[savef]

What examples of this are there? I've usually found Wikipedia to be quite equal opportunity, well rounded, and factual.

They have their NPOV[1] policy, and seem impressively unbiased to me, given the various divisive situations they have to try to cover.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_v...

[crote]

Just because the policies are supposed to be neutral doesn't mean the resulting work is guaranteed to be truly neutral. Whether something is definitely a fact or an opinion can be very fluid, and you can play a lot with the amount of attention each viewpoint gets. Even a "neutral" article can end up reading completely differently when one viewpoint is very detailed and described in a fact-like way, while another only gets a short summary which reads as if it is a fringe opinion. And even when you are trying to be neutral, it is incredibly hard to avoid your output from getting shaped by the culture you are surrounded with.

[Cthulhu_]

It's a very thin line to walk, and I don't think "true neutral" or "true unbiased" exists for the same reasons you mention. A newspaper may be neutral and stick to the facts, but if it simply chooses not to publish something, or it chooses to publish something as a byline instead of headline, it's already biased.

There are organizations trying something else though; admittedly I got this through a promotion from a youtube channel, but Ground News [0] is a news aggregator that publishes news with many sources, including ownership, political affiliation, publishing type (facts or opinions, neutral or entertaining), and even notes on which channels do and don't report on it, identifying media blind spots like "low coverage from right sources" or "low original coverage" to help people escape their bubbles and provide multiple perspectives on an issue.

[0] https://ground.news/

[synecdoche]

An example of this in biased media is that people or entities of one end of the political spectrum is almost always qualified as extreme in some way while those from the opposite end of the spectrum is almost never qualified as extreme, as if it were self evident that it is true. Hard to unsee once you know what to look for.

[straydusk]

Then give an example

[slater]

You're unlikely to get one; these discussions are usually just a speedrun to that "which opinions, mfer?" goose meme

[krmboya]

The editors mostly reference left-leaning media outlets when it comes to political topics, without providing a counterbalance from right-leaning sources, assuming it were a truth-seeking endeavor.

As a non American this is very obvious to me.

Even Reuters that was supposedly meant to be a non-biased media outlet is clearly left-leaning at this point

[nl]

Reuters is left-leaning? How so? It's a new agency and as far as I've seen just sticks to publishing summaries of events.

I had a look at the most potentially controversial topics I could find right now, and I say they seem fair. For example: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/dozens-detained-us-immigrat... (on ICE arrests in NY) and https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-would-wider-r... (on recognition of a Palestinian state).

Indeed, Wikipedia lists it as a good source[1]. It's worth comparing that to outlets like CNN (reliable, but "... talk show content should be treated as opinion pieces. Some editors consider CNN biased, though not to the extent that it affects reliability.") or The Wall Street Journal ("Most editors consider The Wall Street Journal generally reliable for news. Use WP:NEWSBLOG to evaluate the newspaper's blogs, including Washington Wire. Use WP:RSOPINION for opinion pieces.")

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per... ("Reuters is a news agency. There is consensus that Reuters is generally reliable.")

[SilverElfin]

I’m guessing the other person meant AP not Reuters. Both used to be considered to be straightforward neutral primary sources, and to many readers they both occupied the same role in the news industry. But since around 2016, the AP has shifted more and more left. This is evident in their editorial guidelines, which include guidance on controversial current issues that makes them biased. This bias is recognized in respected bias ratings (https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart). Reuters is typically considered center though.

[kubb]

This is an astute observation, and if I may I’d like to add to it.

When evaluating a news source for whether it’s unbiased, left or right, we necessarily look at the stories it presents and check whether they align with and present in a positive light a particular political option.

We call it „unbiased” if it doesn’t particularly favor any of these.

We’re already in the realm of US electoral politics - for a second we can assume that nothing else exists.

In 2016 the political landscape shifted drammatically and presenting the „right wing” option in a favorable light required certain concessions when it comes to previous journalistic standards.

So, just by sticking to its previous guidelines, the AP would automatically shift to the „left” - because the landscape changes.

It would be more accurate to say that the world shifted underneath AP’s lense and so it immediately started being perceived as left wing.

[ruszki]

If New York Post just "leans right", then AP should post obvious lies en masse every day for the left with non existing fact checking. If the scale is this, then it is a completely useless metric. It puts using "ostensibly" regarding Trump's random word clouds to the same level as this: https://nypost.com/2022/09/06/teacher-enoch-burke-jailed-ove.... The first paragraph starts with a lie, then the last two paragraphs are worse than anything on AP... but sure, the metric is definitely useful.

[justin66]

The AP is still mostly in the political center and sometimes "skews left" a bit according to the media bias chart everyone I know references:

https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive?utm_source=a...

(I expect a lot fewer people to reference that chart in the future unless they fix the new user interface)

These measurements do feel a bit arbitrary, since our definitions of left and right bias are subject to change. For example, one interesting thing about the AP is that their stylebook used to urge their reporters to avoid even using the word "Palestine," one of many ways they put their thumb on the scale in favor of Israel in that conflict. (not sure what it says today) They somewhat famously fired a reporter for having participated in some college activism related to the Arab-Israeli conflict that would seem very quaint and anodyne today, a firing that stirred up journalists and was pretty widely regarded outside the right wing media sphere as unfair. (ironically, a week or two later the IDF destroyed the AP's Gaza office in an airstrike)

[mafuy]

The Right-leaning has a relevant influence on media because some of its supporters are affluent and it is in their financial interest. Ex: Bezos bought a newspaper. The same is far less often the case for the Left-leaning. There are few "land and factory owners" that are part of a pro-worker movement, simply because it would hurt them (or at least that's what they truly believe).

Accordingly, the average media experienced a shift to the right, but not to the left. To be neutral, one thus has to look left of the average of what the media report.

[justin66]

> without providing a counterbalance from right-leaning sources

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

[generic92034]

If you succeed in moving the overton window to the right, formerly "neutral" media outlets now appear to be left-leaning.

[justin66]

This comment was downvoted and I honestly can't understand why. Given the way people use political terminology with reference to media bias, it's certainly true.

I've been guilty of pointing out that the US doesn't really have a left wing, according to the textbook definitions of things, but that's not how people usually talk. People really are talking about the median when they say "politically neutral," even if they shouldn't.

And here's the point: the median can certainly shift as the number of media sources shifts, or if you prefer, as the culture shifts.

[komali2]

I'm very surprised to hear Reuters described as left wing. I suppose though that even my Republican twice Trump voting uncle is left of someone, is that what you mean?

I'm increasingly concerned about the fact that any media outlet, conservative or otherwise, that doesn't engage in far right pandering to the propaganda of politicians is magically labeled "left wing." Anecdotal but someone was arguing to me at a pub last night that Piers Morgan is a liberal now because of his criticism of Israel.

[scandox]

Well Morgan was the editor of a broadly left wing tabloid in the UK for 11 years. His politics are quite fluid, except that I think he's consistently quite socially conservative ... "Common Sense" sort of thing.

[guelo]

Labeling all media that isn't rabid right wing partisan as "left wing" is unconvincing.

[EE84M3i]

Reminds me of "reality has a well known liberal bias"

[Cthulhu_]

Or "anything left of right is left-leaning", I suppose. It's the Overton window and the steady decline of moderation; centrists are wrong no matter who you ask ("pick a side you coward", "silence is complicity"), moderate Republicans are RINOs, Republican In Name Only [0], and their disloyalty to the Party is shamed.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_in_name_only

[straydusk]

Jesus Christ Reuters is left-leaning lmao in what universe

[will4274]

I don't know how much you know about the Washington Redskins naming controversy. There's little doubt that "redskin" is a slur today - Native Americans say so, and it's kind of up to them. The status in the 17th and 18th century is a bit less clear IMHO.

Wikipedia says (or said, I guess - I haven't checked) that it unambiguously *was* a slur then too. As evidence, it cites a study of 17th century literature that notes redskins were more likely to be villains than heros in a small sample of 80 books and a diary entry about a sign outside a small town that said "Indian / Redskin scalps - $1" or some such. I don't recall the details.

The point is there wasn't one cited source that showed redskin specifically was a slur, only general evidence that white settlers were racist against Native Americans. Clear WP:SYNTH violation.

Tried to make my own changes, got immediately reverted. Tried to start on the talk page, got totally filibustered by two editors who has the page and a hundred other racism adjacent pages on their watchlist and whose edit history was basically just those handful of pages. Started reading about internal wikipedia boards I could appeal to. Stopped and logged off.

Once you start noticing things like that and start double checking, you find such minor distortions in a lot of political adjacent Wikipedia pages.

Another good example is to grab five super murderous left wing dictators and five super murderous right wing dictators and read the summary section. Use a pen or a highlighter and classify each sentence as positive, negative, or neutral.

[nl]

> Wikipedia says (or said, I guess - I haven't checked) that it unambiguously was a slur then too.

It doesn't seem to say this - there's quite a nuanced discussion about whether or not it was a slur during that time period[1]:

> The term redskin underwent pejoration through the 19th to early 20th centuries and in contemporary dictionaries of American English it is labeled as offensive, disparaging, or insulting..

> Documents from the colonial period indicate that the use of "red" as an identifier by Native Americans for themselves emerged in the context of Indian-European diplomacy in the southeastern region of North America, before later being adopted by Europeans and becoming a generic label for all Native Americans....

> In the debate over the meaning of the word "redskin", team supporters frequently cite a paper by Ives Goddard, a Smithsonian Institution senior linguist and curator emeritus, who asserts that the term was a direct translation of words used by Native Americans to refer to themselves and was benign in its original meaning ...

> Sociologist James V. Fenelon makes a more explicit statement that Goddard's article is poor scholarship, given that the conclusion of the origin and usage by Natives as "entirely benign" is divorced from the socio-historical realities of hostility and racism from which it emerged.

I think your summary saying the "status in the 17th and 18th century is a bit less clear" is fair, but I think the Wikipeida article outlines that lack of clarity too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins_name_contr...

[will4274]

Like I said, this was a few years ago. Since the controversy is basically over, the article has normalized somewhat. Fwiw, the current article still says:

> A controversial etymological claim is that the term emerged from the practice of paying a bounty for Indians, and that "redskin" refers to the bloody scalp of Native Americans.[55] Although official documents do not use the word in this way, a historical association between the use of "redskin" and the paying of bounties can be made. In 1863, a Winona, Minnesota, newspaper, the Daily Republican, printed an announcement: "The state reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory. This sum is more than the dead bodies of all the Indians east of the Red River are worth."[56]

This is all WP:UNDUE. The claim is not just contoversial, it's downright nonsensical, unless you also believe "Indian" is a racial slur.

[ljsprague]

Race and IQ stuff.

[creatonez]

You're mad Wikipedia doesn't parrot thoroughly debunked eugenics arguments?

[ljsprague]

The fact that you jumped to "eugenics" proves my point.

[creatonez]

The fact that you can't correctly identify debunked claims about a connection between race and IQ as inherently eugenicist talking points and instead quickly resorted to obfuscation proves my point.

[joenot443]

This is a pretty severe leap of logic; respectfully it seems to me like both of you are sort of talking past each other here.

Why don’t you just say what you mean? Not everything is about proving points or “winning”, it’s okay to just have honest discussion.

[creatonez]

What I'm saying: Because Wikipedia is a premier world-class source in debunking scientific racism, presents a constellation of facts that are rather damaging to frauds like Charles Murray, and has likely prevented the radicalization of tens of thousands of people... nearly every single critic of Wikipedia on this particular topic is a scientific racist. Which is a set of positions indistinguishable from eugenics. Pretty much without exception.

[ljsprague]

People with lower intelligence don't necessarily have "bad" genes; thousands of other traits to optimize for after all.

[hnpolicestate]

Current geopolitical stuff too. Intelligence agencies use Wikipedia articles as propaganda tools. The Ukraine War articles are factually incorrect. To be expected with so much at stake.

[Cthulhu_]

Yeah I try to avoid pages on Ukraine and Israel, although admittely they don't shun away from the factual things that Israel did. I bet there's a lot of well-paid organizations keeping a sharp eye on a lot of more sensitive pages.

And of course famous people's PR people.

[Levitz]

The article for Gamergate is basically an entire page ultimately sourcing from games journalism outlets when it was explicitly about calling out games journalism and collusion in the industry.

And being fair, if there's one weakness in a site which relies on several sources agreeing on something it surely is when those sources are colluding on something, but the end result is a page rife with misinformation.

This is prevalent in culture wars stuff, Keffals article "graciously" fails to mention how she frequently lied and instigated vast amounts of harassment towards herself or how she basically spent the GoFundMe money she campaigned for on heroin. If the media spins a narrative, Wikipedia doesn't really have a counter to that in any way.