The difference is that journalists are supposed to be professionals who discern the reality of a situation and report it to those of us who can't be there or don't have time to sift through all of the details.
The reason we don't get that as much in the US is that a lot of journalism is modeled on the wire service piece, which is meant as generic copy that almost any newspaper can reprint. It's what journalism prof Jay Rosen calls "The View From Nowhere".
One important distinction, also mostly lost on American journalism, is that viewpoint is different than bias. It's easier to see in the foreign press, though. The Economist, for example, has a very clear viewpoint, but they visibly work hard not to be biased.
I'm not sure how you can describe The Economist as both having a clear viewpoint yet also not biased. It's more that TE is very open and honest about being biased, it doesn't try to hide that fact, so that helps it come across as a more mature publication. But nobody rational would read TE and think they're getting an unbiased view of the world on any topic that the editor feels strongly about (immigration, the EU, Russia, etc). For tech stuff, the politics of Malaysia and the myriad other topics TE covers that they don't have any strong opinion on, sure, it's great for that. For politics what you're reading are opinion pieces intended to persuade you.
Can you not think of a topic where you have a clear point of view but can write in an unbiased way?
For example, I can give novice programmers a reasonably unbiased overview of the strengths and weaknesses of various programming languages, even ones I don't favor myself. I can also talk happily about the flaws in the languages I personally prefer.
I see people do this pretty often with things like cities they've lived in, restaurants, books, and movies. Anybody who works at it a bit can do it. You just have to be able to distance yourself a bit from your preferences, to learn how to make an intellectual case that cuts against your biases.
So yeah, I've read The Economist for something like 30 years, and I think they do a good job of having a strong viewpoint without skewing their coverage much because of it. In particular, I think they keep their opinion-y activities well contained in the leaders and regular columns. The news still has a fair bit of viewpoint (e.g., numerical, humanistic, skeptical, and, well, economics-focused), but rarely do I find them shading the facts or juggling the numbers to force an outcome, which is what I mean by bias.
The big source of bias is the selection of what stories to include.
Do you think TE will write an article focused on crazy things said by leaders of the EU? Never in a million years. They will happily devote large amounts of coverage to statements by politicians they disagree with, however.
What stories to include is also a matter of viewpoint. Note how complicated the line between "good story for HN" and "not right for HN" is. Sometimes I'd call that a matter of bias, but the great majority of the time it's just viewpoint.
I also think "crazy things said by leaders of the EU" is an odd thing to ask for, as it is basically asking them to import your bias as to what's "crazy". I certainly see them printing things from EU leaders that I'd call crazy, if that helps. I also wouldn't call them deferential toward anybody; they're on average quite skeptical of politicians' claims.
I note that you didn't answer my question. Maybe you could? And let me ask another: you only respond here on a relatively small set of stories. Is that because you are biased? Or just because you have a viewpoint?
The article argues that Britain is being "boorish" towards the EU and doesn't understand its neighbours. It quotes Hollande:
in recent days François Hollande, Jean-Claude Juncker and Angela Merkel have all expressed concern at the noises wafting across the sea. “There must be a price,” the French president told a European gathering in Paris on October 6th.
But they are engaged in extremely selective quoting. The full Hollande quote is "There must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price" which makes the EU sound significantly worse: what kind of supposed allies state flat out that they must threaten countries that leave? It makes the EU sound like some sort of mafia. Other news outlets reported the full quote but The Economist did not. They chose to slice out the worst sounding parts entirely in order to push their article's viewpoint: UK bad, Europe good.
I wouldn't trust a single thing I read in the modern TE about the EU, immigration or Russia. On topics the editor cares about they're just a more intellectual sounding version of Fox News.
I note again that you didn't answer my questions, and don't really seem interested in understanding viewpoint vs bias, so I'm not seeing much future in this discussion.
You haven't explained what you think the difference is, nor even tried. I am not the only one who has pointed this out, so I agree, I think this discussion will go nowhere.
I have repeatedly explained it. And given many examples. And asked questions which you have repeatedly dodged. You haven't asked me a single question about what I mean. So if you are trying to understand, rather than just quibbling, you can see why I wouldn't be able to tell.
I obviously think there is, and I gave a bunch of examples. What more would you like? I'm glad to help.
The idea that there's no difference is poisonous to dialog and, ultimately, democracy. If all statements due to differences in viewpoint can be invalidated as biased, then there's no reason to talk to or learn from people with different viewpoints. All verbal interaction in that view becomes rhetorical combat.
If, on the other hand, we all come from different viewpoints but can overcome (or at least usefully manage) our biases, then dialog is how we work out a common understanding.
Well the reason I asked is because you did explain how you see it, but the only use I can see is the emotional manipulation of connotation management. I guess I just have this particular viewpoint.
The biggest use for me is self-management of emotional reactions. When I differ with someone apparently reasonable, I wonder if it's a difference in viewpoint or a difference in bias.
For example, as a youth I had no interest in team sports. American culture, though, crams team sports down your throats. It's just assumed that you'll be a partisan for some team, and you're treated as weird/defective if you don't. This was irritating to me, and eventually I developed a deep bias against all of it.
Older, and having lived for years among nerds, I still maintain my viewpoint: I have no interest in team sports. I still agree with this:
But because nobody's been a dick to me about this for years, and because I've become friends with people who do love sports, I've mostly lost my bias. I no longer bristle when the topic comes up. I can give a reasonable accounting of why sports fans love sports, and I can give a balanced list of the social costs and benefits. I still have a mild bias against the topic, but can recognize and override it.
The next-biggest use for me is evaluating other people as sources. I'm more likely to trust somebody if they display awareness of their biases, and especially if they're able to say nuanced things that at times cut against those biases. Because if they aren't wrestling with their own biases, they've outsourced the job to me.
Is that helpful? If not, try asking some sort of question, because you've left me just guessing at your objections here.
I agree 100% on bias. But I think "viewpoint" is even broader/softer than "opinion". As somebody born and raised in America, I have an American viewpoint. As somebody who's been writing code for a long time, I'll always have the viewpoint of a programmer. You can't escape who you are.
But as you say, that doesn't mean you have to twist the facts.
One thing that is certain is that the pool of people who opine they can be unbiased in areas where they have favorites is not the same as the set of people who can actually do it.
Absolutely. I don't think anybody can fully succeed at that. But there's a world of difference for me between people who try and people who don't bother.
Journalism in all societies have the same problem: It is influenced by the power structure it is part of, and meant to objectively cover. It's just human.
This is true, but I believe current American journalism has additional problems beyond the generic ones. For those interested, I strongly recommend Jay Rosen's blog:
If you want to argue the point, I'd suggest you talk to Rosen, not me.
But my take is that yes, it's still clear cut. Becoming informed doesn't happen in a vacuum. I wasn't particularly informed when I started voting at 18. But being a regular voter and wanting to do it well has forced a lot of my activity around getting and staying informed.
Democracies are dynamic processes. We're always absorbing new, underinformed voters and turning them into better ones. If some potential voters are underinformed, the solution isn't to discourage them from voting; it's to educate them. And journalists are in the business of informing, so I think Rosen reasonably leaves out here that journalists are already openly in favor of informing voters.
Because, not to put too fine a point on it, but I suspect you are suggesting this standard not for people from your background, but for "those people". And America has a long, ugly history of applying voter qualification standards unequally.
That is what I'm calling viewpoint, not bias. Bias would be if they shaded their reporting to support their viewpoint.
As an example, they could just not talk about the people harmed by free trade. But quite often they do. Consequently, their editorial pieces regularly recommend taxing those who win on trade deals to help retrain those who lose their jobs.
They don't always succeed at being biased, but I think they do a better job precisely because they're explicit about their viewpoint. I prefer this to American "view from nowhere" journalism, where the effort to subtract viewpoint makes it harder to discern and excise bias.
The Economist is, in general, pretty good. But it has a viewpoint. It's open about it, and compensates to an extent by also, mostly, believing in a full, frank, and largely accurate reporting of what's happening in the world.
It still manifestly fails in this on repeated occasions (virtually anything associated with limits, though that may be changing). I'd read the magazine for some decades before running across the prospectus itself, here, by the way:
Which lays out that a paper called The Economist to be published "which will contain":
_First.—ORIGINAL LEADING ARTICLES, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day—political events—and parliamentary discussions; and particularly to all such as relate immediately to revenue, commerce, and agriculture; or otherwise affect the material interests of the country._
Long before this I'd noted that the slant of the leaders was often directly contradicted by the companion full stories further back in the magazine, most especially from foreign correspondents in developing countries -- India, China, and the various African states particularly.
Again: there are some grounds on which to consider The Economist fairly good, and its companion The Financial Times as well. Simply on a criterion of mentioning substantial figures, both rate quite highly amongst mainstream periodicals, see: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...
Huh. I am using The Economist as an example of something with viewpoint that mostly manages to be unbiased, so I don't understand why you're telling me so vigorously that it has a viewpoint but mostly manages to be unbiased. I too have read it for decades and am familiar with its origin. What were you hoping I'd learn from this comment?
Well, I'm not intimately familiar with your own awareness of The Economist. I've established that we both seem to have a similar depth of awareness.
My view is that the paper has a specific bias and that that should be considered. In particular, it results in an inaccurate framing for economic and policy issues.
The reason we don't get that as much in the US is that a lot of journalism is modeled on the wire service piece, which is meant as generic copy that almost any newspaper can reprint. It's what journalism prof Jay Rosen calls "The View From Nowhere".
One important distinction, also mostly lost on American journalism, is that viewpoint is different than bias. It's easier to see in the foreign press, though. The Economist, for example, has a very clear viewpoint, but they visibly work hard not to be biased.