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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

I typically read both the NYT and the WSJ, and they very often agree on news stories. When I subscribed to the WSJ, I was expecting to be blown away at how the NYT was sticking me in some sort of liberal media bubble. But it turns out, they both pick the same topics and both relay the same facts.

Even the opinion columns are the same -- "I support the position of the political party to which I am aligned, no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT."

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With respect to the NYT/WSJ having a similar point of view, I've heard it described as a "cosmopolitan bias". That the professional journalists are mostly college educated, live in a large city, have a sense of professional ethics, are exposed to people from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities and all sorts of other markers of class and socio-economic background.

I grew up in a tiny rural town in Ohio where that certainly isn't the case and currently live in the suburbs of Virginia where that urban lifestyle feels very far removed.

This is less a political description and more of the urban/rural divide in viewpoint. Case in point: I've had multiple conversations with people locally who reacted with horror at the idea of taking a Lyft/Uber ("Don't do that you'll get killed.")

Yet they will ride an ATV for fun, which actually will get them killed.

"mostly college educated, live in a large city, have a sense of professional ethics, are exposed to people from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities"

You're making "cosmopolitan bias" look good, when it's not. It's still bias. Having a better education and being exposed to more cultures than the average person does not guarantee that you won't be a closed-minded, fundamentalist, holier-than-thou jerk.

Source: country-raised metropolitan-educated journalist

It doesn't guarantee it, but it makes it more likely.

I will assert the opposite, based on decades of living in both major metros and backwater towns. Your biased comment just drives the point home.

Major metros will make you colder and slower to trust strangers, but you'll know a lot more about the world. There's simply more variance in cities. Living your life in a backwater town won't disabuse you of being trusting and friendly, but your preconceptions about the rest of the world won't be tested either.

Travel to other countries is better than either to broaden perspectives. Seeing the world from multiple points of view (sometimes literally) is the best way to eliminate bias.

I strongly disagree that metros will make you know "more about the world." They will let you know more about a specific bubble that is just as narrow as the bubble in any small town. You can travel the world and run into people who believe in exactly the same things you do and have read the same books and seen the same movies. In fact, it's hard not to.

I remember when I was a grad student, they would pair me up with a different foreign student each year. They were all cookie cutters of each other. One from Germany, one from the UK, one from Spain. They all immediately came here and complained about U.S. gun control and how the U.S. was too religious (Bible belters!) and the same tired old things that someone from Boston or NY would complain about. It got so bad I wrote down all their complaints on an index card and just handed it over when they started with their monoculture rants. It doesn't matter which nation in the west you are from, the elites form one gray goop of groupthink.

I do recommend travel, but go into the countryside or talk to people with different life values from your own, not just different stamps on their passport. Talk to a mormon. Talk to a devout Catholic. Talk to a rural minority from China. Talk to someone without a college degree from Spain. Go visit the a traditional village in Japan. Hang out with the cabbies in Holland who play chess all the time. There you will see diversity. Flying from Paris to London to Berlin and visiting hip coffee shops or tech seminars -- you might as well just stay in San Francisco and go out to a bar.

I agree that there's a cosmopolitan bias, but I'm extremely skeptical of the claim that journalists writ large are motivated by a sense of professional ethics and are exposed to people from a variety of backgrounds.

I don't think I saw a single journalist apologize for pushing the Trump/Russia misinformation, the NYT and WASHPO haven't given back their pulitzer for reporting on it, what's most telling is that after the report dropped, the journalists pivoted to impeachment - it's clear the Russia angle was more about having a stick to beat the dog than anything else.

Additionally, I think people in cosmopolitan areas are probably more ignorant about life in rural areas than vice versa. This is a pretty partisan source, but look how some journalists reacted when asked if they knew anyone who owned a pick up truck (one of the most common vehicles in America): https://www.dailywire.com/news/12138/journalists-lose-it-aft...

I'm sure journalists have 'diverse' friends/social circles, but I'd wager that they're all in agreement w.r.t culture war topics - how diverse is that really?

From a social perspective the WSJ and NYT have pushed similar narratives in the past. Eg the pewdiepie thing.

LOL. The NYT opinion page is likely less liberal than the WSJ, they're just disguised better. At least the WSJ is fairly upfront where they stand.

If you actually want opposite views, maybe step away from the NYT.

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