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Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#131
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

Fivethirtyeight is not even remotely bipartisan. It’s hard to forget Nate’s role in spreading propaganda polls last election cycle and his reaction afterwards when it was clear they were all fake.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#132
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

Google News gives you precisely this portfolio of vendors. Why would anyone subscribe to a single news vendor? I'd also advise adding WION, Al Jazeera, Axios, and The Guardian + BBC.

Al Jazeera, Guardian, BBC, etc. are all left of center by US standards, especially the Guardian (which is way left).

Some center-right outlets that are still worth reading* (and I say this as a raging leftist):

The Hill, National Review, Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal, The Economist

*(as in they provide both informational "what's happening" and insightful analysis without venturing into flat out fake news... as long as you avoid their editorials and comments)

I suppose those are "classically conservative" news outlets, as in "small government but with a general respect for evidence-based governance, science, and the truth". I don't know of any reputable populist-right/alt-right outlets. I don't know if there even IS a reputable populist-right/alt-right movement to begin with, but that's another discussion.

Side note: Google News (as of a year or two ago, when they revamped their algorithms) unfortunately now also gives you a bunch of worthless blogs and fake news (the literal kind) outlets. I have hundreds of sources in my "never show this source" blacklist and even then it's barely usable. That said, it's still a useful way to see different takes on the same topic. Their grouping algorithm is a lot better than their vetting algorithm. Some of those sources should just not show up for anyone.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#133
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

"They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives" Check out Counterspin, from the media watchdog FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting).[1] They monitor mainstream media and critique it from a left-wing perspective. [1] - https://fair.org/counterspin/

Seconding counterspin!

I don't always agree with them ideologically, but I find it valuable to hear a perspective on US politics & media from outside the usual Right/Center-Right binary.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#134
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the left, evidence of how much of the investigation into Russian collusion with Trump's election team was completely made up and water carrying by the media of Clinton's team's planted story has never been owned by the participants. This is bizarre. No such thing happened.

Fascists don't care about truth. It's that simple. And people are that easy to mislead. At least for a while.

Sigh- voted against Trump twice.

The fact of the matter is the Ratcliffe Letter [0] shows that President Obama was given an briefing well before the Steele Dossier was leaked to the media that the Russians' had picked up intelligence that exactly that kind of fake evidence would be planted by the Clinton campaign.

I really don't believe in a coincidence that big and unless Steele was simultaneously a Russian and Clinton asset, it doesn't matter, and that would be even a bigger issue that should have been the story. Can't have it both ways.

I'm perfectly happy to not have Mr. Trump around any more, but I'd prefer the media not carry water for their preferred candidates and let me make those determinations

[0]: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/09-29-20_Lett...

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#135

> I would be shocked if 60+% of American film characters are identifiably Christian How often do you see Christmas used as a plot device? Or a church used as a setting? Or a priest character? I would be shocked if context didn't imply that > 95% of American film characters are Christian.

Christmas doesn’t signify religion in America. And I can’t remember the last time I saw church in a movie that wasn’t a comedy using the setting for a set-up

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#136
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

I struggle to understand why you need to read “sides” for news articles. Are you just referring to opinion pieces?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By what measure is CNN's news coverage on the leftmost side "The latest Trump scandal shows how much we must still discover about his presidency's assault on democracy" "Trump's DOJ continued to pursue a CNN reporter's records even after a federal judge called the reasoning 'unanchored in any facts'" "A senate report reveals new details about the stunning security breakdowns ahead of the January 6 attack but omits…

This is the problem with concepts of polarization: when one side is completely corrupt, reporting on that corruption (that is, observing basic reality) becomes a political act easily described as 'biased.' The Republican party is fascist.

Posts like yours are a great example of the polarization.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#138
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

I cannot recommend the show and podcast 'Breaking Points', by Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball enough. They are top notch journalists who formerly hosted a daily news show called 'Rising' on The Hill, but left recently in order to be more independent and free of advertiser influence (censorship).

While they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They cut through much of the partisan, mainstream BS - and get to the heart of many issues, all while debating ea. other in a civilized way.

https://www.youtube.com/c/breakingpoints

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-k...

It is INCREDIBLY refreshing, if you've fallen into the rut of mainstream internet or tv news.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#139
This article mentions Blindspotter, which is a great way to explore the bubbles around Twitter accounts (https://ground.news/blindspotter/twitter) and also Subreddits (https://ground.news/blindspotter/reddit/). For example, try:

John Oliver - https://ground.news/blindspotter/twitter/iamjohnoliver

Tucker Carlson - https://ground.news/blindspotter/twitter/TuckerCarlson

r/politics - https://ground.news/blindspotter/reddit/politics

r/moderatepolitics - https://ground.news/blindspotter/reddit/moderatepolitics

r/conservative - https://ground.news/blindspotter/reddit/conservative

BTW Blindspotter is built by Ground News (https://ground.news/). They're like All Sides (https://www.allsides.com/) in that they provide displays that let you see articles from across the spectrum on a given story. But they also measure how much of a blindspot there is for the left or right based on how heavy or sparse the coverage of a story is from news sources of various biases, since much of the time we're not dealing with biased articles as much as selective coverage.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#140
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I continue to be surprised by is how the left-leaning sources keep denying their liberal bias. Fox news more or less admits to being right-leaning, but CNN is still insisting that they're unbiased, which is almost comical. I think that somehow left-biased types really, honestly, believe they're actually considering both sides of every issue, and just coming to the conclusion that "reality has a liberal bias".

[flagged]

I'm not a voter, but isn't 51% vs 47% is basically a flip of a coin result?
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