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Comment by drtillberg | Hacker News Reader

In practice, newspapers just have different thought leaders now. Once, reporters parroted "a government spokesman confirmed that" -- this was treated as pure fact. It wasn't perfect, but in the U.S. context it generally didn't seem far off the mark.

Now the narrative is provided by the opaque party apparatus of the DNC and GOP. This leads to one result-- factual inaccuracy. Media coverage of key issues thus has become little better than the political propaganda from non-free global rivals in the 20th century. Quite a fall.

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>> Now the narrative is provided by the opaque party apparatus of the DNC and GOP.

No. I still get the NYT daily email briefing and it shows a clear bias and agenda every day. Which reminds me, I need to cancel that.

You are seeing one of the parties opaque view. The DNC seems to have a better handle on their operatives than the GOP. That resignation letter from a few days ago for that particular organization shows a very toxic place to work at. Where if you do not toe the line you are attacked daily. Fear and intimidation and loss of group are proven ways to make your point the loudest. Mr. Bernays should be proud of the monster he set loose upon us.

I don't disagree, I see something that looks like a bias too. But on some of the issues (wearing a mask, climate change) the GOP is so off the mark how can the NYT not come across (appearing) biased?

I've also noticed the past few months they now make an even greater effort to call out racism by some politicians. Is this an agenda or just factual observations? There are a lot of discussions on race right now and a lot of dog whistles. I go back and forth, but for the most part I think the NYT does a better job than most.

Their opinion section is atrocious.

> But on some of the issues (wearing a mask, climate change) the GOP is so off the mark how can the NYT not come across biased?

Unbiased should not mean "always making it look like both parties are right". That is bias on itself. If I lie about you, really lie, objective non-biased thing is not to say "watwut and cyberlurker disagreed, the truth is in the middle".

I agree. I should have said "how can the NYT not come across looking biased" on the issues of masks and climate change (or any issue with a scientific consensus that one side inexplicably challenges).

You label the NYT as biased not because of its bias, but because you disagree with its reporting (i.e. your own bias.) instead you will go to somewhere you agree - and you will be worse off for it.

Things can be biased towards the truth just as much as the untrue. The NYT does have some truly eye-roll content for me - but they also have some very good articles. Just like the WSJ has eye roll content.

>> You label the NYT as biased not because of its bias, but because you disagree with its reporting

That's really impressive psychoanalysis on your part. NOT. I've considered that and looked at it from a number of angles and the conclusion is that they are biased.

My own biases are not partisan, but tend toward a dislike of things like hypocrisy and misconstruing facts - behavior I see often at NYT and WaPo.

> That's really impressive psychoanalysis on your part. NOT. I've considered that and looked at it from a number of angles and the conclusion is that they are biased.

Not? Haven't heard that one since the 4th grade. Keep on "owning the libs" man.

Bias which way?

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