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NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

newsnotfound.com

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Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#61

As someone who has worked in the media industry, I can tell you that the problem with unbiased news goes much deeper than simply presenting facts objectively. The very first step mentioned in your breakdown - scraping the latest headlines from publicly available news sites - is inherently biased, because it relies on a small selection of sources to determine what is considered newsworthy. But by whom? In reality, edi…

There is no such thing as unbiased news. Anyone claiming to be unbiased, rather than wearing their biases on their sleeves, is lying to you, or themselves, or they are just ignorant. Likely some combination of all three.

"Unbiased" is like absolute zero. You never actually get there, but don't think there is no distinction between putting in an effort to make something decently cold, and hurling it into the sun.

Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#62

As someone who has worked in the media industry, I can tell you that the problem with unbiased news goes much deeper than simply presenting facts objectively. The very first step mentioned in your breakdown - scraping the latest headlines from publicly available news sites - is inherently biased, because it relies on a small selection of sources to determine what is considered newsworthy. But by whom? In reality, edi…

I find the closest to an unbiased news source is Reuters.

I removed all other news apps from my phone and only leave the Reuters news app installed. [1]

I never read the news anymore.

The combination of the uncurated deluge of articles about stuff I don't know anything about (and realize I am not going to ever really know anything about) and them not really poking my buttons with editorialized headlines makes me just ignore it and come here more often instead.

Edit: I fathom its because the Reuters business model is fundamentally different - they are just trying to supply as many articles for use as raw base material factoids to all types of media organizations who can then add their own "secret sauce/value" by curating which articles their audience "sees" and handle the "interpretation" of the factoids (i.e. insert the editorial opinion with headlines, quips for their audiences will appreciate). That said - I do recall reading about some instances that Reuters is not perfect (article rushed to press and not entirely factually correct).

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reuters-news/id602660809

Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#63

I assume this is satirical, but the other comments on this thread taking it seriously have me confused. This has already existed in the form of spam WordPress blogs[1] for years now anyways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_spinning

This site is built on Wordpress as it has a /wp-content/ folder.

There are already article creation plugins for Wordpress:

https://jasper.ai/

https://wordpress.org/plugins/mycurator/

https://wordpress.org/plugins/bertha-ai-free/

https://wordpress.org/plugins/content-bot/

Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#64
Yikes. There are many many issues here, but the images for the articles are the creepiest. Take a look at this article on conflict in Sudan: https://newsnotfound.com/conflict-in-sudan-causes-concern-fo...

You could write a PhD on the biases absorbed into this image.

Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as unbiased news. Anyone claiming to be unbiased, rather than wearing their biases on their sleeves, is lying to you, or themselves, or they are just ignorant. Likely some combination of all three.

"Unbiased" is like absolute zero. You never actually get there, but don't think there is no distinction between putting in an effort to make something decently cold, and hurling it into the sun.

It is not.

We can get within a few fractions of a percent of absolute zero but we can't sensibly agree on what "unbiased" even looks like.

Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#67
post #9

"By replacing the human middle-man with our AI-centric article creation process, we eliminate the potential for bias and ensure that all coverage remains impartial." AI LLMs inherit biases from their training data and the constraints the model builders added. There's no such thing as unbiased reporting; the usual way that this is attempted is to claim that the "unbiased" position is halfway between the positions of t…

The fact that major LLMs will happily criticize certain politicians but claim they’re unable to comment on others given equally available training data is a fairly good window into what kind of biases exist within them.

It's unclear to me if that is an issue in the bias of the training data or an issue in the fine tuning to control the output.

Is it "I can't say that about X because I am told not to say things like that about X"?

or is it "I can't say that about X because I am told not to encourage behaviour Y and my training data indicates that comments like that about X lead to behaviour Y"?

Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#68

As someone who has worked in the media industry, I can tell you that the problem with unbiased news goes much deeper than simply presenting facts objectively. The very first step mentioned in your breakdown - scraping the latest headlines from publicly available news sites - is inherently biased, because it relies on a small selection of sources to determine what is considered newsworthy. But by whom? In reality, edi…

> editors play a crucial role in shaping the news by deciding which events to cover and which to ignore

As seen recently when Fox buried the story of their defamation case.

Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company

#70
post #9

"By replacing the human middle-man with our AI-centric article creation process, we eliminate the potential for bias and ensure that all coverage remains impartial." AI LLMs inherit biases from their training data and the constraints the model builders added. There's no such thing as unbiased reporting; the usual way that this is attempted is to claim that the "unbiased" position is halfway between the positions of t…

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