While I enjoy reading some of the political reporting on Brexit on the guardian, they are amongst the least balanced newspapers on general societal and cultural issues.
Outrage sells so this is a rational strategy for them, it is just surprising they have a better reputation than, say, Fox News.
Covering all _major_ viewpoints with decency, and not demonizing the ones they disagree with.
Here's a trick impartial outlets use all the time, for example:
a favorite politician is presented in nice flattering photographs,
a politician they don't like is presented in unflattering photographs, selected to make them look evil, etc.
(Now extend this to coverage of their actions inside the articles).
Let's say that a popular politician believes that vaccines cause autism. In order to be impartial, does the news outlet now have to give equal weight to people who believe in a lie?
Or what if what the majority believes is actually abhorrent? Like for example, let's say the majority believe (or choose to simply ignore) that it's a good thing to put a bunch of ethnic minorities in concentration camps. Whether it's due to propaganda or threats from the government. In this hypothetical example, let's call these people Uyghurs.
Is the impartial outlet supposed to give equal consideration to both sides? Maybe bring up a few positives of concentration camps?
The political matters news outlets cover are not confined to scientific issues (like vaccines) that can be settled by some expert consensus. They can dismiss such claims easily, and those are not the point anyway.
Nor are most political issues as clear cut as putting minorities in "concentration camps" -- that's a contrived example, making sound like anything not approved by the Guardian amounts to Hitler (or, in this case, Chinese state oppression -- though even this story might have more nuance than what we're getting).
The most important political issues cannot be classified as "a lie", they are just different ways of thinking of what's good, beneficial, important short or long term, etc. And of course, different interests, to different segments of the population, or to different countries, cultures, etc.
Examples? The arguments pro or against social democracy or liberalism. The arguments pro or against immigration. Or pro or against EU governance. Or pro or against certain fiscal policies. Or pro or against surveillance. Or pro or against privacy. Or pro or against this or that war or intervention or enemy du jour. Or pro or against this or that technology. Or pro or against this or that education reform. Or pro or against Assange. And so on...
Yet those nuanced things are still presented as one side is the "good side" and the other is either evil or deluded or a liar.
For example, EFF is obviously going to be biased against anything that takes away privacy. The Guardian is going to be more left leaning than The Daily Mail and so forth.
Can you name me a single example of a website behaving according to the rules that you've laid down?
I don't care for "some bias in one direction or another", nor I have "nigh-impossible lofty ideals".
I just don't like to be taken for a fool with blatant bias -- which many outlets have, including the Guardian.
>For example, EFF is obviously going to be biased against anything that takes away privacy. The Guardian is going to be more left leaning than The Daily Mail and so forth.
Again those things are not really relevant to what I say. You can be more left or right leaning, or be more pro-privacy than anti-privacy and still tell things like they are (including in your opinion pieces) without demonizing the other side, misrepresenting their arguments, using uncharitable interpretations, using imagery and statistics for cheap tricks, and so on.
In other words, you can still report and opinion on things in good faith, despite having a bias.
That said, again, what would be an example of a charitable news outlet that does not pull tricks you claim the Guardian is doing?
why did you do this.
Saying earth is flat is not an "example" equivalent to saying immigration hurts me and my family.
The issue comes when it feels like they're leaving out information or a perspective which would be harmful to their case. Basically if I read something in the news and after reading it I felt like the story made it look like one side was obviously correct, but then I go and look up more sources or more information and I will feel like there's a lot more nuance to it or my opinion even reverses, then I feel like there's been a huge failure in the media and I call that "not balanced".
It feels like they strawman the opinions they disagree with while pulling in the best representatives and sources for the positions they agree with.
If this is an honest question, does that mean you don't actually know?
It's not that hard. Just find out and present the facts even handedly. Make an attempt at see things from the different perspectives.
Well, it shouldn't be hard for a normal grownup, but it sure seems like it is for a lot of people.
Or perhaps the real issue is not how hard it is, but that there is no demand for that type of journalism, so the market doesn't produce it.