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by cirgue 3190 days ago
>The reputation is where the bias lies.

So there's a difference between bias, which exists in every human communication imaginable, and abjectly bad writing and reporting. The major problem today is the latter.

> Also, note that you can only see the issues in reporting if you’re closer to the story than the reporter is.

That is absolutely not true at all. Most bad journalism today is insultingly bad. Take this article, which was the top article on Salon's 'News' section: https://www.salon.com/2017/09/26/george-clooney-donald-trump...

Basically, it is a puff piece about how George Clooney doesn't like Trump and has said as much. This article is clickbait designed to get likes on social media. Much of what is stated is probably true (I would not doubt that George Clooney said these things), but ultimately it doesn't matter. The point of the article is not to inform, it is to provoke a reaction.

Salon used to be a reasonably thoughtful outlet. They now appear to be a tabloid. This is a pattern that has played out over the internet media for the past several years, and we are all definitely worse off for it.

2 comments

It’s easy to find poor reporting, but many people are blind to the flaws in each outlet. I don’t see any issue with rejecting the idea that any news source is “factual”. That is a downright harmful idea. You want to be sure about something? Go there yourself, or pay someone a lot of money to convincingly verify it.

You know what’s hard? Finding good reporting. Everyone is selling you something, even if it’s just a comfortable world view.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

This term us from the 1890s, journalism has been terrible from its inception.