Skewz.com Founder Vipul Vyas Answers Your Questions About Media Bias

You asked questions about Skewz.com on April 2nd and April 3rd. Here are your answers. This media bias stuff is tricky to deal with. Both Skewz and Microsoft's Blewz are trying, anyway. Skewz people say they want to jump into the conversation attached to this post, so if you have any follow-up questions please feel free to ask them. 1) Why is everything about "bias"? (Score:5, Insightful)
by MillionthMonkey

Shouldn't just "being full of [bleep]" 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.

Vipul Vyas:

First of all, we've enjoyed all the great feedback from the Slashdot community. You can't get a more intellectual and insightful set of observations from any other group. With regard to rating bias on more granular terms, I'll answer the question with two points:

First, it's the combination of various factors that leads people to perceive bias as you have said. All we've really done is distill those many factors down to an overall political bias - either liberal or conservative. People perceive an article to be biased one direction or the other because of a variety of factors which include: biased word selection, assumptions not supported by data, poor sourcing, open demonization, inaccuracy, omission of facts, and guilt by association as a few examples. All of these factors in some combination create the perception of either liberal or conservative bias because folks on one side perceive their side is not being fairly represented by virtue of these factors being present. So the overall bias is a distillation of all these factors.

Second, all of the above being said; we are planning functionality to support this more granular reasoning for identifying bias. This will likely be used by power users that really want to dig into the reasons for bias. We believe this will be interesting because it will enable us to be able to track news sources in terms of both bias and the reasons for bias such as inaccuracies. This should add a new dimension of insight.

2) Incentivising Registration? (Score:4, Interesting)
by eldavojohn (898314)

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?

Vipul Vyas:

Great question. I believe people really enjoy the Skewz forum in which they can blow the whistle on pieces purporting to be objective but are not and also push forward pieces that they advocate despite their bias. When we first started the site we were simply transferring our own daily behavior of sending around emails with articles and our reactions to them. Just being able to find a community to exchange ideas and interact with is a huge draw for people...sort of like Slashdot but for politics. Many people can get angry with what they read in the paper, but their only recourse is to send a letter to the editor and hope that it gets read or the remote possibility that it gets printed. With Skewz they can call out such issues instantly and get an immediate reaction from a community of people from both sides of the political landscape. The feedback loop is immediate.

To answer your question more direction, right now Skewz does have a user ranking system. Users are ranked in terms of their experience on the site (number of articles submitted or skewed, comments made, etc.). Users are ranked from rookie Congressmen all the way up to incumbent Senators to keep with the political theme. We also provide individual statistics with regard to user activity under the user's Skewz Me! profile. These all provide incentive from a pure personal accomplishment perspective.

A curious thing we've observed is that people both 1. reveal bias in the 'main stream or corporate media,' and 2. submit articles that they know are biased from say the blogosphere that support their position. So one of the biggest emerging reasons that people are active is to promote their perspective in an environment where they feel they might just reach the other side. I believe people honestly feel that they can reach the "other side" on our site simply by virtue of the format.

With regard to getting to 10,000 users, we're relying on the basics:
1) Great reviews from the Slashdot community (that's you guys),
2) Strong content from a politically involved community and an intuitive mechanism to attract both opinion readers and trend setters,
3) Strong ties with the blogosphere to create a mutually rewarding Skew mechanism through our widget program which is customized for political blogs in ways that more generic widgets for sites such as Digg are not, and
4) Good motivation or our current users to invite their friends - which we're seeing a lot of.

We are pleased with the results so far as we have a healthy number of people enjoying Skewz.

3) Missing sliders (Score:4, Insightful)
by Tsar (536185)

From your site's What is Skewz? [skewz.com] 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.

Vipul Vyas:

Fair point. I think if you look at the discussion we have on the site today, it's quite a bit less bombastic than what you see on partisan sites. We're seeing people come to Skewz for more sophisticated debate with people from the other side of the political spectrum. People use the backdrop of a specific story with asserted facts and that backdrop helps keep things from getting personal and also keeps the focus on the article and topic being discussed. I believe that has really helped keep the community culture very positive.

But to your point, as indicated in my response to the first question here Skewz is adding functionality to allow people to more discretely comment on the positive and negative elements of the submitted articles.

4) Skewz me? (Score:4, Informative)
by Jeffrey Baker (6191)

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?

Vipul Vyas:

I think your observation makes the point. What many perceive as "straight up" objective can still be perceived as biased. With the article in question and the rating, I just learned something about how some segments of our polity interpret events...and it's very different from the way I interpret them. I think that's the point of Skewz.

Ultimately we'd have to ask the members of the Skewz community as to why the article was skewed left. I believe this is the insight you get from a site like Skewz. If you look at some of the comments associated with the article you see some interesting and even surprising perspectives which I never would have thoughts of.

Folks on the left felt the article was objective to slightly leftward leaning by pointing out the serious problems faced by inner city youth. So, liberals felt that the story being covered was good coverage of objective reality with maybe some modest left bias in terms of advocacy for a traditional set of liberal positions like uplifting those in inner cities and focusing more on education.

Conservatives had a more visceral response. If you look at the comments, the perception was that the failings were implicitly pointing to George Bush's No Child Left Behind policies. Some said the article didn't associate blame with the students or parents. Others pointed to the photo associated with the article showing jubilant African American students. They felt that the picture was out of line with the point that graduation rates among minorities were extremely low.

These sharply different take-aways from a fairly straight forward articles create the most insights. Skewz lets you augment those insights by seeing who skewed the article in what way. Each person's profile provides their political orientation so you can see how liberals reacted to an article and how conservatives reacted. That makes for some interesting insights. In addition, you can leverage the split view function on Skewz to see a story about the same news event that is rated with the opposite political orientation to the one that you are currently reading. That really lets you flesh out the whole picture in terms of the world of opinion.

5) Complaints? (Score:2, Interesting)
by Notquitecajun (1073646)

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.

Vipul Vyas:

We haven't so far but we hope to become more influential and at that point we'll matter to journalists. Unfortunately, some journalists are not too worried about what their readership thinks. That's where the Slashdot community can help by posting and skewing articles to keep the media honest. Our blog widget program will enable political bloggers to let their readers rate their articles and post them on Skewz. Now, bloggers by their nature are biased advocates of certain positions. That being said, there is value in understanding the information these blogs present relative to the traditional media. The closer the traditional media gets to certain segments of the blogosphere, the less likely they are representing an objective perspective. The blogs, on the other hand, carry their liberal and conservative affiliations as a badge of honor.

6) Hmm, the Microsoft attempt looks more sophisticated (Score:3, Insightful)
by melted (227442)

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.

Vipul Vyas:

There's always the risk that one side dominates the site. That being said, there is such a perception of media bias on both sides that I believe Skewz provides a legitimate venue for that discussion to take place which will continue to draw people from both ends of the political spectrum. If we provide an even playing field, we'll be a place where either side can come to try to evangelize the other in terms of their perceptions. Skewz is an political open space.

Also, based on a recent Harris Interactive Poll Blog readership is almost evenly distributed with 22 percent of Republicans and 20 percent of Democrats regularly reading blogs. Independents are the ones slightly more likely to read these, as just over one-quarter (26%) say they regularly read political blogs.

Interestingly, most all of the founders of Skewz come have speech recognition and statistical language modeling background. We leverage language modeling in our split view function which matches stories on the right with their corresponding foils on the left to provide a fuller perspective. So from that perspective we do use some linguistic modeling at a basic level.

I applaud what Microsoft is doing with Blews. However, I think Skewz is a pretty different site in that it's user driven, and we're interested in understanding what people think. If you're really into the political blog world you realize that different blogs have different degrees of alignment with the left or right and this actually evolves. In fact, some folks completely swap sides over time. In the end politics is about people and their perceptions. We think its valuable to get it directly from the source to best understand how these trends evolve. For example, Andrew Sullivan has evolved from being a fairly right wing stalwart to being an Obama supporter. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs moved in the other direction after 9/11. These movements are best described by asking the polity itself.

7) Cultural polarization as a web service (Score:2)
by Tsar (536185)

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.

Vipul Vyas:

I'm glad you asked this question. Skewz actually has this functionality today. If you are a registered user you'll see a spectrum under both the liberal and conservative sides. You can slide the hands there to bracket the stories to see more or less extremes of each side. In this way, you can create your own view or synthetic version of the Drudge Report or Daily Kos. But keep in mind, by virtue of the format you are always at risk at being exposed to the other side...which is a risk that has many rewards.

8) Where is your value add, without a better spectrum... (Score:2)
by PotatoHead (12771)

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?

Vipul Vyas:

Good question. When Skewz first started, I used to just visit a couple of sites that were more or less aligned with my existing political beliefs. However, Skewz has exposed me to a variety of different perspectives...some of which I didn't even know existed. Even if I don't agree with some of the new perspectives I've been exposed to, I now have a better sense of how other people think and what their logic is. In some respects, I didn't realize what I myself was reading was biased because I was completely unaware of other facts or theories on the same subject that were out there. Skewz has enabled me to still get a lot of the information I was getting before while at the same time exposing me to an entirely different world of thinking in a format that's relatively easy to use.

With regard to your question on the spectrum, it works because you're not just rating the corporate media left or right which I take it you mean the traditional media. Blogs are also well represented on the site. Users can submit and add weight to what the blogs are saying. If there are subjects or angles that the traditional media are not covering then these stories can be submitted and rated. Again, people tend to reveal bias in two ways: 1. I know this is biased, but I like what it is saying or 2. this purports to be objective and it's not so I am blowing the whistle. Some people also use the site to employ a third tactic. They submit articles as being objective that deal with subject or facts that they feel the media has not covered through "bias by exclusion."

9) Truth, and the real bias we need to worry about (Score:2)
by Gat0r30y (957941)

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?

Vipul Vyas:

This is a great question. I believe it's human nature to do both. The "name calling level of debate" is indeed easy and appealing. But that being said, if you look at the actual debate on Skewz; the level of debate is more solution oriented than you'll see on many other more partisan sites. In fact, the three substantial articles you mention may not show up anywhere on many other news outlets. You are right in that news outlets tend to cater to the segments they are going after. With Skewz, the community decides what is most interesting so the feedback loop is more immediate. By and large, the self-selecting community has been more about deep debate on real issues versus mudslinging- even in this election season. On Skewz you can find finely parsed debate on Obama's health care plan or global warming for example.

Often the submitted article is the launching point for more detailed discussion where folks often learn a great deal about the other side. For example, liberal and conservatives (generally) seem to agree on US presence in Afghanistan...much to the surprise of many conservatives. Conversely, gun control is not as passionately pursued by liberals (at least those on our site currently) as many conservatives had assumed.

News media give their customer base what they want. With Skewz, the community decides what it wants, and so far we seem to be selecting a more sophisticated news consumer.

10) What about consensus? (Score:3, Funny)
by prxp (1023979)

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?)

Vipul Vyas:

We accommodate for this through the center skew which points to an objective view that everyone agrees represents reality objectively. Sadly, that doesn't happen often enough. (and by the way the quantum version of Skewz where articles can be liberal and conservative at the same time is coming up and will be part of the theory of everything...:-)

Comments

RED FLAG!

[explosivejared]

First of all, we've enjoyed all the great feedback from the Slashdot community. You can't get a more intellectual and insightful set of observations from any other group.

Seriously, that's how he opens a discussion about bias in media? He wants to be taken seriously right?

Re:RED FLAG!

[ZachPruckowski]

The problem with Slashdot isn't the lack of signal, it's the presence of noise. We have a lot of insightful and intelligent commentators, and those (barring the #10 joke) were the writers whose question he saw. Slashdot still has a higher signal-to-noise ratio than the average blog. We've got no shortage of signal, but at times the moderation system has a hard time picking it out from the noise. If you browse at +3, as I do, the most common problem seems to be that moderators can't always tell an inaccurate but detailed post from a truly accurate one. Because of the difficulty of moderating a +4 post down, most of the time we have a (4, Informative) being corrected by a (5, Insightful) reply.

A response:

[Anonymous Coward]

Vipul Vyas:

We haven't so far but we hope to become more influential and at that point we'll matter to journalists. Unfortunately, some journalists are not too worried about reporting facts. That's not what I am about. That's where the Slashdot community can help by posting and skewing the viewpoint of articles to keep the media fooled. Our blog widget program will enable political bloggers to let their readers rate their articles and post them on Skewz. Now, bloggers by their nature are biased advocates of certain positions, which I think is the way of the fugure

He's just adding some spin.

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

You know, when this article comes up on skews, it'll be politically neutral. Even though it has some verbal masturbation for the target audience, it isn't full of lies or politically skewed.

That being said, it still isn't newsworthy.

Your standard reply to a lot of questions seems...

[NeutronCowboy]

... "great question, but the Skewz discussion is actually really smart." This is specifically for any question that targets the assertion that skewz merely perpetuates the political divide, rather than addresses it. Isn't this just side-stepping the whole problem? There's nothing within skewz that encourages smart discussion - from a systematic perspective, digg could be the place for really smart discussion as well, but it isn't.

Aren't you worried that as your site gains popularity, its flaws (as in, pandering to the political divide) will drive the level of discourse down, not up?

Too bad

[WormholeFiend]

the questions to Vyas about bias, Skewz and Blewz, didn't rhyme...

We don't live in a binary world

[Rog7]

I still find it so odd that much of the media tries so hard to categorize everything as Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican. It's like the U.S. situation of two party politics is trying to infect the rest of the world.

The world just isn't about two shades of grey, that's just some kind of fantasyland.

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[sm62704]

I still find it so odd that much of the media tries so hard to categorize everything as Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican. It's like the U.S. situation of two party politics is trying to infect the rest of the world.

That's because both major political parties here are firmly in the grasp of the multinational corporations who can "contribute" to only two parties, ignore the rest of the parties, and not care who loses because they win. They get the laws passed they want passed.

Of COURSE they're going to want to extend this to your country as well.

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[mwvdlee]

You mean to tell me Skewz isn't just intended for US audience?

US view of the concepts of "liberal" and "conservative" are wildly different from other countries. As are concepts like "left" and "right"; pretty much every country links it's own set of (lack of) values to these words.
I myself am from Holland, where the term "liberal" sometimes means the complete opposite of the US interpretation of the word depending on the particular value being discussed.

And there's the point parent makes; there are a LOT more flavors than just "liberal" and "conservative", and I'm not just talking of shades of gray inbetween, but entirely different directions. Politics isn't a simple 1D scale, it's more dimensions than I can think of right now.

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[jmorris42]

> Politics isn't a simple 1D scale..

Exactly, and this point was mentioned in the question thread and promptly ignored like every other time the subject comes up. Too many people are far too invested in the left/right model to allow for any change.

Instead of saying it all again, here links to the two posts I made on the topic:

Post 1
Post 2

So long as we cling to the broken model there isn't much hope for dialog. Lots of people have proposed various axes for a two dimensional model that work much better than the left/right one and a website could probably map out and deal woth at least two by just replacing the simple bar with a small square with a dot and be a vast improvement.

But it won't happen. Ponder that and see the real bias in the system, ensuring no meaningful dialog takes place and we stay distracted with petty bickering.

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[bzipitidoo]

Only 2 axis? I see the media as biased towards greed in the following ways. They want to sell copies. They believe drama and fear sells the best. Therefore, they heavily bias their reporting to make discussions seem like high drama passionate irreconcilable violent disagreements whether they were or not. Scientific results get twisted through too much or incorrect simplification and for the sake of drama. I don't know what we're all going to die from next, or what the latest danger to civilization will be. Neither does the media. They don't care either, as long as it makes good copy. You gotta print something.

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[SL Baur]

I like the Pournelle Axes describing a political spectrum - http://www.baen.com/chapters/axes.htm

It's certainly better than a mere right/left, but I have a hard time fitting the 3 clowns left running in the 2 major political parties to any kind of scheme. They all stand for more war, bigger government, higher taxes and less freedom.

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[mi]

Of COURSE they're going to want to extend this to your country as well.

And, as a matter of the same COURSE, we have already dispatched black helicopters to your location. You may wish to change into clean clothes real quick...

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[jmorris42]

Yup, had that book on my shelf so long it is looking ratty, darned acidic paper. Lots to recommend in using his chart, if for no other reason that it has been aroudn so long and so many people are familiar with it. Downside is invoking Pournelle's name on slashdot tends to divert the existing conversation into a love/hate flamewar over Pournelle for not only his politics but his tech writings.

The major problem with Pournells's chart is it was written when the Socialists had successfully rewritten the history books to put both Fascism and Nazism as right wing diseases. If any doubt on that subject remained Jonah Goldberg's recent masterpiece of investigative history put them to rest. Both Fascism and Nazism are sub species of Communism/Socialism. (The full name was the tell for me and those paying attention, now everybody should be able to figure it out.) So the Nazi bubble should be replaced with Nationalism or Monarchy. Not sure what Fascism needs to be replaced with.

> It's certainly better than a mere right/left, but I have a hard time
> fitting the 3 clowns left running in the 2 major political parties to
> any kind of scheme. They all stand for more war, bigger government,
> higher taxes and less freedom.

Not hard at all. Obama is a 4.5/4.5 if he is anything. Mrs. Clinton* is probably a 5/5 in her heart but is too savvy a political animal to ever admit to it, let alone act on those beliefs so she would be more dead center in the Welfare Liberals circle in practice.

McCain is harder to place since he lacks any sort of coherent political philosophy. McCain gets a notion and since he is for it it is Right and anyone opposed isn't a patriot. But he shows no signs of ever having sat down and worked out a consistent set of beliefs so it is almost impossible to predict which side he will take on a particular issue until he announces a position. But he is is a pretty consistent Statist so put him at 4 on that axis and dead center at 3 on the Rationalist axis.

* Bill Clinton is a 4/4 that governed as a pretty unpredictable figure, wandering around the political map as he triangulated to fit the focus groups. Bill does appear to have a consistent set of beliefs, he is just very willing to compromise them to win elections. Seems more interested in having power to get sex than to wield it.

Re:We don't live in a binary world

[Watson Ladd]

Are you smoking something? The National Socialist Party of Germany believed in the supremacy of the German nation, while every single socialist party was internationalist. The Democrats were indeed envious of fascism in the 1930's as were Republicans such as Lindberg. After all, Nazi Germany had escaped from the Great Depression. The Nazi party had racist attitudes. Racism was and is a tactic to divide the workers, preventing them from making revolutionary institutions according to the Communists and socialists. The Nazi party was happy to help out capitalists with slave labor, union busting, and other services. The Nazi party was corporatist in economic policy. Corporatism is distinct from Socialism, in that Corporatism envisions ending the class antagonism within a capitalist framework while Socialism is the a new economic system run by the workers for the benefit of the workers. The Nazi party was opposed by a United Front consisting of all the liberal and socialist parties in Germany. Had the Nazi party truly been socialist they would have not needed to kill thousands of Socialists and Communists for opposing their policies. Liberalism is a weakening of social democracy, itself a weakening of democratic socialism. Nazism is a strong form of nationalism with emphasis on racial purity and mobilization and a fascist domestic policy. The differences could not be more clear.

tldr...

[electrosoccertux]

Just because they put it all in the summary doesn't mean we'll read it before posting!

Uggghh the name

[teslatug]

I can't really bring myself to read 'skewz' over and over, so I just wanted to say wazzap to my peepz

Re:Uggghh the name

[sm62704]

Hay dood wazzap? Yew knot knew hear, ore yew? Wee owl yews spill chuckers a round hear sew wee no wee kin look smart! Axe seeped wind wee use hour phone, BRB CU l8tr

Slashdot should take note of the first question

[beuges]

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

Slashdot is in desperate need of a (-1, Misinformed) or (-1, Incorrect) or (-1, Complete BS) mod option, and has been forever. I can't begin to count the number of posts filled with complete rubbish that get modded up here. Sometimes the posts in question are made sincerely, without the poster being aware that what they're posting is inaccurate. So, the traditional negative mods of Redundant, Flamebait and Troll don't apply. There's Interesting, Informative and Insightful, but where's the Incorrect mod to counter these?

The closest mod that could apply to an innacurate quote would be Redundant, but that's not entirely true either. And posting a reply with a correction almost never balances things out, because the incorrect post almost invariably remains modded highly, and quite often, the correction remains unmodded.

So, the only negative mod that can be applied to inaccurate statements is (-1, Overrated), because most of the time, using any other negative mod gets nailed in metamoderation, because the post isn't necessarily flamebait or trolling.

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[sm62704]

The trouble with that is that one may propose a new hypothesis that may or may not pan out in the end, or may be modded by ignorant mods.

The story Friday about some sleazy lawyer suing about autisim and vaccinations forced me to comment about my oldest daughter (she'll be 23 this year), who was diagnosed as mentally retarded but I've since come to believ is autistic. It was modded "troll" despite the fact that fact was presented as fact, opinion as opinion, was heartfelt and real, and generated a lot of comments (mostly pretty redundant comments, however).

It would have been modded "incorrect" despite the fact that I only presented what I saw. Yes, it was colored by emotion, SHE'S MY DAUGHTER FOR GOD'S SAKE! If you want your ass kicked, hurt a man's lover. If you want to be fucking killed, hurt his child.

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Slashdot is in desperate need of a (-1, Misinformed) or (-1, Incorrect) or (-1, Complete BS) mod option, and has been forever. I can't begin to count the number of posts filled with complete rubbish that get modded up here. Sometimes the posts in question are made sincerely, without the poster being aware that what they're posting is inaccurate. So, the traditional negative mods of Redundant, Flamebait and Troll don't apply.

You are correct that the mods don't apply, but I believe that is by design. What is and is not factually correct is often a matter of debate. As such, if one person posts an opinion, such as "gun laws lead to more violent crime" do you really think it is useful to have Slashdot users "vote" on if this is correct by modding it "informative" or "incorrect" and seeing which gets more votes? Is it not more useful to have a real discussion where people can explain their opinions. The whole point of a debate (as opposed to an argument) is that it is supposed to lead to common ground and find the fundamental source of the disagreement. At that point if the fundamental disagreement is factual, one can discuss the pros and cons of the data collection methods. If the disagreement is moral, then at least people can have a clear understanding of the positions and form or change their own opinion based upon that moral difference.

There's Interesting, Informative and Insightful, but where's the Incorrect mod to counter these?

The correct way to deal with a post that is factually incorrect is to either post a reply that contains the facts, or find a reply and mod it informative. As much as I might have liked to have had a "-1, factually incorrect" mod in the past, that is a crutch and leads to lack of discussion. It is too easy for people to simply "vote" in accordance with their current opinion and then let the majority feel justified that their belief was reinforced by the mob. This is fairly useless and actually is harmful in that it dissuades people from real discussion that might reveal actual, verifiable facts and lead to a change of opinion.

The closest mod that could apply to an innacurate quote would be Redundant, but that's not entirely true either.

Redundant applies only if someone has already posted that comment before. This is, in fact, the most commonly abused mod in my opinion. People often use "redundant" to mod down comments they disagree with, but which have not been stated by someone already. They rely upon meta-moderator's laziness in not bothering to check the context, which is of course required to make such a determination. I'm lazy too, but if I don't look at the context, I don't meta-moderate posts marked redundant. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to toss out any meta moderation that marks a redundant post either way unless the user clicked on the context link.

And posting a reply with a correction almost never balances things out, because the incorrect post almost invariably remains modded highly, and quite often, the correction remains unmodded.

This can and does happen, but that does not mean no one reads the unmodded replies. I've also seen factual correction modded up quite often. Certainly it is not perfect, but I still think it is better than having an "factually incorrect" mod option.

So, the only negative mod that can be applied to inaccurate statements is (-1, Overrated), because most of the time, using any other negative mod gets nailed in metamoderation, because the post isn't necessarily flamebait or trolling.

They should, of course, be nailed in metamoderation. If you read the moderator guidelines you'll notice they ask people to focus on upward moderation. I'd argue it is a waste to mod a statement "-1, overrated" in most cases because it does nothing to further the discussion. I will wait until someone makes a reply that corrects it and mod that, or make a reply myself. The only time I mod so

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[NeutronCowboy]

I think this was done deliberately. Few people have the knowledge to accurately determine whether a post is factually incorrect or not. Yes, I've chafed at incorrect modding quite a few times, and wished for some modding options in that vein. However, I think the potential for abuse is higher than it's potential for good use. As a result, the Overrated option will have to do.

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[moderatorrater]

I think the potential for abuse is higher than it's potential for good use. As a result, the Overrated option will have to do. That's funny. To prevent the potential for abuse, you should use the most blatantly abused mod of them all.

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[OrangeCowHide]

The problem with the Misinformed, Incorrect, or Complete BS mod would be that the moderator is just as likely to be incorrect or misinformed. I mean you could say something like: Planes were hijacked and flown into the WTC, and a "truther" with mod points is going to knock you down.

Also, there is a tendency to get into religious debate on here. You say, "I believe in God" or "There is no scientific evidence for the existence of God" and either way someone will think you are misinformed.

Grammar nazis and the like will have a field day with misused apostrophes, and Maths junkies will go ballistic about minor algebraic errors.

It seems wrong to loose karma from zealous moderation, not that it doesn't happen presently, but I fear it would be far more prevalent if you could injure someone for having a mild disagreement with them. What would be must useful, would be a "I found this comment useful", thumbs up/down system that didn't affect karma. Especially if you could still respond to the comment, and didn't have to hope you happen to have mod points when the brain-staining statement was made.

Yes, I have seen those "WTF are you talking about" posts too. I do sympathize.

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[Mongoose Disciple]

The only problem is, even a post that unintentionally gets half the facts wrong can be a good/constructive one if it generates good replies/discussion in its wake.

If something is factually incorrect and you know it but otherwise is a good post, i.e. doesn't seem to be a troll or flamebait, I would say the correct moderation action is 'reply' and not 'mod down'.

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[visualight]

I think there should be a +1 "Inciteful" for when mods mark a flamebait post as "underrated". +3 "Flamebait" just doesn't look right.

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there should be a +1 "Inciteful" ... How about '+1 Typo', to make sure that the grammar nazis see it?

Re:Slashdot should take note of the first question

[mr100percent]

That brings up a good point about news.
Biased news sources rarely make stuff up, but they are careful about what they cover. I'm surprised he didn't mention that in the interview.

Frankfurt, H.G.:"On Bullshit" is applicable here

[Anonymous Coward]

According to H.G. Frankfurt, bullshitters are not interested in truth, in contrast to liers and people who have principles against lying.

As Skewz also circles around the question of truth, is it just pandering for bullshitters?

Skewz?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Okay, I had never heard of this site. From reading the Q&A, I'm not sure I'll ever want to visit it. I like the idea of exposing bias in news reporting, but I really don't see a lot of value in what they seem to be contributing here.

I'd enjoy a site where they fact check and even where they point out additional pertinent facts that may have been accidentally or intentionally left out of an article. I'd enjoy discussion where the methodology of fact collection and analysis was discussed and the relevance of data with regard to specific policies, other news events, etc.

From what I can tell based upon the answers given though, this seems more like a site populated by people polarized to one cultural view who are highly motivated and self identify with a polarized "liberal" or "conservative" political stance (as defined by mainstream media). So they "rate" articles based upon if they are supporting or opposing a given political party's platform? That sounds, well, idiotic. A completely objective study on the effects of gun control laws on crime rates might be rated as "conservative" simply because the political party's platform is supported by the data. Not to be crude but, why they hell would I care? Unless you're not interested in being accurately informed and are just looking for articles to support whatever group you've already decided to support, this site sounds completely useless. How is this any different than just finding the most biased news sites you can (in whatever direction) and just watching their spin on things?

Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the Q&A. Has anybody used the site and actually found it useful for finding objective information and helping to discover what is and is not accurate end relevant?

Re:Skewz?

[Skewz Founder]

"How is this any different than just finding the most biased news sites you can (in whatever direction) and just watching their spin on things?" -> it is very simple - you do not need to go and find sites you just go to Skewz...simple right (i.e. To make it easy here's a metaphor for you - instead of roaming town to find stores you can go to the mall).

"Unless you're not interested in being accurately informed" - how do you define accurately informed on the internet? Are you accurately informed by wikipedia? On Slashdot? Is accurate an exhaustive list of facts ?(just for the curious - it is not - facts need to be described and interpreted, the signs serving as vehicle of description can alter the interpretation of the facts...etc) - In other words let's not be painfully naive or banal

Re:Skewz?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A completely objective study on the effects of gun control laws on crime rates might be rated as "conservative"....

It might be, if someone were to ever write one.

Bias!

[FiloEleven]

People perceive an article to be biased one direction or the other because of a variety of factors which include: biased word selection, assumptions not supported by data, poor sourcing, open demonization, inaccuracy, omission of facts, and guilt by association as a few examples. Right, so that covers conservative bias. What do the liberals do? ;)

Re:Bias!

[crmarvin42]

People perceive an article to be biased one direction or the other because of a variety of factors which include: biased word selection, assumptions not supported by data, poor sourcing, open demonization, inaccuracy, omission of facts, and guilt by association as a few examples. Right, so that covers conservative bias. What do the liberals do? ;) I pray to god that the smiley face on the end means you're being sarcastic!

Re:Bias!

[Watson Ladd]

Cite facts. After all, anyone who asks why the poor have no food is a dirty communist.

Re:Frankfurt, H.G.:"On Bullshit" is applicable her

[sm62704]

Both Wikipedia and Uncyclopedia have entries on bullshit (linked). On top of that, all of Uncyclopedia and some of wikipedia is bullshit. From the Uncyclopedia entry:

"Wow, even I can admit that's total bullshit."
~ Jack Thompson on Everything he says and does

perception vs reality

[Anonymous Coward]

What many perceive as "straight up" objective can still be perceived as biased

Really, can anyone tell me why we should care how people perceive things!? What matters is if articles are ACTUALLY bias based on the criteria Vyas mentioned. "Truth, and the real bias [is what] we need to worry about"

This isn't brain surgery. Skewz is useless.

there's only one version of the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

& it's usually not a long story, & very rarely includes the word but.

ex; as a nation, we're bankrupt, physically, mentally, spiritually & financially.

bs; as a nation, we're bankrupt, physically, mentally, spiritually & financially, but not completely, as we still have promising prospects on the horizon.

Vipul completely misunderstood #8

[mtp85]

PotatoHead's question was very thoughtful and pointed to the problems associated with a system of political categorization that essentially boils down to binary options.

Vipul didn't actually address the question at all in his response.

I think what the questioner was asking was: Is "conservative"/"liberal" really a meaningful way of describing political leanings? If not, then the whole Skewz exercise is pointless.

Re:Your standard reply to a lot of questions seems

[huckamania]

The Web in general could be a place for really smart discussion, but most of the time it isn't. The majority of sites are heavily biased and the majority of people on both sides of the spectrum spend the majority of their time participating in self-congratulatory non-debate.

Mod systems, which were invented to raise the best comments to the top, are instead used to skew the discussion. It happens here as well. I've had and have seen completely factual statements modded into oblivion. Try reading a thread on slashdot using 1 or greater as a filter and you'll see what I mean.

Skewz is just a tool. Just like Digg is just a tool or Slashdot's comments section is just a tool. You can't blame the tool or even the tool inventor if the tool doesn't live up to your expectations. Move on or make your own tools.

But... 'fixed that 4 ya' works

[huckamania]

Slashdot is in desperate need of a (-1, Misinformed) or (-1, Incorrect) or (-1, Complete BS) mod option, and has been for a little while. Forever is inaccurate considering Slashdot has only been around for 29 years, other then that I completely agree.

Maybe we could add (+1, Needed fixing but still salient) to the mod options.

Biased for Fake "Balance"

[Doc Ruby]

Funny how this "interview" answered several questions, supposedly as the "highest rated", but just skipped answering the one that I asked (rated higher than many of those answered), 'Fake "Balance" (Score:5, Insightful)':

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?

So I suppose we have our answer. the point of the fake "balance" that Skewz.com promotes, along with the rest of the "contrived controversy" gossip media, is entirely once of dumbed-down convenience. They're not interested in the story, in the facts, or even in "balance". They're interested in cherrypicking the story to suit their own agenda, which is mainly just increased conflict. To distract us from ever solving any problems, which would mean less demand for their "service".

"Skewz". Couldn't have named it better myself.

Re:Biased for Fake "Balance"

[teknognome]

Do you seriously wonder why you question wasn't answered? It isn't so much a question, as an excuse to state your opinion. You could have asked "Why do you only have liberal and conservative choices, when those two descriptions do not capture the entire political spectrum?" (or something concise like that), but instead go on about "illusory groups" and psychology and "meaningless twaddle".

Re:Biased for Fake "Balance"

[Doc Ruby]

Oh, so I have to avoid saying that I think that their model is trick, even when that is precisely the issue with all these fake "balance" media offerings? I have to cloak my question in the very euphamisms that validate the "balance" model that I challenge? (BTW: it's not a "spectrum", a linear distribution with extremes and a middle, either.)

The readers don't seem to have thought the question wasn't worth answering - far from it. The criteria for which questions to answer was "highest rated". The moderators rated my question a 5/5:

Moderation +4
    70% Insightful
    30% Interesting

17 of 246 comments almost 7%, were in the thread I started with that question.

The moderators in this "interview" story, answering the cherrypicked questions from the earlier setup story, agreed, with another 5/5 rating:

Moderation +3
    70% Insightful
    30% Interesting

There are 50 comments in this story as I post this reply, so even just my post in it, your response, and this reply constitute 6% of the interaction with this story. The 3 +1 moderations represent 3% of the interest.

So to answer your question: no, I don't seriously wonder why my question wasn't answered - and I never said I wondered. For one, as you noticed in the tone of my question, I don't think the Skewz.com people are anything but perpetuators of a media scam promoting "bilateral balance". For another, I think they did answer my question, by ignoring it despite its relevance and popular interest in it.

Detecting Democrat - Republican bias is easy

[Dancebert]

Look at how a news outlet reports on a scandal involving a politician. Is his party reported in the title or first sentance? If so, odds are the source is biased against that party. Is the politician's party not mentioned in the piece? Odds are the source is biased for that party.

Re:Detecting Democrat - Republican bias is easy

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Is his party reported in the title or first sentance? If so, odds are the source is biased against that party. Is the politician's party not mentioned in the piece? Odds are the source is biased for that party.

Some news outlets actually have style guides to ensuret that the answer is the same regardless of party.

Re:Skews will always be wrong...

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

AHHH!! modded down by an angry conservative!

Fallacy of false dichotomy

[Crispy Critters]

This has been mentioned, but I want to explore it a little more deeply.

The assumption is that any position must be liberal or conservative, but this leads to nonsense. There is a large centrist middle. So what we see is that the largely centrist press looks liberal to extreme conservatives and conservative to extreme liberals. For example, being against abolishing social security or against abolishing the death penalty are not liberal or conservative, they are centrist. Does the media have a centrist bias?

Furthermore, support or criticism of a particular politician is not evidence of bias. It is poor reporting. Name your most or least favorite politician - probably they are in office because of a period of uncritical support by the media and their biggest problem is unfair, inaccurate, negative reporting in the media.

Re:Fallacy of false dichotomy

[Scudsucker]

or against abolishing the death penalty are not liberal or conservative, they are centrist.

How do you figure that, exactly? Aside from the morality of execution, there's the high rates of errors in death penalty cases, lack of good public defenders for those who can't afford their own, and the dozens of innocent people who were put on death row only to have their sentences overturned.

Re:Fallacy of false dichotomy

[Watson Ladd]

Centrist? What kind of philosophy is that? All political positions worth discussing begin with a few key axioms, and then are build up through logic. Sure, there's a spectrum, but it is because of the differing axioms. For instance:

Socialism(all kinds):Economic forces are the driving forces of society. All men desire and should have freedom.

Liberalism: The state exists to safeguard inalienable rights, including property rights.

Nationalism: The state exists to protect the culture and the people of the nation.

Christian Right: The state exists to legislate in accordance with Christian morals.

Christian Left: The state must be a moral actor in accordance with Christianity.

Now, the details of interpretation depend on the particulars of the party. But anyone who supports one of these positions will generally agree with the axiom associated with that position. For instance, Liberals favor deregulation because the right of contract is one of those inalienable rights. Centrism is worthless because it is simply the fallacy of compromise: If I say carbon is tetravalent and you say it is octavalent, it is most certainly not hexavalent.

Re:Fallacy of false dichotomy

[Adoxographer]

How about a site like skewz, but which instead of voting on left versus right, votes on "propagated by corrupt elitist power-mongers to further their own desire for more power and to protect entrenched status quo which robs the vast majority of any real say in how the country is run and willfully tries to mislead them and make them stupid." versus "real".

The reason, I think, is that such a website would be an endless catalogue of entries beginning "this is a lie to make you ..."

The concept is sound, implementation needs work

[Anonymous Coward]

The concept is interesting and fairly worthwhile, though ideally I wish there were one simple flag on all news stories (regardless of the site) that just said "this story was seeded by a corporation" so we can differentiate the real news from the "news made up for marketing".

Anyways, I wanted to point out that the Skewz site design is horrible. All those slider graphics are terribly overpowering of everything else on the page. It's almost as if the purpose of the site is to just glance through the page and see how stuff leans left or right. Ideally the HEADLINES must be the main priority, followed by article summary, and then a much smaller graphic slider (or even just a graphic indicating the RESULTS of the slider).

If you can come up with something precise, compact, and to the point, perhaps one day Google will buy you up and slap the Skewz onto every news article it delivers via Google News! Now that would be great!!

Re:Skews will always be wrong...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

the majority of web sites target people under 30.

The majority of tv/movies/music/internet sites/advertising campaigns (which drives the previous) either target people under thirty (nice amounts of disposible income) or people over thirty (by telling them they can be hip again, by doing what 30-year-olds do).

I will not visit this site

[Anonymous Coward]

As a libertarian, I think there are more biases than only liberal or conservative. What about the bias of libertarians, socialists, Green party members? They are completely left out of the discussion.

Re:Your standard reply to a lot of questions seems

[Z34107]

In my experience with the site the past few days, there doesn't seem to be much discussion. (This is coming from Slashdot, though - Skewz articles generally have only a few pages! of comments associated with them.)

I think they were trying to say was that they're hoping that a site dedicated to pointing out leftward/rightward bias would hopefully attract people interested in intelligent discussion, not propaganda. We'll see as their audience increases.

I also don't see them as "perpetuat[ing] the political divide, rather than address[ing] it." Refusing to acknowledge that a divide exists would hardly be "addressing" it; I think having people gauge such a divide and talk about it is.

Demographic Graph

[writerjosh]

It would be more interesting, and more telling, if you could see a quick graph for each article that displays things like age, state, country, gender, etc. If skewz could do that, you might actually have something interesting.

If it gets popular, I wouldn't doubt it if you start seeing the talking head newzies start using skewz as a quick pulse-meter.

Biased toward Ratings and Audience Demographics

[Anonymous Coward]

Its simple.

Most major privately owned news outlets are biased toward RATINGS. They are biased to what brings in the advertising dollars. And that would meaning catering to their target audience demographic.

Their agendas are based on the biases of their core audience because attracting them is what keeps the lights on. Presenting opposing views or even hints of unbias could jeopardize their existence.

People are too lazy and to use to being entertained to consider, usually publicly funded, critical and in-depth news reporting. Unfortunately that is probably a foreign concept to most people.

how can anyone liberal media bias with...

[Scudsucker]

...a straight face after the last decade? Look at how the media treated Bush vs how they treated Gore. How the media's discussion of Iraq is still dominated by pro-invasion hawks - those who opposed the war from the beginning are as excluded now as they were in 2002. Remember Gary Condit and Chandra Levy? At about the same time, an intern was found dead in Congressman Joe Scarborough's office from massive head trauma. Where was the scandal on that one?

It's not about individual reporters, as anyone can assemble a collection of individual stories that lean "left" or "right". And it's not about a "conservative" or "liberal" bias either...it's about media memes that are biased towards conservatives. And the media does that consistently and on a massive scale.

BLUE FLAG!

[Cajun Hell]

He wants to be taken seriously right?

No, he wants to be taken seriously left.

Good luck!

[El Pollo Loco]

We're seeing people come to Skewz for more sophisticated debate with people from the other side of the political spectrum.

I wish them the best of luck with this. In fact, that's the same goal my website(Lucid America) has. But what I'm finding out is that most people don't have the time. It takes time to understand the issue enough to have a sophisticated debate about it. It takes even more time to think through your thoughts, and write them in a concise manner. At best I can manage this once a week, and I'm finding that's pretty similar with most people.

I very much hope them success as intelligent debate is not only something I truly enjoy, but is also very important for a good society.

Communities and karma

[Raindance]

1. I applaud your optimism regarding what style of forum you think people will flock to, and can be sustainable in the long-term, in the face of all the discouraging historical precident. May your optimism become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

2. I'm quite skeptical as to whether your plan is reasonable for its nominal purpose, to categorize news stories. I tend to find machine-learning approaches to this problem more credible. But I can see the 'hook' for gathering a community around your idea.

3. I would suggest making your karma-like user reputation based more on community-judged merit, and actually count for something. I think karma is a central reason why Slashdot has a good signal-to-noise ratio-- maybe you could have 'liberal karma' and 'conservative karma' as separate quantities.

definitions

[dwater]

I had a quick look at the site, and registered to have a play.

I was confused, and found no help anywhere. Is there a help page/faq that I missed?

For a start, I noticed that the 'liberal' was blue and 'conservative' is red, which is the opposite of my understanding (from UK politics) and makes it counter-intuitive. Actually, in the UK, I think the liberal's colour is yellow, and it's labour who traditionally uses red (with the conservatives using blue).

Then I noticed on article which seemed to be rated the opposite of what I would have thought, which made me wonder if I have a basic misunderstanding.

This made me wonder what the definition of 'liberal' and 'conservative' are supposed to be.

...but I find no help on any of these issues.

To me, in an extremely simplistic sense, conservative is generally a set of 'western' values, and liberal is a set of 'eastern' values. I think of it in terms of 'left' and 'right' when looking at a world map. The big communist countries are on the 'right', so that's 'left wing', and the conservative countries are on the 'left', so that's 'right wing' (ie applying an 'opposite logic'; again, in a very basic simplistic sense.

I guess I'll have to look them up. There are many terms like this I don't really understand fully, though I'd guess they are defined differently by different people(s) anyway, so it's up to me to come up with my own definition, perhaps.

To me, I find wikipedia to be a good source of multiple opinions, though it has often been biased because of a skew of people from one side - for example, many of the pages on the various Chinese issues are clearly (to me) biased against China, and that can be easily explained by the fact that Chinese people have had spotty access to wikipedia, and probably few of them would feel capable of complex debate/opinion in English anyway, even if they cared to.

I wonder how you would attempt to counter that issue - ie of an in-built bias towards western media due to the fact that only English pages are featured and so only English capable people will be likely to use the site. I guess there's nothing to stop people submitting pages in other languages, eg in Chinese, but then the reverse would likely be true.

every single socialist party was internationalist?

[HornWumpus]

The Nazi Party was as internationalist as any other socialist.

They all want to run the world.

Same as any sane person would expect any united front in the 30s would have been an attempted Russian power grab. Their files are open now you know. You should stop plugging your ears and going 'Nah Nah Nah'. Turns out the 'Birchers' were right about more then a few things (e.g. Alger Hiss), in a paranoid time sometimes the paranoids are correct.

The National Socialists gave corporations a choice. Do as we tell you or we will take you over. Granted that some were enthusiastic participants. In no way could National Socialism be called 'Corporatism'. In Corporatism the corporations run the government. In National Socialism the government ran the corporations.

I'd say 'National Socialists' are fairly typical middle of the road socialists. Just there BS has been stripped for decades. They were no worse then the USSR, red China, Cambodia, Romania etc etc

Likely what you are looking to defend are countries with mixed models (Sweden etc) that have a stronger mix of socialism then the USA.

Pragmatic minds can take a lesson from the 20th century and see that anything like pure 'idealistic socialism' leads to strong central government which is invariably taken over by the power hungry who are then unchecked.

The same cannot be said for capitalism.

Re:Your standard reply to a lot of questions seems

[NeutronCowboy]

think they were trying to say was that they're hoping that a site dedicated to pointing out leftward/rightward bias would hopefully attract people interested in intelligent discussion, not propaganda.

I guess. My perspective is the exact opposite though: that a site that points out only rightward/leftward bias will attract those who think this is an important feature of news stories, and that this cannot lead to intelligent discussion.

We'll see as their audience increases.

True.

Too bad

[clint999]

People perceive an article to be biased one direction or the other because of a variety of factors which include: biased word selection, assumptions not supported by data, poor sourcing, open demonization, inaccuracy, omission of facts, and guilt by association as a few examples. Right, so that covers conservative bias. What do the liberals do? ;)--Things are now beginning to get interesting...

Re:

[clint999]

People perceive an article to be biased one direction or the other because of a variety of factors which include: biased word selection, assumptions not supported by data, poor sourcing, open demonization, inaccuracy, omission of facts, and guilt by associ

Re:

[clint999]

Hay dood wazzap? Yew knot knew hear, ore yew? Wee owl yews spill chuckers a round hear sew wee no wee kin look smart! Axe seeped wind wee use hour phone, BRB CU l8tr

"Conservatives had a more visceral response"

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullsh*t they did.

Well well well, only 25 or so responses? I'd say this article, and Skewz, is a flop.

What?

[clint999]

I think this was done deliberately. Few people have the knowledge to accurately determine whether a post is factually incorrect or not. Yes, I've chafed at incorrect modding quite a few times, and wished for some modding options in that vein. However, I th

BLUE FLAG!

[clint999]

The Nazi Party was as internationalist as any other socialist. They all want to run the world. Same as any sane person would expect any united front in the 30s would have been an attempted Russian power grab. Their files are open now you know. You shoul

Ignoring "story bias"

[itsdapead]

First, it's the combination of various factors that leads people to perceive bias as you have said. All we've really done is distill those many factors down to an overall political bias - either liberal or conservative.

That totally ignores the vital third leg to the bias issue: the bias of virtually all media towards telling a story which will attract readers/viewers rather than presenting the facts.

Couple of general examples:

Headline bias: The overall article is fairly objective if you read it all the way through, but the headline and preamble is misleading. E.g. this one is all over the UK media at the moment: Father fined for overfilling bin "A father-of-four has been left with a criminal record for overfilling his wheelie bin by four inches" (for our US viewers, a wheelie bin is a small, domestic dumpster in which one puts out the trash) - now, you'd think that this meant some poor guy had overfilled his bin and got hit with a $500 fine and a criminal record, but after assimilating various versions of this story it becomes clear that (a) the guy had already recieved warnings, a large bin etc. from the council (b) part of the fine (and probably the "criminal record") came from failing to pay the initial fine and (c) some reports suggest that he made matters worse by not turning up for the court case.

Now the problem with this is not that this incident isn't of interest/concern - it is - but that the disingenuous reporting undermines the issue: if you're going to challenge authority figures on whether this is an appropriate use of the criminal justice system, it doesn't help to hand them a ready made straw man and a box of matches. This happened on a much larger scale with the whole BBC vs Blair and the "sexed up" dossier affair: the BBC had pretty important evidence, but scenting the chance to nail a few ministerial scalps to the mantlepiece they "sexed up" their own story so much that, ultimately, the story became more important than the issue.

One dissenting voice=controversy: you gotta have "balance" so lets go out and find someone with extreme views who will promote a "lively debate".

On the radio, a woman who worked with the victims of domestic violence was describing how some of her clients were "serial" victims, and seemed to be attracted to the sort of aggressive males who were prone to violence. She was calling for proper research into what she admitted was currently only anecdotal evidence, with the pretty clear intent of helping empower these serial victims to break the cycle. The journos decided to "balance" this by rolling out some hard-line feminist who could only seem to interpret this as part of the great male conspiracy to blame all domestic violence on women,. So was that right of left bias? Maybe there were serious flaws in the hypothesis. Maybe the first woman *was* some sort of auto-misogynist, but the sort of critical questioning which might have reveled that certainly wasn't going to come from the disputant (assuming, of course, that the interview wasn't edited to hell).

Similarly, when there were attempts to set up the UK equivalent of the EFF, the media kept rolling out a "balancing opinion" who kept dismissing electronic privacy issues as "a middle class issue". Is that pro-right or pro-left?

Don't use the same word twice - its bad literary style, especially if its a nicely technical word like "percent". E.g "1/5 of people surveyed thought X, 45,000 thought Y and 17% thought Z". I really wish I'd grabbed the best example when it flashed by in the ether (it was to do with graduates pay and job satisfaction I think. Of course, that brings us on to the whole media misunderstanding statistics thing. Did you know that chewing gum increases the chance of the Loch Ness Monster falling on your head by 250%?

Gosh, darn we didn't mean that - people won't misunderstand ambiguous language w