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Comment by amoorthy | Hacker News Reader

Every few weeks this issue comes on HN. It's hard not to mention my startup, The Factual, which is proving that people will pay a modest amount for ad-free, unbiased news on trending topics. I suspect this will get downvoted but I don't know how not to scream "we have a solution" to a problem so many have. So as not to be entirely biased let me mention other good offerings: The New Paper, Knowhere News.

Of course, our solution is not for everyone. If you have a well-tuned Twitter feed, or have figured out forums like HN/Reddit where you get news and commentary you trust, then we may not be as useful for you. But for the vast majority that just want the facts on topics of importance our daily newsletter is an easy way to stay informed and then get on with life. And we've priced it to be affordable for everyone so that factual news is not just for the rich.

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The first headline on The Factual right now is “How conservative media stoked baseless election-fraud claims that motivated D.C. rioters”. That is certainly not what the “fairness doctrine” type centrist media sounded like. The whole feed doesn’t seem like it is considering both sides of the issues, it seems like it is providing the same generic left viewpoint that the New York Times would provide.

The article you mention is from USA Today and has a 69% credibliity rating. Normally we recommend >75% for a credible article.

If you click on the rating you'll see details on the four factors we rate for each article: site reputation (historical score), author's topical expertise, diversity of sources, neutrality of tone. Collectively these produce a probability of being credible. So we don't fact check individual statements (very difficult to do via an algorithm) but rather we assess the likelihood of an article being credible in aggregate.

Imagine for a moment that you agreed, as a matter of objective reality, the conservative media did stoke baseless election-fraud claims and that those claims motivated D.C. rioters. Would that headline still seem outside the bounds of centrist, fact-based reporting?

Sometimes there is not a clear both sides.

How would you make that headline even more centerist? "Conservative" media sources did stoke baseless claims about fraud, which motivated the rioters (I wouldve gone for terrorist here).

I'm with you, here.

I'm not convinced that downplaying facts just to make a headline read more friendly to a group that quite literally threatened to kill politicians is what I would call journalistic integrity. Sometimes the headlines are alarmist because something alarming happened and we saw it coming on the internet from months away.

This is exactly it in my opinion. There is not a "but both sides" to every issue, you can call a spade a spade.

You do that by stating facts. Not opinions as facts.

“Conservative media outlets accused of stoking baseless election fraud claims”

Then the article should lay out what they did. Not “here is how they stoked baseless claims”, but exactly what they did. “Conservative websites repeated a claim of fraud that had already been proven false by election officials.”

And it should include comments from those websites on their response to the accusation.

Then let the reader make up their own mind. I’m an adult. I don’t need a reporter who barely knows more than I do about a subject to tell me how to interpret the world. Save that for opinion pieces.

Not too hard is it?

I'm kind of pissed the above is being grayed out.

This. This is how it's done. You go into technical details, not just "fact-checkers proved this was false", but "here's a link to a fact-checker proving this was false".

If reality is one-sided, then you expose the facts of reality. Adding a "Reality is obviously one-sided and anyone who disagrees is a manipulating liar" headline is both superfluous and self-destructive.

Coming up next: "Timothy McVeigh vs. Clinton, where we consider both sides or the issue".

Would be ridiculous and offensive, no?

It's really not all that different...

Initial impression of The Factual from new visitor. There should be some examples above the fold, right there without entering an email.

You can certainly see how we rate all articles here: thefactual.com/news. No email required.

On our main homepage (landing page) we've found it better to ask for email because our daily newsletter is even more polished than our site as it adds an editorial layer atop the ratings/curation so as to deliver a world-class product. (And, in a bit of marketing it seems like preserving some intrigue is better... though I haven't A/B tested this).

Found that link in your bio - very helpful.

Thanks, that is a very different first impression. Is there a reason it is not obviously linked to from the landing page?

We found that our best retention is the newsletter. Most convenient for our target audience and even higher quality than our site due to some editorial oversight. So that's what the home page encourages.

When we had people go straight the site (thefactual.com/news) it did not convert as well to the newsletter and retention wasn't as great. But to be honest that was a while ago when I tested this. Maybe we should revisit.

How and where does The Factual source unbiased news?

Hi there. Our thesis is that all news has bias (heck even Matt Taibbi admits he does) and that's ok. What is most useful to the public is (1) reporters that strive to be objective and offer as much context as possible (2) a few different viewpoints across the political spectrum so that you see the same story framed different ways.

By curating the above on each topic our readers tell us they get closer to the unbiased story.

It's awesome to be optimizing for less bias, I am just curious what news streams you draw from. Do you have a list of publishers, like NYT, WaPo, NY Post, ... and/or do you draw from YouTube, or do you tap into AP and Google News.

It would also be awesome if you could post a few examples of news you consider 'minimally biased'.

We rate about 1000 news sources - from NYT, to wire services, down to niche sites like War On The Rocks. I mention that last one because it rates very highly in its area of focus: foreign policy, often in topics relating to war/defense. Indeed, because our algorithm emphasizes expertise rather than credibility you'll often see specialist sources outrank mainstream generalist sources.

As for best unbiased sources, here's a blog post that draws from our dataset: https://blog.thefactual.com/what-are-the-best-nonpartisan-ne...

There are also great sources on the left and right, namely: https://blog.thefactual.com/what-are-the-most-credible-conse... https://blog.thefactual.com/what-are-the-most-credible-liber...

According to the website:

> The Factual automatically analyzes how credible a story is based on diversity of sources, factual tone of writing, author's expertise, and more.

It also costs $5/mo, FWIW.

Correct. Although nearly all our users choose the $20/year plan.

And infinitely better than $20/mo that NYT asks for.

Yes, I can vouch for this model. I currently use The New Paper, but I will probably try other similar services (like yours) just to see which if I like any of the competition better.

Thanks for making this service! I'd be more interested in it if there were a weekly option that just rolls up the most important stuff from the week instead of daily - I try not to read the news everyday for my own sanity. Is that in the works at all?

Pasting as a reference as it came up deeper in the thread. https://www.thefactual.com/news

Wow, nice concept. It looks promising.

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