-BS, no-spin view of the world
because it can cost you dearly if your news source loses its way and tries to
tell you what it thinks should be true rather than what it knows to be true.
Since the journal joined Rupert's empire the story quality has declined, the
headlines have become less informative and more sensationalistic (even in
articles that are not page one stories), and its current trajectory seems to
be aiming for crash-and-burn before the decade is out.

These days if you want good daily business reporting the Financial Times is
really the only choice you have.

~~~
rmk
That is a pretty harsh assessment. But I think the Journal still does a pretty
good job. Consider, for instance, the repeated support of the Journal for
extending the Bush-era tax brackets (that are set to expire by the end of this
year, I think).

Initially, I got the impression that opinion writers at the Journal seem to
have a 'no-tax' fetish... But then, it appears that many other publications
are joining the Journal in insisting on making the Bush-era tax income tax
brackets permanent, because all of them are of the opinion that this is
essentially a pretty good stimulus policy, considering that the other forms of
stimulus show no signs of improving the miserable jobs numbers.

Arguing that the Journal has gone down the toilet since Murdoch bought it is a
specious argument, and I would think that it is essentially an ad-hominem
attack against Murdoch. Murdoch also owns the Fox serials like Family Guy,
which has a blatantly far-left viewpoint and doesn't shy away from showing
it... So McFarlane and co. routinely get the question, ' How can you work for
Murdoch who also owns the 'fair and balanced' fox news?', to which they answer
that Murdoch doesn't interfere with their business, because he wants revenue-
generators, and he is a businessman first. Of course this is an anecdotal
piece of info, but I do not think Murdoch is fiddling with the Journal. And
the so-called 'right-wing / far-right-wing' articles appear under the clear
heading 'opinion'...

So your claim that 'the Journal has gone down the toilet since Murdoch bought
it' doesn't appear to be a fair one, to me.

------
yoonminn
There's no such things as unbiased news, all news stories are written for
their specific audiences across geography and culture. All news stories of the
same event have different narratives, to fit according to the intuition and
interests/expectations of the intended audience.

When people say BBC news or some other news is less biased (some say read
Chinese news about the US). It's really because it's a different narrative
that sounds new/fresh, it covers different tangents that boring local media
has never went.

So just watch whatever fits your taste/ideology.But if you are out to change
your perspective and encompass as many divergent views as possible.

Just go for the highest contrast, and read history.

------
tobtoh
Several years ago I read a biography on Rupert Murdoch and one thing that this
book impressed upon me was how biased much of the world media is.

Based on that, the approach I take is not how to find unbiased news sources
(although I still do try to find those), but to read widely and deeply and
most importantly, to think! I try to read both 'liberal' and 'conservative'
media to get both sides of the stories. I feel a lot of arguments could be
avoided and consensus more easily achieved if more people tried to understand
what the 'other side' thinks/feels ... and so I try to keep myself 'educated'
by reading all sorts of media.

------
aik
I agree that there is no unbiased news. Ideally you would be equally critical
towards all sources. Be aware of every word you read on the page, and
understand that anything could be fabricated.

As soon as you become "loyal", you're much more likely to believe them
regardless of what they say.

In addition to sites others have listed, for politics mostly, I've found that
these two sites are a good addition (though they're surely biased as well):
<http://www.factcheck.org/>, <http://politifact.com>

------
paragraft
Stratfor is my daily geopolitics fix. They occasionally offer $99
subscriptions, but there's a free weekly email and podcast that's a good way
to get an idea of what they do.

They're not news so much as forecasting. A lot of what happens in the news now
which used to seem to come out of nowhere doesn't, because I've been reading
their updates on the brewing situation between countries X & Y for months.

Similarly I enjoy Foreign Policy, though they're a bit pulpy at times. Still
cheaper than an Economist subscription though.

------
dcreemer
No media outlet is unbiased -- and that's fine. Whenever I read an article
(especially opinion pieces) the first thing I do is check the byline and
research the author a tiny bit.

I stopped watching TV years ago, and have mostly dropped radio as well. I
enjoy reading news with the time to stop and think about what I just read. My
main sources are (in no particular order): The Economist, NY Times, BBC News,
The Guardian, NPR, and the Globe and Mail.

------
mark_l_watson
I now try to only follow the news for 3 or 4 days a week - no news down time
is nice.

When I do follow the news, if a story interests me I try to find articles from
2 or 3 different countries to get a spread of bias - not saying that averaging
always helps though.

I live in the USA, and I generally feel that our news is of very low quality.
The corporate control of our news media and government is a done-deal, and
that strongly effects accuracy and impartiality.

------
amanuel
All news is biased. It is the essence of news and reporting. Whoever is
recording has chosen to show you what you see and hear. If someone is telling
you something it is biased.

When I'm buying a book at amazon.com, I read the One, Three and Five star
review before deciding what to believe.

When I hear something on the news go to Fox, CNN/BBC and NPR/CSPAN...assuming
I feel it is 'bias-able'.

------
cvg
I don't think there are any unbiased news source. I think the best we can do
is read from several different sources and interpolate accurate news. I'm
starting to feel that this method is too much work, but here's who I read:

Primaries: New York Times BBC Al Jazeera English

Skim both: Drudge Report and Huffington Post

------
loganfrederick
My view is that no media outlet is completely unbiased, so I try to read as
many opposing views as possible with as many facts as possible, and derive
some interpretation of the truth for myself, based on as many relevant facts I
can find from all sides of a debate/topic.

------
danbmil99
I watch MSNBC and Fox, and average everything together. Good first
approximation of the truth. YMMV

------
borisk
<http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy>

------
zitterbewegung
Combination of reddit.com , NPR , bbc.co.uk , cryptome.org and off the hook.
Sometimes I will watch CNN. If one thing I have learned is that there is no
such thing as unbiased news. I try to get from all angles and remain
skeptical.

------
quizbiz
Every story no matter the source will have its (1) Origin (2) Value (3)
Limitation (4) Purpose. Keep that mind mind. Credit to the IB History Program
for embedding those criteria for analyzing sources into my brain.

------
lostbit
There is always some level of bias. If there is space for reader's comments
(like here), I try to parse them because there I usually find "the other side"
of the bias, then I have more to build my opinion...

------
known
Why unbiased news is _not_ possible?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West#Democracy.2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West#Democracy.2C_media.2C_and_money)

------
jamesbritt
I have a script that launches a browser with several tabs, for BBC, Drudge, al
Jazeera (sp?), Google News, a few others. Somewhere in the mix I get to know
when something or other happened.

------
neuromorphic
Noam Chomsky's brief (41s) response to the question of 'best newspaper':

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r3z1Wp6nWc>

~~~
dangravell
I agree with him. Here in the UK it's probably the only vaguely impartial
newspaper, plus the actual news that is reported feels more important than the
news reported by the rest of the UK media. Maybe it's just because there are
more numbers involved.

------
kineticac
parse out the facts like everyone says. if you already know bias exists, then
you don't have too much to worry about. seeing bias shouldn't be a worry for
some people, especially HN users. Here we always read and analyze everything
carefully before making a decision about how to take it.

Treat all news sources the same way, it shouldn't be too bad.

------
xenophanes
NPR is not unbiased. What you will perceive as unbiased depends on your own
political leanings.

For example, I consider anything left of Ayn Rand level capitalism advocacy a
left-leaning bias because it's left of the truth. But other people would say
that's extremely biased even though it consists of nothing but true
statements. What they would call unbiased would be advocacy of some
mixed/compromise economic system which is left of capitalism. Shrug.

------
known
<http://www.opencrs.com> is good

------
cema
I do not get unbiased news. I get biased news and account for the bias.

------
SkyMarshal
Bloomberg.com. Least biased US source I can find.

------
christefano
Colbert.

------
thinkbohemian
sad but true: the daily show

when all news is biased, at least they make their bias clear.

~~~
mcknz
The Daily Show has a bias against stupidity, which both major parties have
more than enough of....

------
Concours
bbc news is a very good ressource

~~~
known
I agree. BCC is legally bound to be _objective_

------
tkahn6
The PBS Newshour

You can watch the 1 hour, no commercial, programs online on their site. In my
opinion this is the only professional national nightly news program in
America. They do not lack journalistic integrity or show 'fluff' stories.
Usually the program consists of 3-4 main stories where they bring on 2-3
highly qualified commentators with opposing or unique viewpoints and the
discussion is moderated. At one point in the program they give a rundown of
the days other stories in a brief rapid fire list, delving into more detail
depending on the importance or gravity of the story.

This Week with Jake Tapper

Sunday's at 9am. Excellent and unbiased. Tapper asks really hard questions of
both sides of the political spectrum. Last week he had McCain, this week he
had David Axelrod. He owned them both a few times.

\--------

The quality of news in this country from the main stream media is deplorable
but there are a few gems out there.

------
mkramlich
I haven't settled on one yet but I know it would not be Fox News.

