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NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
141–150 of 176 posts
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#142Not terribly good, yet: searched for “Canada”, first story was about new ant fossils, second about storms sweeping US and Canada, the next several were about Dominion and Fox.
So two “meh” and many “wtf”. Refinements remain to be made.
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> an aspect of the sentiment the respective individuals I disagree. I'm a regular reader of Guardian Online; that organ has multiple institutional biases. Stories get spiked if they don't align with that bias. Reporters are forced out if they fail to toe the line. It's not just The Guardian; all commercial news sources share this property.
I meant "respective individuals" in the sense, it's lastly humans being responsible for the written piece of news.
I find it very curious you would single out "The Guardian" of all publications. That organ is maybe the most independent one you will find today. It is owned by "The Scott Trust Limited", successor of the similarly named trust created to shield it from commercial interests.
Calling it a "commercial news source", as if it was the same as Murdoch's ilk, is an absurd take, even derogatory. Do you say that, because it is "centre-left"? What right-leaning source would you call "unbiased"?
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#144As 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.
I realise now that my messaging with this project is off.
What would more accurately explain the purpose of this project is to reduce the effects of sensationalism and indoctrination in the news.
In other words, provide a platform for readers to make up their own opinions on news stories by filtering out the positive/negative language.
Even if NewsNotFound articles are only 90% neutral, that's 90% BETTER than reading the same story from a sensationalist source.
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#145As 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…
> the most important news stories are often the ones that go unreported/underreported by most news sites
twitter and reddit do a pretty good job publicizing it though
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
Imagine, you had some tool affording you complete information about everything happening on earth, aided by some AI that only tells the truth about anything when asked . You would still have to pose the right questions or risk dying in ignorance. People's complaints here about bias is really about being manipulated successfully by parts of society working actively in their own, markedly different, interests. Those wo…
Very good point.
I realise now that my messaging with this project is off.
What would more accurately explain the purpose of this project is to reduce the effects of sensationalism and indoctrination in the news.
In other words, provide a platform for readers to make up their own opinions on news stories by filtering out the excessive positive/negative language.
Even if NewsNotFound articles are only 90% neutral, that's 90% BETTER than reading the same story from a sensationalist source.
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#147Not a plug, but I subscribe to the newspaper.co.
It’s kind cool in that it: - removes/neutralizes words that tends to flavor articles toward any particular position and focuses mainly on factual non-emotional type language. - sends blurbs out in a daily email (arguably editorial) - but generally tends to be well rounded important stories to keep you in the know about what’s going on
It’s pretty cool, because unlike most new sources you don’t get a feeling anyone’s trying to railroad you down a particular way of thinking, but you feel like you’re just being presented with (more or less) statements about what is going on in the world.
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#148"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 possi…
I used to think this but increasingly I think it's a fool's errand.
Wikipedia might have been like that in the past but it's long been corrupted. E.g. see the Philip Cross affair.
For a while on the Ukraine war I tried to find unbiased commentary and news but I think it was basically impossible.
The best I could find after looking all over was stitching together stories from sources who were biased to one side but still at least somewhat committed to the truth.
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#149Earlier 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.
Isn’t the aspiration to be unbiased worthy already? The goal or call it “aspiration” to serve unbiased news is admirable to me, even while my rational mind knows the aspiration is an unattainable ideal. I will give them a try. Then I can judge their sincerity and performance relative to their aspiration. Edit: added “judge”
Thank you.
I'd love to hear your thoughts after giving the site a try (please use the contact page on the website).
It is by no means perfect right now, but the goal is to get as close to perfect as possible.
Even if NewsNotFound articles are only 90% neutral right now, that's 90% BETTER than reading the same story from a sensationalist source.
Re: NewsNotFound: An open-source, unbiased news company
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you judge the relative distance from a fiction? Who defines what is “unbiased”? What are their biases? You cannot measure something that exists in a fiction that resides independently in each person’s mind. Objective reality exists, but objective observers do not.
So you don't Believe In Science, friend? ;) Objective observation is really hard, but amenable to systems and rules that help get closer to this ideal. I'm convinced it's possible to do far better than existing news organisations do just through approaching it with an engineering mindset.
That's something I've realised after reading these comments - that the goal of the project isn't to be 100% unbiased.
To be even 90% unbiased is 90% better than a sensationalist source.
I'm sure we can get very close to 100% as LLMs progress and if more talented people contribute to the project.