Places for true un-politicized news about the US?

6 points by csneeky 5 years ago | 16 comments

It's just that I rotate between all these organizations (e.g., reuters, cnn, foxnews, msnbc) and I legit don't know where to actually find unpartisan material anymore.

auganov 5 years ago |

Forget about nonpartisan. Everybody has a bias.

Most "real" news doesn't happen everyday. If you follow it less often you'll miss out on most fake stories and the ones that matter will still be around.

If you really want to follow the daily rumor mill you can try Twitter. Don't follow too many people and you will develop a sense for who's got good calls and who's total noise. Also many people will actually link to authoritative evidence/source, unlike most news websites that don't want you to ever leave their domain.

Generally speaking for everything that news outlets cover Twitter should have better coverage as that's where all the journalists hang out in the first place. For things that don't get covered, don't expect Twitter to do much better.

nabla9 5 years ago |

If you think Reuters is not unpartisan, your concept is flawed.

Most mainstream news about the US: Reuters, ABC News, USA Today, BBC, Wall Street Journal (News not Editorial),

You might also want to check sources like https://www.allsides.com/

You should also differentiate between news articles and opinion writing. Wapo and The Times write good analytical articles that are not biased.

csneeky 5 years ago | |

I hear you on Reuters maybe that was an unfair inclusion (it is certainly not sensationalist news) but still...

082349872349872 5 years ago |

Read politicised news, and actively separate the facts reported from the editorial stance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477

"If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports."

csneeky 5 years ago | |

In that case then maybe the question "Where can I find news that requires the least amount of cognitive load to consume?" is more appropriate... this is also a little defeatist.

082349872349872 5 years ago | | |

Defeatist, maybe. But short of finding an outlet whose editorial slant matches one's preconceptions, I can't imagine doing better. https://ria.ru will reliably run the russian slant. https://apnews.com will reliably run the US slant. https://www.bbc.com may be relatively neutral on US politics, but internationally it reliably runs an anglophone slant. I don't read chinese, so I don't know what their equivalent may be, but I'll bet it runs a chinese slant. (a while ago, I found a website that seems to be running the north korean slant, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738281 . Even the Amish had, at one point, http://www.thebudgetnewspaper.com . It may be a little while before they notice it's down.)

xvedejas 5 years ago |

AP and Reuters seem to be alright in my experience, as do some foreign sources (BBC). AllSides.com provides media bias ratings which pass my sanity filter, although I won't claim to know how trustworthy a source they are.

https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings

bediger4000 5 years ago | |

I don't know how I feel about allsides.com bias ratings. The Economist and The New York Times (news only) appear in the left-leaning column. The New York Times (opinion) appears in the solid left column. Given The Economist's solid advocacy for business and free trade, and Douthat and Brooks and Stephens as NYT opinion writers, I'm positive this isn't even slightly accurate.

Treating allsides.com as propaganda, as another commenter here has advocated, I'd have to say that allsides.com is shifted everything left one column, or maybe more.

xvedejas 5 years ago | | |

I don't know enough about individual publications to say whether I agree that their ratings are off, but I do like how allsides allows you to vote on whether you agree with their ratings[1] -- and I encourage you to. At least out of their site visitors, there seems to be a decent degree of agreement. I think what they're trying to do is admirable and it's an extra bit of legitimacy that they're willing to admit they're not perfect. If there's a better source for exploring media bias out there, I'm not aware of it.

[1] https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings

zboox 5 years ago | | |

I'm seeking a website for politics similar to what Patheos does for religion and non-religious perspectives. All the biases are present, but they are more clearly delineated and categorized in different "channels".

csneeky 5 years ago | |

Thanks for the allsides link. If it's what they claim that's a good one.

AnimalMuppet 5 years ago | |

Reuters is in fact a foreign source (British).

keiferski 5 years ago |

As already mentioned, basically every news organization has its own bias.

However, I do recommend The Wall Street Journal. They have the biases you’d imagine, but I’ve found that they’re really only overt in the opinion pages. The regular reporting is fairly straightforward, unlike say, The New York Times, which manages to inject its bias into even the most mundane of topics.

surds 5 years ago |

Politico.com?

I am not American, but follow the politics. The content seems neutral to me but I haven’t really judged it seriously enough.

fulafel 5 years ago |

News covering current affairs is inherently political.