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by dubhrosa 3437 days ago
How about they start adhering to the practices that made journalism a cornerstone of functioning democracies for so long? Such as reporting all the facts critically, and not approaching each story from the same, tired left-wing liberal agenda. (I say this as a left wing liberal). The guardian and most of the left leaning media was asleep when the DNC steamrolled HTC through. They were asleep to the possibility of a Trump candidacy and presidency, and fell into his trap by giving virtually unlimited media coverage; we may be in a post truth world but we are more certainly in a world in which there really is no such thing as bad publicity. They refused to pay attention to the facts of the Brexit polls. So I don't have much sympathy for their appeal.
1 comments

That story was written by Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer and includes the phrase "our newspaper, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung". I read the SZ (on paper) and in my judgment the SZ does well on the points you mention.

But I bet you still don't have much sympathy for their appeal. It's always possible to find a fault.

Op seems to be right when even Wikipedia points out the liberal / left bias of the paper.

"The editorial stance of the newspaper is liberal and generally of centre-left,..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCddeutsche_Zeitung

"liberal" in this case is in the European sense of the word. What Americans would call libertarian.
Hello ginko I respectfully disagree with your statement. European Liberalism is not equivalent to American Libertarianism.

Granted there is some overlap, but the parts that do not overlap make all the difference.

With regards to the overlap, both political philosophies support individual liberties and limited government. However European Liberalism usually encompasses the belief that government should act to alleviate poverty and other social problems whereas American Libertarianism usually focuses more on personal responsibility to alleviate poverty and other social problems.

What I mean by this is that, from an American Libertarianism point of view, one would tend to:

* Take responsibility to get themselves out of poverty and other social problems

* Reject the notion that they should be taxed (and therefore be involuntarily forced) to alleviate poverty and other social problems of others, and

* Reject welfare from the state because it was taken from others involuntarily.

Generally from an American Libertarianism point of view, should you wish to alleviate poverty and other social problems of others, it must be done voluntarily through charity because to do otherwise would be to trespass on personal freedom of others.

This is very different to European Liberalism which accepts the concept that everyone in society should be taxed to alleviate poverty and other social problems in society.

So? Yeah, SZ is liberal (as the Germans use that word) and you can see that clearly in the opinion pieces on pages 2, 4 and some high-numbered pages. OP made claims about the other pages, about the factual pieces.
As an occasional SZ reader, I think you're both right. The SZ isn't guilty of this, or at least not very much. Journalism as a whole has lost credibility though, and for a reason.