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Comment by jajag | Hacker News Reader

I find the idea that there can be an unbiased news source deeply problematic. All reporting of an event has to be from a perspective, and has to make decisions about what to report, what to leave out; what to emphasise, what to play down. An honest news source should be one that is one that is honest about its own biases.

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There’s a difference between bias and just making shit up. I think people are capable of dealing with biased reporting of actual events. Up until recently, most reporting in the us was done by Americans working for American companies who generally were trying to tell the truth the way they saw it even if the way they saw it was biased.

What changed in the 2016 election is the torrent of foreign governments who were spreading outright lies in the interest of harming the country, and Americans who gleefully cooperated with them.

2016?.... No 2016 is when a lot of people finally noticed it. It was occurring long before that. Large multinationals have been consolidating news for decades. Noam Chomsky has been warning about this for quite some time.

There is nothing wrong with bias. All media has biases, and those that a required to be unbiased, such as the BBC, end up causing other biases with equality of camera time making every issue a discussion. Which has been well exploited by certain minority views.

What has changed is the mainstream media used to care a lot more about being honest. Now they often couldn't give a toss.

I don't mind media being partisan, it's always been so, and often it's revealing to see the reporting from both sides of an issue, and add the FT's take for the financial slant. I do mind that we're rapidly running out of sources that care about being honest. Murdoch ruined the Times, the Barclay Brothers ruined the Telegraph. Both now far more opinion than news. That's a loss, whatever your politics.

  the mainstream media used to care a lot more about being honest

Quite the contrary, in the USA, anyway. Think back to Hearst and the "yellow journalism" era.

Never in the history of the world have individuals had such ease of access to original sources, such as eyewitness accounts, texts of legislation, etc. Yet people generally stay within their bubbles.

I totally agree with you - there's nothing wrong with bias, and it's completely unavoidable in the modern media context. News media needs to be honest about its biases, whilst still upholding standards of reporting & journalism.

I agree and there will always be bias in news, intentional or not.

There is the argument that if people were equipped with the skills to identify bias in reporting themselves then these news sources would not be able to operate as effectively and with as much influence as they do today.

For example, in Swedish schools children are actively taught to identify and evaluate biases in news sources as a way to filter false reporting [1].

It we start giving children the toolbox required to live in our (real) world of imperfect reporting then the impact of biased news sources might be neutralized in a generation.

[1] http://nyhetsvarderaren.se/in-english/

I think one problem is that, due to general mistrust and paranoia regarding the "mainstream media," people tend to conflate bias with intentional fabrication and propaganda.

there have been numerous examples of fabricated information or outright propaganda in mainstream media in the past. Most recently the fake news stories regarding ISIS from ABC.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dan-gainor-fake-news-abc-fal...

You mention "numerous examples of fabricated information or outright propaganda" and "fake news stories regarding ISIS from ABC" (stories, plural) but only cite one data point - a story for which the wrong video was used, and which was later retracted. And for which, as far as I understand, malicious intent has yet to be proven.

I understand it's considered axiomatic here to assume malice where stupidity would suffice as regards the media, but as you're attempting to argue against fabrication and deception by the media, your yourself are attempting to deceive readers here by conflating your case.

Perhaps you could add weight to your argument by listing the other fake news stories regarding ISIS from ABC?

Good to see Fox News holding other media to the same high standard of fact-based neutrality and political independence to which it holds itself.

I agree that it is hard to dial down bias in reporting to an absolute zero (which Jean-Luc Godard provocatively referred to “50% time for the jews 50% time for Hitler”). But there is still a scale. And right now, in the heat of a political campaign in the US and the UK, it is dialled up to 11.

The reporting could be a lot more balanced, presenting both sides, not using provocating headlines, etc.

It would probably be a bit more boring (which is why even previously serious publications like the Financial Times gave up).

News shouldn't have a political agenda it should have a factual agenda. It's raining in Florida would be a fact. Trump is campaigning in Florida is a fact (I dont know if he is, just an example). Trump is winning over the Floridan people with his exciting rallie displays a political agenda.

That's an unachievable ideal, particularly and especially for complex stories (e.g. just about any political story) where there are too many facts to report, to much backstory to fill in, and an editor has to make a decision about what to leave in and what to omit.

yup. 'I am, therefore I am biased' as they say.

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