Every source is superbiased. If people don't see it, it's because they share the same bias. Yogthos is consistently biased towards the truth and provides link after link.

It should be clear to anyone who reads those links that those who downvote either aren't reading the links or are so ideologically driven that they can't accept different viewpoints. If summaries based on the sources or if the sources themselves are faulty, I for one would like to see an argument as to why.

What is usually seen, however, are responses that refuse to acknowledge basic facts, like the historic and containing malevolence of NATO. And this is really weird because progressive liberals tend to accept said facts and criticise the evil empire because they think it can be reformed and capitalism perfected. While conservative liberals tend to accept said facts and be proud of what the evil empire has achieved and is achieving.

To just deny the reality is… well it suggests a lack of basic knowledge of history and/or severe cognitive dissonance. That, or a certain kind of propagandist… ten years ago, I'd have said that option was a bit melodramatic, but today? World politics are moving quickly.

This isn't targeted at you, btw – you've only made one comment so far, and it's a sensible one. You just made me think about why Yogthos gets so downvoted and gets these kinds of responses.

[+] vegai@suppo.fi 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago

As Yogthos sometimes gets mass downvoted merely for posting links and providing short summaries, I thought you were just making a balanced observation rather than an ad hominem argument.

I agree there are levels of bias. I just think it's always there.

I had, thankfully(?) never heard of NewsMax before. It looks rather right wing from a brief glance. I think you're right, too, that some outlets qualify as 'absolute bullshitters'.

Does this then take us to a distinction between bias and, for want of a better phrase, 'fake news'?

The Economist and the Guardian can be very subtle about their biases (and bullshit) but it is always there.

The Guardian, for instance, appears to be quite progressive but except for a few columnists it could be my least favourite paper because in fact it's (neo)liberal. It uses it's progressive appearance to lure in readers with the right ideas about e.g. immigration or healthcare. But it fundamentally agrees with markets, competition, etc, rarely if ever presenting challenges to those assumptions.

And then when there's a possibility of change, it frames the change-maker as unreasonable, a hopeless dreamer, or wholly unhinged. An example of this came up here last week, maybe. The Guardian was praising a move in India(?) to provide free broadband to millions of people. This was a policy of Jeremy Corbyn. It was branded broadband communism (not by the Guardian). Then the Guardian's editorial line was to join all other mainstream media in sabotaging Corbyn's election. It only supports progressive politics until there's a chance of implementing them.

The Economist is unashamedly liberal, too. At the moment it's neoliberal, often quite Hayekian. I don't read it regularly but I used to and I can't remember ever reading a good faith story that involved anything connected to communism or socialism (including democratic socialism). Any positive thing to say about China, for example, has to be wrapped up as a back-handed compliment, at best.

I wouldn't say this is necessarily willful misinformation by their writers (who are often young graduates and unattributed). But those writers wouldn't be hired if they had any other politics. They are hired because they have the same biases as the owners. And if they don't, they've learned to keep their own politics to themselves.

A great book on media bias is Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. It's gripping and easy to read. The structure of news media production means it cannot be anything but biased, although again in agreement with you, this does depend on what we mean by bias and what by outright lies.