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Comment by faizshah | Hacker News Reader

Difficult to take this analysis seriously when CNN is categorized with The Young Turks as “Partisan Left.” Regardless of what you think of either channel the programming of these two channels is dramatically different.

The fact that the tags were manually created by the experimenters and were manually assigned by the experimenters throws the results even more into question.

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I don't follow your logic. Yes, CNN and TYT are very different. This only means they can be tagged differently, but it doesn't mean they cannot be tagged under same category.

For example, The Selfish Gene and Advanced Algebra are two very different books, but they can be both categorized as nonfiction.

Maybe you are right with the conclusion, i.e. CNN or TYT should not be both categorized as “Partisan Left,” but you need a better reason.

In my view it’s a good example of why the manual labeling is flawed as CNN regularly criticizes progressives and airs republican views that TYT then responds to and criticizes CNN for.

To categorize them both as “Partisan Left Focused on politics and exclusively critical of Republicans” is a stark example of why manual labeling of these channels, especially by the two authors and some unnamed person the authors trusted (pg. 4), cannot be unbiased and a survey methodology or topic model would produce more persuasive results.

Isn't that kind of like saying InfoWars isn't a conspiracy/entertainment website because it regularly posts about actual news?

Note I did not downvote you. These links provide some info on bias of the 2 channels:

CNN: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/

TYT: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-young-turks/

Iirc, stations like FoxNews and CNN have (had?) segments of traditional breaking/daily News, and segments that are commentary.

Maybe the lines are now blurred, but it would be interesting to see the amount of bias in the traditional daily News segments. Obviously the commentary segments are much more biased.

I think the more distinct categorization is relevant in this particular paper.

I think TYT is much further left than CNN (to an European, CNN is actually center-right). So, if you want to study whether there is a "funnel" from the center to the (extremist?) left, then you have to distinguish them, otherwise your results will be biased (at the very least, biased towards right-wing extremism).

Second, we don't know if YT recommender treats them differently or not. There is some evidence that it treats "mainstream" channels (i.e. TV stations) differently than "alternative" channels. Whether TYT falls into the latter is not clear.

Its interesting seeing how arbitary all points are along the 'Overton window'; I'm not from the US so CNN strikes me as center right wing, low regulation, anti-union and moderately pro war etc.

This illustrates the danger of ranking everything relatively... if enough people watch infowars like content then every university will be marked as radical left wing etc. There needs to be some way of anchoring the spectrums in actual facts or we're firmly in the 'post truth' era.

CNN International is quite different from CNN (US).

CNN, along with most media companies, seems to be more pro-conflict than anything else.

CNN and TYT are both partisan left. They both published content showing extreme dismay at the election of Trump. That's fine, they're allowed to do that. This just shows their political bias. The same way Fox was airing pro-Trump things at the same time. This isn't a dispute over whether they are right, just over what type of content they publish. I see no problem putting CNN and TYT on the same side of the political spectrum.

EDIT: Downvotes? Give me a counter example that shows how TYT or CNN is not left-leaning.

I've found the downvotes tend to come from those who believe "reality leans left."

I.e. there is no "left" content, because that content is just the truth. And any "right" content should in their view be properly labeled as "wrong" content.

Individual HNers should lack visibility into who is downvoting them. How did you de-anonymize the downvote signal?

> They both published content showing extreme dismay at the election of Trump.

So did the National Review (https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/donald-trump-conserva...), but they're hardly left.

Same for George Will (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-spiraling-presid...). Again, hardly left.

George Will and the National Review crew are neo-cons. AKA not-Conservatives. Straussians. They are the fake "right" of the modern pro-global government party. Watching people aruge over what's "left" and "right" is surreal. The real differences (if one wants to find them) are sovereignty of nation states vs a permenant ruling class that sets quazi-global policy.

To anyone who thinks they are "left": Consider watching the current presidents UN speeches.

> Consider watching the current presidents UN speeches.

I can't. They're a nonsensical standard of English full of insultingly untrue things.

> sovereignty of nation states vs a permenant ruling class

These two things are not in conflict; historically most nation states have a fairly fixed ruling class. There was a paper a while ago showing how many of the ruling families of 14th century Venice were still in significant positions politically or economically.

"untrue things"

What second hand info were you given?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp71VWgqURQ

The commoners are aware of the various power centers. The conflict you pretend does not exist happens when that status is challenged. From the perspective of power, it should not be possible; hence their PR firms (FOX/CNN/xNBC/NYT etc) losing control of the "pick A or B" directive.

You stepped over the mention of the quazi-global policy. The narrative is that does not exist, or you are a "insert negative words" if you talk about it. The concentration of power is in conflict with the idea of a soverign nation state. Modern language engineering, like the constant attempts to asscoiate liking one's country with ethnic supremicy (kinda hard with the US:) is one rather transparent technique used to attempt to shape how people think about it.

73rd UN Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6XXNWC5Koc

74th UN Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzufjsnCa7Y

> George Will and the National Review crew are neo-cons.

Irrelevant.

The parent comment claimed being dismayed by Trump's election makes one automatically part of the "partisan left". Neither George Will nor National Review are, by any stretch of the imagination, "partisan left", despite their being anti-Trump.

They may not be the form of right-wing you like, but they're very much on the right hand side of the spectrum.

That's fair. I agree. Some of Trumps most powerful political enemies are what some people would consider "right". Ryan, Mitt, (formally) McCain... the list is long. I find the conventional l/r distinction worse than useless; to the point of deliberately obfuscating intent.

Studying YT through the conventional l/r window is not going to yield useful results.

I'm not partisan left and I shared content showing extreme dismay at the imbecile running my country, too.

> Downvotes? Give me a counter example that shows how TYT or CNN is not left-leaning.

Maybe downvotes are because you claim your parent claims CNN isn't left-leaning, whereas what they said was that CNN isn't "partisan left" in the same way that TYT is. You also don't address their main evidence for their claim, that they frequently attack each other.

I have no idea if you're right, because I haven't looked into the issues in enough depth. Your attack of a strawman is, however, completely unconvincing to me.

CNN is very pro-democrat, as clearly shown in all their election coverage. This makes them partisan left.

From what I've seen, CNN tends to support the favoured democrat candidate/front-runner, and TYT lean further left and often show support for somebody like Sanders, but show general support across the board.

> You also don't address their main evidence

What main evidence? Their main programming? The main programming of both is left leaning, and when it comes to discussing elections and US politics, is incredibly partisan.

To most Europeans the US Democrats are center / right wing. There are no major left wing political parties in the US and no major left wing media outlets.

The left-right paradigm is obviously limited in its scope for explaining the nuanced differences between parties and political movements and especially across international and cultural boundaries.

Still, there's a marked difference between CNN and Jacobin.

> > You also don't address their main evidence

> What main evidence? Their main programming? The main programming of both is left leaning, and when it comes to discussing elections and US politics, is incredibly partisan.

The second half of the sentence you quoted tells you exactly what main evidence. If you're going to abridge quotes to take away their key meaning and then attack them I'm not going to both doing the research necessary to argue with you.

You're really grasping at straws here. There was no link or example provided in the original comment. They simply stated what they perceived the main programming to be. In one of my comments I address that by saying that the main programming on both is very pro-democrat, but with TYT leaning further left than CNN in their support of candidates that are further left than the front-runner. There is nothing else to address. If you dispute my counter-claims, please do so. Don't just say "you didn't do x" and sit back as if that's enough intelligent input to win an argument.

The dismay of a Trump presidency is just reality.

> CNN and TYT are both partisan left. They both published content showing extreme dismay at the election of Trump. That's fine, they're allowed to do that. This just shows their political bias.

‘Extreme’ disapproval of Trump is an exclusively left wing position? Clearly that is not the case.

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