Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

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The top headlines on cnn.com at the moment are:

"Highland Park gunman's family was in turmoil for years before shooting" <-- neutral

"Shinzo Abe's assassination shocks Japan" <-- neutral

"Musk tells Twitter he wants out of deal to buy it. Twitter says it will force him to close the sale" <-- neutral

"Here's what's in Biden's executive order on abortion rights" <-- neutral

"Trump considering waiving executive privilege claim for Bannon but prosecutors say he was never shielded" <-- neutral

The top headlines on foxnews.com at the moment are:

"Dems reportedly full of 'outright worry' president won't be able to rescue plunging polls by midterms" <-- neutral

"Twitter squawks back after Musk reveals he's terminating $44B purchase" <-- neutral

"FBI director issues stern warning about biggest long-term threat to US" <-- neutral

"Mom gets terrifying call after dropping young daughter off at airport gate" <-- neutral but click-baity

"BORDER BATTLE: Biden admin fires back as governor takes spiraling migrant crisis into his own hands" <-- biased (alternative version: Biden admin criticizes Texas governor after executive order)

"GAFFER-IN-CHIEF: Biden widely mocked after he appears to read instruction right off teleprompter" <-- biased (alternative: none, because it's not news worthy)

"'Joe Biden and the Democrats are lying' to the American people: Rep. Malliotakis" <-- biased (alternative: none, because it's not news worthy)

"School choice advocate slams 'despicable' criticism from unions of Arizona school voucher bill" <-- biased (alternative: none, because it's not news worthy)

Fox and other conservative sources publish a lot of "conservative personality SLAMS liberal personality"-type articles. Left-wing publications do the opposite of course, but credible sources rarely publish this kind of article unless it's from someone important and about an important subject, and try not to use formulae like "as governor takes SPIRALING migrant crisis INTO HIS OWN HANDS" or "widely mocked".

What is being identified here isn't bias though. You're picking up style, target audience and how blatant it is.

Eg, "Highland Park gunman's family was in turmoil for years before shooting" isn't neutral, it is narrative building. It isn't relevant to anything important - there are lots of families in turmoil out there. Most families, I suspect, face some sort of turmoil every few years. But the style is more high-brow and their clearly targeting people who are/want to be emotionally sensitive.

Bias is different from whether the headline is pitching at high- or low- class audiences. You're probably picking up that Fox news isn't written with people like you in mind and CNN might be.

I would compare CNN/WSJ, and Fox/MSNBC. Much closer in terms of tone and target audience.

Reason Magazine is probably the pinnacle of very good right-leaning journalism, filling the same niche as VICE on the left. I really enjoy the excellent journalism of both.

EDIT: I have reproduced your original comparison with WSJ taking the place of CNN

CNN:

"Highland Park gunman's family was in turmoil for years before shooting" <-- neutral

"Shinzo Abe's assassination shocks Japan" <-- neutral

"Musk tells Twitter he wants out of deal to buy it. Twitter says it will force him to close the sale" <-- neutral

"Here's what's in Biden's executive order on abortion rights" <-- neutral

"Trump considering waiving executive privilege claim for Bannon but prosecutors say he was never shielded" <-- neutral

WSJ:

Japan’s Shinzo Abe, Former Premier, Is Assassinated <-- neutral

Musk Moves to End Deal for Twitter <-- neutral

Google Offers Concessions to Fend Off Antitrust Suit <-- neutral

U.S. Jobs Market Remains Robust <-- neutral

Investors Bet Euro’s Woes Are Far From Over <-- Somewhat editorial, but no clear bias

Housing-Affordability Index At Lowest Level Since 2006 <-- neutral

FYI:

If you're interested in looking at broadcast rundowns by day, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive is invaluable. It permits keyword searches (for how a specific story was covered), or looking at broadcasts from the major networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, and Fox News), dating to as early as 1969 (for ABC, CBS, and NBC, with CNN and Fox being added at later dates).

https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/

For websites, navigating archives by date on the Internet Archive can be useful. It's difficult to pick a canonical time of day for stories, and archive timing varies, but you might choose a target such as 6pm US/Eastern to designate the end of a daily news cycle and find the copy that most nearly matches that.

As noted, there are organisations which perform this work themselves, including Ad Fontes (which I've already mentioned), Media Bias Fact Check (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/), and more. Sourcewatch (https://sourcewatch.org) is another.

There are of course partisan bias-check organisations (e.g., the Media Resource Center on the right, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting on the left). There are also groups which look for under-reported stories, most notably Project Censored (https://www.projectcensored.org/).

Thank you! I'm the director of public policy for a non-profit firearms advocacy group, and we do quite a bit of news analysis. This could be super helpful for a piece I'm writing on how gun owners of color have been treated by the media at large over time.

Looking at just headlines doesn't give you the full picture of bias, but it's a good start.

The most notable CNN bias indicator would be having to pay out nearly half a billion to a minor for slandering him. It's not the only event of that nature either.

But usually the bias is omission of facts and even stories, speculation, and slant within the story. In the Sandman case it was only showing partial footage that cut out him being approached and made him look like the aggressor.

So you just go and pick today's headlines and call it a day?

You're right of course but the effort to check each day would be excessive. However what would you think if for the last 30 days it was similar to today? Would you switch to cnn? Probably not.

The effort Victerius expended was markedly greater than you had.

You're more than welcome to provide your own data, or at a bare minimum, state your standards or criteria for what a sufficient or credible response might be.

Keep in mind that there are in fact organisations which do just this over time, with Ad Fontes Media being among the better known and more credible:

https://adfontesmedia.com/

I'll give you a hint: the results would have been the same on any other day. Clearly you're only interested in having your opinions validated. I'm sorry that reality is so disappointing to you.

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