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Comment by chime | Hacker News Reader

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> The news has become so bad today so every news source is basically fake news. In my country for example, the national television is so obviously biased it's ridicolous.

Bias and fake news are two separate things. Every news source will be biased and it is impossible to separate the bias from the reporters, editors, or any humans involved in presenting the news. Bias is favoring one side over another, leaving out facts that hurt your case etc.

Fake News is an entirely different thing. Fake News is making up real-looking websites that claim Elon Musk is running as a Libertarian candidate for 2020.

BBC has had a few incidents lately which screamed 'fake news!' to me too. So I totally get where you're coming from. But conflating bias with fake news has hurt trust in the media more than the actual fake news itself. And that's the actual reason for spreading fake news. Because I'm fairly certain you wouldn't believe in outright conspiracy theories. But if you start to treat actual news sources like AP or Reuters just like fake random-city-ledger.com websites, then the fake news sites are succeeding.

Personally, I look for motivations regardless of the source of media - who benefits from this story if it was true vs. false? Is Bernie really going to charge 95% tax to everyone making 100k or above? If it's remotely true, then obviously it would hurt everyone who works hard. However, if that story is false, which it most likely is, who does that benefit?

> Every news source will be biased

Can I just rant for a moment here about how sick and tired I am of news outlets being expected to be completely without bias? Bias is human. As long as people are writing the news, it's going to be fucking biased. In days of Yore, in the golden age of television and written news, the people presenting said news almost always had biases, but despite that, they presented all the facts of a given story, and then usually would editorialize a little towards the end of whatever piece.

I have ZERO issue with this, and in fact, would strongly prefer it to the current norm in most (at least US) news outlets, where they bend over backwards to present both sides of any given story as having legitimate points in the name of "balanced" coverage. Fuck that. In plenty of scenarios, yes, there are points to both sides. In certain scenarios, one side is just wrong. WRONG. Outright, completely, and irrefutably incorrect. And I get so tired of watching news anchors entertaining these nitwits as though they're to be taken seriously. They are not. They are worthy of derision, mockery, and laughter.

And I don't think I'm alone, either. The surge forward of support for various comedians who do news-esque broadcasts I think is a strong indicator people do not want and are sick to death of news presenters pandering to this both sides shit. Again, in those situations where it's merited, where you have two or more groups all with legitimate points to be made and nuance to be communicated, absolutely. Get that out there. We have a lot of issues especially socially where that applies. There are other ones, however, where it's bluntly obvious to those reading it that one side is actual people with an actual thing to say, and the other side is one of a few or possibly more than one things: Corporate astroturfing, political think tanks, lobbyists, or random assholes on twitter. These things are not equal and presenting them as equal is harmful for everyone who consumes that piece of news.

Rant over.

I agree with you completely. I almost wrote the same thing about bias is human. I also don’t mind innate biases - those just define where the author comes from. Not sure why I was downvoted but we are on the same page.

Well, it's not me that claims alternative media as fake news. It is mainstream media so that is why I am on the defense of them.

I am not talking about obviously fake sites that is just up to spread one idea or lie. I am talking about regular news sites that operates as smaller teams.

Where I am from, at least, these are considered by mainstream media to be fake news. The government has pressured companies like Facebook to stop their content etc etc.

I think the main issue is that "fake news" is not really a clear definition for anyone and is currently used to surpress opinion rather than anything else.

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