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Comment by nickbauman | Hacker News Reader

News is not Commentary. There's a wall between them in serious publications. Papers like the Guardian and the Wall St. Journal have very specific axes to grind in the Commentary sections. But they both have excellent News organizations. I'm left-leaning and find the WSJ top notch.

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I mostly agree with this. I too lean left but appreciate the journalistic work done at the WSJ.

I think The Guardian has lost much of their balance in the past couple years though. I see too much rhetoric in what should be unbiased news lately and while I appreciate well thought out opinions I don't like them creeping into "News". When it does I feel the ghost of Orwell leaning over my shoulder and whispering "there it is".

Can you share a few Guardian articles that are not opinion pieces or a journalist's personal column but still has "too much rhetoric in what should be unbiased news"?

The article: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/24/julian-assange...

The reason their extreme bias shows: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of...

This is a bit of an exception, because it is quite possibly the worst article I've ever seen them put out. But they definitely have a bias, towards the Clinton/Blair faux-left to the point where they not only dislike the right, but also the people like Sanders/Corbyn.

How is that article biased or extreme? It's just a condensed summary of an interview Assange gave to the Italian newspaper la Repubblica. It looks pretty neutral to me.

Edit: Apparently Assange didn't say the things the article claims. If so, it's just shoddy research on the part of the article author, and I'm surprised it hasn't been retracted.

How extreme is your standard for biased reporting, if publishing an article with completely made up claims - and not retracting it - is not what you would consider biased?

> This article was amended on 29 December 2016 to remove a sentence in which it was asserted that Assange “has long had a close relationship with the Putin regime”. A sentence was also amended which paraphrased the interview, suggesting Assange said “there was no need for Wikileaks to undertake a whistleblowing role in Russia because of the open and competitive debate he claimed exists there”. It has been amended to more directly describe the question Assange was responding to when he spoke of Russia’s “many vibrant publications”.

The bias shows in what they choose not not publish, as much in what they publish. Take Israel/Palestine (just to be sure to start an off-topic flamewar): Palestinian civilians are killed almost daily, nothing in the news. An Israeli casualty (military OR civilian): Instant top news on every mass media outlet.

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