Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#161

Post by malinens » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

shuntress wrote: post #150

etangent wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying there is only one side one must be allowed to take on climate change?

Are you implying that "climate change is real" and "climate change is a hoax" must be treated as two equally valid opposing sides?

there are many things in between Your 2 options...

people can have different opinions on how much of it is caused by people.

for example moving to biofuels is being considered a big fuckup and this was done by the biggest supporters of imminent climate catastrophe.

There are reasons it is no more global warming but climate change.

more progressive people tend to move faster to progress but at the same time they make more errors while doing it..

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#162

Post by artembugara » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

fuball63 wrote: post #115

This looks like a cool library, but I have a question about the newscatcher API. How does the licensing work for the content? Seems odd (but great) that I can just read the news in my terminal from NYT but not pay a subscription or see ads. I read in some of the comments it's an RSS feed, is that freely available all the time? Surely even the RSS feed is protected with copyright and has restrictions on republishing?…

Hi. Co-founder is here. Short answer. We do not know if it is legal!

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#163

Post by oceanbreeze83 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

demirev wrote: post #57

oceanbreeze83 wrote: post #5

For any news junkies heres, I've built https://maagnit.com which gathers both Left and Right leaning sources for any story and displays them altogether on one page. My approach has been, if we can't get neutral/objective coverage, getting comprehensive, 360 desgree coverage is a good alternative. These days, news bias is not only in the way a story is covered, but also which stories are covered. So, maagnit automatic…

a piece of feedback: please move the 'close' button on the pop-up video player to the top-right, where users usually expect it to be (ideally I would prefer no pop-up player at all, but I guess you had your reasons).

This is a really good suggestion. I will mak this change this weekend, thank you!

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#164

Post by oceanbreeze83 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

chris_f wrote: post #160

oceanbreeze83 wrote: post #5

For any news junkies heres, I've built https://maagnit.com which gathers both Left and Right leaning sources for any story and displays them altogether on one page. My approach has been, if we can't get neutral/objective coverage, getting comprehensive, 360 desgree coverage is a good alternative. These days, news bias is not only in the way a story is covered, but also which stories are covered. So, maagnit automatic…

How are you deciding whether a source is right or left leaning? Is the rating a manual process based on some set of factors, or are you using an external rating source? IMO, Media Bias Fact Check [0] is on of the better external rating sources if you haven't come across them before. [0] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

Thanks! Yes I use this a lot for determining if a source is Left or Right. Its great!

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#165

Post by kkotak » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

SoylentOrange wrote: post #122

mark_l_watson wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I have to respectfully disagree. This is the model that PBS Nightly News takes: let both sides of an issue talk and treat everyone respectfully. Compare this to MSNBC and Fox News whose business models are really the same: cater to their viewers’ dogma/bubble and reinforce biases, and don’t try to introduce new ideas because it is bad for their business.

I don’t live in the US, so please take what I’m saying with a grain of salt. I imagine you are a smart and decent person on the other side of this screen. Usually print media is considered higher quality journalism than TV media. There are numerous studies that show reading print media leads to people being more informed than just watching TV news. Whether this is correlation or causation I can’t really say. My under…

Print media is akin to software released on DVDs - a lot more testing (fact checking), approvals (Editorial decisions) need to happen due to the perceived finality of the medium.

TV on the other hand is like SaaS - continious integration and deployment. Release first and apologize later if needed.

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#166

Post by froh » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

SoylentOrange wrote: post #83

oceanbreeze83 wrote: post #5

For any news junkies heres, I've built https://maagnit.com which gathers both Left and Right leaning sources for any story and displays them altogether on one page. My approach has been, if we can't get neutral/objective coverage, getting comprehensive, 360 desgree coverage is a good alternative. These days, news bias is not only in the way a story is covered, but also which stories are covered. So, maagnit automatic…

When I was a kid CNN used to do this: they would invite a single climate scientist and a single climate change skeptic and have them make their points on equal time. CNN would then say “who’s right? You decide.” And the program would end. This was extremely harmful to the overall mission of informing people and created a false balance between sides which are not equally valid. Today, this is almost universally seen a…

I'm amazed how many people responded to you with this broken idea of "let's hear everybody out."

Broken because the talent of listeners to fully evaluate every statement is not distributed evenly.

Germany and Europe learned this the very hard way after WWI and they drew consequences after WWII.

Yes, I fully agree with you: not all opinions are created equal. Because some are scientifically accepted while others are scientifically rejected. Some are philanthropic, some are antisocial.

And we have to take a stance if we want a more humane World, and media have to preselect if we don't want war.

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#167

Post by dgb23 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

ivanhoe wrote: post #140

dgb23 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem OP describes is real though. The question is 'How far can you go?' For example does it make sense to present advocates for science and pseudo-science on the same level, with equal weight? Putting a Biologist who explains Evolution on the same pedestal on equal time as a Priest who believes in Intelligent Design creates a false sense of balance between these viewpoints, even though these viewpoints are fun…

We can spin it the other way too: Should people be fed only with information approved by some TV boards or government committees? Are we adults expected to vote, but not allowed and/or trusted anymore to make our own mind on what we believe in? And even more importantly do you realize that in such world it's far more likely that only a priest will get invited to a TV show, not the biologist? Because that's the "how f…

I agree with your sentiment. There are two sides/extremes to this, both of which are undesirable or even harmful.

But were revealing a more fundamental issue here: Where are the checks and balances of the media?

As it stands now, we've got two possible solutions:

1. Censorship, which I find dangerous and shortsighted. 2. The media itself, which results in a 'who yells the loudest' kind of culture.

This issue bleeds into all kind of problems with propaganda, advertising, fake-news, bias, ideology, lies, scams, click-bait and other kind of bullshit.

In this discussion we've been talking as if there was some kind of sane regulation of these things. But there isn't really.

All of this stuff erodes trust and creates trenches. Sometimes it feels like it is getting worse. People have been talking about how Google Search is getting weaker on this site. There is so much more noise and bullshit today than there ever was, because we're accreting information w/o distinction.

There are projects, which try to make fact-checking easier for example, new kind of platforms and ideas to foster real debate. But those things are still on the fringe.

This is a massive, important and unsolved problem I think.

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#168

Post by vadansky » Thu, May 21, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

SoylentOrange wrote: post #83

oceanbreeze83 wrote: post #5

For any news junkies heres, I've built https://maagnit.com which gathers both Left and Right leaning sources for any story and displays them altogether on one page. My approach has been, if we can't get neutral/objective coverage, getting comprehensive, 360 desgree coverage is a good alternative. These days, news bias is not only in the way a story is covered, but also which stories are covered. So, maagnit automatic…

When I was a kid CNN used to do this: they would invite a single climate scientist and a single climate change skeptic and have them make their points on equal time. CNN would then say “who’s right? You decide.” And the program would end. This was extremely harmful to the overall mission of informing people and created a false balance between sides which are not equally valid. Today, this is almost universally seen a…

Keep in mind in the old days people were probably arguing this exact point when saying we shouldn't invite people arguing to free slaves or let women into higher education, because "they are so obviously wrong it's harmful to even listen to them, African Americans do not have the mental acumen to survive in the wild, slavery is compassionate! You're arguing for their deaths!"

Anytime people argue about having a authoritarian dedicator style of hard line "DO NOT QUESTION THIS EVER" should remember you might end up on the other side of the fence.

We should always listen to the other side. History has shown people can believe ridiculous things for a long time and treat it as common sense.

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#169

Post by ryanalam » Thu, May 21, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

I've been experimenting with a side project: www.glancereport.com, which pulls the top headline from a variety of news sources. You can also sort these headlines by neutral, progressive, or conservative sources.

I'm still learning how to play with Python and Redis, and it's not perfect, but would love feedback.

Re: Show HN: Python package to collect normalized news from almost any website

#170

Post by ivanhoe » Thu, May 21, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

shuntress wrote: post #149

ivanhoe wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can spin it the other way too: Should people be fed only with information approved by some TV boards or government committees? Are we adults expected to vote, but not allowed and/or trusted anymore to make our own mind on what we believe in? And even more importantly do you realize that in such world it's far more likely that only a priest will get invited to a TV show, not the biologist? Because that's the "how f…

There is a middle ground between presenting one-and-only-one viewpoint or presenting every possible viewpoint with implied equal validity. For example: Given two commentators, if one is arguing that TV boards and government committees are supposed to be populated by and representative of the general population and the other arguing that TV boards and government committees are populated by crab people secretly support…

I think that crazy stuff is taking over the TV more because it's purposefully pushed by TV stations in a run to compete with all reality shows than because of giving voice to the both sides. Just look at the History channel that has nothing to do with history anymore, but it's all about aliens, Illuminati, Masons, Hitler's secret weapons (actually that one was interesting), etc. It's a lite fantasy entertainment that is cheap to make and it sells well, TV equivalent of pulp fiction, and channels are pushing it very intentionally.