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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

I disagree. Not well versed in Huff Po but the left-leaning likes of NYT publish stories based in fact and backed up with reporting. Breitbart report whatever they wish without ever confirming if anything in a story is true.

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NYT might publish actual stories, but they also publish what is effectively propaganda. A lot of more "legitimate" news sources also have a tendency to selective report on things which fit a pre-established narrative on a topic that can effectively bury the truth. Here's an example where CNN did this: http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/16/cnn-edits-out-...

And sadly the Washington Times is the least biased source that I could find that even talked about it. That's why sites like Breitbart are able to be so successful. It's easy to build credibility by pointing out things like this, and then the rest of it can just be propaganda.

I'm not seeing how your example is actual propaganda when it is more easily attributed to human error. If CNN were pushing this as a propaganda piece, they never would have issued a follow up statement correcting themselves.

They issued a statement after they were very publicly called out on it.

That still does not prove propaganda was deliberately being pushed by CNN. We should not be so quick to dismiss Hanlon's razor.

Well, ok. However it seems to me that those leaning right don't give CNN and the like the benefit of the doubt, and equally those leaning left don't give the likes of Breitbart the benefit of the doubt -- which brings us back to the parent posters position :)

Breitbart is a tabloid that pretends to respectability, much like the British tabloid The Daily Mail. They use that respectability to push their (explicit, strong) slant. If you're comparing CNN and Breitbart then their camouflage is sucessful.

Benefit of the doubt needs to be earned. I mean, hopefully you are not taking supermarket-checkout tabloids at face value, right?

CNN may be terrible journalism that's full of softballs and "clickbait" but at the end of the day the things they report are true and when they're not they retract them. Can't say the same about Breitbart in the least.

CNN has been doing a lot of selective editing this cycle. They also tend to focus on things that support their narrative. You can focus on things that are completely true and effectively "lie" about those truths because of the way you are presenting it.

Softballs and clickbait aren't any more true than lies.

There is no way to clip that video where they did on accident and then spin the story the way they did. They didn't issue that apology until they were caught, which is the exact same thing a politician would do.

Yeah, Witness, for example, how the NYT spun the fact that Trump may have been able to use past business losses to offset income for tax purposes as some diabolical tax avoidance scheme not available to ordinary people, even describing it as a government bailout. Letting business owners earn back the money they've lost without adding insult to injury by taxing them on it is not a "bailout" in any normal sense of the word, just how income tax works for businesses, and while losing money does avoid income tax it doesn't exactly benefit the person doing it.

Well I just checked the stories of Breitbart and looks all the things they write are true and have sources. Just checked few, I'm not an expert. I only read American propaganda newspapers sometimes out of morbid curiosity.

The difference is how you spin the headlines and the facts. Both parties are guilty. Both parties feel only other side is doing it or say but look at the other website or magazine.

Huff is full of titles Trump is sexual predator without facts, just talks. Breitbart is full of stories Bill is rapist. So what's the difference?

It's all the same shit. It is just your bias talking.

>Huff is full of titles Trump is sexual predator without facts, just talks.

We have, on record, him describing sexual assault. With his own words. On the other hand, some of the people who now are claiming Bill is a rapist once testified under oath that he did _not_ rape them. On top of the fact that there is zero evidence in favor of that statement.

That's the difference. And you would definitely know this if you weren't being disingenuous.

> On the other hand, some of the people who now are claiming Bill is a rapist once testified under oath that he did _not_ rape them.

Yet other women have consistently claimed over decades that Clinton sexually assaulted them. And today women are coming forward accusing Trump of sexual assault.

There seems to be very little difference; both men have probably assaulted women in the past and abused their power to get away with it. I don't think arbitrarily slanting the narrative to defend one and condemn the other serves anybody. In fact, sweeping sexual assault under the rug when it doesn't serve your political agenda is a pretty horrible thing to do.

Well, one significant difference here is that Donald Trump is running for President, and Bill Clinton isn't.

Barely. The Clintons have long campaigned as a two for one deal. She announced that if elected, he will be "in charge of reinvigorating the economy".

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/bill-hillary-c...

We have him on record joking around with someone about actions he didn't take. It's hardly the confession the breathless Twitter hordes want it to be, not to ruin your emotionally resonating state of being

NYT published a news article about car fires in Denmark, where they blamed the "right wing lower class" for the fires. No evidence given for this at all. Infact all evidence points in a different direction: Arab Ghetto kids (I live in one of the places, where there was car fires, I can tell you that the right-wing thing is complete BS)

If this is the article you are talking about: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/world/europe/copenhagen-de..., you are misreading it.

"One theory is that cars in Denmark are being burned by individuals from an angry underclass in a country where far-right groups have organized bitter protests against immigration, calling it a threat to the nation’s identity."

The article makes it clear the "angry underclass" is separate from the "far-right groups."

If that paragraph is not suggesting the far-right may be responsible, why does it refer to their "bitter protests" immediately after the theory that an "angry underclass" are burning cars?

Why even mention the far-right at all, if nobody is suggesting they have something to do with these crimes?

They're implying that the far-right protests caused the "Arab ghetto kids" in question to become the "angry underclass", not that the "angry underclass" was itself far-right. The sentence could definitely be written more clearly.

I think it is a wrong thing to imply. Just looking at the crime statistics for the past decade debunks this hypothesis.

The arab demographic has always been troublesome in Scandinavia.

I interpret it as "individuals from an angry underclass" vs "far-right groups [that] have organized bitter protests against immigration"

So the far-right is implied to have something to do with these crimes, in the sense that they created an environment that triggers the crime.

The NYT clearly blames the crime on.... the people committing the crime. The NYT is not blaming the crime on the far right. If anything, they are blaming it on the Arab ghetto kids which is what the OP was claiming was the truth.

They are suggesting the far-right is angering the underclass. If you're asserting the NY Times is therefore blaming the crimes on the far-right, good luck!

I mostly read Huff Po when I, as a white man, am feeling too good about myself. Then I go to Huff Po and read 20 articles about how horrible white men are.

It's basically like watching a Lifetime Movie. All the villains are straight white males. Except around Christmas, when all of sudden, they become caring selfless individuals.

I'm sorry, what?

Can you link to a story that reports a 'fact' that is proven false? Because yes, I see the political-right spin on the facts on Breitbart but I've never seen them report something that is flat-out wrong.

Paid protestors at Trump events:

http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/07/breitbart-duped-by-fake-new...

Loretta Lynch as a member of Bill Clinton's defense team:

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/10/...

Pretended a Cleveland Cavaliers crowd was a Trump crowd:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/04/breitbart-news-doesnt-mind...

Not to mention the whole ACORN thing in 2009:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN_2009_undercover_videos...

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