Show HN: SplitSearch – Simultaneously search conservative and liberal news orgs

https://splitsearch.netlify.app/

84 50 6 years ago

splitsearch.netlify.app

jabo3• 6 years ago

Oh hey, I just posted something similar I built, earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24720482

It focuses only on searching through the candidates’ speeches, shown in a side-by-side format.

My thinking was that with all the divisive misinformation making their rounds these days, hearing what both candidates have said first-hand on the same topic presented in a side-by-side format, could help inform people of all perspectives in an unbiased way.

I use data indexed on a Typesense server though, not Google site search.

jabo3• 6 years ago

Separately, I’ve found this site to do a good job of aggregating news from all sides and presenting them with a media bias rating (left, center or right), which I’ve found helpful: https://www.allsides.com/

Where do you get your media bias ratings from?

siquick• 6 years ago

Anyone know of a similar site that is not so US focused?

Vaslo• 6 years ago

Thanks for posting this AllSides site. This is one of the best and most honest segmentations I’ve seen. Often other sites set a news org like CNN as the center and then go from there, which doesn’t make much sense. Allsides call NPR “center” which I completely disagree with but still much more honest compared to others.

bufferoverflow4• 6 years ago

I found Allsides to be extremely biased. In their media bias "analysis"

https://www.allsides.com/sites/default/files/AllSidesMediaBi...

they claim that NPR and The Hill and BBC are dead center. That's 100% false. These are all quite far left, especially BBC.

emodendroket• 6 years ago

I don't really find the very reductive model of left, center, or right as that helpful. I find the most useful strategy mixing in some "non-mainstream" sources like RT, CGTN, Telesur, PressTV, etc., that are coming at the news from the a totally different perspective. Of course they have an angle, and sometimes it's rather crudely presented, but if your spectrum is Fox News to MSNBC they've also got a lot of shared assumptions you might otherwise not think about.

But this gets back to my point; you could think about it from different axes like geopolitical ones, closeness to military/intelligence sources, and so on, in addition to favored political party. Even if we're going pretty narrow, I think you might see pretty different ideas from, say, the American Conservative and the Daily Caller, even though they're both conservative publications.

pmarreck4• 6 years ago

there's also https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

I like that it rates "factual accuracy" on a separate axis than "bias". If factual accuracy is "high" or greater, then any remaining difference in bias can potentially just be attributed to values/tastes, and "de gustibus non est disputandum"

raghavtoshniwal3• 6 years ago

Hey,

I saw your submission minutes after I posted mine. Quite the co-incidence!

I really like what you did. I too struggled with “splitting” the screen on mobile. My current solution is a little janky.

m0zg4• 6 years ago

I've found https://web.ground.news/ to be quite illuminating as far as gaslighting on both sides of the political aisle is concerned. Observation: liberal outlets are able to enforce complete suppression of even slightly unfavorable news (e.g. China censoring Pence's remarks on China during the VP debate). Conservative ones will often publish unfavorable news just to rile up the audience.

vinay427• 6 years ago

How does this change if we consider the truth levels of the facts that these media outlets report? I see no reason why several remarks from the VP debate, in this instance, should be reported as reality. This is probably true on both sides but to varying degrees.

m0zg4• 6 years ago

The goal here is not to expose truth per se, the goal is to merely to expose the underlying agendas by highlighting the topics the sides prefer to highlight or avoid in their version of what they consider "reality". That, and perhaps also provide exposure to opinions outside the bubble, for people concerned that their reality might not be entirely real, irrespective of affiliation. The bubbles are stronger than they've ever been. You can't break out of them without making a deliberate effort.

coolgeek2• 6 years ago

First off, China censoring anything is a "dog bites man" story. It happens all the time. It's not news to anybody with half a clue about what's going on.

Second, what's your reasoning for why "liberal" outlets might be doing this? Who are they "protecting"? What are they protecting them from? Are they beholden (financially, or ideologically) to the CCP?

m0zg4• 6 years ago

They're protecting the DNC candidates, that much is obvious. In this particular case this highlights the different stance on China between the incumbent and the contender administrations. Both Harris and Biden have deep ties with China. Harris through her husband, Biden through his crackhead son. So you could indeed say that both are "beholden to the CCP". The Chinese are not stupid, they don't give just any crackhead $1.5B to "manage".

Animats• 6 years ago

That's nice. But the first page of results in both columns is ads, for "coronavirus". It needs to be combined with ad suppression.

Reading Fox News and CNN side by side, what's striking is not what the stories say, but the selection of stories on the front page. They seem to be drawn from different universes.

polote• 6 years ago

There is an issue when you need to read two articles with opposite point of view to get an idea of what the reality is

notJim• 6 years ago

Many of the stories from OAN are actually just Reuters stories. Not saying this is bad, many publications do this, but it would be cool if the app could filter those out.

threatofrain• 6 years ago

I've personally found Google News to be a pretty decent front page of news. One way I ask whether I'm satisfied is if I miss out on a big story that I feel I would've wanted to be alerted on.

raghavtoshniwal3• 6 years ago

I too use Google news but I often wonder if I’m missing out on a perspective/views because Google News shows me news from the same news sources.

thelazydogsback• 6 years ago

Well, it's balanced -- I get all [ad]s on both sides...

raghavtoshniwal3• 6 years ago

I developed this locally with my adblocker on. I didn’t even realize ads were showing. Fixed it now :)

LexGray• 6 years ago

I did not get it from your blog, but I think you are very not alone. It is amusing how many developer blogs I click on that throw up your flash player is outdated type malware.

paraschopra• 6 years ago

What are you using for powering search?

pmarreck4• 6 years ago

How about something like this, but which only searches sites/orgs that https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ rates the factual reporting as "high" or higher on, regardless of bias (or perhaps incorporating no bias)

Hmmm, I could probably create a custom google search page for that, eh?

chris_f2• 6 years ago

Here is a Google Custom Search Engine based on MBFC: https://factualsearch.news/

op03• 6 years ago

Looks accurate. Both sides have equal number of Meghan Markle articles everyday.

raziel2p• 6 years ago

I think the recency of articles is wrong, maybe only from some sources. I searched for "Netherlands" and this article was fairly high up:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-netherlands-duncan-laurenc... (2 days ago)

One of the results is also just a link to the front page of AlterNet. Searching for other very generic terms (country names for example) leads me to other website's front pages as well.

I also would've appreciated titles over the 2 panes, because as a non-American it took me a while to realize that red is right-wing/conservative (in Europe it's typically the opposite).

Whatever I search for there also seems to be a lot of articles from the same sources (namely thedailybeast and breitbart). Not sure anything can be done about that though.

Show HN: SplitSearch – Simultaneously search conservative and liberal news orgs

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