Credible News Sources

[Bootstrap]

When I read a news article, I tend to ask myself these questions:

• Are they presenting facts or opinion? Do they make it easy to tell the difference?
• Are they already trying to manipulate me into a point of view with click-baity headlines that may or may not match the article?
• Are they using propaganda techniques, suggesting that you should believe a particular point of view out of loyalty to their tribe? Do they fit each new story into a narrative about who the good guys and bad guys are, building a base of loyalty for themselves in the process? Do they sometimes manufacture news?
• Do they tell you when they got something wrong, correcting the story and telling you that the earlier story was mistaken? You can't always get it right, but clear retractions are important, and you want them in a place that you actually bump into them.
• Do they have a set of journalistic standards that tell you how they go about determining whether something is true and fair before publishing it? Is there evidence that they try to follow these standards?
• Do they present multiple points of view from the mouths of people well chosen to represent those points of view, when relevant to the story?
• When they present facts, are they clear about the level of evidence that exists and the source of this evidence? If I spend time and energy to verify the facts, how often do they turn out to be blatantly false?

How do the rest of you go about rating a news source to see if it is credible?

[Josh]

Why don't we apply the above criteria to that chart?

[Robert]

Why don't we apply the above criteria to that chart?

If we did, just using the Wikileaks and the most recent elections, we would see totally different groupings.

I honestly laughed at that chart. I thought, "Yep. Made by some of those who can't quit crying that Trump was elected. Typical bias right there."

Sorry Jim. I see things much differently than you. You are welcome to have your view. I am just as justified to have mine too.

[Bootstrap]

Why don't we apply the above criteria to that chart?

Sure - and show your work!

[temporal1]

I found this a relevant graphic:
[img][/ig]

I think I would score many of these much differently.

you have spoken of The Blaze for years, i see references to them, read occasionally .. i may be won-over to pay more attention.

years ago, i/we "lived on" NPR and PBS. they often make me choke now.
did i change or did they? i'm not sure.

i have mostly left them in the "do not view" category, along with mainstream news.
they don't have commercials, and use more "civilized"/high-brow language, but, their biased messages net the same.

watching to see how things shake-down over the next 6 months to a year ..
hopefully, after 2014+2016, the message is getting through: we don't believe you, we are not listening.

[Bootstrap]

Why don't we apply the above criteria to that chart?

Sure - and show your work!

Incidentally, I find it best to do this for each individual article, not blindly trust that any article from my favorite news source is equally good. But you can get a feel for how good a news source is in general, and that tells you which ones are useful as a starting point.

Doing this exercise well would take a thread per news source, and would require time and patience. It would best be done reflectively.

[Josh]

I dismissed that chart out of hand since they put Breitbart over in the "Crimethink" box. A guide on how to follow news that obviously has a left-wing liberal-progressive bias isn't very helpful to me.

If you want people like me (who are quite sympathetic to both sides of the aisle) or people more conservative than me to take the quest for credible news sources seriously, you're going to have find an analysis that doesn't elevate the NYT to all that is good and holy and relegates Breitbart to the unadulterated face of evil.

[Bootstrap]

I dismissed that chart out of hand since they put Breitbart over in the "Crimethink" box. A guide on how to follow news that obviously has a left-wing liberal-progressive bias isn't very helpful to me.

I'd like to see your version of the chart, and the criteria you use.

If you want people like me (who are quite sympathetic to both sides of the aisle) or people more conservative than me to take the quest for credible news sources seriously, you're going to have find an analysis that doesn't elevate the NYT to all that is good and holy and relegates Breitbart to the unadulterated face of evil.

Want to take my list, identify a handful of articles in, say, NYT and Breitbart, and compare? We could do that in a separate thread.

Here's a dynamic I often see on this site. Usually, the first person to post any particular news story reads the sources in the lower right-hand corner. Often, these people see almost any other part of the spectrum as liberal propaganda, with the exception of Fox. And sometimes that comes with the whole propaganda ploy - "if you don't agree, you're the wrong kind of person".

If you look at my list of criteria, I obviously like "high information" media, usually print newspapers and journals, which make it a lot easier to verify facts. The sources in the lower-right corner aren't terribly helpful to me in general. And TV or cable news, regardless of flavor, tends to be pretty low on facts.

[JimFoxvog]

Jim - do you know how that chart was created? Is there data behind it, or is it subjective? Who created it?

I expect it is subjective. Using Google Image Search, it seems to go back to a Facebook post by Vanessa Otero of Boulder, CO, who says she created it. It seems to reflect an educated middle of the road perspective and a useful way at looking at things.

Those of us more conservative politically would pull the middle to the right, while those of us more politically liberal would pull the middle to the left. I think CNN meets a little higher standards much of the time.

Can you find a more documented comparison?

[JimFoxvog]

Using Google Image Search, it seems to go back to a Facebook post by Vanessa Otero of Boulder, CO, who says she created it.

See https://www.facebook.com/vanessa.otero. ... 6385626062 for the post that explains it.