
Show HN: Daily email with best news articles from both sides - amoorthy
https://www.thefactual.com/
======
amoorthy
Hi there - I'm the co-founder for The Factual.

Many people are worried about being in a news bubble, especially as the 2020
election approaches, and often wade through a lot of duplicate content as they
browse multiple news sources.

Our email newsletter simplifies this by gathering the best articles across the
political spectrum on trending topics while also showcasing "under-reported"
stories found on one outlet only.

A brief on how we determine "best articles" using an algorithm that rates
diversity of sources, tone of writing, author expertise, and site historical
reputation: [https://www.thefactual.com/how-it-
works.html](https://www.thefactual.com/how-it-works.html).

ps: in case you want a preview of the newsletter before signing up, here is
today's version: [http://104860.hs-sites.com/klobuchar-endorses-biden-jack-
wel...](http://104860.hs-sites.com/klobuchar-endorses-biden-jack-welch-dies-
apple-settles-big)

Thanks for checking it out.

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berniepebbles
1\. How do you select your sources? *edit grammar

2\. How do you decide whether to label a source as left, or moderately left?
What is the political spectrum?

A. What would you assign brietbart news? B. Why wouldn’t you give new york
times a “objective” tag? (That’s what they claim to be. /s)

I think new york times is as far left as vox. Your website seems to paint them
as moderately left.

~~~
amoorthy
Hi there - answers below: 1\. We have a list of about 1000 news sources that
we pulled together from lists of popular news sites and Twitter.

2\. We use a 5-point political spectrum: Right, moderate-right, Center,
moderate-left, Left.

Political leaning data is from Media Bias Fact Check and AllSides. The
methodology of these sites seems reasonable and they've been used in research
by The Economist to study bias on Google search results so we consider that to
be generally acceptable.

2A: Breitbart is Right-leaning.

2B: We don't have an "objective" tag. Most news sites consider themselves
objective but the biases of the authors and news outlets - conscious or
otherwise - suggest every story needs to be corroborated across a few sources.

The bias of an outlet doesn't affect its rating from The Factual. So the bias
information is mainly for context to the reader and the fine gradation of Left
vs. Moderate-Left may not be as critical.

Thanks.

