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Comment by akvadrako | Hacker News Reader

Most news organizations are biased one way or another. About 90% of reporters are left of center, that probably also applies to Reuters.

They do keep the spin to a minimum, I’ll give them that.

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What amazes me is how easy it is for people to be radicalized by watching a single news source.

My parents have literally been radicalized from normal moderate folks to "crazy conspiracy people" by watching Fox News and, I suspect, this is a broadly true statement amongst a very large swath of the elderly population.

Older Americans come from a time when the Man on the TV or Radio spoke the truth, with honor and integrity and did so citing facts and experts. They still hold onto this ethos and therefore believe - like they believe a preacher, that the words and opinions are real and factual and worthy of regard... This is why FOXNews and talk radio skews so heavily to people over 60 and is also why its so effective.

That's not exactly what we're seeing with right-wing people. They will happily tell you that NYT, WaPo, CNN, AP, Reuters, etc. are all "fake news" because their far-right "news" sources tell them so.

If you don't think all big media news outlets have an agenda to push, you might need to take a closer look. That includes CNN, WaPo, Fox, etc. As an example, Bloomberg effectively told his news outlets they weren't allowed to investigate Democrats during the primary.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/24/bloomberg-news-will-not-inve...

Perhaps, but according to the Trump fans, the right-wing outlets are completely unbiased and trustworthy and don't have an agenda to push, and all the other ones are just completely making stuff up out of whole cloth.

It is exactly what we're seeing. They have been trusting the Man on the TV/Radio for so long, they trust him when he tells them that THE OTHER guys are lying to you... Funny how that works.

> Older Americans come from a time when the Man on the TV or Radio spoke the truth, with honor and integrity and did so citing facts and experts.

There's definitely information asymmetry involved, but a history or US in wars makes this nostalgia bias at best.

Examples;

- US Involvement in Vietnam

- Remember the Lusitania, The Zimmerman Telegram WWII

- USS Maine

- US annexation of Mexico

On the other hand, I have family members who have been radicalized into crazy conspiracy people who think white men are the root of all evil (can’t remember the direct quote but it was pretty close to that) by watching every news source except Fox News. And I suspect this is true amongst a very large swathe of the millennial population.

Yes, seriously don't rely on any single news source. It will distort your worldview and put you in a bubble, whether it's Fox News or MSNBC or CNN. Though you can inoculate yourself a bit and get a more holistic view by watching both sides, as you'll see the cherry picking each does to support their narratives. And if they report the same thing it has a better chance of actually being true.

Though better yet is to not watch the news at all. Really, it's just entertainment and a major source of stress with little upside. They're not informing so much as misinforming.

If you don't believe that, well... neither does the side you think is wrong. If you think you're more intelligent than they are, well, again, they think the same of you.

Try going without the news for a couple weeks and see how you feel. Take note of your stress levels and day to day life. Another experiment you can do is to watch the news (objectively as possible) from 2 months or 2 years ago and see how much actually ended up being relevant.

it is entirely possible that you have been radicalized from a normal moderate folk to a "crazy libtard" by watching whatever channels you watch, and, i suspect, this is a broadly true statement amongst a very large swatch of the millenial generation.

(note: using "crazy libtard" here not as a personal insult, but because it is the right's version of "crazy consipiracy people").

anyways, take the speck out of your own eye before complaining about the beams in your parents eyes.

> About 90% of reporters are left of center

How would one even go about defining what center is? And when we say "left of center," how far to the left are we talking about?

This is an important point. One could argue, and some have, that the center of US political discourse is actually firmly right of center, especially when compared to European nations for example.

The US has been a right-of-center country since at least Reagan.

that definitely seems the case to me

the other thing is, in the us, people say “left” a lot which they really mean is “liberal” (which itself is a very blunt word to be sure)

if put in that context, then saying the media is slanted liberal (market oriented, individualistic, capitalist etc) is probably true (at least from a layman’s eyes)

when reframed in that way, there are very few “left” media in the us; it’s either conservative (socially, right-wing) and liberal corporate media

Obviously "center" is an ephemeral term that oversimplifies a complex spectrum of political positions.

Left of what is the center in the audience of people they are talking to. About equal numbers of Americans identify as Democrat or Republican: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx. Meanwhile, self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans 4:1 among the news media: https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percen....

Another analysis: https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bi.... Reporters and news media are close to entertainment workers in donation patterns. They lean left more than mining and agricultural workers lean right.

> About equal numbers of Americans identify as Democrat or Republican:

We say this as though Democrats and Republicans fall neatly on a straight line.

By the best estimates, it's more like a 3-1 split, with a solid amount of journalists actively trying to stay in the middle and do good reporting. [1]

Also, more meta-analysis studies like this need to be created and reported _to everyone_.

[1] https://www.mrc.org/special-reports/liberal-mediaevery-poll-...

Here's the thing, you can have journalists trying their best to stay in the middle and do good reporting and yet, a handful of corporate executives can completely shape the narrative of the day and choose to run one story over another, or one headline over another, and the journalists on the ground are powerless to do anything about it.

I disagree that most news sources are biased. This is a lazy claim that is used to explain away a lot of biases by fox news, because "they are all biased". You have to explain what bias means, and what you mean by 90% of reporters are left of center. In my experience most reporters try hard for a middle balance.

The problem with bias is it's not immediately apparent to people who stay within their bubble that they are biased at all. This goes for the left just as well as the right. But let's it put it this way, if we were to do a survey of all journalism majors at universities over the past 20 years, which side of the spectrum do you think they fall and what would be the magnitude of that slant? I would guess it's at least 3:1 if not 10:1 for left-leaning graduates of journalism. Whereas, if you were to take a survey of say, plumbers or firefighters, the slant would probably go the other way. Now, with ratios like that, you're not going to be able to be "middle of the road" as much as you try. Unless the industry itself is relatively balanced. It's not by far, though.

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