How biased is your news source?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-biased-is-your-news-source-you-probably-wont-agree-with-this-chart-2018-02-28

by maxshmax • 8 years ago

9 6 8 years ago

marketwatch.com

chubasco• 8 years ago

I didn't see MarketWatch on their chart...

maxshmax• 8 years ago

I thought the same thing, and then realized that would also be sort of biased...

notafraudster• 8 years ago

Surely this is a problem better analyzed by specifying ex ante a set of coding rules in response to measurable inputs, collecting data for those inputs, and then scaling media outlets.

The canonical political science/econ cite for this is Groseclose and Milyo QJE 2005. There are complaints about their approach, but it's certainly better than "I made a chart and just put stuff where I feel like it should be". The website supporting this chart (MediaBiasChart.com) has an interminable dozens of pages long blog post explaining that she wrote down a bunch of policy issues on a grid on a piece of paper and then those magically became this chart. I am unconvinced. This is a problem that a lot of smart and qualified people have explored in data-driven ways.

I mention this because the purpose of the chart appears to be to appeal to professional journalism against punditry and poorly informed "citizen journalism", but it does so through an act of citizen journalism which does not appear to itself be all that well informed.

I also think the visual symmetry in the graph probably creates a false equivalence between the relative influences of "equally bad" outlets on each side -- the Blaze and Breitbart are enormous media empires, and Infowars is what it is, while the equivalents on the left are no-name blogspam places. What was the inclusion rule?

bachbach2• 8 years ago

It's likely in my opinion that the idea of objectivity in media is meaningless..

The issue is why were you reporting that issue at all.

There is a wonderful blog post by Ron Unz on this:

https://www.unz.com/runz/our-american-pravda/

Of course Mr Unz is involved in diabolism if you believe in the chart.

jocro• 8 years ago

The article is essentially just grabbing the chart from the source, which is worth linking, because there are some great methodology/history posts.

http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/

bachbach2• 8 years ago

This chart, like nearly every political chart I've seen misunderstands something really important.

There are not two mainstream political ideologies in the West aka Left Wing and Right Wing.

There are three.

At first this is confusing, but the advantages of this model are that it is historically accurate and also it reveals a great deal more of sense.

There are three political mainstream ideologies. Not everybody is political, but of those who are let 25% be Left Wing, 25% be Right Wing and 50% be Liberal.

By 'Liberal' I do not mean 'Democrat'. Liberal is defined the same way it is the Wiki: "equality (of opportunity) and political freedom". It is a family of ideas - a political idea dynasty.

All modern Conservatives, Libertarians, Progressives and many others fit under the label Liberal. This will be debated by some of you, but the history of political philosophy says these are children of the original Enlightenment philosophies - they're more similar than different but appear not so for the same motivation Catholics and Protestants consider themselves far apart.

With this new (old) and improved political model several things become clear.

1. Centrism is a mirage because it's not that most centrists occupy a position half way to left wing or right wing ideals - in fact they possess altogether different values to either of the wings. Analysis should show that in many scenarios the extremes agree with each other on principals that the 'center' does not, which only makes sense if the center is something other than (including) a compilation of assorted left and right wing influences.

2. Most people being Liberal means they are the Kingmaker. They are the ones who set the 'going concern' - the conversation. Anything about "the left taking over X" or the "the right taking over Y" is mostly going to be fabrication because we're all looking through a Liberal lenses.

3. This forum and many like it are politically biased in a way that most of us find incomprehensible. Can you identify Liberal political propaganda? I suspect it is preferable to debate the notion of the model than to engage with the question - but it is a sincere question. China isn't going to have any qualms about banning somebody like John Oliver - to them he's a political propagandist - and I'm going to say that they are correct. On this forum the topics acceptable for discussion - the right wing influences are rarely acceptable, occasionally left wing influences are acceptable but nearly all the time it is the Liberal influences. This is seen as a form of neutrality - which I am going to call out here as bullshit.

4. It's a popular misconception that we're in an political duopoly - but it's more like a Triumvirate - meaning the political calculus is far more complex than most of us have been led to believe.

tldr; The West's political system is similar to Cixin Liu's story of the three body problem.

How biased is your news source?

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