Newsweek to Cease Print Publication at End of Year

>I think NPR is seen as having a liberal slant. NPR has done some very in depth studies of this, counting liberal stories vs conservative, and determined that there was no bias.

The NYT does the same thing, occasioning much laughter and derision from the right. We can't decide if they're being dishonest or if their frame of reference is such that they really believe they're being evenhanded.

As a conservative, I'm convinced NPR is biased. I listen to it every day on the way to work, since it's still preferable to commercial radio (even donated a couple times), but there's no doubt in my mind whoever is calling the shots would love to see the president reelected.

It's not so much how the news gets covered but what gets covered. If this week's DNC talking point is Bain Capital, NPR is covering decades-old events at Bain. If it's "War on Women" then we get to hear from hoary old feminists spouting questionable statistics. If Romney raised more money than Obama this month we get stories on Citizen United, but when Obama raises more money we get stories on just how motivated his supporters are. Benghazi was a big news story until it became apparent the ambassador died in an actual planned attack instead of a mob pissed off about a movie. Then the story disappeared completely.

I don't have any problem with the way they cover stories, for the most part, though occasionally I wince at the way things are described. The big problem is the selection.

I consume NPR as my exclusive broadcast news source and I agree with you. NPR is more often balanced and interesting than the others, but there are times when the liberal bias is glaring. Even if all the stories broadcast are balanced, which is often not the case, there is bias even in story selection; why does NPR always have stories about how sad it is to defund the National Park Service instead of stories about how great it is to reduce the national debt and how much taxation and interest this will save in the long run? Because they'd rather pay more taxes and keep the Park Service alive.

A recent example: in a snippet about some magazine's "First Lady Cookie Recipe Cook-off", the invited commentator was a writer for Jezebel.com, a feminist political blog, and while they ostensibly offered a chance for rebuttal, the Jezebel commentator spoke for about a minute and they read the three-words justification from the publisher: "People like it" as a response. One may ask, "Why did they give venue to this commentator, whose opinion is obviously skewed hard to one direction and outside the mainstream concept, and not at least give equal time to someone from Focus on the Family or something?" The answer is, "NPR likes Jezebel more, and wants to promote commentators that will give the audience the perception that this is a sexist/unequal thing".

it's so weird to me that people feel this way, when NPR is clearly much more Right-ward than me and my friends - but of course, I've lived in San Francisco, Oakland, and Portland.

I wish there was a news source Left of me! It would be fascinating.

>90%+ are favorable to green energy, solar energy, wind energy - and Anti-Coal/Carbon products.

I wasn't aware that renewable energy was a partisan issue.

The problem isn't The Guardian or The Daily Mail, it's that people read them and use them to prop up their very narrow worldviews. Either group could trivially shift their paper of choice to the other (or one of the more moderate alternatives) -- it's not an issue of availablity.

While The Guardian isn't for profit, they still rely on the market to provide money for them, either through buying the paper or donating to the trust. The fact that the BBC which can (and sometimes does) shut it self away from any money raising concerns is more centric than the Guardian suggests that the ownership model doesn't inform the editorial much.

What is your worry about removing the most significant conflict of interest from a news organization exactly? It seems like it might cause other issues but I can't think of a reasonable reason that it would do anything but reduce the amount of bias present.

And really? The Daily Fucking Mail? First of all: middle ground fallacy. Second: What sane person takes the Daily Mail's position on anything as a serious data point about where on the political spectrum a hypothetical unbiased news source would lie.

I'm finding it difficult not to stereotype you as an american who feels the middle ground between the Democrats and Republicans is a true middle ground (and that reality therefore has a left wing bias).

I love the phrase "pretty extreme lefty" :-). I think that's been a difference in British journalism compared to the US. There are so many papers in the UK, that they have each staked out their own niche readership. The Guardian serves left leaning readers. The Daily Mail for the right, etc.

As long as enough papers survive that there is a diversity of viewpoints, things will be fine. (That's certainly not a given, however.)

I wouldn't say The Guardian is really well funded, it's got a trust so profitability isn't a huge concern but if the money runs out they're done for.

The Guardian is pretty far left, but they do try and present a balance at times (not always), and the traditional readership is often reasonable enough to have a discourse and not shout at each other.

I enjoy that the Economist takes a strong editorial line. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I disagree but I respect their opinion and color.