[ThalesX]

I've built a local (for my country) news aggregator that basically clusters news and summarizes them based on multiple sources and gives me the rundown of the most important things, and things that can be found between conflicting sources. It's mostly a pet project for myself as it doesn't seem to have a lot of stickyness without the clickbait.

I gave the 'product' to friends and some of them told me "oh, you should do it like ground.news where I can see left, center, right". This idea turns me off so much. Why would I care if it's deemed left, center or right by some commitee. Just give me the information that's there in most sources and it's probably be going to be close to some objective overview of the situation.

[pixl97]

> Why would I care if it's deemed left, center or right by some commitee.

Because at the day information can be political.

>the information that's there in most sources

While I don't use ground news myself, aggregators and classifiers like them can show you when and where stories are being published in very lopsided manners. When a story is only really being published by one side you can use that as another bit of information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

[ThalesX]

> Why would I care if it's deemed left, center or right by some commitee.

>> Because at the day information can be political.

Umm. Yes. Which is precisely what placing it left / center / right amplifies.

> the information that's there in most sources

>> While I don't use ground news myself, aggregators and classifiers like them can show you when and where stories are being published in very lopsided manners. When a story is only really being published by one side you can use that as another bit of information.

Sure, it's another bit of information. I think more important are the facts. Did this actually happen? If so, what happened? The tl;dr of what happened should give me a pretty good idea, without having to become a reporter myself, especially if covered by both sides.

I think this is more of an issue of an union, than the 'argument to moderation' or 'false balance' might appeal to. If I'm left, and report or something and you don't. That's probably high noise. If you're right and report to something I don't. That's probably high noise. If we both report on something, and we report differently on 80% but we have the same 20%. I'd say that 20% is high signal.

What if we cut out the left / center / right ideas and just take as many sources as we can? Then extract what's common between them. Wouldn't that have some sort of higher signal to noise ratio than any single viewpoint?

Of course, I'm willing to accept I'm wrong. From my personal experience so far, I'm much less inclined to extremes than I was since starting to use this system.

[chatmasta]

Ground.news also gives the information that is present in only one side, which is just as high signal – if not higher – as showing the overlap IMO. They have a feed for “stories with equal coverage” and “stories covered mostly in left-leaning sources” and “stories covered mostly in right-leaning sources.”

[ThalesX]

I'm seaching for 'equal' on the home page and finding no results, nor for 'feeds'. Could you help me identify those locations? It's always confusing to me when I go to their home page and would appreciate it. I think the equal coverage might be what I'm actually looking for.

[0xCMP]

I think they're referring to https://ground.news/blindspot

[chatmasta]

Yes, that’s exactly it (and aptly named).

[quickymonster]

I think you misunderstand the feature.

Ground news tells you the bias of publications that have published the news item not the slant of the news item itself. It lets you see how much news gets completely ignored by the right and left (the right is way worse) when it isn't favorable to their cause. It's also really interesting to sample both sides and see how wildly the facts get slanted as you get further from center.

The publishers are biased, not the news item.

[ThalesX]

I think I understand this feature pretty well. What I'm arguing for is taking the common information between all news sources (without having to place them in left / right / center) is much higher signal to noise.

Honestly your paranthesis that "the right is way worse" is already too political for my taste. It makes me feel dumb for even writing this reply. Alas, these are my thoughts. News should be news. What happened and when. Not some attack vector against a group of people or another.

[alwa]

Given that there are at least as many things happening as there are humans, how do you suggest the people serving as “news sources” avoid editorial judgment when deciding what’s newsworthy and what it means?

[ThalesX]

I don't suggest they avoid editorial judgement. I'm only interested in what happened so that I can draw my own conclusions.

[aorist]

Let's say that The Rebel Times has a headline "Member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission boarded and arrested without cause" while the Empire Daily reports that "Leia Organa, part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor, taken into custody". Following your process, the "what" is just that Leia was arrested.

Then, the Rebel Times says "Moisture farmer with magic powers joins fight against Empire", but the Empire Daily has "Moisture farmer joins fight against Empire". the common whats are just that a moisture farmer joined the Rebel Alliance, which is true, but much less consequential than if he had magic powers.

Later, the Rebel Times says "Secret Empire super-weapon destroyed at the Battle of Yavin", and the Empire Daily publishes... nothing because they don't want to admit defeat. There's no common information between these stories (because there is no second story), so looking for common whats would conclude that nothing happened.

If the process of analysing the news accounted for the fact that the different outlets are interested in presenting different whats, it could conclude that the fact that the Empire Daily published nothing about the third story doesn't mean that it didn't happen. In the second case, if it could account for the Empire wanting to suppress information about the Force, the conclusion would be that Luke joining the Alliance is somewhat more of a big deal than otherwise. Even in the first case, it might realise that the fact that the two sources don't agree about Leia doesn't mean that one side isn't right.

[HelloMcFly]

> What happened and when.

"What" is often a matter of definition and framing, especially if you also want news to include "to what effect" which is not always black-and-white. "Why" is an answer that also must be answered, but will often come through a political lens. News cannot be free from a political lens if "why" and "to what effect" are considered, and probably can't be free from some element of a political lens even if just sticking to "what".

[ThalesX]

> if you also want news to include "to what effect"

I don't. I want to be able to draw my own conclusion as to the effect of what happened might be.

> News cannot be free from a political lens if "why" and "to what effect" are considered, and probably can't be free from some element of a political lens even if just sticking to "what".

I have no interest in the "why" and "to what effect". I have an interest into "what" so that I can draw my own conclusions.

Though thank you for your thoughts, it helps me understand the people calling for political sides better.

[HelloMcFly]

> I don't. I want to be able to draw my own conclusion as to the effect of what happened might be.

That's fair BUT do you see how this is a decision that a) won't always have a clear line of demarcation and b) reflects an internal mental model of news that likely isn't universal?

For example: let's say someone reads a news article that titled "Trump Won't Rule out Military Intervention in Greenland" (god help us, a real story). Maybe you get all the "what" you need from the headline. I would argue though that omitting contextual information about "Why does he want Greenland?" is irresponsible and bad journalism. Many others might argue that in a duty to inform readers, they should collect statements from people who understand international relations to discuss implications of such a stance.

Another example: insurance rates are rising for coastal properties in Florida. That's the "what", but there is no honest, legitimate exploration of the topic if the journalist doesn't explore "why", because the "why" of this story if also a "what" of the many contributing factors. Since that "what" will necessarily include climate-related topics, it is now considered "political" by many. And in this instance, exploring "what effect" this is likely to have on homeowners, renters, and businesses seems a core element of the phenomenon.

[ThalesX]

> That's fair BUT do you see how this is a decision that a) won't always have a clear line of demarcation and b) reflects an internal mental model of news that likely isn't universal?

a) I think there's a clear line of demarcation to the "what".

b) I can see how this isn't a universal mental model, I just fail to see why the "why" makes for a better one.

> irresponsible and bad journalism

I honestly don't see how left / center / right fixes this. If there's no consensus between tens / hundreds (and I'm in a small country) sources on the actual thing that lead up to the what, I don't see why that should be included. Else the news would just be (for example, not political affirmation) "Trump Won't Rule out Military Intervention in Greenland[...] as loss of key trans-atlantic partners considered less valuable than securing arctic trade route".

> Another example: insurance rates are rising for coastal properties in Florida. That's the "what", but there is no honest, legitimate exploration of the topic if the journalist doesn't explore "why", because the "why" of this story if also a "what" of the many contributing factors. Since that "what" will necessarily include climate-related topics, it is now considered "political" by many. And in this instance, exploring "what effect" this is likely to have on homeowners, renters, and businesses seems a core element of the phenomenon

Honestly it's the same thing, if 80% of covered news sources point out to a why as climate change, sure. If only the left (or right, or center) ones do and they're not a solid majority. I don't particulary care. I care more about the "what".

Again, this might tie into the mental model more than anything but the whole left / center / right divide seems political and high noise to signal ratio to me.

[ropable]

> Honestly your paranthesis that "the right is way worse" is already too political for my taste.

They're not wrong, though.

[Spooky23]

A relative was a high level local political figure. His quip was always “if you want to know what’s important that is going on, look for what isn’t in the newspaper.”

Any issue I’m deeply familiar with that gets reported is almost always missing lots of meaningful information. There isn’t really competition for most news, so there’s no incentive to follow up.

Publishers have biases, and their sources have agendas.