Slashdot Mirror
Looking for Unbiased War News?
AlexisKai asks: "With the forecast for tomorrow being sunny with a 90% chance of airstrikes, the US government will be clamping down on unpatriotic stories and the rest will be self-censored by the major media anyway. Where are Slashdot readers planning to look for reliable, disinterested reports as events in Iraq unfold?"
It might be worth while to try checking google news since they pull from many different sites. This seems like best choice.
By that logic, you could say that any news from, say, Iran would be completely unbiased. I mean, they're not "participating in the attack against Iraq."
Not that I disagree with your suggestion of the CBC. I would have actually suggested them myself. I generally consider them a good, balanced news source. I simply disagree with your stated logic behind the suggestion.
I read em all and then believe 1% of all of what I read. I love the BBC, the Brits are always interesting, polite, and just damn cool.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
Well, let's see.. we have the US media which is either "patriotic" (look at this anti-war protester, isn't he cute that he thinks anybody cares?) or "politically correct" (be sure to show the opinions 50% support and 50% protestor. try not to get into any details, facts or nuance).
.. well it's mostly propaganda I'm afraid.
Europe is either "pro-American" (President Bush this and President Bush that blah blah let's just copy the feed from CNN) or "anti-American" (can you believe those Americans thinking they are more important than France?).
Middle East news is either "propaganda" (we will be victorious over the American invaders! oh, and never mind about your neighbor who was taken from his house in the middle of the night and executed for dissent) or
So basically, you are surrounded by lies, distortions, and self-censorship.
Personally, I'm watching MSNBC (those retired generals are cool, don't you think?) and listening to BBC World. And reading slashdot of course, though I'd hardly call the crowd here "unbiased".
The sooner you realize that all media is slanted, intentionally or otherwise, the sooner you'll accept that fact and move on. Its just how the nature of media (ALL media, not just news) is.
My advice? Get your news from a variety of different sources, and then check on who THEIR sources are. At least then you'll be somewhat more informed than the average (dumb) Joe who recites facts (or "facts" if we're talking about Fox) without knowing anything about the situation.
The news will not cover the war. You won't learn what it was like for some Iraqi soldier to get carbonized instantly by a gunship (because his country's despot ruler is a punk). Why bother? Read an AP or Reuters report and get on with your life, the one with your $3 latte on the way to work tomorrow morning, because your life ain't the one those Iraqis are living, and it sure as hell isn't anything like what FoxCNNMSNBC is gonna show you.
I have found that in such situations, the best that one can do is look for news sources which you expect to be biased towards both sides of the issue. I mean, read BBC and, say, DAWN, a pakistani newspaper (a rather respectable newspaper, very balanced, relative to most others that i have found from islamic countries).
So both of these are mostly very unbiased, but on such a issue, probably leaning to opposite sides. one can expect them to report pretty much all relevant points to the issue between them, and then, once u have all the information, build your own opinion...no, not as easy as getting your opinion ready made for you by a single source, but i think the only way one has any chance at knowing even a part of the truth. I know this is what i am going to do.
One thing i am not going to do is read CNN, though. CNN has recently been a major dissapointment in its over all coverage of ALL issues, from the ENRON and co. scams, to the IRAQ issue. I think they are guilty of fraud, the way they omit an anti-goverment viewpoint, eg in the case of the hugely edited UN weapons inspector transscript posted on CNN (read about it on that other site )...thats just one example. Their coverage of the worldwide anti-war protests could have made one feel that it was just a dozen hippies who made a bit of noise, not the 10 million plus who marched all over the world. What good is the guarentee of freedom of press when the press is unwilling to use that freedom? Its weird that a govt. owned news channel (BBC) manages a much more balanced reporting that a completely independent and very powerfull entity like CNN. The irony get worse when you consider that CNN gained most of its worldwide popularity during operation desert storm, when it was the only international news network allowed to operate from inside iraq by saddam, because, as the iraqi govt put it: "they are the only ones we trust to objectively report the truth".
Its a weird world.
Ghoul2
Sigura Non Grata
Go find whoever taught you what "bias" means and ask for your money back. Bias isn't about whether "facts" presented are "actual"; bias is about which facts are presented. (And if you really think Fox is unbiased news--which is what the question asks for--then you are willfully ignorant.)
I have actually heard a high placed member of the Bush administration threaten to attack 'un-authorized' satelite links.
Who? Assuming you're not making this up-- no offense intended; I'm just being honest-- I probably know him. So who was it? Feel free to email me privately if you would prefer not to reveal the name in this forum.
I write in my journal
The best you can ask for is a reasonably eclectic set of news sources, from which you can, hopefully, synthesize a picture with a reasonably low signal-to-noise ratio. -- rather like the work they do with long baseline radio telescope arrays.
(One thing I like about news sources like the "Marxist Workers Journal" is that it's pretty easy to see where their bias lies. Newspapers like The National Post, on the other hand, tend to have reporters and editors who are reasonably good at hiding their bias. This requires a bit more effort on the part of the sceptical reader).
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I'm not suggesting BBC coverage is terrible - it is very good in fact, just that any suggestions it is unbiased are exagerated.
Also, the BBC, especially on TV, has a nasty habit of wildly speculating about things. More than once I have seen them suggest that something is certainly going to happen, only for it to later not happen. Quire often the truth gets less coverage than the original incorrect speculation.
I think this is one of the nastier symptoms of "I WANT NEWS NOW!" syndrome. The media is so eager to report news the instant it happens (and public demand drives this) that by the time something has actually happened people are already moving on to speculating what will happen next.
Heresay of the worst kind. A reporter says that she was told something that was obviously misunderstood, if it was ever said at all. Why obviously? Because that is the exact opposite of the Pentagon's oft-repeated policy.
Hell, controls on reporters are so lax right now that a journalist speaking on Liddy's radio show today revealed operational details of the unit in which he is-- or maybe was-- embedded. He said, live and over the air, where they were staging, what their target was, and what kind of resistance they expected to meet, leaving no detail out. Hardly the iron-fist approach that Ms. Adie claimed.
Probably what happened is this: a Pentagon official, speaking on background, told her about one of the weapons in our arsenal, a radiation-seeking missile called HARM. Fire one of those and it homes in on the strongest radio source it can find. We use those missiles primarily to take out radar facilities, but we can also use them to sever wireless communications links. She probably misunderstood and asked, "What if it's a journalist broadcasting on television?" To which the Pentagon official replied, "Well... they've been warned." Or something like that.
That's a much more likely scenario than the thought that there's a secret plan to kill unruly journos and only Ms. Adie knows about it. Occam's Razor, don't you know.
I write in my journal
Except that the SMH is owned by Murdock. He also owns Fox in the US, Sky, The Sun, The Times and various other media in the UK. I would not trust anything owned by Murdock.
This is the best you'll find if what you're looking for is news with a heavy anti-administration and anti-war slant. But I think the person asking wanted something unbiased... (which does not exist, sadly enough)
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Canada is not participating in the attack against Iraq and therefore any news reported out of Canada will be unbiased.
Sorry, but there's no such thing as 'unbiased' news. Everyone has their slant and their agenda, and no matter how fairly they treat the subject matter bias will always be there. One must read multiple news sources from around the world, ones that don't just copy Reuters, and decide for himself what's going on. Hear all sides of the argument and form a conclusion on what's really going on.
No one's going to spoonfeed this to you - do it yourself.
"Unbiased media" is an oxymoron.
All media is biased, one way or another; the only difference is the direction of that bias. The most dangerous media outlets are the ones who claim to be unbiased, because they've lost sight of their bias in their arrogance.
So if you want a balanced view of the war, looking for a single source will do you no good, because no single source exists. Instead, get your news from multiple sources, always aware of each source's bias, and then think for yourself. The classic "CNN and the BBC" may not work well in this particular case, given that they're both located in nations with a direct hand in the attack. If you really want to walk on the wild side you could use Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore, but many people can't stomach either of them, much less both.
Look around, and you'll find something. Just remember this rule: don't let anyone do your thinking for you.
This thread hits close to home for me because I work in the newsroom of a major metropolitan newspaper, and a good friend of mine is in Kuwait right now on assignment.
After reading many of the comments in this thread, it's clear there is a lot of skepticism and mistrust toward how the US media will cover the war with Iraq, and I would heartily encourage this.
The biggest reason to take everything you hear with a grain of salt is because of how the US media is approaching this conflict. Essentially, the US press is beholden to the military in every way, shape and form in trying to cover this war.
Most of the information you will read in the newspaper or see on TV is from "imbedded journalists," who are reporters who have been officially credentialed and assigned to particular US military groups around Iraq. As you might expect, they have no freedom or initiative to actually go out and obtain first-hand observations. They are spoon fed information from official government press conferences. Although one argument to justify this situation could be is that it's to protect the journalists, in reality it's one big spin-control session.
It's hard to fault the journalists parroting our government's propaganda right now. They are strongly influenced by their environment and the pressure to produce some sort of story, whether or not it is fair, accurate and responsible. Personally, I doubt we will vitness any true "front-line" journalism for quite a while, but I know there are reporters wandering in the war zone who will publish pieces free of the yoke of our government's influence. These stories (and photos) will appear in newspapers -- not on TV where there pressure for "up to the minute" news is too great. Just be patient.