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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

For very interested readers, here is a meta-collection of articles from left, center and right about the story: https://ground.news/article/newsom-vetoes-bill-for-stricter-...

And a short bias comparison:

> The left discusses Newsom's veto as a victory for Silicon Valley, concentrating on the economic implications and backing from tech giants.

> The center highlights the broader societal ramifications, addressing criticisms from various sectors, such as Hollywood and AI safety advocates.

> The right emphasizes Newsom's concerns about hindering innovation and his commitment to future collaborative regulatory efforts, showcasing a balanced approach.

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Ground.News (no affiliation) is great for anyone interested in getting actual news and comparing biases. I particularly like that if you have an account they will show you news stories you're missing based on your typical reading patterns.

I do wish the partisan categorization was a bit more nuanced/intentional. It basically boils down to:

- Major national news outlet? Left.

- Local affiliate of major national news outlet? Center.

- Blog you've never heard of? Right.

There are certainly exceptions but that heuristic will be right 90% of the time.

It is truly great, and cheap too (30 USD/year or something). Not affiliated either, just a happy user.

Yeah, it could be a bit better. As a non-American, the biases are also very off from how left/center/right looks in my own country, but at least it tries to cover different angles which I tried to do manually before.

They can also be a bit slow at linking different stories together, sometimes it takes multiple days for same headlines to be merged into one story.

It's funny that it has Fox news as center to me. I watched them back when Obama was president a couple times and some of the shows would play Nazi videos while talking about him. Nevermind birtherism.

I haven't watched them in over a decade, but I assume they haven't gotten any better.

They currently lists Fox News as (US) "Right" as far as I can tell: https://ground.news/interest/fox-news_a44aba

> Average Bias Rating: Right

I guess it's possible they don't have a 100% coverage of all the local Fox News stations, and some of them been incorrectly labeled.

Oh, my mistake. I looked at the other link (https://ground.news/article/newsom-vetoes-bill-for-stricter-...) and Fox News was in the grey, or "center" section. I assume they're doing some extra analysis to put them there for this specific subject?

Nah, it's just the UI being awkward. The prominent tabs at the top just change the AI summary, while there is a much more subtle set of tabs beneath where it (currently) says "63 articles" that filter the sources.

I think if you look at the actual news reporting on Fox News, it could be closer to center. But when you factor in their opinion "reporting" it's very clearly heavily right-leaning. Problem is, most of their viewership can't tell the difference.

Also while many individual stories might be in the center, bias is also exhibited in which stories they choose to print, or not to, as well as in esitorialized headlines.

This is part of why I like ground.news, they will show you blindspots based on the existence of reporting entirely. If you read mainly left or center news, the front page is about 50% stories that are mostly over covered by "right" news outlets (and vice versa).

> - Blog you've never heard of? Right.

That checks out.

There's a certain sect of the far right that is easily convinced by one guy saying "The media is lying to you! This is what's really happening!" followed by the most insane shit you've read in your life.

They love to rant about the Deep State.

When people say, "The Deep State", what they really mean is, "unelected lifelong government employees who can create regulations that have the force of law".

And that is a problem. Congress makes laws, not government agencies like the FDA, EPA, USDA, etc.

We've seen a near-total abdication of responsibility from Congress on highly charged matters that'll piss off someone, somewhere in their constituency, because they'd rather allow the President to make an Executive Order, or a bureaucrat somewhere to create a rule or regulation that will have the same effect.

It's disgusting, shameful, and the American people need to do better, frankly. We need to demand Congress do their jobs.

So many of our problems can be solved if these people weren't concerned about being re-elected. Elected positions are supposed to be something you take time out of your life to do for a number of years, then you go back to your livelihood - not something you do for the entirety of your life.

Have you considered electing better representatives for yourself to Congress

It's easy to blame to Congress, but in my view US Congress nowadays is a perfect reflection of the electorate, where all sides approach all problems as "Someone [not me] should do something about this thing I do not like." Congressmen are then elected and approach it the same way.

That's one of the difficult things when dealing with any sort of conspiracy theory or major discussion about fundamental issues with government - there _are_ significant issues, so straight dismissing "The Deep State" isn't possible because there actually are instances of that sort of fundamental corruption. But then you have people who jump from those very real issues to moon landing hoax conspiracies, flat earth conspiracies, etc. etc., using that grain of truth of The Deep State to justify whatever belief they want.

It's related to a fundamental issue with discussing scientific principles in a non-scientific setting - yes, gravity is a _theory_ in the scientific sense, but that doesn't you can say "scientists don't know anything! they say gravity is just a theory, so what's stopping us from floating off into space tomorrow!?". Adapt the examples there to whatever you want...

And yes, that sounds fairly judgy of me - I am, alas, human, thus subject to the same fallacies and traps that I recognize in others, and being aware of those issues doesn't guarantee I can avoid them...

Congress makes laws, not government agencies like the FDA, EPA, USDA, etc.

What are some examples of laws created by unelected people?

Federal regulations hold the force and effect of law. The listed agencies (and all others) all have thousands of pages of rules and regulations that, if violated, are federal crimes that come with serious financial penalties as well as jail time.

That Congress has given some measure of its Constitutional lawmaking ability to federal agencies is not a partisan statement and is not debated as a matter of fact, the question is just whether you think it's okay / legal or not.

This is exactly why there should be aggressive term limits for all offices. A 3-4 term limit for all offices regardless of the length of your term (e.g. 6-8 for the House, 18-24 years for Senate, etc.) would still allow exemplary public servants to spend their life in public service if their constituencies demand it. Even at 3 terms that's over 3 decades if you spend 3 terms in the House, 3 in the Senate, and 2 as President.

If you know you have at most 6 years in the House to make a difference you're much more likely to actually try to make a difference.

I think somewhat counter-intuitively but related, members of Congress need to be paid more to attract successful people. If you're making $600k/yr as a surgeon you have very little incentive to leave your job to make $175k/yr as a member of Congress.

I've found The Tangle (https://www.readtangle.com/ - no affiliation) to be a pretty balanced daily politics newsletter. They mentioned the Newsom veto today, and may address it later this week, though I don't know for sure.

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