Ask Skewz.com Founder About Detecting Media Bias

Skewz.com is not the Microsoft-funded Blews experiment that is supposed to help detect rightness and leftness in stories based on blogs that link to them. Instead of detecting blog links, Skewz relies on readers to submit and rate stories, and even tries to pair stories that have "liberal" and "conservative" biases so that you can get multiple takes on the same event or pronouncement. The Skewz About page explains how it works. The site has drawn a fair amount of "media insider" attention, including a writeup on the Poynter Institute website. But what does all this mean? Where is it going? Can Skewz.com help us sort our news better and make more informed decisions? We don't know. But if you post a question here for founder Vipul Vyas, maybe he'll have an answer for you. (Please try to follow the usual Slashdot interview rules.)

Comments

Are all americans one dimensional

[line-bundle]

I still do not understand why everything is left/right. Reality tends to be complicated and every story has a lot more aspects than left/right (even if you manage to define those two terms).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[chunk08]

True. Not all issues can be defined with left/right. However, in politics, we can generalize (oh the horror) thus: Left: Do as much as possible through government, especially welfare and education. Less free market. Higher taxes, more government benefits Right: Do as much as possible in the private sector. This includes welfare (private charities) and education. Lower taxes, less government benefits. Now this does not cover every issue, but it gives a general idea of the philosophies that an intelligent person can apply.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

Left: Do as much as possible through government, especially welfare and education. Less free market. Higher taxes, more government benefits Right: Do as much as possible in the private sector. This includes welfare (private charities) and education. Lower taxes, less government benefits.

I'd say that's quite a right wing definition- I'd put it more as:

Left: Looking after society from the bottom up.
Right: Looking after society from the top down.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Ethanol-fueled]

Then you've never seen FoxNews. Hmm, wait: They do tend to show a lot of fine babes and sex-related stories. O, the dichotomy is ripping me apart!

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Jugalator]

And IMHO, that's exactly why it shouldn't be either left or right, because the middle ground is often a very good one. However, media is often aligned with either of the sides, and pushes for ideas I think often are suboptimal.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

You're more or less correct, but only as far as economic issues go. For social issues, the positions are opposite. Right-wingers favor government doing as much as possible to regulate the social aspects of peoples lives, while left-wingers favor individual choice.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[h4rm0ny]

I'd say both definitions are (a) grossly inadquate as a basis for categorising political viewpoints which are massively more complicated and (b) merely attitudes that do not necessarily equate to the outcomes of any given policy. The divisive split between "left" and "right" is one of the things that most cripples democracy in the USA, today. By labelling something as belonging to one faction or another, serious consideration of the merits of a particular action can be derailed. Maybe tax cuts are the right thing at a given time to stimulate the economy. Maybe state aid to a faltering financial institution is going to head off disaster on another occasion. But instead of assessing ideas as good or bad, "left" and "right" become substitutes for good and bad and nothing needs to be said beyond that. Never mind that often enough it is not appropriate to categorise things in these terms. It seems half the time that political beliefs are treated as merely territory to be captured by "left" or "right" and claimed as fitting that faction's ideology.

In the words of the immortal Bill Hicks (well, except that he's dead): "Hey, waitaminute! It's one guy holding up both puppets!"

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[jgarra23]

Are all americans one dimensional

No, our (and yours even more so) media would just like you to think that. I'm amazed that the rest of the world thinks they're so spot-on about Americans when your media arguably distorts facts in an even more insidious and twisted fashion than ours does. Seriously guys, come on, are you this naive?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Gordonjcp]

Actually, it's simpler than that:

Left = Quality of life at the expense of economic growth

Right = Economic growth at the expense of everything else, no matter what the cost

You see this in the US, where schools and hospitals are run purely to generate profit, with the barest minimum of education or care provided (got to keep those overheads down, no matter what!)

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[NeutronCowboy]

I think all comments after the parent are pretty much redundant. It took me a while to figure out why this new site bothered me, but the parent summarized it quite nicely: the distinction between left/right and liberal/conservative are completely artificial in this country, and largely defined by opposition of the other side, not support of an idea or platform. Sites like skewz do nothing more than perpetuate the idea that there is a right/left dichotomy that has clearly definable boundaries. In my opinion (and I think Jon Stewart is a hero for calling out the Crossfire hosts for this), this is one of the single biggest problems in the American political scene. Sites like Skewz.com merely reinforce this problem, and do nothing to resolve it.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[sm62704]

OK, I want marijuana, prostitution, and gambling legalized. Do I vote for a Republican or a Democrat?

See, the thing is, there really is no right/left. Democrats and Republicans are like two wings of the same party (both wings want me in jail). The reason for the percieved right-left is that the corporate and monied interests control all non-internet media, and those interests are allowed to bribe candidates with so-called "campaign contributions". Joe Moneybags gives ten million to the Democrat and ten million to the Republican, and no matter the outcome, Joe wins and I lose.

Meanwhile Joe's cable news network slobbers all over a "third party" (Green) candidate who is not on the ballot in enough states to win even if he carried all of them, while another "third party" is on the ballot in 49 states and completely ignored by Joe's TV and newspaper.

While this is happening Joe's media outlets convince American voters that a vote for anyone but the Republican or Democrat is a wasted vote, when in reality the only wasted votes are votes that aren't cast at all.

Then along comes Joe and starts skewz.com, saying "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain".

Your confusion is very understandable, as even Americans think they live in a democratic republic, instead of the plutocracy we actually live in. Which is exactly how Joe wants it.

-mcgrew

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[KiltedKnight]

You're both skewing it.

It's really:

Left

• do what you can to pay lip service to social freedoms while telling people how to think
• provide as much wealth redistribution as you possibly can
• restrict economic freedoms as much as possible

Right

• do what you can to pay lip service to economic freedoms while actually screwing the little guy
• redistribute wealth to the corporations and the CEOs
• restrict social freedoms by invading the private lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[ScienceDada]

Your definition is completely reversed.
The "Left" is for strong central government--as you say, "top down"--(i.e. Federal government).
The "Right" is for strong local control--as you say, bottom-up--i.e. States' rights.
In America, these have been opposing sides since the framing of the Constitution.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[imamac]

You see this in the US, where schools and hospitals are run purely to generate profit... Funny thing is, I was in the ER last with with my two-year-old, and there was a big sign that says (in summary) "We will take care of you even if you can't pay." Come to think of it, it's in EVREY hospital in the country.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

They are useful, though massively abstract concepts- nobody is saying that the terms themselves are 'seeds' from which entire Philosophies are able to be derived. Interestingly, the terms originated from the old French parliament, where the Aristocrats sat to the right of the King, and the commoners sat to the left.

The divisive split between "left" and "right" is one of the things that most cripples democracy in the USA, today.

Correction: The divisive split between "Right" and "Far Right" is one of the things that most cripples democracy in the USA, today.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about this from the perspective of the power elite who control government, and the media giants who have much to gain by aiding the agenda of government (and much to lose by not doing so).

If you can train the subject class to think of politics in terms of two simple, seemingly opposite dimensions -- both of which ultimately call for more, not less government -- then your goal of expanding the business of government suddenly becomes a lot easier. If you can train the subject class to expect that the solution to any given problem is always found within one of those two pro-government camps -- and never outside them -- then the road to your trillion-dollar budget suddenly becomes a lot shorter.

Today, the US government absolutely dwarfs the US government of only 50, let alone 100 years ago, both in revenue and power over the people. We are talking about the largest, most expensive, most powerful government (AND world empire, with military bases in some 150 countries around the world) that has ever existed. Clearly, the power elite who control this giant mega-corporation know exactly what they are doing, and if you follow the historical trend, the overall size of government is proportional to how deeply government is entangled in the media.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

Your definition is completely reversed.

Only if you chose peculiar definitions of 'Top' and 'Bottom'.

Bottom in my context means 'most needy of society's assistance', and top means the reverse.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[LuYu]

I still do not understand why everything is left/right. Reality tends to be complicated and every story has a lot more aspects than left/right (even if you manage to define those two terms).

This is nearly what I was going to say. Who really cares about two arbitrary and meaningless (and historically malleable) categories like "conservative" and "liberal"? I mean, what is the difference between Coke and Pepsi, anyway? Are they not just two versions of the same thing? Finally, is breaking things into these categories not just playing into the hands of those who would wish to manipulate us -- making us argue over unimportant issues while the real decisions get made behind our backs?

What we need is a website that judges things such as an "advertising index" to tell us when someone is just using a reporter to push their product. Or a "factual index" to rate the credibility of the numbers involved. Or a "bias analysis" where users can post where they think something was misrepresented. What is the website really doing to help people with the complex system of manipulation that we today call "news"?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[N1ck0]

Your absolutely right most things are neither left nor right. As most people with an understanding of political science (and no I am not a poli-sci geek, but I have been known to read things from time to time) will say is that traditionally most things are actually plotted on a two dimensional scale of political vs economical bias (and if your really into things you can show how you actually need a 3rd dimension on your chart to really cover things too).

From the one-dimensional media world, this has the odd effect of things that become too liberal can become conservative ideas...and things that are too conservative can then become liberal again.

Its also an interesting problem that both the center of the graph, and the conditions on when things change 'quadrants' or 'sides' vary both based on the person, and the comparison of that person to the norm. One may have a left idea relative to a right administration, but in terms of the populace (or even to a particular organization/audience) that left idea may still be classified as right.

This presents problems to those who are classified as extremists, who will find every moderate article to the one of the two sides.

Then you also have the issue of people who have a more narrow/broad 'view' (where narrow and broad do not really denote intelligence or education as more of a preference), as a narrow individual will perceive a left-right wrapping effect faster than a broad view.

Of course even if you do not 'subscribe' to a multi-dimensional view of issues, you center of any left-right line is still variable.

But yes I guess given a large enough profile of users and their individual opinions, one could probably use some relative network of topics and to model a general depiction of where one would classify left, right, and center. But it would really be per individual, and the range in topics used to classify things would be have to be pretty large because most people also vary where they stand based on what you are taking about (e.g. a politically liberal, economically conservative, with liberal environmental bias, but moderately-conservative views on foreign policy, with strong anti-authoritarian sentiment).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

And they will. They will stabilize you enough to ship you out. If you happen to survive once shipped out, then the lawyers take over and attach your ass from here to eternity.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

> Reality tends to be complicated and every story has a lot more aspects than left/right [...]

Reality has a liberal bias.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[aplusjimages]

Just look at these post, no one can define left and right properly. Each poster tells the other poster that their definition is wrong. That's because we are all complex and a leftist will define being leftist different than another leftists and the same holds true for people on the right. Screw defining it.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[chunk08]

I'd say that's quite a right wing definition

OK... It is a definition. Calling it "right-wing" is no argument at all. Pointing out specific areas of disagreement would be.

Left: Looking after society from the bottom up.
Right: Looking after society from the top down.

So the government exists "to look after society?"
Not to protect us and our liberty?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not actually true. Conservatives are for more and bigger government just as much as Liberals are. They'll just throw the benefits towards other people than the Liberals would. Also, I'm not talking about a huge difference in how the benefits are distributed, either. You'll do well as a defense contractor whether Liberals or Conservatives are in power, for example. If you're on the dole, you might do marginally better under Liberals than Conservatives, but either way you are still likely screwed.

Conservatives tend to prefer inflation to more traditional taxes to pay for the stuff they throw money at. Liberals like inflation, too, but they are more willing to mix it with some tax increases. Either way, the government increases it's slice of the pie. Here's a nice indicator: http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm

This election isn't really as much about Liberal versus Conservative as people would have us believe, its more about whether or not to continue truly incompetent, nationally destructive leadership or not. The truth is, no radicals made it into the final two (McCain vs. Obama). Both very much believe in the status quo, but how to maintain it is how they differ. I sincerely doubt that you'll find siginificant reductions in worldwide military bases under Obama, for example.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[sesshomaru]

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[inviolet]

I'd say both definitions are (a) grossly inadquate as a basis for categorising political viewpoints which are massively more complicated and (b) merely attitudes that do not necessarily equate to the outcomes of any given policy. The divisive split between "left" and "right" is one of the things that most cripples democracy in the USA, today. By labelling something as belonging to one faction or another, serious consideration of the merits of a particular action can be derailed.

Serious consideration is derailed, indeed, but it's not a conspiracy. It is simply human nature to find simple categories with which to make predictions and choices. Any consideration of nuances, shades of grey, contradiction and ambiguity, requires a lot of mental energy... not to mention more mental hardware than many people have to begin with.

Mental energy is a more precious resource than money, and even more than time. We all have more time than we have energy -- that's why we come home at night and "vege out".

This is why most political arguments are fights over categorization... once a thing has been categorized (and we all feel an urgent need to do so for any issues that remain expensively uncategorized), we can apply very simple logic when dealing with it again. White hat, good guy; black hat, bad guy.

An example: although ethanol logically belongs in the category of "mind-altering addictive substances", we lack the political will to admit it, because if we announce "alcohol is in the category of 'drug'", we'll then be obliged to apply our "drug == bad" logic to it.

Lord knows how I ever got hooked up with this godforsaken species. Where's the damned mothership already?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Mr. Slippery]

The "Left" is for strong central government--as you say, "top down"--(i.e. Federal government). The "Right" is for strong local control--as you say, bottom-up--i.e. States' rights.

So neocons who have striven to extend the power of the federal government are leftists? And Greens who work for more local control are right-wingers?

No. Federalist versus anti-federalist is a different dimension from left versus right.

The political terms left and right date to the French revolution, when nobility sat on the right and commoners on the left of the legislature. In modern terms, they refer to Labor and Capital. To be in favor of the interests of investors and owners is to be on the right; to be in favor of the interests of workers and ordinary citizens is to be on the left.

It doesn't matter whether you're an Maoist who believes in dictatorship of the peasants, or a anarchist who believes in no government and thus no private capital, you're a leftist; and it doesn't matter if you're a plutocrat who believes that the rich should control the government, or a libertarian capitalist in the minimal government that can enforce strong property rights, you're a right-winger.

Various alliances made over the years have obscured this, to the point where people think of gun control, censorship, abortion, foreign policy, and many other issues in left/right terms, but that's fuzzy thinking. Politics is multi-dimensional, and left-right is just one axis.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Adambomb]

(even if you manage to define those two terms). Hmm, it's been attempted before. Fairly well too, seeing as even the writers admit to the ambiguities and gradients in possible political opinions.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[electrictroy]

>>>Left: Looking after society from the bottom up.
>>>Right: Looking after society from the top down.

I don't know how you can label the Leftist view of letting the government run everything (healthcare, housing, food) as a bottom-up approach. That sounds like a top-down approach to me (where the top mandates how citizens are supposed to live).

Personally I prefer "authoritarian" versus "libertarian" as a way to separate the articles.

Maybe I'll create my own website.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Kelz]

Thanks for being the problem.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

So the government exists "to look after society?"

Yes.

Not to protect us and our liberty?

That you think the two are separate objectives speaks volumes.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[PopeRatzo]

it shouldn't be either left or right, because the middle ground is often a very good one.

Here's teh problem with that, Jugulator: Through the manipulation of the media and overwhelming application of corporate power, the "middle" you speak of has been artificially pushed way to the Right.

Just look at how a politician like Barack Obama is said to be "far Left", when in fact, he's to the Right of a real Center. I've lived long enough to have seen a real "Left" in America, and my father and grandfather have lived through a time when there was even a farther Left, with the Wobblies and the CPUSA. In fact, during my granddad's adulthood, Socialism was not very far from the mainstream in the US. I wonder what would happen if a real Leftist ever became a serious candidate for office here. I'd go so far as to say that not one single member of Congress could be honestly said to be on the "far Left" and that includes Rep Sanders (Ind-Vermont).

On the other hand, someone like John McCain, who is widely (and wrongly) thought to be a "Centrist" supports a torture regime, the elimination of habeas corpus, warrantless surveillance of US citizens, corporate control of media, the elimination of the Department of Education, the repeal of all banking and securities regulation, and many more positions that would normally earn a politician a reputation as a member of the Far Right, if not actually Fascism.

Seriously, let me list those again: John McCain supports torture, holding people, including US citizens indefinitely without bringing charges, warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and email conversations, unregulated corporate control of all media, the elimination of the Department of Education, the repeal of all banking and securities regulation, etc.

And interestingly, he was one of the politicians who used to push the privatization of Social Security, although he wouldn't whisper a word of that any more. Remember, if Social Security had been privatized during Bush's first term, which Bush wanted and McCain supported, there would have been a lot of Americans who had their Social Security funds at Bear Stearns, which recently went from over $100 per share to $2.00 per share. Those Americans would have lost almost every penny. This is why you don't hear any more cheerleading for the idea of privatization of Social Security from conservatives any more, even though they would still love to see it happen.

No, "Left and Right" aren't really useful terms any more, when the spectrum has really become "Right and Further Right".

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[penix1]

Ask yourself this:

Is there any federal level politician that can be considered "middle" or "lower" income when they ran for office (we know they aren't once they gain office)? That answer would be a big resounding NO! It takes huge amounts of money to even begin running for a national office these days. So just how does the vast majority of Americans (lower to middle income earners) get fair representation against the high earners big spenders? Again, they don't. The wealthy have always had more representation than the poor. Even in the Founding Father's day you had to be a white male land owner over 35 to hold a public office. If you fit that category, you were wealthy indeed.

That is where the real difference lies. The haves vs. the have-nots. Those that have the gold retain the gold. The whole idea that wealth begets wealth is a fallacy. They got wealthy, and more importantly, they stay wealthy by holding onto their wealth.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

Thanks for being the problem.

Hey, don't mention it. x

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

How about this... instead of using subjective definitions of Left and Right and trying to compare media outlets' similarities with same, why not take a less subjective approach like the following:

In this paper we estimate ADA (Americans for Democratic Action) scores for major media outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today, Fox News' Special Report, and all three network television news shows. Our estimates allow us to answer such questions as "Is the average article in the New York Times more liberal than the average speech by Tom Daschle?" or "Is the average story on Fox News more conservative than the average speech by Bill Frist?" To compute our measure, we count the times that a media outlet cites various think tanks and other policy groups. We compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same think tanks in their speeches on the floor of the House and Senate. By comparing the citation patterns we construct an ADA score.

From: A Measure of Media Bias
Tim Groseclose
Department of Political Science
UCLA
Jeff Milyo
Department of Economics
University of Missouri
December 2004

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Sepiraph]

There is a big issue with such simplified generalization as it does not differentiate between personal and economical freedom. Specifically, the Right-Left Wing viewpoint left out the Libertarian and Totalitarian view. In your example, the right may want lower tax and smaller government but they can also (and often) hold conversative viewpoint that advocates more restriction in social and personal freedom (which is often the view held by right-wing conservatism).

The Nolan Chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_chart illustrates this concept and shows why a Right-Left viewpoint missed out important details.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[electrictroy]

>>>So neocons who have striven to extend the power of the federal government are leftists?"

By Jove I thing 'e's go'it! ;-) Yes neocons are leftists. They are not for the goals of smaller government, even though they pretend they are.

I don't think we've had a true "less power to government; more power to the people" president since the 1800s.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[tux_attack]

Very true, a good example of this is the difference between the Pope and American catholics. I just read in US News And World Report that only 16% of US catholics support the Pope's policy on abortion. Most Americans aren't left or right most are moderates yet there are very vocal extremists which distort our view.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

Screw defining it.

Something is hard, so trying it isn't worthwhile?

I believe Malibu Stacy has a Math-themed message for you.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely wrong. Regardless of political inclination, if you believe that government is the solution to a given problem, then by necessity, you believe that a top-down, pyramid scheme of coercive control is the solution to that problem. That's precisely what goverment is: centralized (not decentralized) power -- and no matter how hard they shout "for the people, by the people", you can't take away centralization of power without taking away government.

A bottom-up solution would be the lack, not presence, of centralized power -- in other words, individual liberty. At the root of it all, it is impossible that political policy be derived from the bottom-up; if it was, it wouldn't exist at all!

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[chunk08]

So the government exists "to look after society?"

Yes.

No. The government exists to defend the life and liberty of its citizens. Looking after society is best left to religious groups (I subscribe to one in particular, but many seem to do a good job) and individuals.

Not to protect us and our liberty?

That you think the two are separate objectives speaks volumes.

Yes. It says that I am discerning and able to spot the difference. I don't want government forcing me to pay for someone else's healthcare, choosing my healthcare for me, forcing me to comply with insane "environmental" regulations which have no basis in fact, and telling me that I'm not smart enough to figure out how fast I can drive. I do want it defending our soil against invaders of any kind (especially "religious" extremists) and protecting my life, liberty, and property. That's what it's there for.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[electrictroy]

P.S. For example:

I'd label Hillary Clinton as "authoritarian" because she says, "You must buy health insurance. You have no choice; if you don't buy insurance, you will be jailed (or fined)." That mandatory requirement that all citizens buy insurance is an authoritarian viewpoint, where citizens must follow the will of President Hillary (and/or the Congress) as if she were king.

I'd label Ron Paul as "libertarian" because he wants doctors to serve patients, and patients to "pay as they go" when they receive the bill. He also wants doctors to provide volunteer hours (free service) to those who are poor or needy. ----- He does Not want government to interfere in the doctor-patient interaction in any manner whatsoever, except in the case of malpractice lawsuits (the courts).

I'm not sure where Barak Obama or John McCain would land.

Maybe in the middle.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[MsGeek]

Furthermore, if you are unlucky enough to be homeless, once you are stabilized they will put you on a taxi to Skid Row. Oh yeah, the USA has the best dang health care in the world, dang it! Right? RIGHT???

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[randyest]

But instead of assessing ideas as good or bad, "left" and "right" become substitutes for good and bad and nothing needs to be said beyond that.

You say that as if the problem is easily solved by a simple shift in terminology. Of course, it can't be, since what is "good" and what is "bad" is subjective, and often varies depending on whether the evaluator tends to be "left" or "right" or somewhere in between. Social/political issues aren't math or physics or even a real science -- there's no way to have a controlled experiment, so no outcome can ever be certainly predicted. So people often, and understandably, disagree. For convenience, we can roughly group opinions into "right" and "left" yet remain fully aware that nothing is absolutely either, but rather lies somewhere in the middle.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[ArsonSmith]

I think that's a very left wing deffinition

I'd say it's more like:

Left: Society is responsible for the individual (Government regulation and welfare)
Right: Individuals are responsible for them selves (Free market)

Which would be quite the opposite of what you define.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[N1ck0]

I still do not understand why everything is left/right. Reality tends to be complicated and every story has a lot more aspects than left/right (even if you manage to define those two terms). I take it by the way you phrase this that you are probably not from the United States (I wouldn't use American's per se as Canada is a bit better and some south American countries are not quite 'infected 'with the American media as well.)

But I guess to explain this you really need to know where these news stories come from and where the people behind them come from.

-- History --
The modern News industry in the United States was not really a government required/regulated thing. Basically when radio & television came on the scene the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required that companies that broadcast entertainment must also allocate some percentage of their airwaves to distributing news and emergency broadcasts (thus the emergency broadcast system, and why cities still have 'local' news stations) as a community service.

Now you have to realize that companies that made money on corporate sponsorships of entertainment were not thrilled with having this non-sponsored news eating up their time. So news used to be pretty dull in the US (basically being the minimum needed). But as large corporations started buying and consolidating more and more of these broadcasters, they started to realize something...they could sell the news. As such these companies also purchased newspapers, magazines, etc. (Note Newspapers were not immune to the entertainment-news too...read up on William Randolph Hearst and how he invented a war sometime).

Well as these entertainment companies made their way into the news space, they found (really around the Korean war, or maybe Vietnam) that big news 'sold' better then the local news. So as an entertainment company what do you do to maximize sponsorships....you make more 'big news'. In the cold war this was pretty easy...you had a enemy and well you just made had them always be the Bad people, and the US be heroes. But as the 'enemies' dwindled we needed new entertainment-news villains....enter the pendant.

--Political News--
By creating an atmosphere where some Americans ideas were left, and others were right you had a good vs bad. But the great thing was, half the people thought one was bad, and half the people thought the other was. Infinite source of debate. And with heated debate we could cause infighting and more news.

Now many will point out there is more two it than that. There is a two party political system to blame, and that corporations were not some mastermind. True, there are a lot of dichotomies in the United States that helped create and enforce this view. Yes, with a few exceptions people were not masterminding the corruption of US news services. But if you look at the environment, and the times its pretty easy to see that it evolved that way. However as much as its denied by the agencies themselves, do you really think that the fact that most people reporting the news in the US are owned by entertainment companies; who have slowly started to make more money from news shows then movies and TV a pure coincidence with the rise of the left/right divide?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[operagost]

No, Obama wants to force everyone to pay for Universal Health Care as well. A ponzi scheme doesn't work unless you constantly have new money entering the system (see: Social Security).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[EL_mal0]

On the other hand, someone like John McCain, who is widely (and wrongly) thought to be a "Centrist" supports a torture regime, the elimination of habeas corpus, warrantless surveillance of US citizens, corporate control of media, the elimination of the Department of Education, the repeal of all banking and securities regulation, and many more positions that would normally earn a politician a reputation as a member of the Far Right, if not actually Fascism.

You make it sound like those are positions he's running on! It's not like he's out there on the stump saying in his grating monotone, "You know what this country needs? More torture. Oh yeah, and while we're at it, let's get rid of schools. An educated populace is the last thing we need in this country. I also promise to eliminate privacy in all domestic communications!" - cheers from the crowd -

Your sentiment is much like the right's cries that Democrats don't trust the American people to manage their own lives and are out to steal our money through taxation. From a certain perspective both arguments, yours and "the right's" hold a nugget of truth. But both views are dripping with animosity, which is the last thing we need right now. People (though not necessarily the politicians) on the left and right want what's best for the country, but they all think that their ideas are best way to lead our country forward. Okay, they also think that, left to their own devices, the other party's policies would take us back to the 19th century within a generation.

Whose views are correct? I don't know. I know that I could use a little less of the government in many parts of my life, but I also think that people with power (and many of those with money) need to be held in check, because most of them don't consider others' rights while they pursue their goals (power, money, or both).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[gfxguy]

The problem, as I see it, is the truth hurts... so even when a story might be perfectly true and have no bias, someone who doesn't like the news might label it contrary to their own viewpoint...

For example, a story that reports something bad happening in Iraq is not "left", a story that reports something good happening in Iraq is not "right," but people might certainly label them that way.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

Left: Society is responsible for the individual (Government regulation and welfare)
Right: Individuals are responsible for them selves (Free market)

A progressive society recognises the benefits in helping out its less fortunate members.

Sure, there's a balance to be struck between helping them, and encouraging freeloading, but then the discussion becomes about the mechanism, not the principles.

The 'Democratic Socialist' systems of Scandinavia are repeatedly judged to be the most successful in quality of life terms (and what else are we here for?)

Meanwhile, America (which I cite only because it is the self-proclaimed poster-child for unfettered free marketism), is projected to reach 28 Million people surviving on food stamps this year. You are fiddling whilst Rome burns, in a most Marie Antoinette-like fashion.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[EL_mal0]

That's not actually true. Conservatives are for more and bigger government just as much as Liberals are.

Wrong. Republicans are for bigger govt. A real conservative, not so much. We have very few real conservatives in power these days. That may or may not be a bad thing, depending on who you ask.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Your otherwise valid point about not all americans being idiots is kinda sullied by generalizing "you" as the rest of the world.

Our media would like us to believe the americans can do no wrong.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[operagost]

I hate to break it to you, but you're not a centrist, you don't represent the majority and it puzzles me why you think that a man who was tortured would want others to be tortured. I don't support the act, but the fact remains that waterboarding isn't torture. Causing permanent psychological and physical injury is torture.

Obama wants radical change, such as compulsory health care and the passage of a bill of attainder against American oil companies because they are making too much money. This in the beginning of a recession, when neither the people nor their government have money to spend on any new programs and destroying one of America's few remaining powerful industries would turn us into a third world country.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[gfxguy]

That's not right, though, that's libertarian...

The right have all sorts of rules that "regulate" individual responsibility; I can't buy alcohol on Sundays in my state, for example. Granted, that's "religious" right, but many on the right also support the baggy pants ban, and want to censor rap music and so forth.

Both extremes take away individual liberty and responsibility.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand where everyone gets the idea that the wealthy shouldn't be wealthy or stay wealthy... in many cases they've worked their rear ends off to make a fortune, and they very much deserve it! If we start taking money from the rich and give it to the poor, it'll stop innovation and production, and then no one will be rich and everyone will be poor!

The more we tax the rich and take away from the rich, the more poor as a nation we become.

And no, I'm not a millionaire. I'm not even a thousandaire at the moment. :)

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

> Something is hard, so trying it isn't worthwhile?

You are putting those words in GP's mouth. If a problem X is hard and the benefits gained from solving X are low, then it probably isn't worthwile to solve X.

Such is the case with defining left and right. GP said that the definition of left and right vary from person to person, so even if you come up with 'The Right Definition Of Right' (lol) and 'The Right Definition Of Left', this would change nothing unless you somehow manage to convince all those people who currently use their own definitions to use yours. And even if everyone uses the same 'correct' definitions, what difference would it make?

If you disagree with someone just say so, don't start throwing poo at them.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[operagost]

That's okay. Just pretend you only speak Spanish and you'll get great care. Illegal immigrants cost US hospitals billions every year, using the ER as primary care.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Pope]

Left: government-mandated redistribution of wealth.

Right: corporate-mandated redistribution of illth :)

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[operagost]

You only need to 25 to be a state representative and 30 to be a senator. It has always been this way.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because turning the country into a theocracy is "doing as much as possible in the private sector".

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Maxo-Texas]

I agree... currently the Left is for big government.. while the Right is for big government... hmm.
But the left suppresses free speech ( "PC"- reeducation ) while the right suppresses free speech.. hmmm.
And so on...

Even on issues like abortion, there are pro and anti-republicans, democrats, and others. Some republicans are really just pro business. Of course so are many democrats (as long as the business is in their state... i.e. Boeing vs Airbuss recently).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa whoa whoa! Slow down cowboy!

Waterboarding isn't torture? Srsly. Find a liberal BDSM master and say that to him, I'm sure he'd be happy to demonstrate just how you're wrong. Waterboarding doesn't cause physical damage but it sure as heck causes psychological damage. It's torture by any measure.

Radical change such as compulsory health care? Like, y'mean, in every civilized country in the world, including all EU countries?

Destroying the oil industry would make USA a third world country? Last I saw, it was already there, and the interests of the oil industry played no small part in that happening.

Y'know, the USA might have been civilized by 50's standards, but times change. Rome was very civilized too, and guess where it got when time passed it by?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[An Extremely Fatal E]

John McCain doesn't endorse torture. I don't even know if I can trust the rest of your argument after that major discrepancy, considering most of it's probably taken out of context. And if your justification is him making that remark to Bush about the guidelines packet earlier this year, McCain was making a point about signing statements, not torture.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama's health care plan is optional. Stop spreading lies.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[sesshomaru]

JACK OK. OK. Let's not fence around ... This is the situation. Some idiot somewhere in the building, some insect, confused two of our clients, B58/732 and T47/215.

SAM B58/732, that's A. Buttle isn't it?

JACK Christ! You do know it all!

SAM No, no, I don't. I'm just beginning Honestly. Sorry, carry on.

JACK Well, your A. Buttle has been confused with T47/215, an A. Tuttle. I mean, it's a joke! Somebody should be shot for that. So B58/732 was pulled in by mistake.

SAM You got the wrong man.

JACK (a little heated) I did not get the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong man was delivered to me as the right man! I accepted him, on trust, as the right man. Was I wrong? Anyway, to add to the confusion, he died on us. Which, had he been the right man, he wouldn't have done.

SAM You killed him?

JACK (annoyed) Sam, there are very rigid parameters laid down to avoid that event but Buttle's heart condition did not appear on Tuttle's file. Don't think I'm dismissing this business, Sam. I've lost a week's sleep over it already.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[SydShamino]

The OP was speaking in terms of social care. In other words:

The right takes care of the richest (top) first, and expects support for poorer people to trickle down through generosity or through increased job creation, etc.

The left takes care of the poorest (bottom) first, and expects support for richer people to derive from their remaining wealth (after taxes) or from the improved education base of the entire population (i.e. even the rich benefit from the pharmacist's assistant at Walgreens having a solid public education).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[JeanPaulBob]

Only if you chose peculiar definitions of 'Top' and 'Bottom'.

Bottom in my context means 'most needy of society's assistance', and top means the reverse.

It's not that you were using different definitions of "top" and "bottom". It's that you were talking about different senses of "taking care of society from the [*]".

You were talking about seeing to the needs of the bottom first, then seeing to the needs of the top.

He was talking about taking care of society by taking action at the top (the centralized federal government), versus by taking action from lower down (private charities or local government).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[DavidTC]

Obama might believe in the 'status quo', but it's the mid-90's status quo, not this new one where we run around blowing people up and torturing them without charges.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Maxo-Texas]

Away from religion...(and agreeing with you)

You also can't use drugs (libertarian but not "right")

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

You are absolutely correct.

United in the fellowship of Bob.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[ArsonSmith]

that's why there is a difference between right and neo-conservationism. neo-con is much more liberal with the amount of government controlling morality than true right wing politics.

In the end left and right are names for liberal and conservative. They boil down to:

Liberal: meaning more
Conservative: meaning less

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, certainly, Obama is the competent candidate. He's the superior candidate, in my opinion.

I just wish the person who said this was running:

"All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot's genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today... They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture." dallasmorningviewsblog

Unfortunately, I've heard reports that he's been replaced by an evil doppleganger.

OK, here's what I don't get: McCain has been unequivocal in stating his conviction that waterboarding is torture, and is illegal. He also traded on his public reputation for probity on this question to lay into his GOP presidential opponents who were anything short of forthrightly condemning waterboarding. He even said in that debate that the Army Field Manual ought to be the standard, and said he doesn't understand how anybody could want an American to torture.

So now he comes out to vote against a bill that would actually have banned waterboarding. How does he justify it? With what strikes me as incomprehensible legalism. Seriously, can someone please explain how McCain's rationale makes sense? Because I'm not seeing it. I think he's flip-flopping -- and on an issue that he's not given any of his opponents any wiggle room on. dallasmorningviewsblog

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Captain Splendid]

Correction: The divisive split between "Right" and "Far Right" is one of the things that most cripples democracy in the USA, today.

Well said. I'll take the left wing loons over the right wing ones any day of the week and twice on sundays. I appreciate their firm stance on their "principles", but coexisting with hundreds of millions of people in a first world country requires a lot more compromise than fundies are even willing to think about, let alone actually do.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[chunk08]

Yes, individual responsibility must be regulated, but only to the point where liberty could harm others. Thus we have laws against underage sex, laws against nudity in public, laws against drinking while driving. Thus, we should have laws prohibiting abortion, which is, however you try to spin it, murder of an unborn child. "Rights of a mother" pooh, do I have the right to come kill you? The libertarians have it almost right. However, in the course of protecting liberty, some liberty must be curtailed. The problem comes when too much liberty is curtailed and the government becomes a legal form of robbery.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[corgan517]

forget your stupid election! i'm gonna have my own! with hookers! and blackjack! in fact, forget the election!

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[ArsonSmith]

I'm kinda confused on your meaning. I read it and think to my self up to 28 million people on food stamps is bad, but in the context and comparison to Democratic Socialism I think you imply only 28 million people surviving on food stamps is bad because the other ~270 million USians have to fend for them selves.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[DavidTC]

To whom it may concern:

As you may be aware, under the 'Communism Rule' of politics, any philosophy that puts repeatedly people in power under its 'label', who then become wildly unpopular and/or power mad, resulting in the supporters being forced to distance themselves by claiming that said person is not a 'Real Label', but it would work if they could find a 'Real Label' to elect, are allowed 25 years to find such a person. If, at the end of that time, they have failed to find such a person, said philosophy is declared a null and void.

By our calculations, the 25 years deadline for the 'Conservative' philosophy was reached in 2005 without a single 'Real Conservative' ever being elected. As 'Conservativism' has been unable to produce a 'conservative' in any way, shape, or form , despiting being given a quarter of the century to find one, that term was deemed completely disfunct and you were legally enjoined from using it.

Through a lapse on our part, this was not noticed until 2006, and you were given your two (2) year notice in the 2006 election. This is your eight (8) month notice that, starting November 1 2008, you must cease and desist using the term 'Conservative', 'Conservativism', and all other worded based on the 'Conserve' prefix, or you will be fined $1000 for each violation.

This does not apply to 'Theoconservative' or 'neoconservative', or 'theocon' or 'neocon'. You can continue using those terms, assuming you so wish.

However, we have ruled that 'paleoconservative' is simply another way to refer to traditional 'conservative' and is thus covered under the 'conservative' ruling, and you are required to also desist from using that. This includes the term 'paleocon'.

Thank you for your time.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[DavidTC]

There's no such thing as 'economic freedom' when you have limited liability corporations. Talking about 'freedom' for fictional entities is sheer nonsense.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[jmorris42]

> They are useful, though massively abstract concepts

No, the one dimensional politcal 'line' theory of politics is one of the most damaging ideas ever. And since it would require a massive mental leap to believe something so damaging came about by accident..... Just one more way the MSM keeps most voters clueless.

Seriously, even a two dimensional chart (many people have proposed various traits for the two axes, many work) does much better to seperate out some of the factions which get compressed together unnaturally on a line. On what is normally termed the 'left' you have to ram together fascists, national socialists, socialists, communists, progressives, modern welfare liberalism, anarchists, hippies and about half of the Libertarians. Doesn't capture the very real philosophical differences. Heck, there ARE real differences between russian communism and chinese communism, the difference between a typical American Democrat and Chairman Mao is non-trivial. Good luck capturing any of that with small variations in where you place all of them on 'tbe Left.' And over on the other end you have old school Country Club Republican bluebloods, hardcore capitalists, religious fundies, Federalists, Madision style Anti-Federalists, Classical Liberals, a bunch of Libertarians lending their unique splash of color, classic cons, crunchy cons, neocons, etc. all supposedly represented by subtle gradations of 'Right.'

And any site trying to compare and contrast political views and biases by using the broken left/right model will only be making political discourse harder.

> Correction: The divisive split between "Right" and "Far Right" is one of the things that most
> cripples democracy in the USA, today.

You are correct that it is a problem. But I think that longterm it is good. Currently we are in the process of making a major choice between two competing and utterly incompatible philosophies. So it is proper that we have a major thowdown fight over such an important question.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Omestes]

Something is hard, so trying it isn't worthwhile?

I think the point is that it is impossible to define because it doesn't actually mean anything. Its an arbitrary label we can throw onto other people we don't like. Each word is packed full of idiotic stereotypes, and psychological fallacies.

Left = commie
Right = fascist.

We might not admit to these translations, but I think that they are the general image we get when either term is used. And I don't think any person, or political ideology, ever actually can fall into a pure left/right schema. Its almost as moronic as the "red" and "blue" state myth, which serves no purpose than to pigeon hole people for the derision of other people.

I find it very easy to hold views from the so-called left and right at the same time. Many of them are not as contradictory as this simplistic classification would grant.

Out of curiosity where would famous political philosophers fall in this? Is John Locke, and J.S. Mill a leftist, while Thomas Hobbs is a righty?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

I guess my point was that these left/right arguments on /. always seem to be framed in the context of unbridled capitalism being the natural, correct way, with any leftist position being indistinguishable from Stalinism.

So I pointed out that the US has the kind of problems that most democracies wouldn't countenance for a second.

Sure, the US system makes billionaires hand over fist, but at an intolerable cost.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[bill_kress]

For years I've been wondering what it is that is that tends to make people tend to fall into one of these categories.

On one hand you are right, but on the other, people still tend to fall pretty easily into one category or the other.

The closes I've come after pondering this question for maybe 20 years is empathy.

Note, conservative/liberal does not always correspond to republican/democrat.

A conservative tends to feel empathy for those closest to him--his family and friends and country. When they are hurt, he is hurt. He believes it is fair to sacrifice the rights of those further away say another country or a criminal to help someone in a smaller circle (family/friends/church). If they can't find a way to relate to someone, they often find it completely impossible to empathize with them (foreign immigrants, unwed mothers, gays, atheists). They often speak in terms of "Them" (evidence our recent spat of anti-gay conservatives found to be pro-gay personally. What they feel is personally acceptable doesn't always apply to others--others sometimes have different rules...

A liberal tends to feel empathy more broadly (and perhaps less intensely for those close to them). They would generally not sacrifice the well being of a foreigner for a citizen of his own country. He may sacrifice others for his own family or himself--but will feel that it is wrong. He tends to feel that if he wants to do something, others should have the same right.

A sciociopath (Just to be complete) is a person with no empathy for anyone--it's a medical condition I include here just to point out that empathy is actually a very significant part of what controls your brain.

This is the only pattern I've come up with that applies to all the conflicting tendencies of the left and right, if you've got a better root cause that explains the prevalence of the liberal/conservative grouping in humans, please enlighten me.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Chris Burke]

I don't know how you can label the Leftist view of letting the government run everything (healthcare, housing, food) as a bottom-up approach. That sounds like a top-down approach to me (where the top mandates how citizens are supposed to live).

He was talking about the bottom of society, as in the poor. As opposed to the top of society, which is the large business owners and corporate executives.

I know it was confusing, since those are usually engineering terms about how the structure is built, not what its purpose is. Even if you support states rights, our system is "top down" in the sense that the Constitution of our federal goverment is primary, even to the extent that it abdicates power to the states. But that's not what he meant.

Whether or not that actually applies in any meaningful way to a given "left" or "right" politician is a different matter. Frankly I think it rarely does. But it should be obvious that government-run healthcare is an attempt to help those who can't afford healthcare, as opposed to the rich who can buy their own.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[jmorris42]

> The right have all sorts of rules that "regulate" individual responsibility

That is why it requires more than one dimension to map out political positions. In this cluster of comments a useful pair would be Government's role in the economy and another for government's role in defining and enforcing morality.

This would give, as the four extreme corners, four Hells:

1. Pure Libertarian. Minimal government control of both economy and morality beyond enforcing contracts and the zero agression principle. Might be a nice dream, except that nobody knows how to actually get there or how the million niggling details would work. Ayn Rand's Hell.

2. Free markets but strong Puritan controls on morality. Moral Najority Hell.

3. Modern Democrats/Progressives. Or at least as they are pushing towards. Government control over every aspect of life. Political Correctness ascendent. Government goes beyond regulating transfats, smoking, etc. to nationalized health care, banking, etc. Government even regulates political speech beyond the current McCain/Fiengold limits. (The current Progressive State isn't enforcing the religious based morality the fundies would like but it is rigidly enforcing A moral code.) Hillary's Nanny State Hell.

4. Hippies. Heavy Industrial policy, ruinious taxes, massive welfare state. But socially "free love, no perversion too extreme." Keep the government outta my bedroom dude! Smelly Hippy Hell.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[MrSteveSD]

I still do not understand why everything is left/right.

I agree. One of the problems with the mainstream media is self censorship. How do you classify the failure to discuss particular topics? For example, the BBC has recently had a series of 5 year Iraq anniversary articles and in all of that coverage there is only one sentence devoted to any kind of discussion of the strategic and economic reasons for war. Does the BBC's failure to discuss this topic make them left or right wing? The real problem with the media is not about left and right, it is about being "embedded with power" as Pepe Escobar put it. The media tend to act as a megaphone for governments, whether they are right or left wing and there is a general failure by journalists to seek the opinions of independent experts.

In left wing countries, journalists who try to analyse and second guess the government are slammed as being right-wing and biased. In right-wing countries, the same kind of journalists are slammed as being left-wing and biased. What they really are, are people who scrutinise and keep check on the powerful and that is a concept that transcends the idea of left and right-wing.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[PopeRatzo]

It's not like he's out there on the stump saying in his grating monotone, "You know what this country needs? More torture. Oh yeah, and while we're at it, let's get rid of schools. An educated populace is the last thing we need in this country. I also promise to eliminate privacy in all domestic communications!"

Actually, he is sort of saying those very things in an effort to win back the baseheads of his party.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Mod parent up !

"Centrist" != "equal to my own ideas"

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[PopeRatzo]

John McCain doesn't endorse torture.

Actually, he did just that. On March 8, 2008, George Bush vetoed a bill passed by congress that would have outlawed the use of any interrogation technique that was banned by the Army Field Manual. This was a bill that McCain supported. However, John McCain then voted in support of George Bush's veto.

To be fair, Senator McCain might have just been a little bit confused about what was going on. Senile dementia is a hell of a thing.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[FleaPlus]

I still do not understand why everything is left/right. Reality tends to be complicated and every story has a lot more aspects than left/right (even if you manage to define those two terms).

Of course it doesn't cover all possible variances. However, to put it in statistical terms, the left/right axis is a useful principal component which characterizes much (perhaps even the majority) of political differences.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[letxa2000]

Left: Looking after society from the bottom up.
Right: Looking after society from the top down.

Actually that's exactly backwards. The left tends to think big government ("top") can fix the problems of those below it. The right tends to think the opposite is true in that the lower levels (local charities, families, etc.) can fix the problems of those around it so top-down fixing isn't required.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[letxa2000]

I'll take the left wing loons over the right wing ones any day of the week and twice on sundays.

Please note that one can be "left wing" and "right wing" and still believe in the Constitution and personal rights. There are those on both wings that tend to ignore certain parts of the Constitution when it suits them, that's not isolated to "right wing loons."

Once you get past Constitutional infringements (attempted and successful) on both extremist wings--which are bad and inappropriate on both sides--I'll take the remaining conservative platform over the liberal. Like George Carlin has said, "Pacificism is a nice idea, but it can get you killed." I also don't like the idea of liberals destroying our economy with high taxes on any income level, rich or poor. These kinds of things can be debated within the legal Constitutional framework and when you limit contemplating policy to that which is really Constitutionally permitted, the conservative side wins on the merits.

Don't let the excesses of the current administration (perceived or real) blind you to the reality that liberal fiscal policy is inherently unsustainable, and that liberal social policy leads society down a very destructive road. A conservative policy does not necessarily lead to fascism or theocracy but a liberal policy almost invariably leads towards socialism which history has demonstrated to be a failure.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Z34107]

I'd say that's quite a right wing definition- I'd put it more as: Left: Looking after society from the bottom up. Right: Looking after society from the top down.

And I'd say that's more of a left-wing definition.

You think Republicans (generally, the "right") care only about the rich? ("Looking after society from the top down?") Last time I checked, there was much more of a middle-class than the uber-rich-light-cigars-with-$100-bills-burgeois-cosmopolitan-monopoly-man-Mister-Moneybags class. (Although I assume both parties simply pandor to get votes.)

You think Democrats (generally, the "left") care only about the poor? Or care at all? Last time I checked, it was men like George Soros who gave them money to run. The lower classes are terrible targets for campaign fundraising - will food stamps cover your $100 a plate fundraiser? In this way, Democrats fit the Republican stereotype, too - both parties love the "rich" during election years.

Now, if we ignore political parties and talk strictly about competing philosphies, then I'd say the parent poster is more accurate.

The modern left evolved from the "progressive" movement. They were the first mainstream American movement to view government as a tool for social change. They focused on rooting out corruption and fixing societal problems.

The rightists (right-wingers? Are we birds?) look for private sector solutions. Their solution to government corruption is to get rid of the government. Is this good in every case? Or most cases? I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader. (Full disclosure: I fall right of center.)

But, neither ideology preaches "rich first" or "poor first," although each will have different solutions to issues like "poverty" and "wealth distribution."

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[EL_mal0]

Sir:

Thank you for your letter alerting me the coming change in political lexicon. I was unaware of the pending lapse. Owing to the fact that the word "conservative" no longer describes someone of the traditional conservative persuasion, I will desist from using that term. I am saddened, however that you include the term "paleoconservative" or "paleocon". I recognize my god-given right to use these words refering only to the aforemeniontioned political ideology, as long as such ideals exist, in my head, if not in political circles. If you insist on collecting fines for the use of paleoconservative or its derivatives, you will be hearing from my lawyer

Thank you.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[MRe_nl]

"OK, I want marijuana, prostitution, and gambling legalized. Do I vote for a Republican, a Democrat, or move to the Netherlands?" ;)

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Wah]

Unfortunately your definition predates modern politics.

State's right haven't been an issue since the "right" lost the civil war.

Since then, most everyone on the national level is for a strong central government (kind of a self-selecting kind of thing), and 'state's rights' are a topic by topic thing (i.e. if federal laws are in your favor, you like them. If they aren't, you don't).

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[JeanPaulBob]

Hmm...You were also talking about different areas of political philosophy.

He was talking about local/private vs. federal action.

You were talking about "social justice"[1] policies, corporate tax breaks, and tax cut philosophy. (Tax philosophy as in, should cuts be a constant percentage across the tax brackets (weighted in dollars toward the rich), or percentage-weighted toward the poor.)

Hmm...In your terms, I think most conservatives would not affirm that they want to care for society from the top-down. That's what you think is going on (and you could be right), but in theory, that's not their philosophy.



[1] I hate that term when applied to things like welfare or other ways to improve the lot of poorer people. It implies that they are poor because some injustice. Which may or may not be true.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Naughty Bob]

That's what you think is going on (and you could be right), but in theory, that's not their philosophy.

That's not their espoused philosophy, sure. It's not the kind of thing you can admit out loud, without everyone you know thinking less of you. Because it's selfish and cruel.

None the less, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck....

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[dcam]

The definitions are even stranger if you aren't an American. From an outside perspective it isn't left and right, it is right and extreme right.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Mr. Slippery]

Yes neocons are leftists. They are not for the goals of smaller government, even though they pretend they are.

Left/right has nothing to do with bigger/smaller government. Anarchists are leftists and in favor of a smaller government. Members of the Libertarian party are rightists in favor of a smaller government.

We would do well to think of government as a vector, possessing both magnitude and direction. The force of government can push left or right (or through several other dimensions), and it can do so either gently or with great force. Advocating a smaller government is fine, but doesn't say anything about which way you want that government's force to be applied.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[PopeRatzo]

I hate to break it to you, but you're not a centrist

No shit, sherlock. I'm approximately in the same place as an FDR-era leftist. I believe in organized labor, regulated banking and markets, and the notion that there should not be any ill-fed, ill-clad, or ill-educated people in a country as rich as ours. I believe that the richest country in the world should have free health care for every single one of its citizens. I believe there's something wrong when, within the course of 40 years, we've gone from the CEO of a corporation making 10 times the income of an average worker in the same corporation to over 400 times the income of the average worker. I believe that America is at its best when we work together and look out for one another. I believe that the image of Americans as coon-skin cap wearing rugged individualists who get where they are by nothing but the sweat of their own brow is a damnable lie. I believe that it makes sense to have the strongest horses pull the heaviest loads. I believe the Federal Reserve Bank is designed to transfer wealth from working Americans to the richest Americans.

I don't believe in preemptive wars or the unlimited powers of the "Unitary Executive". I don't believe that religion should be taught in public schools and I definitely believe in public schools as a force for good. I don't want public funds to be given to religious organizations to perform social welfare functions. I don't believe the government has any business making laws limiting a woman's right to decide for herself whether she should carry a pregnancy to term, or not. I don't believe there should be any eavesdropping on US citizens without the adult supervision of court orders. I believe in universal military service for all young Americans. I believe in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the philosophy of the Era of Enlightenment that created them.

I am most definitely on the American Left.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Nikker]

Don't you think the division between aristocracy and peasantry is just war as a self fulfilling prophecy?

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[darthdavid]

then it's obviously a chicken. PRAISE JESUS!!!

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[electrictroy]

I thought Barak wanted the *corporation* to pay the healthcare bill, not the citizens.

I would describe that as middle-of-the-road solution, because the People are still free to take the corporate-provided insurance (or not), and so freedom is still preserved.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[electrictroy]

First off, "free healthcare" is not a right. YES, you have a right to go to a doctor and say, "Please heal me," but you do NOT have a right to raid your neighbors' wallets, steal their money, and make them pay for your new heart. (Anymore than you can raid their wallets and force them to buy you a new Lexus.) On the contrary, that's a violation of your neighbors' right to property & theft of their labor.

- You have a right to healhcare.
- You don't have a right to violate your neighbors' rights.
- You don't have a right to steal their labor for your own benefit (which is what the Cotton Plantation Masters used to do).

.

Second, the flow of power is like so:

The People (the ultimate authority from which all power derives)
  |
\/
The States (bound by their respective contracts between the People & the government)
  |
\/
Constitutional Convention (states' representatives)
  |
\/
Federal Constitution (the contract which the national gov't & states are bound to follow)

Although the Federal Constitution is the "supreme law of the land" that law derives its power from the consent of the governed (the States Legislatures and the People), and can be changed via amendment or constitutional convention by the Constitution's contractual parties.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Captain Splendid]

socialism which history has demonstrated to be a failure.

Yeah, shame you don't have any real world examples.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Liberals don't destroy economies. Conservatives do.

Go back 100 years. The economy did better when Democrats controlled the White House than when Republicans did. Leave off the best and worst of both parties, same answer. So it isn't just the Great Depression.

I'll take the economic "destruction" of 1993-2000 that came along with a 38% top marginal income tax rate, which is still lower than the marginal tax rate for middle income people paying FICA and in the 25% tax bracket (25% + 1
For the past 28 years, conservative Republican policies have been "borrow and spend". Raise taxes on the lower and middle classes, and cut them on the wealthiest. Run up huge deficits. Hand China and India the power that comes with holding nearly a trillion dollars in US obligations.

Conservative fiscal policy, as practiced by Reagan, Bush, and Bush, are inherently unsustainable. That unsustainability is finally coming home to roost, with a plummeting dollar.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[JeanPaulBob]

Well, I'm a conservative, and I don't think I'm a duck. (Though I'm sure there are many ducks in my camp.)

And sometimes, we think that something "looks like a duck" because we've never met a swan. And we think it "quacks like a duck" because we don't listen very closely--after all, we can see very well that it's a duck. And it sounds generally quack-like. It must be a duck!

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[OwnedByTwoCats]

So the government exists "to look after society?" Not to protect us and our liberty?

We the people, in order to

1. form a more perfect union,
2. establish justice,
3. insure domestic tranquility,
4. provide for the common defense,
5. promote the general welfare, and
6. secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution.

Pretty good, I think. I count six purposes of government. Justice, domestic tranquility, and general welfare count, too.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[OwnedByTwoCats]

What an amazing display of doublethink. You want the government to protect your life, liberty, and property, but you don't want it preventing others from polluting your water or your air, or poisoning your food.

The Constitution of the United States of America says that establishing justice, providing domestic tranquility, and promoting general welfare are purposes of government.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[dscruggs]

So neocons who have striven to extend the power of the federal government are leftists? And Greens who work for more local control are right-wingers?

It's the neo part that muddies the waters. "The most surprising thing about [Iraq war architect] Wolfowitz is that he's a bleeding heart. His instincts are those of a liberal democrat, apart from on national security."

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[spxero]

You mean the economic "destruction" from 1993-2000 when it was a republican controlled congress? The guy sitting in the chair at the white house isn't necessarily the one that dictates the fiscal policy.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[chunk08]

Lets see, Russia had a wonderful economy controlled by Lenin, Stalin, and their successors. Indeed. Venezuela and Cuba have wonderful economies... Yes, socialism works wonderfully. /sarcasm

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Captain Splendid]

All feudal states or oligarchies, not socialist.

Thanks for playing.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[chunk08]

All grew into feudal states when socialism was attempted. Socialism inevitably leads to corruption. Ever hear of New Harmony, Indiana (Wikipedia)? Robert Owen thought he could do it... People are just to lazy when the government takes care of them.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Captain Splendid]

when socialism was attempted

Dude, In most of the countries you stated, socialism was never even 'attempted' in the first place. It's just cover for the proles.

Socialism inevitably leads to corruption.

Just because you say it, doesn't mean it's true.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[iminplaya]

Go back 100 years. The economy did better when Democrats controlled the White House than when Republicans did.

Theodore Roosevelt was not a democrat.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Kirth]

You are absolutely right. According to the political mainstream, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have become "far leftists"; and Benjamin Franklin is of course "left of the centre" too.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[letxa2000]

Conservative fiscal policy, as practiced by Reagan, Bush, and Bush, are inherently unsustainable. That unsustainability is finally coming home to roost, with a plummeting dollar.

That's one opinion.

The other opinion is that the extremely expensive and unsuccessful social programs pushed by the Democrats have strapped the federal budget so it cannot conduct its legitimate defense of the national security in a time of war without racking up large deficits.

The plummeting dollar is due to deficit spending. You can't say that the deficit spending is caused by reducing tax rates since every time taxes have been reduced (JFK onward), tax receipts have gone up. So conservative tax policy definitely works in raising receipts even when it lets people (rich and poor) keep more of their money).

Nor can you say that the deficit spending is specifically due to military spending or specifically due to social spending since it's due to the total sum of government spending.

You can, however, point out that only one of those two items is a function of government that was clearly contemplated in our Constitution.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[DogFacedJo]

Right, left - bah I miss the Byzantines. They were divided for centuries along blue/red lines - the colours of the two main chariot racing teams.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

"Where's the damned mothership already?"

Unfortunately it's delayed because of cuts in the public spacetransportation sector.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

"Divide et Impera" - Divide and Conquer

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Acctually McCain is very much against torture (He was tortured himself). A simple google search goes a long way...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/51200/page/1

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Well, not all americans are one dimensional. But your two party system only has two parties. So it is either Left ... or Right.

Although, in other parts of the world, we view the americans as voting either Right ... or More Right. (Even if 'more right' sometimes equals WAYYY wrong. Example? Bush.)

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[ShieldW0lf]

I love it when people pull out Russia as an example of a failed socialist economy, all the while, ignoring the fact that they never had a moment of peace that whole time, because of us and our allies.

It'll be great fun to see how much better capitalism does when the shoe is on the other foot.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[phlinn]

How about "Right = Economic growth is the best method to improve quality of life in the long run"? I don't think you will fine any right-winger who will go along with 'no matter the cost'.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi from Australia.

Yes, the Superannuation Funds are not having a great year this year, just like everyone else.

Fortunately, when the pool of Private Social Security accounts of 1.5 trillion aussie dollars gets spread out the way that much money does, single events like Bear Stearns don't cause too much trouble.

And besides, there's plenty of rules in place to make sure designated pension funds aren't allowed to invest in investments outside their risk brackets (not that that would have helped bear stearns of course).

But regardless, speaking from a country with a privatized pension system, it kicks ass. For one thing, at least I can say that the money is my property, not some promise of entitlement by a government or a company that can change their minds in 20 years time.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[visualight]

RealID, warrantless wiretapping, signing statements, etc. don't really get along with "strong local control".

I think it's more like,

The "Left" tries to improve the social situation for the bottom half of the country without pissing off the mega-rich and the multinational corps who have to throw some funding their way to avoid seeming biased. In other words, they get bought sometimes.

The "Right" tries to improve the social situation for the mega-rich and the multinational corps without the bottom half of the country realizing that gay marriage, flag burning, abortion, FAITH IN GOD, etc., are just there to get them to vote against themselves. In other words, they don't really get bought, they were "there" from the start.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Random BedHead Ed]

On what is normally termed the 'left' you have to ram together fascists ...

Fascism is a phenomenon of right-wing nationalism and government authoritarianism. It doesn't belong on a description of the left, and I'd be inclined to leave it off the list on the right as well, since it's a loaded word and using it accomplishes very little. (Besides, the only people one should classify as fascists are those who lend unconditional support to the executive branch, advocate for greater executive power, and suggest doing away with those who think differently. I leave it up to you to decide which side of the political spectrum that sounds like, though most right-leaning people I know don't fall into that pigeonhole.)

Currently we are in the process of making a major choice between two competing and utterly incompatible philosophies. So it is proper that we have a major thowdown fight over such an important question.

Really? It's either oil or water, take your pick? So we can't have, say, (a) a nationalized healthcare system as advocated by some Democrats that sits alongside (b) private health care components that anyone is free to purchase to augment the cheap national system, and (c) pharmacies run entirely by private companies? I think a lot of ideas espoused by the right and left are often perfectly compatible. The trouble arises when the extremists on either end try to prevent pragmatic blending of these ideas, all in the name of keeping the system "purely" private or public. (To be honest, I don't know of anyone on the left that's extreme enough to advocate a healthcare system that is purely state-run, though I can think of plenty of people who advocate making it free of government involvement. But that's specific to the healthcare example - not necessarily what you were talking about.)

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

Neocons are leftists. The ideology was developed by former Trotskyists who joined the Republican Party in the 60s and 70s. The current crop of Republican leaders, who adore federal power and embrace a univeralist ideology, could be more accurately described as leftist heretics than as true conservatives.

Re:Are all americans one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

- You have a right to healhcare. I think you mean...you have a right to ACCESS to healthcare, right? There are no states representatives, nor have there been since the 17th amendment was passed. The senate USED to represent the states and states' rights, but ever since the senate became elected by the people instead of appointed by the governors of teh states, they quit representing the states and basically became an elite version of the House of Representatives. The true point of the 17th amendment was to remove the check and balance of the Senate protecting states rights and enforcing the 10th amendment, and now virtually no one in the Senate even cares about states rights, going with federal mandates for all kinds of unconstitutional social programs.

So what is liberal or conservative?

[MickLinux]

So, is sexual impropriety liberal (Clinton) or conservative (Gingerich)?
How about economic activism (Greenspan)?
What about pro-war?
How about government hypervigilance against its own citizens?
How about abortion?
What about economic stimulus?
How about WTO?

Honestly, with the way all the votes actually go when a liberal or conservative party has control of everything, I have to say that in each of these cases, the "liberal" and "conservative" positions are identical, and the opposite position has no coverage.

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's bad it's right-wing

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[jellomizer]

If it's stupid it's left-wing.

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[morgan_greywolf]

And how much difference does it make?

For example, [Ll]ibertarians don't tend to see politics in this light. They see things as "statist" or "non-statist". Any viewpoint favoring the rights of the individual over the power of State intervention is non-statist. To a [Ll]ibertarian left and right can both be wrong, as they may, and oftentimes DO, both represent a statist viewpoint.

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not full of shit it's BBC.

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[jellomizer]

The BBC takes an outsider view of American Politics which is rather refreshing. There really isn't much invested interests in Pushing an American Left or Right agenda.

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[sm62704]

Tennis elbow?

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[Anonymous Coward]

To answer your questions:

So, is sexual impropriety liberal (Clinton) or conservative (Gingerich)? Individual responsibility and accepting consequences for one's actions: conservative, while victim mentality ("alcohol/devil/racism/poverty made me do this") is liberal

How about economic activism (Greenspan)? By government? Liberal

What about pro-war? Most often correlates with sociopathy or mental illness

How about government hypervigilance against its own citizens? Liberal (disbelief in individual responsibility and victim mentality)

How about abortion? If meant as a belief that the Federal government has the right to decide (either way), then liberal. If you mean an act undertaken by an individual, then it's sociopathic (the way murder is, for example).

What about economic stimulus? Via increased taxation and/or income re-distribution? Liberal.

How about WTO? Supposed to be a non-partisan organisation. But "free trade" leans towards being a conservative idea. Regulated and restricted trade is a common trait of socialism, so more liberal.

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[Sabz5150]

Iraq: Bad or Stupid?

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[Kelz]

Also in general instead of filling in the gaps in "major" news stories they usually do either a cultural story or a story about something far worse happening in other parts of the world, which is far more informative than Paris Hilton.

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[jellomizer]

Both that is what happends when you get a bipartiasian agreement

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[jvschwarz]

As a regular reader of the BBC for news, I would agree the the BBC takes and outside view of America, but they do have their own agenda, and have admitted they are biased:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23371706-details/Yes,%20we%20are%20biased%20on%20religion%20and%20politics,%20admit%20BBC%20executives/article.do

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[mvdwege]

No, people have claimed the BBC admitted to a bias. That is quite a difference.

Mart

Re:So what is liberal or conservative?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? You don't think that other nations have marked interests in influencing American politics?

You're nuts.

Incentivising Registration?

[eldavojohn]

What do you offer to entice users to register and rank stories for you? It seems that the benefits just come from the people that do all the work, is your only incentive that the person feels good for helping you out? Do you rank your users? Is there a reward system even if it's only number of stories ranked?

The article said you are hoping to raise your current set of 600 users to something more like 10,000--what are you doing to accomplish that?

Re:Incentivising Registration?

[jgoemat]

The article said you are hoping to raise your current set of 600 users to something more like 10,000--what are you doing to accomplish that?

Uh, posting a story on slashdot?

Re:Incentivising Registration?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Web 2.0, where the user does all the work.

Why is everything about "bias"?

[MillionthMonkey]

Shouldn't just "being full of shit" count for anything? Why not just rate stories on their frequencies of lies, distortions, unsupported assertions, and factual inaccuracies?

That's what gives the impression of "bias" to a reader in the first place.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[Trojan35]

I agree with your overall point, but there is a difference between lies and bias. Example:

Truth: Joe went to the store to buy milk.
Bias #1: Joe, once again being the dutiful husband, went to the store to get some milk.
Bias #2: Joe, once again leaving his wife home alone with the child, went to the store to get some milk.

See the difference?

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[h4rm0ny]

Nice example. The obvious next questions are: who was he getting milk for and what did his wife feel about the matter? Of course, we find it difficult to ask follow up questions from the mass media. It's a broadcast, not a dialogue, and maybe it's that disenfranchisement that is at the root of the problem.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[drooling-dog]

Came here to say that, more or less.

The problem I have with the term "bias" is that it's going to apply to any source of news and information that attempts to present some context, background, and interpretation into its reportage. The stripped, "unbiased" news merely reports what this or that political figure says, without any clue about where they're really coming from. When the media tries to do this, they not only fail to paint an accurate picture of what's going on, they often outright mislead.

Motivations are important in politics. If the authors of the "Clean Air Act" are actually backed by polluter interests, or if the "Patriot Act" actually does nothing but strip us of rights and liberties that real patriots fought and gave their lives for, then that case needs to be made. I've had enough of news media that constantly give disingenuous and manipulative politicians the benefit of the doubt by merely transcribing what they say, or allowing them to put their labels on things unchallenged. They're little more than PR agencies then.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[sm62704]

Fullofshit.com taken over by cybersquatters in 3... 2... 1...

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[Lendrick]

Case in point:

skews.com has this article rated as "liberal" -- it looks to me like it's just the result of a (somewhat alarming) study on education. This article here appears to have been labeled "conservative" just because it came from Fox News.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[Moryath]

Why not just rate stories on their frequencies of lies, distortions, unsupported assertions, and factual inaccuracies?

Problems:

- Lies of comission = stuff they just plain get wrong
- Lies of omission = stuff they deliberately leave out to tilt the story
- Bias-words; portraying the "facts" with a strong tilt or weasel words designed to push a positive/negative impression of something, like describing terrorists as "freedom fighters" or "insurgents" or "militants" instead, or running a story that twists and tilts with giving as little description to one side, while trying to give unneeded detail to the other ("20 Israeli citizens were injured or killed, while a Palestinian child 8 months old clutching a blankie and his grandmother...").

- Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics - hunt down a "statistic" that you claim supports your position. Usually accompanied by ignoring any other information/statistics that point the other way.
- Cherry-picked quoting - taking something out of context, or deliberately leaving out half a sentence to completely twist the meaning of a statement around.

And then after you get that out, there's the simple editorializing they always slip into their stuff (really, they can't help themselves), and the outright propaganda nonsense (such as Arabic news reports that use the wording "occupied palestine" to describe the nation of Israel).

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[mcmonkey]

There's your interview. That's the one question I'd like answered.

Jon Stewart's rant on Crossfire has already been mentioned, but I'll add, there's no issue inherent in the Crossfire format. The issue is, just having both sides of an issue represented does not mean you are unbiased. If one side is lying, it's not ok just because you have someone from the other side to counter with their own lies.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[inviolet]

I agree with your overall point, but there is a difference between lies and bias. Example:

Truth: Joe went to the store to buy milk.
Bias #1: Joe, once again being the dutiful husband, went to the store to get some milk.
Bias #2: Joe, once again leaving his wife home alone with the child, went to the store to get some milk.

See the difference?

Good answer.

Continuing this example, here is a demonstration of an even nastier form of bias, first pointed out by Goldberg in _Bias_:

Commentator: "Now we'd like to hear both sides of the milk-buying debate. Should Joe have gone to the store for milk, leaving his wife and child alone? First, let's hear from Hillary Clinton."
Clinton: "There should be a milk delivery agency, so that Joe can remain at home where he is needed. It takes a village, you know."
Commentator: "Thanks for that insight, Mrs. Clinton. Now let's hear from Ron Paul, a conservative."
Paul: "The government's got no right to say anything about how Joe runs his household."
Commentator: "Thank you, Mr. Paul. Food for thought, all of it. That's our show for the night, thanks for watching."

Notice how the commentator described Ron Paul as "a conservative", but added no similar adjectives to his introduction of Hillary Clinton? It is as though Paul's words require a disclaimer because he is a conservative, rather than ordinary and normal (no disclaimer needed) like Clinton.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Truth: Joe went to the store. Joe bought milk.

We cannot make any assumption on WHY he went to the store. He may have had several reasons, including leaving his wife home alone with the child. Maybe Joe himself was not fully aware of his reasons. It is too easy to draw incorrect correlations or paint a specific picture. To reach facts and not present bias, we must make no assumptions of cause-and-effect.

I wonder if we should also add ratings for "too little information". After all, the important stuff is often what we are NOT fed.

Further, it is not always a matter of "two sides to the story" but "X number of sides to the story".

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[dkleinsc]

The real kicker is that the so-called "conservative" article is from the Associated Press, not Fox News. Fox simply passed it along.

My best guess on the "liberal" article is that concern about the state of urban school districts is a liberal issue, or something like that.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[SirGarlon]

Why not just rate stories on their frequencies of lies, distortions, unsupported assertions, and factual inaccuracies?

I, for one, can't count that high.

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[LunaticTippy]

Is that supposed to be an actual example? I have some problems with it. There is a disparity between Clinton's and Paul's name recognition. Nearly all US citizens know who HC is, and know that she is a Democrat. Nearly no US citizens know who Ron Paul is (I constantly have to explain to people) and few of them know he is a Libertarian. Again, few US citizens know what Libertarian means. Maybe the news outlets think the citizenry is too stupid to know who Ron Paul is, that he is a Libertarian, and what that means. So they dumb it down to "conservative"

Re:Why is everything about "bias"?

[DavidTC]

It's not okay if you have someone from the other side counter with the truth, either. Because there are still lies being aired.

To stop 'bias', the news media needs to stop airing 'political claims', period. Do not, even, under any circumstances, report 'political claims'. Report facts.

'Bias' is a non-issue. It's a bunch of crazy Republicans claiming that any story that involves civil rights or justice or education or people dying in war or anything is somehow a 'left' story.

The actual problem with the media is they say 'Person X claimed this, and Person Y claimed this, and we're too stupid to actually figure out what's going on.' instead of saying 'Person X said something today, and Person Y lied in response. We'll be covering these shocking lies all evening.'.

Fake "Balance"

[Doc Ruby]

What is the point of providing only two "balancing" stories with "liberal" vs "conservative" biases, when neither "liberal" nor "conservative" are labels with any real meaning except propaganda buzzwords, when the two illusory groups agree on so much but also mutually exclude so much not falling under their convenient labels, and when there are so many other viewpoints? A point other than validating the grossest oversimplification of the world since "right brain / left brain" dumbed down psychology to meaningless twaddle, that is.

And when one or the other is just wrong, why dignify them as "balance"? What's the point of balancing lies against truth?

Re:Fake "Balance"

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberal bias detected. Just kidding, don't hurt me Doc.

Re:Fake "Balance"

[Lendrick]

The truth is under no obligation to be "balanced". Rating media bias by tallying how many stories get linked from either side of the political spectrum pushes the media to aim for "balance" instead of the truth. If either side is more corrupt than the other, just report it truthfully. Don't tone the story down just because some jackbag declares that you're biased.

This quest for balance is the reason that news reporters interview people on both sides of the political spectrum, and when one side spouts things that are demonstrably false, the reporter doesn't call them on it. They don't want to look like they're tilted one way or the other. Tilt toward the goddamn truth.

</rant>

Re:Fake "Balance"

[sm62704]

And when one or the other is just wrong, why dignify them as "balance"?

Because as often as not both are wrong. Both parties parrot the "things that are bad about marijuana" when the things they say about it are either wrong ("causes cancer") or is a result of the laws themselves ("leads to harder drugs").

I wonder what the Green party's position on marijuana is? Too bad I can't find out what the Greens or Libertarians are for and against by reading a newspaper, or for that matter this new bugus piece of shit corporate propaganda site.

Re:Fake "Balance"

[Doc Ruby]

Real journalism is supposed to use sources and evidence to find the facts, then understand what's happened/ing, and finally tell the story of the truth.

Instead, contemporary fake journalism is just gossip, finding different people to contradict each other, and never comparing any statements to any facts, measures or truth whatsoever. The current journalistic "fact" as reported is merely "X said Y", often leaving X anonymous and Y some buzzword generalization. Those statements are worth including in a report only as confirmation of some actual fact, not as the end fact in themselves.

But it's so cheap, easy and liability-free to produce and publish mere gossip, to never establish any conclusion but rather to perpetuate conflicts, that it's the vast bulk of reporting today. The corporate bottom line no longer has any use for real journalism, its costs and risks, or even its benefit of an informed populace.

All of which is why the Internet is much more important as a reporting medium. Because it's much more open, diverse, interactive, and available in archives. Because it's nearly trivial for any person to both link together existing content (including archived and new media) and to distribute it, whether large-scale on the Web or virally by direct messaging. That means the corporate bias against costs, risks, liabilities and just skepticism of corporatism is minimized. So the truth has a chance. So we have a chance to get it.

Which is why perpetuating the corporate mass media paradigm of "either liberal or conservative only" should find no takers on the Internet. We need analysis tools that are an accurate model of our multilateral, complex world. Not yet another oversimplified razor to cut it in half.

Re:Fake "Balance"

[Stradivarius]

Demonstrable falsehoods are one thing. But more often it's not that simple. For example, there was a fascinating study about coverage of a massacre in Beirut, where the same news articles were viewed by both sides as biased towards the opposing point of view. Clearly the exact same article can't be biased in both one direction and its opposite, but yet both groups felt their point of view was being treated unfairly.

In other words, the two sides had completely different ideas of what constituted "the truth". That is a problem not with the news coverage, but with the audience.

Not only do people perceive things differently, but there it is well-known that people tend to discount information that disagrees with their previously formed opinions, especially when it comes to emotional subjects like politics (confirmation bias).

Re:Fake "Balance"

[DrJimbo]

This phenomenon is explained in E. T. Jaynes' book Probability Theory: the Logic of Science. In it he develops the concept of an ideal plausible reasoner who can use inference. He shows that given a small set of desired traits all such reasoner with those traits conform to the same mathematical model which turns to be pretty much the same thing as Baysian probability theory.

Jaynes goes on to show that when two such ideal reasoners have differing views (due to their different past experiences) and are confronted with the same piece of new evidence, each one can believe the new evidence further reinforces their own view, thus polarizing the two ideal reasoners even further. This is a fundamental yet little known problem facing all human societies.

I think this is exactly what is going on in the fascinating study you brought up. It is nothing new. Even if humans were ideal reasoners (in the sense defined by Jaynes) we would still encounter these problems. Instead of blaming the audience for what is essentially a mathematical reality, it would be much more useful if we educated people about the underlying mathematics that causes this behavior.

So what in general is the media.

[jellomizer]

The Left say the media is to Right.
The Right say the media is to Left.

How do you prevent your own views from skewing the results. Because someone who is Left or Right of Moderate would consider themselfs a moderate, while they are not truely moderate. So they would True Moderate coverage as Slightly to the Left or Right.

Re:So what in general is the media.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of real studies out there that show numerically a clear media bias for the Democrats all you have to do is google for them. I saw another article about that on FoxNews.com (though not by fox news) recently (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343671,00.html). It mostly discusses economic news under Republican vs Democratic presidencies. If you look at our economy now most of the big numbers are approximately the same as when Clinton was in office, but if you look at the news there are a lot more articles about the US recession under the Bush presidency. From the article:

A Nexis search on news stories during the three-month period from July 2000 through September 2000 using the keywords "economy recession US" produces 1,388. By contrast, the same search over just the last month finds 3,166. Or, even more telling, take the three months from July through September last year, when the GDP was growing at a phenomenal 4.9 percent. The same type of Google search shows 2,475 news stories.

About the author of the fox news story(because it's always good to look at the source):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott

Re:So what in general is the media.

[DavidTC]

The reason that there are more Democrats in the media than Republicans is that the more informed someone is, the more likely they are to be Democrat.

If you look at our economy now most of the big numbers are approximately the same as when Clinton was in office, but if you look at the news there are a lot more articles about the US recession under the Bush presidency.

For example, statistically, you appear likely to be a Republican, as you are apparently unware we are, in fact, in a recession now, and people were predicting that last year as the housing prices crises started to make itself aware.

Whereas we were not in one in mid-2000. You have confused the tech bubble busting and subsequent stock market weirdness with the recession. No. The stock market behaved wildly from mid-2000 to 2003, but the recession didn't start until the end of 2000 at the earliest, and more people agree it didn't start until March 2001. A few people losing their shirt in tech stocks is not a recession.

Accounting for Regional Disparity

[eldavojohn]

I listen to a lot of NPR news stories and the majority of my fellow Americans find these stories to be tilting to the left. I see them as unbiased an, as a result, am often labeled a liberal. How do you plan on dealing with different countries that have populaces with different mindsets? For example you cover stories on abortion and in some countries this is legal at any stage and others it is not. I would expect the citizens of a country where it is illegal to view any story allowing it in only the first trimester to be very liberal while in the USA that may be viewed as a more balanced middle ground. Do you cater (inadvertently or on purpose) to one single population/area/demographic?

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[jellomizer]

I listen to NPR myself and I find it the best place to get news. But it does have a Left Slant to it. Often when something goes right it the credit is given to a Democratic Senitor, when something goes wrong it is label Enacted by the Bush Administration (Even though that bill may have been passed by a democratic majority congress). When interviewing the Democrats they are less confrontational about the issues. It is no where as bad as Fox news but if you listen carefully to NPR and the wording and inflections in the voice they use to describe things The Democrats are more favorable then the republicans. As well their choice of stories to cover... The plight of Unions, Solders with PTSD and the problems getting funding, When the War was going bad there was a lot of coverage, when it goes good there is nothing but a whisper. There is daily going ons what happens with Clinton and Obama but perhaps a story a week about McCain. NPR is fairly Moderate so moderate that the Station who Hosts it thinks it is being controled by the republicans (granted the owner the public radio station is extreamly Left wing, even though it doesn't realize it) But if it will slant to the left.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Lemmy Caution]

NPR only has a left slant to it if you have an American notion of the left/right spectrum, and if you ignore the show "Marketplace", which often displays a market-fundamentalism that would make Ludwing von Mises blush.

Also, most public radio stations buy shows from a variety of sources, not all of which are NPR. American Public Media is another producer of public radio content, and is often chosen by public stations with more conservative demographics.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Nimey]

I'd take you more seriously if you didn't write like you were semi-literate, what with the perception of conservatives being less educated and all.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Lemmy Caution]

Oh, tying together my two observations: Marketplace is actually an APM product.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Anonymous Coward]

I listen to a lot of NPR news stories and the majority of my fellow Americans find these stories to be tilting to the left. I see them as unbiased an, as a result, am often labeled a liberal.

I listen to NPR too. I'm libertarian-minded, so I consider myself fairly well able to discern liberal/conservative bias without my own biases getting in the way. NPR does a great job of covering stories reasonably and calmly. NPR doesn't sensationalize. This puts NPR a cut above most media outlets.

But just because NPR doesn't sensationalize stories doesn't mean NPR is unbiased. There is a slight liberal bias. It's not a Democratic bias, but it is a bias toward liberal ideas. That's OK though. It's not possible to have a completely neutral worldview. Every person and organization has a worldview.

On the balance, though, I'd say NPR is one of the best news sources available.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Gat0r30y]

what with the perception of conservatives being less educated and all. Well, unfortunately its a fact that the more education you have received, the more likely you are to be "Liberal" or register as a democrat. The statistical correlation is undeniable. I will leave the causation for speculation, since I'm not entirely certain there is any specific cause out there we could attribute this to.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[DreadPiratePizz]

I too listen to NPR often, and while their choice of stories may be somewhat biased liberally, the coverage of each story is fairly balanced. This of course raises the question as to what is meant when people say the media has a bias: Is it the choice of stories, or the coverage of the stories?

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Anonymous Coward]

NPR *talk* is decidedly left-wing (e.g.: talk show post-Katrina where people were calling up claiming the #1 priority post-Katrina was the environmental damage instead of the human toll). If you listen to your favorite NPR *classical* station, where they play classical music 24/7 outside of 5 minute news breaks every three hours, you'll hear what unbiased really is.

Quite frankly the idea that news is worthy of 24/7 is a load of crap. That 5-minute news break on NPR *classical* is just about the right amount of news that needs to be heard every day. "In-depth analysis" of a news story in the US is simply a euphemism reporters use to cover the fact they are editorializing and biasing the article one direction or the other.

The situation won't change anytime soon, either. The University of Minnesota campus paper, the Minnesota Daily, has student reporters and editors that clearly bias all content in the paper; stories limited to factual reporting are few and far between. Yet this paper wins award after award after award year after year for being the best college newspaper in the country.

For myself, I don't read much or listen to much of what passes for "news" anymore since most of it is so poorly written with no effort to remove bias from the story.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Anonymous Coward]

NPR is horribly biased. They have to be. They have no insulation between themselves and their listeners.

Most mainstream media is advertiser supported. This means that as long as people are, uh, listening/watching/reading, they're getting paid. Even if the people disagree with what's presented, they're still paying. So such media can be unbiased.

NPR steals something like 10% of its budget from tax dollars (which is 10% too much, but that's a different issue) but you've still got the remaining 90% that comes from its listeners. Its listeners must be convinced to donate money.

Unlike private media where there is some insulation via advertisers, NPR has none. If it doesn't present things that its listeners WANT to hear, even if they keep listening, they won't DONATE. It has to provide stories that make the people listening think "I want to donate!" and therefore has to play to its listeners biases in a way that mainstream media simply does not have to.

NPR's current marketing strategy is to play to its listeners bias that NPR is somehow not biased. So it tries to convince its listeners that it makes them smarter.

Don't be fooled. It's biased. It needs to convince listeners to donate, and the easiest way is to convince them that NPR is an important unbiased news source, while remaining as biased as possible to convince its listeners that they're simply smarter than everyone else.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[jellomizer]

I would say that correlation is due to a couple of factors and not that Democrats are Smarter Then Republicans.

Issue One: Republicans are more business friendly. So if you are a republican you are more likely to skip higher education or not go for advanced degrees and go straight to the work force.

Issue Two: University Professors Unions. Being that most professors belong to a Union (which are rather tighly linked to the democratic party) they will not try to speak out against the Unions or their problems. I have one Professor who whispers to the class and tells them not to let it out that she feels there should be factors in place to judge the professors performance. She is afraid to be vocal about it because of the political problems it causes.

Issue Three: Durring the Vietanam War a lot of people who wanted to avoid going to war (who had predominanatly left personalities) went to colleges as a sanctuary from getting drafted. Now many of them are professors.

Issue Four: Because of 1,2 and 3 when teaching students the professor ingrain the students minds the democrat ideals (even if it is uninentional) So the students learn to like the Democrat Phelosophy and Distrust the republican phelosopy. And Imbreed a new generation of Democrat Professors.

Issue Five: If you are a Republican/Consiritive you feel out of place in a liberal insitution so you are not as willing to stay there for longer then you have to.

Issue Six: The Liberal Phelosophy of Comunity vs. the Consertive Phelosophy of self reliance. So Liberals want to work for the greater good, while Consertives work to improve themselfs.

There are a bunch of issues and they are not due to because Person A is smart they will oviously realize that Democrats are better. It is more of Democrats will thrive in our education system.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[seriesrover]

I see them [NPR] as unbiased and, as a result, am often labeled a liberal.

But thats precisely the point - most people don't think that they themselves are biased. As a result you don't see the information you agree with as biased and thus consider yourself "center"...but all [news] information is biased in one form or another, even if its factual based. I would be considered right-wing, with a hint of moderatcy thrown in for good measure. But being liberal or conservative isn't how you see yourself but how you faire within society.

I enjoy NPR\PBS from time to time and would say both are pretty liberally biased. But I don't have blinkers on and realize that Fox equally leans the other way. And it can be subtle, do you refer people as Bush or President Bush, Clinton or Senator Clinton. I saw an article on PBS (I think) where a journalist in Iraq said its his job to report any news, mainly car bombings and the like, but not to report "nothing" because thats not news. So yes, he wasn't factually incorrect, and perhaps not even biased, but it does skew peoples perceptions.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Gat0r30y]

I think you missed what is most certainly the most influential - Parents. Democrat parents raise democrat kids, republican parents raise republican kids. Just like with religious beliefs , you gotta get em early. Liberals generally place a higher value on going to a liberal arts college and the whole higher-ed process, so their kids will want to please their parents by going to said liberal arts college.
On another note completely - about professors, there are generally two refuges for conservatives in higher education, Engineering and Business. As an engineering student I only experienced 1 prof with a liberal bias (this was primarily because he got his paycheck from NREL the national renewable energy lab) which gets cut by every republican president, and hasn't hardly gotten a budget increase since its inception under Carter. As for my business school classes. they would have made Ayn Rand blush for the most part.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[jellomizer]

While Parents are a influeance I don't seem them as a factor on why more people whith higher education are democrate vs republican. There may be a small coralation between the two but the fact that most Republicans (by reputation) do have an Undergrad Degree, in an accretited college or university. I wouldn't say that is a big issue.

But your point of being a Democrat vs. Republican compared to who is willing to pay your salary is an other reason. I tend to be consertive because I am a consultant and Democrats hate consultants.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[RabidOverYou]

> Well, unfortunately its a fact that the more education you have received

How much education does it take to teach you how to spell it's?

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[Straif]

You left out the part that studies also show the less education you receive the more like a person is to be "Liberal".

In general "Conservatives" are more likely to have graduated high school and/or have a bachelor degrees while "liberals" are higher represented in the high school drop out and Masters/PhD's categories. Although in almost all categories (except the drop out rate which tends to lean Liberal by up to 20% more than Conservative)) the variance is usually less than 10%.

PEW has some good studies that compare political leanings to happiness, education and almost anything else you can think of.

Re:Accounting for Regional Disparity

[psiphiorg]

Parents have some influence, but it's by no means absolute. Keep in mind that teenagers often rebel against their parents, and that may lead to a child with Democratic parents developing Republican beliefs, or vice versa.

And in families that don't tend to talk politics a lot, children develop their own beliefs based on other factors (such as what their friends think, what they see on the news or read in the paper, etc.). My parents are both Democrats, but I didn't realize that until I was an adult, by which point I had already decided that the Republican party's platform was closer to my own political beliefs than the Democratic party's.

davidh

Let your readers submit and rate stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. No bias there.

How will you account for response bias?

[moderatorrater]

How will you keep the results from being biased by the responders? For instance, if you were to have more links to this from fox news than from other news outlets, you would get a large number of conservatives rating stories. In that instance, you would get a lot of people saying that right-leaning stories are more unbiased and more unbiased stories would be rated liberal. The opposite would be true too; if you get a lot of traffic from moveon.org, there's going to be a large number of people rating things as conservatively biased.

This effect could even arise from random fluctuations with a small enough response group, and unless this is controlled, your site could eventually be labelled as "conservative" or "liberal" which would discourage the opposite group from voting, possibly providing a feedback mechanism for bias.

How would you prevent this from happening while still allowing users to generate the results?

Re:How will you account for response bias?

[Kelz]

If both moveon and fox news people join and start rating, it would even out I'd imagine. Oh and hey, perhaps there should be a slider at the very top of the site to determine the site's bias!

Self Selection = Inaccurate Data

[plasmacutter]

This will merely attract the obsessive ultra-right crusaders to dump "left wing bias" en masse on everything.

You want to test for political bias?

Examine the feeds themselves.
A - How often are left/right political figures treated negatively/positively, if so how harsh on a scale of 1 to 5, with 3 being neutral.
B - Whenever government programs/economic issues are covered, does the presentation favor talking points used more by right-wing or left-wing groups (supply side and dereg vs regulation, heavy corporate scrutiny/investigation,and pro labor)
C - Whenever news involves corporations, is the presentation more pro or anti corporate. Are corporate releases repeated verbatim without qualifiers or criticism. How soft or harsh are they on a scale of 1 to 5

now plot the individual data in bar graphs. A1-A5, B, etc.

There will be a real bias meter.

Re:Self Selection = Inaccurate Data

[faloi]

This will merely attract the obsessive ultra-right crusaders to dump "left wing bias" en masse on everything.

Actually, a quick look at the site makes it look like the "far left kool-aid drinkers" (I think that's the right way to put it) are dumping "right wing bias" en masse on everything.

You are right, though. It's still not an accurate measure of bias. Some of the new stories appear to be filtered primarily by source rather than any particular bias. And some of the stories exist in the gray area, and don't have a really discernible bias.

Re:Self Selection = Inaccurate Data

[plasmacutter]

Actually, a quick look at the site makes it look like the "far left kool-aid drinkers" (I think that's the right way to put it) are dumping "right wing bias" en masse on everything.

that's because there is clear right wing bias on pretty much everything.

Fox news, along with many other well funded members of the ultra-conservative propaganda machine which has arisen since media deregulation allowed massive consolidation, foists biased reporting on real news--and often fraudulent or intellectually dishonest slander--into the mainstream media, pulling it to the right.

I won't even bother going into talk radio.

Re:Self Selection = Inaccurate Data

[squiggleslash]

Metric A is fairly misleading. It's quite possible for one side to be more frequently on the wrong side of issues than the other if it is presently controlled by interests more ideological than practical.

Re:Self Selection = Inaccurate Data

[smitth1276]

This will merely attract the obsessive ultra-right crusaders to dump "left wing bias" en masse on everything.
 
Yes, conservatives will certainly take over this site, just like they did Digg. LOL.

Singin' the Blews

[pbrooks100]

"The Newz is all bad, and I'm feelin' so sad, ain't got no x-Skewz, I got da biased blog Blews." Really. Whats up with these Web 2.0 type names? Ugh.

Re:Singin' the Blews

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Newz is all bad, and I'm feelin' so sad, ain't got no x-Skewz, I got da biased blog Blews." Really. Whats up with these Web 2.0 type names? Ugh.

From your posting one could assume they are singing the "Blews".

Re:Singin' the Blews

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll? Some moderator obviously suffering from ignorance of the Blues. The parent is obviously not ignorant in that regard. Even the out of quotes line might be expected at a jam session where the parties were familiar with both subjects.

Re: Right vs Left and what they use to support it

[revco_38]

Choose any of your topics above then find what people use to support their opinions or facts and denounce others. Based on what is used you are able to say "left" people say x=y because of 1,2,3 and "right" people say x=z because of 4,5,6. When you combine the two, in theory, you get a balanced picture including coverage for both (but not ALL) sides.

Misleading

[mapkinase]

The whole idea of having conservative vs liberal division is very misleading.

In reality there are at least two divisions - along economical and political lines.

For examples, majority of blacks are socially conservative and economically "liberal" (democratic).

Muslims (I am being one of them) are socially conservative and economically they I believe fill quite wide spectrum: from libertarians to socialists.

Re:Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

"For examples, majority of blacks are socially conservative and economically "liberal" (democratic)."

You mean all those "baby mommas" and dads with 7 kids by 11 different mothers are socially conservative?

Or am I racist for bringing up a problem in the so-called "socially conservative" black community? And does that make Bill Cosby racist for bringing it up too?

Re:Misleading

[mapkinase]

I was thinking more about an attitude towards homosexuals. Also, when black families stay intact I have noticed more traditional relations between husband and wife.

Cultural polarization as a web service

[Tsar]

What filters will be available in the future? Will users be able to limit the stories they see to those rated, say, (+4,Reactionary) or above? That would allow your portal to emulate the Drudge Report, the Daily Kos or the John Birch Society homepage at the user's whim, removing the risk of accidental exposure to differing viewpoints.

Missing sliders

[Tsar]

From your site's What is Skewz? section:

Skewz was started by a group of 4 guys with diverse political views who engaged in frequent political sparring. We tired of the coarseness of the public political dialog and the tendency for both sides to talk past each other. The goal was not to make peace between liberals and conservatives. Instead, we wanted to encourage liberal-conservative dialogue by improving on the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the discussions. We hoped that doing so would take focus from the cosmetic appeal of parties and personalities that generate allegiances and place it instead on wit and wisdom of intelligent debate. It seems that your site's focus is currently on cultural/political bias rather than the "wit and wisdom of intelligent debate." If your project is to be true to its goals, shouldn't there be evaluation sliders for an article's wit, insight, wisdom and informativeness? We use a simplified system for that on Slashdot and it works surprisingly well most of the time.

Re:Missing sliders

[sm62704]

Skewz was started by a group of 4 guys with diverse political views who engaged in frequent political sparring

I think that was a typo, shouldn't it read "frequent political spamming"?

Skewz me?

[Jeffrey Baker]

Skews makes no sense. Take this article as an example:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080401184532.kxjxy7xo&show_article=1

It's an AFP wire story with completely straight, factual reporting about high school graduation rates in the USA. There is no commentary from the author whatsoever. However Skewz users rate the story as "Liberal", giving it 2.5 out of 5 points on the Liberal scale. I'm having a hard time seeing the logic there. How can a purely factual report on this topic possibly be considered leftist?

Re:Skewz me?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

How can a purely factual report on this topic possibly be considered leftist?

The facts have a well known liberal bias.

Re:Skewz me?

[DigiShaman]

Because it has a "victimization" slant to it. Technically, I would give it a neutral rating. But, if it had something to do with blacks or hispanics not getting enough attention in school, it would be liberal without question.

Re:Skewz me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its because of the picture...
non-whites, *graduating* ?
obviously liberal.

Whats the point of this? There are no unbiased observers, you need a good understanding of both sides of an issue before you can honestly rate a piece of information as skewed to one side or the other. People who agree with a viewpoint will rate it as unbiased and people who don't will rate it skewed to the other side. If you made it a blind test by removing the names of the news sources and forcing users to actually read the piece you might get better data, but for the most part people are just going to come and rate everything Huffpost and Dkos says liberal and Fox News and LGF conservative, its a popularity contest. Congrats, you've created Hot or Not for politics... now we just need to see which side can send more minions to you site and we will then have solved the problem of bias in the media.

Re:Skewz me?

[EMB Numbers]

I agree that the article doesn't express any bias in it's tone by just reporting the "facts". The bias comes from the choice of what "facts" to state. The statistics in the article are for graduation within only 12 years. The statistics would claim that a child who repeated kindergarten doesn't count when he graduates after 13 years of public school. And the stats are still rather obviously difficult to believe Come on, Detroit only graduates 24% of students. You believe that ? Only 70% of students graduate nation wide ? You believe that ?

How about the US Census Bureau statistics: "85 percent of adults age 25 and over had completed at least high school, an all-time high" http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/001863.html

How about Child Trends: "Dropout rates of young people ages 16 to 24 in the civilian, non-institutionalized population gradually declined between 1972 and 2005, from 15 percent to a low of 9 in 2005."

Choosing what nonsense to report also exposes a bias.

Re:Skewz me?

[uncadonna]

Reality has a liberal bias, that's all.

Re:Skewz me?

[Jeffrey Baker]

AFP publishes a flood of articles every day. How do you intend to evaluate their editorial selection bias?

Re:Skewz me?

[EMB Numbers]

I don't. Skews apparently does.

Easier Way

[AioKits]

Just look at the color of the theme! Republican Red, Democrat Blue! Now, since Slashdot's 'main' theme is green, they're Green Party! Man this is easy.

Complaints?

[Notquitecajun]

Have you ever gotten complaints from actual journalists about how their stories are rated? I think one thing that we rarely - if ever - hear is how actual journalists rate the news. I'm not talking pundits, either, I'm talking about those who are supposed to report on the who-what-when-where-how of the news.

Jon Stewart's point.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's was precisely Jon Stewart's point when he skewered the "Cross Fire" guys and called Carlson a "dick".

Here's mine: turn off all electronic media. All of it is distorting. It distorts the problems in the World by distilling the entire World's problems into your living room or computer and it all with little substance. Yes, I'm including most of the internet. No wonder folks are scared off their ass and handing over their Civil Liberties to be "safe". The World is a big bad ugly place - in the media's eyes.

Just look around your immediate state. Are things really that dangerous? Even you folks in New York. It's been only seven years since an attack. Do we really need a surveillance society.

Re:Jon Stewart's point.

[Doc Ruby]

Stewart was right about fake duality being merely fake duopoly.

But "tuning out" is just a way to stay apathetic and uninformed, and therefore powerless. Stay tuned, but stay skeptical and independent. The world is indeed a big bad ugly place - and a big bad beautiful place, and a big nice ugly place, and a big nice beautiful place, and points between. We need everyone we can to stay connected. To each other, not just to a fake duopoly that really just divides us in two.

Why not many ratings?

[MickLinux]

Right now, I think the consensus on slashdot is that this website as described would not be worth a first visit. But maybe it could be made worthwhile.

Let me put forward my brother's idea, in conjunction to a reply to this post. First, the reply:

If liberal/conservative means bunk to you -- as it will to most slashdotters -- surely the same process could be applied to a different division that is important to you "high tech/low tech" "wicked/humble" or whatever you want.

You might not care about labeling something "left/right", but you might care about "true/false".

Surely the software that can handle lib/cons could handle other pairs as easily.

So you pick from a whole list of pairs, and if you don't see a pair you like, you create one. The rating from the pair then will also generate a definition straight from dictionary.com, so that anyone who rates based on that pair, will see what the definition is as they rate it.

Now, let me combine it with my brother's idea. You create your own ratings profile, rating articles as you see fit, and the site does its best to give you articles that you would like.

But you also tie into that ratings from friends of yours that you respect. So you can say "make my true/false rating reflect 40% from band_shark, 20% from the general pool, and 40% from slashdotters."

Re:Why not many ratings?

[lbgator]

Your idea sounds a lot like the Netflix challenge.

Ironic? Dontcha think?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Given that you aren't American, why should I listen to you or your site's take on American news and politics? Would someone in Mumbai honestly care about how Americans view their politics and news media?

Re:Ironic? Dontcha think?

[D Ninja]

A couple reasons...

1. American's news and, especially it's politics, affect many more people than just Americans. We're not in a bubble.
2. While the world still has physical countries, that distinction is not so cut and dry anymore - especially where the internet is concerned. Right now you're talking with people from countries all over the world. That does not make their opinion any more or less valuable.

And, of course...what's wrong with someone in another country being interested in our country? I don't get that mindset at all. Is it wrong for an American to be interested a foreign country?

Re:Ironic? Dontcha think?

[Tempest451]

Well seeing as how media in Mumbai is govenment-controlled, they probably wouldn't care. That is until those political views lead to the US invading their country.

Re:Ironic? Dontcha think?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to listen and nobody gives a rat's arse whether you do or not.

Re:Ironic? Dontcha think?

[Scudsucker]

Because the American media sucks balls, that's why. Reporters have been replaced with "annalists". Rampant consolidation has reduced the number of viewpoints, and given the media an incredible pro-corporate bias; business interests outnumber labor or consumer representatives by something like 20 to 1.

After decades of conservatives complaining about a non-existent "liberal bias" in the media, the press goes incredibly easy on Republicans (like CNN splicing video to make McCain look better on his false claims linking Iran to Al Queda) while playing hardball with Democrats (like when Tim Russert lambasted Howard Dean for not knowing the exact number of Americans in the armed forces, when he gave Bush a complete pass on a similar question about nuclear missiles in 1999).

Or how uniformly pro-war the media has been since Bush took office: now as in 2002, the "serious foreign policy analysts" invited to discuss the Iraq mess are pro-war hawks who have been wrong on Iraq every step of the way. Those who opposed the invasion on strategic grounds are as excluded from the debate now as they were 6 years ago.

So in many cases, yes, you'll find that the foreign presses coverage of American events is far superior to that of the American media.

Liberal vs Conservative != Democrat vs Republican

[sperxios10]

You obviously confuse Liberals with Democrats and Conservatives with Republicans.

If you think of liberalism as freedom-in-general, not only as an ecocomic-theory,
and if you consider as a helping aid the anti-vietnam movement and what they demanded for,
then you can find certain answers to almost all the questions you 've asked.

Media Bias

[darkshadow]

Bias is also shown in what gets chosen as newsworthy and what is not reported.

What about consensus?

[prxp]

What about when both parties reach a consensus and the story ranks 100% liberal and 100% conservative? Does the system explode? Is this a new sort of Quantum Computer? Enlighten me, please! (but hey, be fair and balanced, will you?)

Re:Liberal vs Conservative != Democrat vs Republic

[jellomizer]

Liberals are less about freedom and more about inacting change.
Conservatives are about keeping the status Quo.

The truth is we really need both sides. We do need change and we need a group to insure that we don't fix what isn't broken or the fix is worse then the problem.

A world of Conservatives would lead to a stagnet society where nothing will change.
A Liberal world New things will be tried all the time trying to fix any problem that comes up, even if it makes it worse.

Unfortnatly many old "liberals" have became consertive. So they are pushing the old Liberal Solution to new problems. And many of new "Consertives" have became liberal and trying to change everything for the better, following the Democrats/Republicans party lines for the solution to the problems.

Questions for the bias-detection-opposed

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Let's postulate that the work that is expected of a journalist is to present situations with evenhandedness (especially when it comes to forward-looking and current events with fuzzy delineations). You may wish to challenge that assumption, but I would believe the majority of the population would feel and expect it should be so and be surprised and interested to hear when it is shown not to.

If you say that it's okay for a journalist to "fight his or her case" with language bias etc - why does this not apply to any other employee group in society? Why cannot, say, a bank employee, promote their political sense of right and wrong by denying someone a loan because they feel his politics are bad? Why can't a plumber charge someone extra if they know they are a member of party X?

Effectively, if a journalistic right to bias is simply the right to express your preferences, and this includes giving a tougher deal for certain people, why isn't that right shared with any other job group?

2. Let's consider minority group X and how it is portrayed in any given communication. It is my impression that there is a strong overlap between those who speak the loudest and most often about protecting minorities, and those who speak the loudest and most often in disfavor of action being taken about press bias if it does exist, hence I feel the question may be appropriately targeted.

You may well agree that discrimination and disenfranchisement for group X may come through in communications in very subtle ways. In other words you would likely reject that discrimination is only discrimination if it comes through in explicit and strong wording, and rather say that people can use discriminating wording through very subtle methods, just by the words chosen, sentence structure, tone of voice, etc. In this case you will likely also say that a detection method for discrimination cannot rely just on detecting blatant examples of discriminatory wording, but must also detect and assign equal weights to these subtle forms.

In this case however, why would you be opposed to similar analysis of subtle clues and sentence structures in journalistic productions? For example, if the body language of a night club bouncer may be detected to be discriminatory, why cannot the body language of a journalist be examined for bias?

Relativist Warning Signs

[Anonymous Coward]

Skewz relies on readers to submit and rate stories, and even tries to pair stories that have "liberal" and "conservative" biases so that you can get multiple takes on the same event or pronouncement.

It sounds like you think that getting multiple views on an event is a good thing. There is one reality. I think it funny that we accept bias as par for the course, don't you?

Singin' the Blews

[sm62704]

I'm sorry, it's all my fault. I started it in 1998 when my Quake site (the Springfield Frag Fest) reported "nooze" which was news obtained from other channels (no real reporting) and often was inaccurate, biased, or just plain made up out of whole cloth bullshit (like Nacho's shambler pissing on the couch).

I apologize. Really. I was just trying to be different and everybody seems to have followed. For penance I now spell "blog" as "blagh".

-mcgrew

PS- the round corners are NOT my fault! That was a different asshat.

Sorta...

[thule]

Left: Looking after society from the bottom up. but change comes from the top down via strong government.

Right: Looking after society from the top down. A true conservative (not Republican) tries to minimize government as much as possible (though not as much as a libertarian) and believes that the market will work problems out for itself. So the right doesn't look at top down, it looks at the marketplace as a complex whole that cannot be controlled at any point without causing unintended outcomes. I would say that the left is much more top down than the right, but justifies it's top down approach because the bottom isn't behaving they way they want.

Re:Sorta...

[gambolt]

all you anarchists who think you're conservative crack me up.

Read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. For at least the last half of the 20th century conservatives have pursued an Authoritarian state which hires out as much of the labor as it can. The state and industry become merged in their opression of the common folk. It has nothing to do with individual liberties.

The democrats are now definitely more libertarian than any Republicans other than Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan. You'll note that it's been a long time since Democrats made gun control a major platform plank, for example.

Re:Sorta...

[sesshomaru]

Look, whenever a conservative says he wants to minimize government, but not as much as a libertarian, what he means is that he only wants to minimize the good stuff that government does and maximize the bad stuff.

Police tasing you for not wearing your seatbelt? Conservative says, "Aok! I'm for that. In fact, I'm in favor of police tazing anyone, at any time, for any reason!"

Government demolishing your business to make way for a Walmart using eminent domain? "That's the free market at work!"

Government mandating that if there's a merger, the company must give people 30 days notice of layoffs so they can find employment elsewhere? "Pure socialism."

Government eliminating subsidies to companies that outsource to the third world? "What, are we living in Soviet Russia?"

Because the facts have a well known liberal bias

[Anonymous Coward]

as we all know

You've just re-invented tags

[Anonymous Coward]

So you pick from a whole list of pairs, and if you don't see a pair you like, you create one.

So you have binary conditions, e.g. liberal/conservative, true/false, etc. But this is already what we have with tags, isn't it? For example, if the story is tagged "liberal", we know it is "not conservative." Or if it is tagged "Xbox", we know it is not "not Xbox". So what you've "invented" is tags, only in a centralized location. Which, really, we had when companies like Yahoo were trying to make "website directories" way back when.

Truth, and the real bias we need to worry about

[Gat0r30y]

It seems that the news media has become increasingly segmented, and indeed this provides a way for people to get only the news they want to see. But my issue stems not from Left or Right, but from a more general perspective. An increasing bulk of the news out there is increasingly aimed at the Lowest Common Denominator. I can see that there is a place for tabloids, and their stories, just like there is a place for soap operas. However, it seems that the tabloid mentality has infiltrated all facets of corporate news media. Instead of raising debate about policy, the dialog in most mainstream news outlets has become more along the lines of "OMG, Hillary is 2 points down! And she doesn't have as many myspace friends as Obama! And McCain is super hot!". I propose that what we need is not a "Left vs. Right" filter, but a "Pointless drivel I wouldn't read if it was printed on Lindsay Lohan's ass and I was doin her from behind vs. Actual News Content which I might find of Value".
I gave your site a quick look, there were 3 stories on the front page which might have entailed some sort of policy issue, or problem facing the electorate.
A) UK considering "Health Vouchers" for NHS patients.(marked conservative)
B)Study: only 1/2 of students graduate high school in US Cities (marked liberal)
C)'Silent' Famine sweeps globe (marked liberal)
Everything else was the "high school lunchroom" type of discussion, who's up, who's down, why they might be up if they are up, why they shouldn't give up and "rah rah sis boom bah for My Favorite Candidate". My question is this, how can we elevate actual issues to the discussion? How can we start a dialog based on the problems we face, and the policy which the candidates propose to fix these problems? Food shortages, Education, and Health care are real issues. The day to day of campaigning is interesting for sure, but how can we keep it from dominating the news landscape as it does now?

Re:Truth, and the real bias we need to worry about

[The Queen]

This is exactly the comment I was going to make (minus the Lindsay Lohan reference *shudder*) - MOD UP!

I am sick to death of the stories that pass for 'news' on television, radio and internet outlets (yes, /., that includes you). If you make the effort to dig past the empty calorie headlines, you can sometimes find 'stuff that matters' but honestly how much of the general populace is willing to dig?

Hmm, maybe that's the problem...

Thank you!

[mcmonkey]

In the words of the immortal Bill Hicks (well, except that he's dead): "Hey, waitaminute! It's one guy holding up both puppets!"

Oh my lack of god yes! Funny thing is, I just finished replying to a post accusing me of being a "rabid ultra-left Democrat" with:

You've been had. Just like racism is a way to get poor white folks fighting poor brown folk so they don't realize most of their problems have nothing to do with color. The policies that lead to the rich getting richer and the poor paying the bill transcend the Democratic/Republican divide.

Re:Thank you!

[Random BedHead Ed]

Oh my lack of god yes!

Please tell me this is a reference to my favorite Monty Python episode, the Cycling Tour. Please. I want to know I'm not the only one who has that episode permanently stuck in my brain.

News Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

A bias in news stories and outlets are not what the real issue with media is these days. Its whether or not the stories and evidence they produce are factual is the real issue at hand. I have no problem with Fox News being focused on neo-conservative issues but what I have problems with is their outright lies they claim are true.

Re:Liberal vs Conservative != Democrat vs Republic

[sperxios10]

* Some try to define the liberals vs conservatives bipole along the lines of *statism*.
* Some (including the parent post) assume it as the ammount of *conservatism*.
* Others consider it just for the *authority* included.

In order to define the bipole i prefer Castoriadis's definition of Autonomy.
(a notion that assumes more than its name suggests)

* Liberals are those that believe the members of a society should actively and *consciously* institute it [the society].
* Conservatives are those that have little faith in self-institution (those that prefer aristocracy).

Therefore, for me it is much more obvious why many people confuse "conservatism" with private incentive.
That's because in US traditionally the Republicans (assumed to be conservatives) support the private sector (the statism bipole).

I consider all three assumptions wrong!

Multiple takes?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

If by "multiple takes" you mean the two sides shouting, "Let's violate our citizens' rights through tax breaks funded by deficit spending!", and "Let's violate our citizens' rights through increased taxation!"... then sign me up!

The One Party State

[copponex]

The last administrations have done nothing to return states rights, and in fact have moved the Executive Branch further outside the bounds of congressional and even judicial oversight. There's no such thing as left and right in American Government. They pander to the left or the right, but their focus is on more government control. They both start the same wars, participate in the same corruption.

The two wedge issues are gay marriage and abortion for the right, which would never survive the "clear and secular purpose" litmus test, and the wedge issues for the left are "Bush is dumb" and "we want change," despite the fact there are no real policy differences. One side refuses to take nuclear options off the table in dealing with Iran, and the other side refuses to take nuclear options off the table when dealing with Iran.

It's really quite beautiful when you think about it. America is a One Party State, complete with gerrymandered lines and mass media that shuts out thirty party options. Why argue about things like our right to interfere in the affairs of sovereign nations when you can just leave that out of the discussion entirely?

Re:The One Party State

[dgatwood]

The abortion issue is likely to take care of itself in a few years. Nice to know the ultra-rights have come up with something else (gay marriage) to use to beat people over the heads with. Fortunately, I doubt nearly as many people will get truly up in arms over that as have done so over the abortion issue. Ideally, this issue should go away, too; the recognition of marriage by the government (even straight marriage) is really a pretty egregious violation of the separation of church and state. If you want to recognize a household with shared financial resources as an entity for income purposes, go for it---it's really pretty much the same thing as recognizing a corporation. However, recognizing a financial cooperative is not the same thing as recognizing marriage. What does and does not constitute marriage is a matter to be decided upon between a church and God, period. I doubt I'm in the minority on this one by any stretch of the imagination, and once people really think about it, I suspect far more people will come to the same conclusion. If so, this issue will go away as the government stops recognizing marriage across the board.

"Skewz me"

[Kelz]

I find it interesting that they let individual users rate their own biases by topic, however a few definitely confused me:

Net Neutrality: It seems that neither dems nor repubs have made this at all part of their platform, theres no real way to say your "bias" on it.
Separation of church and state: What does left/right here mean? How can one be more or less strongly opposed or in favor of separation of chuch and state? It seems like it would be more on the basis of religion to me rather than any political ideology (though evangelicals have largely taken over much of the republican base).

It seems that the site would be better suited with a [for], [against], and [other: explain] box for these sorts of things.

welfare?

[gwoodrow]

For everyone who keeps bringing up welfare in every single political debate no matter what the centerpiece of the story is, I have a question. Are you not aware that welfare -- at least in the sense that most of the population thinks when they hear the term -- does not exist anymore? And hasn't existed for several years?
 
With all sincerity, please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe I missed something and it got brought back recently. Not that I'm aware of, though. I've never seen a redundant moot point quite like welfare debates.

Re:welfare?

[hassanchop]

Are you not aware that welfare -- at least in the sense that most of the population thinks when they hear the term -- does not exist anymore? And hasn't existed for several years?

With all sincerity, please correct me if I'm wrong.

You're wrong.

Re:welfare?

[gwoodrow]

My apologies; I was not clear. I should've said "please correct me if I'm wrong and clarify." Traditional welfare as (IMHO) most people think of it involves simply providing paychecks to people with few or no conditions. In 1992, I think Clinton made it a promise to end welfare as we know it. Then, if I'm not mistaken, around 96 or 97 it became a much more conditional program/series of programs. There are now various limits depending on the individual. I heard it described by an unfortunate friend who lost his job at a particularly challenging time in his life as, "Like going to a probation officer for the right to eat while trying to get back on your feet."

I think most people are still under the impression that welfare doles out cash indiscriminately to all comers, a misperception along the line of those who think government housing = living entirely without rent.

From what I can tell, welfare as most people argue it doesn't exist in the way they imagine it and hasn't for over 10 years.

Re:welfare?

[hassanchop]

"From what I can tell, welfare as most people argue it doesn't exist in the way they imagine it and hasn't for over 10 years."

What you can tell is still wrong.

ANd no, guy, I'm not going to help you out with how and why. The programs you seem to think have disappeared have simply been renamed and reallocated, welfare is still there in force.

If you did even a fraction of the research you imply you've done, you'd know that.

Re:welfare?

[gwoodrow]

ANd no, guy, I'm not going to help you out with how and why.

The familiar sound of someone with nothing to contribute.

Bzzt wrong

[mrraven]

By that definition the Green party is a right wing party and Bush as a state centralist with a massive military buildup and homeland security is a left winger, I don't think so. My off the cuff definition would be the left equals humanistic, secular, and environmentally concerned, and the right equals pro religious and pro economic growth at all costs. Left wingers get a more humane sustainable society and right wingers get better toys, and cars, for the chosen few, and less STDs and drug addiction and bad trendy music. Both have their pluses and minuses and both come in state centralist and decentralist varieties. Really in the 21st century left and right are pretty outdated and I think the only thing that will save the U.S. is real dialog between "Green" lefties and honorable decentralist Ron Paul/Libertarian/paleo-con conservatives.

Real people are more than two dimensional paper cutouts, for example although I consider myself a "Green" "left" activist I am also anti gun control and pro citizen militia, pro small business.

Re:Bzzt wrong

[ClamIAm]

My off the cuff definition would be the left equals humanistic, secular, and environmentally concerned, and the right equals pro religious and pro economic growth at all costs.

I'm going to assume you're an American, because this explains your analogy of secular:left::religious:right. Yes, we've had to live through the invasion of the Republican party by "Christian" fundamentalists. However, to generalize this to your above analogy is a logical fallacy.

Re:Bzzt wrong

[mrraven]

Yes American here however I'll take issue a bit and say that religion and the "right" has been noted by politcal researchers using sound emperical methods, see for example:

"In 1939, Leonard W. Ferguson carried out an analysis of political values using ten scales measuring attitudes toward:

        * War
        * Reality of God
        * Patriotism
        * Treatment of criminals
        * Capital punishment
        * Censorship
        * Evolution
        * Birth control
        * Law, and
        * Communism

Submitting the results to factor analysis, he was able to identify three factors, which he named Religionism, Humanitarianism, and Nationalism. Ferguson's Religionism was defined by belief in God and negative attitudes toward evolution and birth control; Humanitarianism was related to attitudes opposing the harsh treatment of criminals, capital punishment, and war; and Nationalism described variation in opinions on censorship, law, patriotism, and communism. Note that this system was derived through purely empirical methods; rather than devising a political model on purely theoretical grounds and testing it, Ferguson's research was purely exploratory. Although replication of the Nationalism factor was spotty, the finding of Religionism and Humanitarianism had a number of replications by Ferguson and others.[1][2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

As I said I think the definitions of left and right are pretty muddied these days but I do think there are worthwhile differences to note between secular humanistic thinkers who we may label "left" for lack of better terms and those with a more tough minded religous thought who we may label right wing.

Just my .02

Re:Bzzt wrong

[ClamIAm]

I'll take issue a bit and say that religion and the "right" has been noted by politcal researchers using sound emperical methods (sic)

I'm sure your study is great, but I wasn't speaking empirically. Rather, my reply was drawing from (formal) logic.

To explain my original argument a bit better, note that I'm saying your claims are faulty because: you're applying a universal generalization to something without showing that this generalization is valid. To prove this generalization, you must show that, in all cases, "right=religious & left=secular". This is impossible to prove, so the claim is invalid. QED.

Re:Bzzt wrong

[mrraven]

Except that's not the way actual human beings use language in the reality based community. Language is not used as an absolutely logically consistent self contained system but rather a way to map empirical reality outside our minds. The proof of this is that you would have to explain what you mean to the 99.9999999% of people who haven't had a symbolic logic course. Where as the way I use language is transparently obvious to any even semi fluent speaker of a language. In other words better luck next time and get some air the ivory tower can get awfully stuffy sometimes.

Re:Bzzt wrong

[ClamIAm]

I think this will be my last response. Your first reply to me was great, although since I was a little opaque originally, you went off in a bit of a different direction from what I meant.

This latest reply, however, is a neat little collection of fallacies. It would be a fun intellectual exercise to pick apart your whole post, but that would likely be a waste of time (for both of us), so I'll just give one example:

"Except that's not the way actual human beings use language in the reality based community."

Your claim that "normal people don't do it that way" is similar to an appeal to popularity or an appeal to common practice. Also, implying that I am out of touch with reality is an ad hominem.

Re:Bzzt wrong

[mrraven]

Keep using language a an academic toy I'll use it for it actually is a tool to communicate empirical reality between human beings, shrug.

Hmm, the Microsoft attempt looks more sophisticate

[melted]

Hmm, the Microsoft attempt looks more sophisticated: http://research.microsoft.com/~chrisko/papers/ICWSM_paper.pdf, albeit totally orthogonal to what skewz.com does.

Are you guys using machine learning at all? If not, how do you protect yourselves against user bias (e.g. the situation where liberals like your site and conservatives don't, so you get mostly liberal stories). Personally, it seems to me that Skewz is just a glorified Digg with sliders.

This is what happens when you join a team

[weston]

I still do not understand why everything is left/right. Reality tends to be complicated and every story has a lot more aspects than left/right (even if you manage to define those two terms).

I'm not sure if it's culturally constructed or inate, but there is definitely a human tendency to see things as a dialectic. Some people more than others, and it can definitely be culturally amplified -- possibly by certain kinds of media dialogues, but almost inevitably when you start to identify with a given group.

Once you've identified yourself with the political right or left (or something else) and have learned which term tends to describe your team, you'll start to filter the information around you and examine how it and its presentation represents your team (and, by extension because of identification, you). It's nearly inevitable.

This doesn't mean that efforts at trying to step back and look beyond casual labels and filters associated with terms like right and left aren't worthwhile -- if I thought it was futile, I wouldn't bother making this comment. It's just to say there's a natural tendency for people to pick sides.

if(Government != people) || (is_monolithic())....

[weston]

I don't know how you can label the Leftist view of letting the government run everything (healthcare, housing, food) as a bottom-up approach. That sounds like a top-down approach to me (where the top mandates how citizens are supposed to live).

A lot of this depends on whether you have a bifurcated view of "The Government" and its citizens, or a view that identifies both together.

It also depends on if you're talking about "The Government" as a federal totalitarian state or as a self-determining democratic community (or an aggregation of such communities).

These points are only part of the problem with trying to make some kind of correlation with "top-down" "bottom-up" points of view and conventional "left" and "right" thinking. The truth is that there are few unalloyed figures and no unalloyed major parties from these perspectives -- no one is going to nationalize industry here, no one is going to go completely laissez fair.

Personally I prefer "authoritarian" versus "libertarian" as a way to separate the articles.

I think this dichotomy allows for a greater degree of objectivity -- in particular, it can reveal that both major U.S. parties are alloys here -- but only if you're the kind of person who's willing to see that as an objective rather than a normative judgment.

Track not just bias, but lies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you consider including in the rating calculations the number of provably false statements made in support of the position or in attacking the opposing position?

Re:Track not just bias, but lies?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Would you consider including in the rating calculations the number of provably false statements made in support of the position or in attacking the opposing position?

No. First, the concept "provably false" turns out to usually be a viewpoint-dependent opinion. It is, in fact, astonishing how subjective that nominally objective statement is. (And if you don't think so, then I'd say you don't spend much time reading the opinions of people who disagree with you.)

Second, though, is that this is a different concept. It is interesting to pointing out when media print statements that are false, but that's a different king of thing from looking at their viewpoint bias.

Bias vs Agenda

[weston]

I completely agree. People act as if shading the truth is the major problem in America, and while I think it *is* a problem, I also think that there are deeper ones, including those you mentioned.

I also think a lot of people don't understand something very important: the difference between *bias* and *agenda*. There's a good illustration from a few years ago during the Bush-Kerry race. Someone noticed that in a certain time period, Bush articles apparently came up more than Kerry articles on Google News. If I recall correctly, Google acknowledged it was possible that might happen, but it was a side-effect rather than anything intentionally programmed into the algorithm. There were also some ready other explanations: as the then-POTUS, there was certainly more reason for him to be covered in the news. Sometimes, certain imbalances come up for reasons that aren't planned and have nothing to do with any particular agenda.

On the other hand, a bit earlier, there were the issues with top search listings from MSN's search on the term "linux." Radically different, than most other searches and including reports that were critical of it from a TCO and capabilities standpoint. Bias, or agenda?

Bias is inevitable, as long as you have any kind of social identity and normative values. You can minimize it and adopt (as some of your normative values) a commitment to examine other perspectives, and thereby escape the worst effects, but you can't eliminate it entirely. But if you can escape its worst effects, it may not matter so much.

Agenda, on the other hand, is about interests in outcomes that are much more difficult to check.

Bias is acceptable in a news/media source, especially when the audience understands it. Agenda isn't, with some potential exceptions for those transparently and completely coherent with the mission of the source.

Part of the Problem

[uncadonna]

By reducing everything to a 1-bit decision, don't you think you are making matters worse rather than better?

Balanced?

[weston]

The Left say the media is to Right.
The Right say the media is to Left.

One of the things I've always found interesting about this state of affairs is that even for a perfectly balanced media, you'd expect precisely this result.

Consider a theoretical population that normally distributed along a political spectrum "Left" to "Right."

Consider a "Media" that has the perfect ability to balance right in the middle.

When you sample enough people from this population, you'll get about half that say it's too far left, half that say it's too far right.

Yeah about Fox news...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong.

Why do I say this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/31/clinton-surrogate-ed-rend_n_94280.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Rendell#2008_Presidential_election

That's why.

So when the people on the left disagree with you, and the people on the right disagree with you, you need to consider the possibility that you're too stupid to know you're wrong.

Are you that stupid, or do you know you're wrong? Argue with Hillary's friend about Fox news, liar, I've heard everything from you I need.

I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

But "tuning out" is just a way to stay apathetic and uninformed, and therefore powerless.

I didn't say anything about tuning out: there's still really good print media - Economist for one.

And I disagree with your statement. If it's really important and if it will actually affect your life, you will hear about it from someone. The World isn't as bad as the electronic media will have you believe. It truly distorts it. And most of the time, the electronic media has the story wrong, not all of the facts, or was completely lead astray. What I'm saying we would be much better informed if we turned off the electronic media. We won't have to wade through all the garbage and when it gets to print, a lot of the falsehoods will be weeded out and the facts verified (we hope).

And in the meantime, everyone is getting an hourly diet of terrorism, protests, and violence from ALL over the World making it appear that they're in danger themselves: they live in terror over whats happening on the other side of the World. My local area is peaceful, little crime, and no terrorism - and I'm sure it will stay that way.

No sir, we'd be much better off emotionally and politically without the electronic media constantly speaking to us.

Re:I disagree

[Doc Ruby]

I'm glad you mentioned _The Economist_ as your example. It's possibly the most corporatist journal available on newsstands. I could give you all kinds of examples of how wrong it's willing to be to advance a corporatist agenda, but the most outstanding is when it put the Taliban on the cover, welcoming them rolling into Kabul, in 1996, for which cheerleading it's never admitted it was horribly wrong. That's not to say that print journalism isn't useful, but what's always useful is to understand the media outlet's biases, and weight what you get accordingly. It's why I still read the NY Times: I've read it for decades, so I can see the fnords right there on the paper.

If you're going to depend on "someone" to hear important things that will affect your life, you're at the mercy of all that info until it gets to you. The most important info that affects most of your life is hidden. As knowledge is power, ignorance is slavery.

What makes us better off emotionally and politically is to grow your own internal filters and skepticism. Not to depend on ignorance.

Re:I disagree

[Ichoran]

The Economist, despite its obvious corporatist bias (although I would rank it as less so than the WSJ), does a pretty good job at reporting facts accurately as far as I can tell. They don't always dig as deeply on all sides for difficult-to-uncover facts, but their bias appears to me mostly as an interpretation that they add on top of the facts, not in presenting non-facts or highly biased facts. This makes it a very useful information source for me, because I can not only tell what they think about an event, but also why, and disagree if I feel so inclined. With many other news sources, the accuracy is low enough so that by default I don't even know what the facts are.

I've seen some examples where they've not gotten their facts right and been absolutely nailed in letters to the editor (and they published such letters too, though probably only the more polite ones). Seeing that happen in areas that I know about--and seeing them get quite a lot right in areas that I know about--has raised my confidence that a lot of the information is actually accurate, even if I disagree with their opinions on the facts.

I've been less impressed with the NYT in this regard.

Re:I disagree

[Doc Ruby]

Well, the WSJ editorial section is unreadable except to watch what corporatist predators are working against the population. But their news coverage has been fairly accurate, if you accept that it will ignore stories that don't add to or threaten corporate profits or power. However, that's before Rupert Murdoch bought the WSJ (while launching a Fox Business Channel, with which of course the WSJ must correspond). So now I will not touch the WSJ. I don't even trust the Dow Jones Industrial Average and its other commercial statistical products anymore, because all that came with the WSJ as a product for the most dangerous fascist the world has seen since Hirohito surrendered.

The NYT I don't mention because it's more accurate. Only because I know it so well, after so long reading it (I'm a NY'er myself - I learned to read here, though I've lived elsewhere, including abroad and in illiterate places).

What I depend on for news is the Internet. I'm really only taking seriously info that I can corroborate from independent sources, that gets lots of public analysis by people with competing interests. News always gets the imprint of any bottleneck deeply impressed in it. I'm looking for a diversity of those impressions that can be left as background noise, not a brand.

Not this again...

[statemachine]

That study's conclusions are flawed and it even says so.

1) Right-wing bias of the study's authors including or excluding data:
Wanting to make sure the ACLU appears left-leaning by excluding data:

While most of these averages closely agree with the conventional wisdom, two cases seem somewhat anomalous. The first is the ACLU. The average score of legislators citing it was 49.8. Later, we shall provide reasons why it makes sense to define the political center at 50.1. This suggests that the ACLU, if anything is a right-leaning organization. The reason the ACLU has such a low score is that it opposed the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance bill, and conservatives in Congress cited this often. In fact, slightly more than one-eight of all ACLU citations in Congress were due to one person alone, Mitch McConnell (R.-Kt.), perhaps the chief critic of McCain-Feingold. If we omit McConnell's citations, the ACLU's average score increases to 55.9. Because of this anomaly, in the Appendix we report the results when we repeat all of our analyses but omit the ACLU data.

Wanting to make sure that RAND appears left-leaning by including data:

The second apparent anomaly is the RAND Corporation, which has a fairly liberal average score, 60.4. We mentioned this finding to some employees of RAND, who told us they were not surprised. While RAND strives to be middle-of-the-road ideologically, the more conservative scholars at RAND tend to work on military studies, while the more liberal scholars tend to work on domestic studies. Because the military studies are sometimes classified and often more technocratic than the domestic studies, the media and members of Congress tend to cite the domestic studies disproportionately. As a consequence, RAND appears liberal when judged by these citations. It is important to note that this fact--that the research at RAND is more conservative than the numbers in Table 1 suggest--will not bias our results. To see this, think of RAND as two think tanks: RAND I, the left-leaning think tank which produces the research that the media and members of Congress tend to cite, and RAND II, the conservative think tank which produces the research that they tend not to cite. Our results exclude RAND II from the analysis. This causes no more bias than excluding any other think tank that is rarely cited in Congress or the media.

You can't pick and choose. Either include all of this type of data or exclude it -- don't just pick what supports your beliefs.

2) Right-wing bias in algorithm selection
Study admits that Fox News is way off in right-field if the actual average of Congress is taken:

Table 3:
Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume 6/1/98 - 6/26/03 39.7 1.9

Figure 2 shows Fox and Washington Times far right of every other news outlet.

3) Study authors omit outright lies.

Citation 21:
Like us, Mullainathan and Shleifer (2003) define bias as an instance where a journalist fails to report a relevant fact, rather than chooses to report a false fact.

4) Different measures of center would seem to nullify any bias other than Fox and Wash. Times due to wide variances
Citation 34 ... "Since this number is 1.7 points les than the mean-based measure of the centrist voter (50.1), if one believes that it is the more appropriate measure, then our main conclusions (based on the mean-based measure) are biased rightward--that is, the more appropriate conclusion would assert that the media are an additional 1.7 points to the left of the centrist voter."
"Yet another measure ..." " The midpoint is 49.4, which is 0.7 points more conservative than our mean-based measure."

Citation 35 "If instead we use medians, the figure is 54.9"

The results are muddled at best. The authors clearly massage data to their liking (at least they admitted it), but this only serves to shoot down the whole paper. The study is fun to look at for entertainment, but its conclusions can hardly be taken seriously due to all the cherry picking, massaging, questionable data gathering, and just plain inconclusive data.

Re:Not this again...

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

For the sake of clarity, my comment was meant to focus on the merits using an external ranking based methodology (e.g. ADA score), and not so much to stump for the study's conclusions. Ideally, I'd like to see a composite analysis using multiple scoring methods from both viewpoints.

That said, the very authors' explanations you cite for the ACLU and RAND seem to diffuse the criticism. If there were an objective measure to quantify *why* any citation -- including those two in particular -- should be interpreted as anomalous/skewed/abnormal, that would be great, but if you read what they actually said, they did *not* exclude any data related to the ACLU. The authors' response to criticisms of the paper at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001301.html clarify the ACLU matter even further:

...our final analysis included the ACLU data. In fact, it turns out that the only analysis that we report in the paper contained the ACLU data. Our passage notes that we did the analysis both ways: with and without the ACLU data. The results with the ACLU data are reported in the main text, and the results without the ACLU data are reported in the Appendix.

[...and...]

The other anomaly was the ACLU. Our method ranked it (just barely) among the most conservative half of the think tanks. As we mention in the paper, the reason is due to one person, Senator Mitch McConnell. After the ACLU announced that it opposed McCain Feingold, McConnell seemed to mention this at every opportunity he had. In fact, he alone accounted for half of the total congressional citations to the ACLU. No other think tank had such an odd distribution of citations. And on the RAND matter:

It turns out that out of 200 think tanks in our sample, there seem to be only two anomalous rankings. First is the Rand Corporation, which our method places to the left of center. We have mentioned this finding to four scholars at Rand. None were surprised, and each agreed that the result is due to the fact that most of the conservative scholars at Rand focus primarily on military research, and these studies tend not to be cited very frequently by the media and members of Congress. Part of the reason is because these studies are often classified. I'm sorry, but that looks more like hasty criticism than "right-wing bias of the study's authors including or excluding data" to me. Beyond that, I'll leave it to others to debate the merits and flaws of the paper's methodology and authors.

Re:Not this again...

[statemachine]

Nothing hasty about my criticism. I took quite some time compiling it, and this is not the first time I've run across this paper, which is why I already knew what to cite. The authors' intent in the paper (regardless of whatever unpublished re-direct shows up later) was to exclude ACLU data that would portray them as conservative *opposite of perception*, and include outlier information on RAND that portrayed them as liberal *opposite of perception*.

My criticism was well-thought out. That the authors would want to skew institutions toward the left shows a bias toward the right. Otherwise they would have left the data alone and included it all in the final graphs and conclusions. That is why this paper is merely entertainment. It doesn't mean the data is any less interesting, just that more work needs to be done before a serious conclusion can be reached.

You also failed to produce this second link at the time you published the link to the original report. If you want the corrections to be considered when someone criticizes the paper, you must include such links ahead of time and not bash the critic for what you left out.

what?

[operon]

AskSkews.com?

geez...I thinked that the Ask* wave has passed.

Re:what?

[jlanthripp]

View AskSkews? Isn't that Kevin Smith's production company? :)

Certain balanced reporting can actually be bias

[backslashdot]

If selected stories are presented in an unbiased manner, by selecting stories of a certain type, you can perpetuate a biased view.

For example, if a news organization wants to push the view that people of a certain race are violent they can choose to only report crimes committed by that race. Then, the general population will have no idea that actually that race's propensity to violence is the same as any other.

My point is, an organization reports the truth and leave out other truths that may be relevant.. they can actually offer tacit support to prejudicial views even though individual articles themselves may be unbiased. On an article by article basis it will be hard to tell that a certain view is being propagated. A system needs to be created that basically breaks down each article into what views are likely to be propagated by an article, and also which basic views are NOT propagated. And then you track on an organization or media wide basis whether a trend is emerging as to certain important facts are going unreported.

This is social sabotage, not social advantage

[pclminion]

Yeah, nothing enhances open debate better than falsely implying that there are only two legitimate viewpoints. Know what I fucking HATE? When I mention that I believe some thing, X, which is typically a "liberal" believe, and immediately getting launched into an argument about Y, another "liberal" belief, which do not even espouse. Or vice versa.

"Oh, so you're for reducing taxes? Than I guess you think we should line up all the gays and shoot them, huh? HUH?"

It's fucking ridiculous, and it's why I don't talk about my opinions with anyone. Ever.

Only.....

[RandomU]

The title itself shows bias. "Only 1 of 2 students graduate high school in US cities: study" Adding the word "Only" down plays the US Education system. If some one said "He is ONLY a high school Graduat." or "He Only makes $20,000 a year" the bias is apparent. The US ONLY graduates 1/2 it's students shows bias. Bare in mind it says 52% ofstudents in Cities graduate. A more Accurate though biased in the other direction would be to add the positive word OVER. "OVER 52% of city school students graduate" Notice how adding ONLY a single word changes bias. Just as important they chose the Worst catagory to headline. City schools, Not suburban schools. They could have run the following headline and been just as accurate. "Over 74% of students in suburbs Graduate." Random

Re:Only.....

[Jeffrey Baker]

And you assign a liberal or conservative tag to this so-called bias how? You comment reinforces my belief that the fundamental tenet of conservatism is an belief in an idealized utopian America which never existed. Therefore, any article which criticizes anything that happens in the USA is "liberal" because self-criticism is incompatible with the idealized myth.

Re:Only.....

[RandomU]

lol, I'm not a conservative. The Bias is probably liberal (portray the failure of the current party in power) or (Portray how bad the school systems are so we need more money to fix them), however it could be conservative (Portray the failure of the public school systems, thus pushing Private school funding). Either way the addition of the word ONLY and the selection of the most negative statistic shows a bias. Random

Where is your value add, without a better spectrum

[PotatoHead]

Of political alignment?

IMHO, most media today leans corporate left and corporate right. This is missed because the one dimensional model is not up to the task of actually helping us quantify and deal with bias.

So, why bother with a service like yours, if it is lacking in this way?

Bias Detection

[SquallStrife]

...before I read the article itself, I thought they were going to talk about audio casettes.

Blews?

[dintech]

Just when you thought Blook was the worst it could get...

Anyone reminded of the movie Donnie Darko?

[Anonymous Coward]

'put it on the line between fear and love!'

Re:if(Government != people) || (is_monolithic())..

[electrictroy]

My view of government is described in the American Declaration of Independence.

- The People are the ultimate authority.
- The government only exists because the People created it.
- It is granted SOME power by the People to protect human rights (unified defense, for example).
- All other powers not granted to the government by the Constitutional contract, is reserved to the People.

That's my view of government, and it is supplemented by Thomas Jefferson's writings. For example he wrote, "If it were possible to have no government at all, we would do it. It is only to secure our rights that we resort to any government at all." James Madison made a similar comment, "If men were angels, we would not need government."

So the job of government is to be a servant to its master (the People) and protect individual rights.

And nothing else.

i.e. The government's job is Not to raid my neighbors' wallets, take their money, and give it to me so I can buy a house. That is Not the job or purpose for which the People created the government. On the contrary, such an action violates my neighbors' rights of property and labor.

Hear Hear: do I hear the band *Consolidated* ?

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting book that skewers ( though that wasn't its intent ) the commercial-christianity that corporation-"persons" use to undermine many personally-conservatives, is. . .

The Hidden Jesus: A New Life
( a beautifully-living christianity in it, btw )

In it Donald Spoto mentions that the Excellent Jew
( /my/ term for 'im, since 'is name was Yeshu or Yeshua, not "Jeezus" )
would be as intolerant of our worthless-substance-centric committing as he was of the commercial-branch of the local temple
( the moneychangers, who were there so that anyone wanting to make an offering *to god*,
could pay the temple-tax, in shekels, *before* doing so ),
that he assaulted.

I'm not "christian" ( *kaizen* is my religion ),
but it's a wonderful book, & well written.

My only dispute with it is that it
( yes, the book )
didn't notice the simple fact that John called his beloved-friend Rabbi,
3 times ( biblegateway.com, iirc, Amplified Bible, if you want to check ),
yet called the positional-"Jews", who would murder for their *position* ... the "jews".

Obviously sarcastic.
( as-in not-attacking real-Jews, but attacking the falseness/positional-centrism )

Donald Spoto talks about Semitic Irony, which we'd call .. warped sarcasm?
( if your eye causes you to sin, put it out...
well, what's worth more, your eye or your soul? )

Anyhow, how can we be centrist if we won't make-time to centre ourselves!??

--

Cheers to all!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It is funny

[Anonymous Coward]

It is funny

Slashdot spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Skews.com has clearly conned Slashdot into advertising for them for free with this. This whole interview is just a thinly veiled attempt to get more people to their site.

New Idea - Open Letter to the Universe

[Anonymous Coward]

My Open Letter to the Universe: ..knock and it shall be opened--Seek and ye shall find.. I ask for winning numbers on next lottery ticket purchase. Although I AM solvent, I need to help extended family members. Would like for my #s as purchased to be selected. Thanks for previous favors granted too. I am at peace & wish to share good fortune that comes my way. TRY YOUR OWN -OPEN LETTER TO THE UNIVERSE!!

Rights as defining issues

[Slammer64]

"Rights" are merely the privileges a society grants it's members; what a society grants, it can revoke at any time. Until such time as we can show that "rights" are inherent, we should always be mindful that we control society and not the other way around.

zzz

[circletimessquare]

1. all media has a bias

2. the only antidote is a healthy bullshit meter

end of story. people have this naive idealistic expectation of ironclad neutral media. never existed. never will. get over it already. yes, some ignorant fools will believe anything they read. do you really think you can save an idiot from themselves? or that building some sort of fancy (and impossible) media neutralizer will save those idiots?

at its heart, the fear of a biased media is a sort of elitist concern. there is a sort of distrust of the average joe blow amongst an ivory tower crowd. that left to his devices, without the guidance of the elites, joe blow will screw up. this is misthropic. i trust joe blow a lot more than some self-appointed guardian of neutrality. who nominated some special class of people to be our ideological watchdogs? what about their bias? it doesn't exist? you have no bias?

everyone has a bias. if you believe you don't, it simply means you are blind to your own nature, and are therefore even more dangerous than those who consciously manipulate the media. they at least know they are doing wrong. you are engaging in ideogical manipulation and don't even know it, or believe you are serving neutrality, when that is impossible to do, and are therefore the most dangerous part of the problem, not the solution to it

Is it considering the real skew ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, things can be skewed one way or another, but I would be interested in just seeing how biased the media is in general, with 0 being "no skew, only facts ma'm" and 10 being "absolute skew, 100% lies and 0 true statements."

That would be less politically divisive, and more media-watchdog.

I agree and like that it measures skew left or right, but I when I actually looked at the site I noticed its hard to tell the media skew - everything averages off.

Basically, it'd be nice to have two projects;
1) where skew-left/right is considered
2) where media "truthiness" is considered.

Because I think the two ideas are very distinct.