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

Post by billme » Thu, May 21, 2020, 6:41 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…

Post by Trumpi » Thu, May 21, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

johnday wrote: post #109

Trumpi wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer to be persuaded than told what to think. Otherwise, journalists can tell us whatever they want to without any accountability. > Today, this is almost universally seen as a failure of journalism. That is a shame.

The problem is that for many people, someone appearing persuasive is orthogonal to them actually being correct .

Post by artificial » Thu, May 21, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

billme wrote: post #172

SoylentOrange wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> “ Fox and MSNBC is they are entertainment programs” No, maybe to you, but to vast amounts of people, millions of people, they watch a singular source for news and to them, that is the news. In the US, since you’re referring to them, the news legally used to have to allow all sides of an issues to present their views. In the 1980s, the laws changed, and that is how news became so one-side.

Post by ComputerGuru » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

Kuzutsukake wrote: post #138

SoylentOrange wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As misleading as a particular spin of a story might be, those perspectives are still valid in the sense they connect with what is important to their readers. I'd like to see a news app that has the facts and sensationalism separated, and then a reference to a more relevant fact/story that relates more directly to what a particular spin was getting at. So I guess feed their bubble with more accurate stories.

Post by billme » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

artificial wrote: post #175

billme wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> “ Fox and MSNBC is they are entertainment programs” No, maybe to you, but to vast amounts of people, millions of people, they watch a singular source for news and to them, that is the news. In the US, since you’re referring to them, the news legally used to have to allow all sides of an issues to present their views. In the 1980s, the laws changed, and that is how news became so one-side.

They are news entertainment not just to him, pretty much all the mainstream sources are news entertainment. They're not objective. This argument seems like calling breakfast cereal breakfast whereas it's marketed as part of a complete breakfast. The differences are subtle, like the WHO is a political organization that covers medical topics. A decent write up of the broadcast transition: https://www.medialit.org/readi…