[aksss]

It surprised you that MSNBC, NYT, and NPR have primarily left-leaning audiences? Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC. If you asked the surveyed Republicans how much they trust Fox News specifically, I’m sure the stats would be a mirror image. Similarly, democrats trust a news industry which, outlet-for-outlet, is more aligned with what they want to hear. After all, it’s never “our” news we mistrust, it’s the other guys!

Truthfully, I think the smart folks on both sides of the aisle know the news media is a for-profit business whose interests are tangential to telling the truth.

[unishark]

> After all, it’s never “our” news we mistrust, it’s the other guys!

You imply this is some kind of hypocrisy or other character flaw, but this will always be true when there's uncertainty. If someone holds the same prior beliefs as you, it is rational to trust them more. Otherwise you would be assuming your own beliefs are wrong which makes no sense by definition.

Of course media outlets tend to go beyond just filling in the blanks with biased guesses, but still people will be more forgiving if they seem "sensible" generally.

[kortilla]

> If someone holds the same prior beliefs as you, it is rational to trust them more.

It may be rational, but that makes them terrible providers of news for the people they agree with. They have the same blind spots and are looking to support the narratives you both already believe.

[quetzthecoatl]

I would even say it's not rational, but cult like. Rationality is based on logical skepticism. More often than not, it's swimming against the tide questioning generally accepted axioms.

[leereeves]

I agree. Rationality includes avoiding confirmation bias (the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values).

Favoring information that confirms one's prior beliefs is the opposite of rational.

[aksss]

Only to the extent that “bias” is a character flaw. I understand the nature of it, but it is certainly a liability when after the “truth”.

[GoblinSlayer]

Beliefs are a spectrum. There are no two people with the same beliefs, which means there's always disagreement.

[colordrops]

If you trust one side or the other, you need to re-calibrate your beliefs, because they are wrong.

[tsimionescu]

> Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC.

I don't think it detracts from your points, but the coverage of all these outlets leans Democrat, but not left. They are centrist papers. Left voices (think Chomsky) are almost completely absent from mainstream media.

[aksss]

The context is different when referring to politics in a two-party system like the US, versus political philosophy. In the US political system, the center is relative to where the two parties are - there is no “absolute truth” of the center. The democrats are the party of the left like republicans are the party of the right — meaning political views will roughly trend according to party membership. Centrists are defined by being able to keep a foot in both sides, so democrats are by definition not centrist anymore than republicans. Either party may be comprised by more or less centrist politicians, but if that holds it just moves the center over time. Both parties change their stances on issues periodically in ways that would seem to violate first principles of a philosophical left/right philosophy. But political philosophy is always more accurately measured in a quadrant system[0] than a linear one. In a two-party system, or one of a forced synthesis/aggregation of viewpoints and dialectic conflict, a Democrat will tend to hold views left of center in the US, or at least support politicians who hold such views, and the reverse for Republicans.

[0] the intersection of two axes measuring social and economic positions, popularized as the “political compass”

[tsimionescu]

Politics in the US is not limited to the two parties. The population of the US has a wide range of political opinions that don't neatly aligned to the mainline Democratic or Republican views. Especially in the US, with its system of primaries, the real politics of the population are relevant even when the official election essentially only offers 2 candidates.

And in the real US, the Democratic party is to the right of a vast majority of its own voters' views, on issues such as Medicare for All most prominently, but others as well. It's even to the right of the views of large swaths of Republican voters on many issues, such as withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic party is much closer to the Center of the political opinions of the US population, at least on economic and foreign policy matters (I would say it's well in the center-right of American political views actually on those matters). It may well be on the 'real left' on social and family matters, to be fair.

Not to mention, there are many other political forces and voices, which form a clear left pole far to the left of the Democratic party (I gave specific examples), and they have large amounts of increasingly organized support. They will likely pull the Democratic party to the left instead of establishing a pure leftist party, but that is far from having happened. You can look instead at how much the extreme right has been pulling the Republican party right to see the mechanisms

So the way I see it, the US population has left leaning people, right leaning people, and centrists. Looking at the relative opinions of the population, the Democratic party is overall in the Center, and the Republicans are well on the right (these are overall generalizations). Of course, in the absence of better choices, leftist voters will generally vote Democratic, as the Center is preferable to them than the Right.

More importantly for this claim, papers like the NYT and networks like CNN are explicitly cultivating centrist beliefs (especially on economic and foreign policy matters), often leaning far more to the right on such issues compared to the majority of the population (look at Brian Williams repulsive praise of the 'beauty of our weapons' on MSNBC[0] as they were reporting on a US missile attack on a Syrian base).

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jNHOJwgZyfo

[aksss]

In practical terms the US is limited to two parties. Name the last time a third party won the Presidency. This is woven into the structure.

This doesn't limit the spectrum of opinions of individuals by any means but it does compel some degree of consensus and organization to mount a serious campaign.

> They will likely pull the Dem party to the left

Yes, the parties vacillate in how far left or right they are, and the center moves accordingly. Still, the center of US politics isn't defined by some "objective truth" it's defined by the relative position of the two political parties. Some ideas that have been centrist in the past are now extremist, some ideas that have been considered extreme in the past are now considered the accepted consensus.

[tsimionescu]

In the end this is just a matter of definitions. For my own understanding, I define left and right and center in terms of the relative opinions of the population, not the parties. You define them by the parties' positions - that's fair of course, it's a workable definition.

I do think there are advantages to my definition - by your definition, the majority of the US population has an extreme left position on Medicare for all, as an example.

[tacitusarc]

This is changing the meaning of the word left, and then redefining Democrat as centrist, which is just incorrect.

[hef19898]

Depends on where you are from. In most, if not all, western democracies the Democrats pass as centrist. People like Bernie pass as slightly left of center in Germany for example. And passes as left parties over here would considered full-blown communist in the US.

[spiralx]

That's just not true of the Democratic Party by any useful metric and likewise there is nothing about Bernie's platform that would be centre-left anywhere in Europe, the majority of his proposals being to the left of anything implemented anywhere.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunda...

[hef19898]

If I understood the NYT article correct, the Democrats are put left, among other things, because of support for climate measures. Fun fact, the CSU, as far right as you get in Germany when you ignore the AfD, is also supporting measures to fight climate change now. The CSU also kind of opposes gay marriage, are among the more extremer views regarding abortion. And support public health care. They do not fight to make abortion illegal so. No do they with gay marriage. I see that as them being more "left" than anything I see coming from the GOP at the moment. And the CSU, as I said, considered the most right / conservative of our mainstream parties.

Bernie on the other hand would fit in perfectly well with the SPD, our social democrats. "Die Linke", the leftest one in the article, is a joint party of the SED (the former DDRs government party), some communists from western Germany and the far left wing of the SPD. They are as much left as the AfD is right.

I do see a lot of parallels between the AfD and the right wing of the GOP so. Especially regarding immigrants, muslims, the Covid pandemic and views of family values.

[bordercases]

If we're still talking about US news outlets being mistrusted by American citizens subscribing to US political parties, this comparison is irrelevant.

[Daho0n]

Do you see a situation where the word left means something different if you are talking about national politics versus international politics as a good idea? Because that is the situation you are in if you won't acknowledge that the Democrats are centrist. What then do you call left leaning politics outside the US? Left left? Foreign Left? Communists? This misuse and redefining of words is one of the reasons we have people crying Socialist or Communist of left leaning politicians.

[Nasrudith]

Left and right are relative really. Wanting to shift to a constitutional monarchy was once "the left" or having only Chrisianity as first class citizens in comparison to only Catholicism or Protestantism.

International politics should be contextually anchored essentially. So you say "Party X from country Y is further left than part A from country B." That is putting aside "mixed political aspects". Is a communist country which outlaws homosexuality to the left or right of a free market capitalist country which has gay marriage?

[tsimionescu]

Sure, but in my opinion you should base that on the political leanings of the population of the countrybypu are analyzing, not only on its political parties.

Mixed political aspects are a good argument to be careful in discussing 'overall' political leanings. There are real-world mixups like you describe - for example, Marine Le Pen, while a frighteningly far right extremist on social and foreign policy issues, was to the left of someone like Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton on many economic policy aspects.

[Daho0n]

Well, personal freedom is neither left nor right but rather up (Libertarianism) versus down (Authoritarian). If you divide the political spectrum in a XY scatter chart you get both Bush, Trump and Obama at Top Right pretty close to each other in Authoritarian Right. Someone like Sanders is to the Left but still pretty Authoritarian in some ways, so not really what is seen as Left outside the US. Someone who is what is normally called Left (left and down) would be Jill Stein (or Noam Chomsky if not only looking at politicians). So in short, both your examples are likely in the Top Right; Right Authoritarians, if they are from the US.

>Wanting to shift to a constitutional monarchy was once "the left"

Yes, in many places they still have names from back then. For example one of the biggest political parties from Denmark is named "Venstre" which literally means "Left", even though they are to the Right (conservative-liberal). Quite funny that a close match from Norway is called "Høyre" which means "Right". They rooted for Joe Biden in the election though and had a big party back when Obama won, because US Left is their Right to center-right and the republicans are just way too extreme for their taste.

[tsimionescu]

It's not, the US left is represented by papers such as Jacobin, intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, and politicians like Bernie Sanders, (who has only recently - ~last 10 years of his half a century career- joined the Democratic party), and organizations like the Nurses Union.

Sure, it's true that the Democratic Party is to the left of the Republican Party, and that there are actual leftists in the DP, such as Bernie or AOC, but the vast majority of the party is centrist at best, especially on economic issues.

On many economic issues, Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi are on the right of someone like Marine LePen or Viktor Orban.

[robin21]

Smart people are actually more susceptible to biases. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-...

Funny that I link to a New Yorker article. Fitting that it is from 2012.

[colordrops]

I guess being aware of bias is not part of the "smart" equation?

[spiralx]

Being aware of bias is in no way the same as being unaffected by it. In fact you can imagine the possibility where being aware of a bias allows one to believe that they are unable to be affected by it and thus pay less attention to whether their thinking is flawed.

[colordrops]

So i guess "paying more attention" to flawed thinking is not part of the "smart" equation? See where this leads? I'll be direct: the concept of "smart" is vague and has different meanings to different people, and different measures, so to say "smart" people are like this or like that doesn't make sense.

[PeterisP]

I would have expected that these media have primarily left/right leaning audiences, but having the proportion be 95% of so is a bit surprising and even extreme.

[branweb]

"the news media is a for-profit business whose interests are tangential to telling the truth" <- That's well put.

And yeah I guess I wasn't that surprised by MSNBC, but definitely didn't expect the percentages to be so high for the "paper of record" and NPR.

[lovecg]

There’s a phenomenon quite similar to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: the bias of an outlet is quite obvious in the coverage of an event one is particularly familiar with. Of course then we flip a page and continue taking them at their word.

[skinnymuch]

The same MSNBC that shat on AOC up till it was obvious she was going to be a progressive darling/favorite among a portion of MSNBC viewers, mocked Ron Paul repeatedly*, and have never covered Bernie Sanders close to the way they cover the Democratic establishment? MSNBC is nothing like the lefts Fox.

I completely agree with the point of hating the “other” guy’s news. I don’t think the vast majority of people distrust mainstream media. At least not their favorite outlets. NYT being beloved by a lot of my friends as one easy glaring example of typical highly educated well paid “liberal coastal elites”

* principled progressives/hard left have quite a bit in common with principled libertarians. Ron Paul being one. Not his son though. Chapo Traphouse for example can recognize Ron Paul being legit. Or Jon Stewart for a more mainstream example.

[philwelch]

Trump supporters feel the same way about Fox that you feel about MSNBC. That’s why there’s OAN.

[skinnymuch]

Most of those supporters still support Fox though, no? How many are actually against Fox, never watch it, and advocate against it?

Perhaps that number is bigger than I’m imagining, but I doubt it. Edgy comments online saying Fox sucks for a week because they didn’t do a good enough job isn’t the same thing. That’s still on Fox’s side.

I don’t think the comparison is the same. Maybe for Democracy Now and some progressive YouTuber/online shows.

[philwelch]

> Most of those supporters still support Fox though, no? How many are actually against Fox, never watch it, and advocate against it?

Seems like a lot. That's why OAN and Newsmax grew so fast.

> I don’t think the comparison is the same. Maybe for Democracy Now and some progressive YouTuber/online shows.

Democracy Now and TYT are the progressive version of OAN/Newsmax. MSNBC is the progressive version of Fox.

[skinnymuch]

From minor anecdotal musings of conservatives I know, they will sometimes say negative things about Fox and be more pro OAN/Newsmax, but they aren’t principally opposed to Fox or hate it out right.

TYT and Democracy Now overlap, but TYT is almost purely neoliberal stuff. Perhaps I don’t understand the nuance between OAN/Newsmax though.

It’s not hard to dislike MSNBC and not watch it while being into Democracy Now. It makes sense. If you’re into Chapo Trap House, you’re completely opposed to MSNBC.

You can see the differences just from seeing how Reddit’s Ohanion did a classic neoliberal move weeks before Chapo’s ban of saying his board seat should go to a minority. A move MSNBC would say congrats, work accomplished to. Unlike progressives.

You can also see the general difference of how things are viewed based on the attention The Donald subreddit got for their ban vs Chapo. Trump’s subreddit was a 4-5x bigger, but took up almost all the news cycle vs the other subreddits.

It’s not as simple as Democracy Now on left is a mirror of Newsmax on the right.

Either way, we are mostly in agreement. We are talking about details vs any bigger disagreement.

Cheers