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Comment by mchusma | Hacker News Reader

The New York times has really gone downhill. What are people liking these days? Washington Post?

WSJ has the best straight news IMO. Their editorial section is nonsense though. The editorial section of NYT is a bit better, but just because it has a really broad stable, so most days there are both good and bad articles. I like The Atlantic for opinion on the left, and The Dispatch on the right. I also think Economist is good, but I'm not sure where to categorize it (which is one reason it is good).

The WSJ editorial is correct time and time again. The board is steadfast in principles and it comes to pass how correct they are on a consistent basis.

1. Venezuela going down hill because of bad decisions, WSJ editorial pointed it out. 2. Minimum Wages’s effects and should be eliminated, the NYT’s editorial board agreed up until its radical conversion and fearful state.

Go through the archives and see how much of their editorial articles line up with what actually happens, then go through the NYT editorials and see how far wrong they are on policy proscriptions and misunderstandings or more often blindsiding of second order effects.

The Economist is good because they are a centrist publication with a liberal economics bent and they don't hide it. It's refreshing because their "bias" ends up feeling more like "here is a centrist perspective" unlike some other publications where you're left questioning their agenda.

The Atlantic is not even close to a leftist magazine! They had a cover story from david frum on why immigration is bad and another one fearmongering about trans kids.

I don't think of constructions like "on the left" or "from the left" as equivalent to "leftist". On the continuum of US politics, The Atlantic is clearly center-left or perhaps a bit to the left of that, though of course that doesn't mean that their articles are universally of that variety.

Noam Chomsky covered this problem extensively in Understanding Power. You will do well to read it in whole, but here's a few helpful hints:

- All papers are biased in favor of their stake holders.

- Some are better at hiding it.

- Business sections are obfuscated with business-speak, but are way more factual because business people expect to be able to make business decisions.

- The best cross-section of news is a selection of newspapers with stakeholders who are not aligned or even clearly at odds.

- Papers from different countries often have different stakeholders.

- Having friends in the middle of the action is a great source of facts. Only works well if you have lots of such friends (e.g. if your name is Noam Chomsky).

I agree it’s gone downhill, I’m finding it really bizarre and somewhat sad to watch. It seems to me the pillars of legacy media like the NYT realized in the past decade they’re going to be outdone by newer internet-native ways of obtaining information (Substack, Twitter, etc. which do have their own issues), and their recent wave of SV tech industry bashing reeks of desperation. I’m not sure what’s going to rise to replace the idea of a “Paper of record”. Balaji is big on the idea of a “ledger of record” on some blockchain, but implementation difficulties aside, I’m skeptical that such a system would really solve the problem here.

Does there need to be a replacement? It's my understanding that it's always been this way in for example the UK; they have well-regarded newspapers pushing out strong reporting (as the NYT continues to do), but there's no expectation that the papers won't be biased. In many ways, it could be healthier for a society to not have outlets that everyone uncritically trusts.

In some ways that is certainly true, I don't unconditionally trust any newspaper published here.

However we also have the problem that is the "Daily Mail" which is a truly vile publication - which I read because it keeps me informed on what a significant chunk of the population of my country thinks.

We don't really have any truly decent news sources left or right wing, they've all moved to click bait nonsense and "reaction pieces" to something someone said on Twitter - I suspect because it's cheap.

The best of the bunch in terms of what I consider classical journalism is probably The Guardian (which is biased) and as long as you avoid it's opinion section (bleh) is a reasonably decent paper.

Honestly the best you can do to remain an informed citizen is read a bunch of them and look at what is not been said by each.

> well-regarded newspapers pushing out strong reporting

The FT is the only one left. All the others are weird poisoned wells where the factual reporting is mixed with opinion slurry, and beholden to the prejudices of the owners.

Here's Peter Oborne resigning from the Telegraph over their standards: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31510152

Here's the Guardian US published in the Guardian complaining about the UK Guardian falling for the transphobia that has recently infected UK public life: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/02/guardi...

The landscape is not diverse: https://www.mediareform.org.uk/media-ownership/who-owns-the-...

I'm sorry but just because someone disagrees with your views on whether trans women are equal to biological women does not make him transphobic. You can tolerate someone/something without having to agree with it.

ha-ha, "smart contracts via crypto make this super doable"

We do not need a BLOCKCHAIN to figure out what is newsworthy... this is a human problem, not a decentralized-immutable-trustless-system problem

Washington Post is even worse. WSJ and FT are my favorites, but their opinion sections are to be avoided.

WaPo is owned by the (second?) richest person on planet earth. To think it’s not used to advance his goals would be foolish. It’s not like Jeff is some kind of altruist.

That's kinda ad hominem though. What specific problems with Washington Post's reporting do you have? Just saying, "Its owned by X therefore it must be biased," is another form of guilt by association.

How in the world is it "guilt by association" if the man not only OWNS the newspaper but the newspaper is financially dependent on his discretion to survive.

Maybe viewing print news outlets as group-think hive-minds is part of the problem? Stories are written and edited by individuals with different views, styles of writing, agendas, ethics, etc.

I think recent events at the NYT demonstrate pretty well that news outlets can indeed develop an intense monoculture, with all the consequences of a group-think hive mind.

I was about to say I don't think WP is as bad yet, then I remembered everything they had to ought to retract because they were rushing to sell a narrative with only anonymous sources to back it up.

The times is anti-tech but their other sections are the best I have found. Opinion obviously isn't for everyone but they have a wide enough range of ideas that most can find a columnist they like. The journal has good news too, but if you accidentally read the opinion section you'll want to vomit. The post I've found isn't as good outside of politics.

Why is the NY Times anti-tech? They run their own digital ad department that does pretty well.

Part of journalism is to document not just events as they happen but also the Zeitgeist of various communities.

It's been a propaganda sheet for decades. The WP is worse.

...

On that topic, I find it mildly funny that the NY Times goes out of its way to grace Jill Biden [0] with the honorific "Dr" despite her bottom-of-the-barrel EdD, while a practicing clinician is "Mr. Siskind".

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/politics/jill-biden-fi...

I've been happy with my Economist subscription.

Funny, I used to worship The Economist. But eventually, reading one too many big articles about topics I actually knew about, I realized it was complete nonsense written by really good storytellers and very naive, to say the least.

Once you realize there's no such thing as objective news, just choose the outlet that best confirms your biases.

ZeroHedge, it’s crazy but in a balanced way (as long as it’s “anti-???”). And in contrast to NYT and other “reputable media” it doesn’t mislead you into thinking it’s not mostly fake news. Then I make my own opinions...

"Zero Hedge is a far-right libertarian financial blog, presenting staff-written articles and aggregating news and opinions from external sources. Zero Hedge, per its motto, is bearish in its investment outlook and analysis, often deriving from its adherence to the Austrian School of economics and credit cycles" - wikipedia

“Far-right” is just a smear, don’t take it seriously. Otherwise it’s true, as I said it’s mostly anti.

Have always had a soft spot for The Economist. I don’t always agree with their analyses but I like their generally pragmatic and humanistic style, and their global scope.

pay real money and read the FT

Financial Times is ok.

Was OK. It became highly political and biased in the last 10 years. Most people in finance I know rarely even read it anymore. They became Bloomberg News and too full of themselves.

Wall Street Journal has been weirdly objective in comparison.

Wall Street journal reporting is excellent but the opinion page is a dumpster fire.

It always has been. Financial news is always the best for objective opinions without bullshit spin.

Hacker News. Its much better in the area that matters and that we can do something about.

Twitter, if you carefully follow the right people.

NYC is a rag with a stick up its arse while foaming at the mouth over its hatred of technology and nerds because we threaten their power base.

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