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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

#121
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace “news articles” with “facts” and you’re closer to the point, but then how useful would that input be to you?

The difference is that facts are harder to consume than news articles, as the latter is essentially packaged and distributed collections of the former. Furthermore, the intent of parent's bias averaging, as I understand it, is... 1) There are a finite number of major biases axes in mass media (e.g. political parties, wealthy-poor, conservative-liberal, etc.), ergo averaging these out is a helpful reduction of major b…

Indeed, the first challenge to unbiased approach would be the impossible in practical terms task of separating facts from fiction.

I don’t know if it is clear but I really meant it that unbiased news is not a possibility due to fundamental limitations of information theory and finiteness of individual information processing capabilities; self-awareness and bias transparency is the only way.

> helpful reduction of major biases

Only if those major biases are opposite between media.

Imagine biases as vectors pointing in arbitrary directions. Best case is when bias vector in one cluster is compensated by exactly opposite bias vector in another cluster, but how often do you expect that to happen? A more typical scenario is a vector pointing in merely a different, rather than opposite, direction. A worst-case scenario, and also common (because bias manifests itself in selection if facts to report, and most sources report on the same events), is when all bias vectors point in a similar direction.

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

#122
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "etc" includes some very powerful ethnic groups. Are you planning on "identifying" them? I didn't think so.

I don't see why you can't. Throw religion in while you're at it. Even interest groups around other classes: disability, socioeconomic, etc. You can absolutely say a newspaper (or individual columnist or editor) is pro-LGBT, pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, pro-Mormon, pro-Amish, pro-Atheist, etc. That shouldn't be controversial. Wikipedia can and does do this in a relatively neutral way. If your classification is meant to…

What we're really talking about here is boting any deviation from a tabula rasa appraisal of reality, then clustering that into an affiliation/quality, right?

I.e. Christians (as an averaged whole) can look at the same situation as a blank slate and have a statistically significant and consistently different perspective

As can scientists. As can maybe microbiologists and industrial chemists.

The point of the clustering isn't that the tags are pejorative, but that they're predictive metadata on any source's bias.

And often times that's currently unexposed. I see a post by echelon, but only by the content of that single post (and maybe some prior HN contact) can I reconstruct his typical perspectives.

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

#124
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that facts are harder to consume than news articles, as the latter is essentially packaged and distributed collections of the former. Furthermore, the intent of parent's bias averaging, as I understand it, is... 1) There are a finite number of major biases axes in mass media (e.g. political parties, wealthy-poor, conservative-liberal, etc.), ergo averaging these out is a helpful reduction of major b…

Indeed, the first challenge to unbiased approach would be the impossible in practical terms task of separating facts from fiction. I don’t know if it is clear but I really meant it that unbiased news is not a possibility due to fundamental limitations of information theory and finiteness of individual information processing capabilities; self-awareness and bias transparency is the only way. > helpful reduction of maj…

In your original (upthread) argument that "unbiased news is not a possibility", are you stating that as a fundamental consequence of the news' lossy compression of {all facts} into a smaller product... or something else? It's unclear.

As for averaging out, yes, the vector model was what I was using internally.

Disclosure: I'm US-based, so our politics are traditionally bipolar as a result of our election system (in contrast to Europe et al.).

I would be surprised if vectors don't cancel often though, because think what we're really talking about in a capitalist information space: popular perspectives that are profitably marketable.

What is the easiest way to find an audience? Do what your competitors are not.

So on the whole, high revenue and production cost media (tv, web) in a capitalist information space will converge into bipolar pairs on any given issue, in order to maximize market share.

In lower cost media or operations, it will more likely be a random scattering of vectors.

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

#125

"Unbiased" news is impossible; the reporter has biases, the editor has biases, the publisher has biases; which they may or may not be aware of. The biases they don't know about are the most insidious. So I'm most suspicious of sources that brag about their objectivity. I prefer sources that wear their bias on their sleeve (provided they're actually news sources, and not overt propaganda or gutter tabloids).

I'd much rather have one that tried to be objective, than just one that embraces their bias. The later one will always be terrible at reporting. The former at least has a chance of being good.

Seriously, the bar is not exactly high. Start with telling me where and when something happen, make a time line if it's a series of events. Tell me who is involved. Don't dress it in flowery language, make it as simple as possible, make it a list if you can. Do proper follow ups, not just event based reporting (i.e. tell me why the airplane crashed when the report is out, don't waste too much time with "we don't know anything, but here is a picture of smoke"). And of course list your sources (i.e. don't report on science paper without even linking it).

So far Wikipedia is the only one that gets somewhat close to this ideal. Almost everything else is just attention seeking clickbait.

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

#126

"Unbiased" news is impossible; the reporter has biases, the editor has biases, the publisher has biases; which they may or may not be aware of. The biases they don't know about are the most insidious. So I'm most suspicious of sources that brag about their objectivity. I prefer sources that wear their bias on their sleeve (provided they're actually news sources, and not overt propaganda or gutter tabloids).

The bias in news reporting is an aspect of the sentiment the respective individuals have towards that news.

Socially, that bias is a more important part than the news' factual content itself, making comments here about how to "eliminate" it appear as a weird display of cluelessness.

People rightfully wish for a harmonious society. Eliminating other people's utterances of discontent is an approach usually employed in dictatorships.

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

#127

"Unbiased" news is impossible; the reporter has biases, the editor has biases, the publisher has biases; which they may or may not be aware of. The biases they don't know about are the most insidious. So I'm most suspicious of sources that brag about their objectivity. I prefer sources that wear their bias on their sleeve (provided they're actually news sources, and not overt propaganda or gutter tabloids).

Yes, but it's perfectly valid to attempt to minimise biases. Simple things such as fact-checking and not using loaded language can go a long way to becoming more neutral.

Simple things that you mention are great. But probably the nastiest kind of bias is the choice of what news to deliver in the first place; it's hard to detect bias in a news source from what it isn't reporting.

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

#128

"Unbiased" news is impossible; the reporter has biases, the editor has biases, the publisher has biases; which they may or may not be aware of. The biases they don't know about are the most insidious. So I'm most suspicious of sources that brag about their objectivity. I prefer sources that wear their bias on their sleeve (provided they're actually news sources, and not overt propaganda or gutter tabloids).

Legible News almost completely eliminates bias by providing short summaries of judiciously chosen stories.

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

#129
post #128

"Unbiased" news is impossible; the reporter has biases, the editor has biases, the publisher has biases; which they may or may not be aware of. The biases they don't know about are the most insidious. So I'm most suspicious of sources that brag about their objectivity. I prefer sources that wear their bias on their sleeve (provided they're actually news sources, and not overt propaganda or gutter tabloids).

Legible News almost completely eliminates bias by providing short summaries of judiciously chosen stories.

> judiciously chosen

Some people would call that bias.

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

#130

"Unbiased" news is impossible; the reporter has biases, the editor has biases, the publisher has biases; which they may or may not be aware of. The biases they don't know about are the most insidious. So I'm most suspicious of sources that brag about their objectivity. I prefer sources that wear their bias on their sleeve (provided they're actually news sources, and not overt propaganda or gutter tabloids).

Yes, but it's perfectly valid to attempt to minimise biases. Simple things such as fact-checking and not using loaded language can go a long way to becoming more neutral.

AI can't fact-check, only correlate sources with its limited understanding.
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