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Comment by robertlagrant | Hacker News Reader

The newspaper owned by the billionaire that hates the billionaire that owns Tesla is probably not the most reliable source :-D

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Considering the newspaper owned by the billionaire runs stories criticizing said billionaire's company's anti-union efforts [1], mayhap there's editorial independence?

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/13/amazon-...

Whatever the motives (from whomever), the smear campaign from WaPo against musk is obvious enough that I've seen many people talking about it and even a twitter post detailing the many articles painting musk in a negative light and comparing that to other sources which if the data is taken at face value was very damning of WaPo.

Personally I don't really care enough to investigate, but I thought it might provide some context as there appear to be (what I would assume) neutral parties commenting on the unfair reporting on musk from WaPo.

> obvious enough that I've seen many people talking about it and even a twitter post

If you're accusing an investigative journalism outfit of bias, you'll need better evidence than "people talking about it and even a twitter post."

> If you're accusing

I'm not, I agree that if I was then I would need evidence.

> Personally I don't really care enough to investigate

but you do care enough to comment on the internet with no evidence, thus your context is just disguised misinformation mixed with the hubris that your opinion matters.

Geez, some people really go out of there way to make things hostile. My opinion does matter, just ask my mom!

I simply gave people some context and terms they can google if they're invested in this story. I'm not invested, and really don't much care if wapo is or isn't targeting musk. It doesn't affect my life one bit.

If you think my comment isn't valuable, downvote and move on - that's what the arrows are for.

It's not just that your comment had no value, it had negative value. If it only had no value, I would have done as you said, downvoted and moved on. But since it's existence was a detraction, I felt it was important enough to attempt to mitigate the propagation of potential misinformation.

I do apologize that adding the bit of "... hubris that your opinion matters" came across rather harshly and was unneeded to my point.

> thus your context is just disguised misinformation mixed with the hubris that your opinion matters

This is a really silly thing to say. You're posting your opinion. Is that hubris?

No, because hubris is about having "excessive pride", and it doesn't take much pride to decide that I can parse the English language and determine that the person I am replying to has made a fallacious statement.

I think this is least of the worries. WaPO has extreme left bias which while reporting the truth, omission of important facts as they see fit for their readership.

HN’s left bias matches WaPO in perfect resonance. So, it’s difficult to even discuss it here.

Show me an example of “extreme left bias” on WaPo…

For real, I don't think OP understands the term. Classically liberal is right wing, not left.

Classical liberal is only right wing if you slide left so hard you break the overton window.

Isn't this kind of misunderstanding what the overton window is? The window doesn't pay attention to the content of ideologies per se, just where a culture's sentiments gravitate towards. It doesn't in itself define political beliefs. At some point you need to actually care about principles!

It's right wing in the sense of individualism vs collectivism.

As someone with an actual "extreme left bias" claiming the WaPo is on the "extreme left" is hilarious. Using American political terms, I'd put the NYT as having a centrist Democrat bias, the WaPo as having a centrist Republican position and the WSJ having a Republican bias. All of them are pro-capitalist and different wings of the neoliberal party and really right wing in the way the rest of the world thinks about politics.

I don't even understand this world where people can accuse the WaPo of being far left.

Yeah, they shat all over Trump, but that just reflects how far Trump went completely off the reservation. And it created the surreal situation where every other week I was agreeing with something that Bill Kristol said.

The fact that Trumpers feel the need to scream about how the WaPo is a bunch of communists really shows how intellectually bankrupt the whole thing is.

I'm going to ignore Trump comments because those are irrelevant here.

Quick Google search reveals several sources claiming Left bias. My personal opinion is that it is left of NYT. NYT opinion pieces are extreme left while the news are center-left.

https://adfontesmedia.com/washington-post-bias-and-reliabili...

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/washington-post-media-b...

Here is a the whole chart: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart

> I don't even understand this world where people can accuse the WaPo of being far left.

Recommend exploring more areas of the political spectrum. Not a single source claiming WaPo is center-right. If you can find a better source than your own delusion, I'd love to see!

> Quick Google search reveals several sources claiming Left bias

Why are these sources authoritative? Why is the chart you linked authoritative?

> NYT opinion pieces are extreme left

So when they published an op-ed by Tom Cotton calling for the mobilization of the military against American citizens, that was "extreme left"?

> Not a single source claiming WaPo is center-right

Not a single source /of your sources/.

> Not a single source /of your sources/.

There's no point saying this. Just post better sources if you have them.

You have no idea what "extreme left" means.

And the "allsides" chart with Jacobin lumped in with the NYT and MSNBC is hilariously bad.

Allsides itself was formed by a former Republican which is where its bias lies.

> And the "allsides" chart with Jacobin lumped in with the NYT and MSNBC is hilariously bad.

Yeah I can understand using a left/right scale more relative to American political parties, but that's like meme a tier placing. Left and right are already broad terms and shit like these makes it even more binary.

> off the reservation

Hey, maybe consider not using this phrase.

oh yeah that's a good point.

> Using American political terms, I'd put the NYT as having a centrist Democrat bias,

The New York Times is owned by NewsCorp / Fox News / Rupert Murdoch

You may want to reconsider how well you know this topic

You replied to someone that posted NHTSA links. This only makes you sound more whiny than if you had just posted this as a reply to the article itself.

The reply highlighted an issue that seriously affects interpretation of the data from the NHTSA link. Citing a source isn't enough if either the source or the commenter misrepresents the facts. There was no justification for you to be so insulting.

A similar article was also published in the LA Times, whose billionaire owner is friends with Musk.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-06-14/data-likel...

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