Inside the Guardian and the Snowden Leaks

An anonymous reader writes "An interesting and thoughtful article in the New Yorker about the inner workings of the Guardian newspaper. It explains a lot about why the Snowden files ended up there and not elsewhere. Given all the snark on Slashdot about the sorry state of modern journalism, it is well worth a read to see one organization that got it right. An illustrative quote about Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor: 'He has a really useful piece of equipment that most editors don't have, which is a spinal column.' I would encourage everyone to read this, and if you support the type of journalism the Guardian has been engaging in, think about buying a subscription. The article also talks about the financial side of the newspaper business, and real journalism is not going to happen unless somebody pays for it."

Comments

Reference Newspapers

[bob_super]

Dear slashdotters, The Guardian is quickly becoming one of my preferred references. Can you help me broaden my horizons by naming other good newspapers? (English/French/Spanish language only sorry)

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[AlphaWolf_HK]

They say "real journalism" but in my experience, the "real journalists" never really seem to get most things accurate. Every time I've been aware of the events behind a particular story (in some cases, being involved in the story) the "journalists" always seem to miss important details or flat out have some details wrong (for example, a plane crash one of my classmates was involved in, it was reported that all passengers died when in fact there was a survivor.)

The so called "bloggosphere" tends to be more accurate in my opinion.

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[bob_super]

Did you tell him to watch out for Samuel L Jackson?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I would recommend reading diverse viewpoints. I read fox news, huffington post, bbc & al jazeera on a daily basis. I buy the atlantic and the economist. Then the daily show & the onion :)

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[Anonymous Coward]

Newspapers should not be used as a reference. Their reference material is what should be cited. So in that respect, wikileaks is going to be the most accurate source of information.

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[Anonymous Coward]

They say "real journalism" but in my experience, the "real journalists" never really seem to get most things accurate. Every time I've been aware of the events behind a particular story (in some cases, being involved in the story) the "journalists" always seem to miss important details or flat out have some details wrong (for example, a plane crash one of my classmates was involved in, it was reported that all passengers died when in fact there was a survivor.)

The so called "bloggosphere" tends to be more accurate in my opinion.

The Blogosphere woudn't know what real investigative journalism is (and unfortunately they are not the only ones since most traditional newspapers have forgotten what journalism is. Hint : it is not government PR) if they were hit by a 10 foot pole.
Thank god some good actors still exist in the US and abroad. Propublica in the US and The Guardian in the UK. In France Le Canard Enchaîné. While Le monde and Le Figaro may seem independent they survive thanks to government grants. So they'll never ever tell the whole story. In Italy ha no one. Each newspapaer is more corrupt than the next, and all all of them receive government aid.

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[Russ1642]

Same here. The dozen or so times I've known details about something reported in a newspaper they've gotten pretty much everything wrong. I wouldn't trust them to spell their own name right let alone properly report on an event. What's in the newspaper is complete fiction when compared to reality.

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[ArbitraryName]

The so called "blogosphere" is nothing more than an echo chamber that has no more credibility than journalism.

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[AlphaWolf_HK]

Except wikileaks (and Assange himself) is already known to embellish the truth, or even outright fabricate it. For example, what they claimed were cameras in that "collateral murder" video were in fact weapons. I'm not even an expert and I clearly saw both Kalashnikov and RPG being carried by those people walking - I don't know how anybody could mistake those for cameras.

Assange himself admitted that his intent is to cause outcry, even if he has to lie about it.

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[PolygamousRanchKid]

http://www.economist.com/

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[komodo685]

4 Points
1) Diversity is good, but... You must keep in mind that is not sufficient reason to read a source. A 'diversity' of falsehoods is worthless.
2) You can't read everything. Choose the areas that mean the most to you (international affairs, economics, national or local politics, etc) and try to find 2-3 sources that seem to do good work in those areas.
3) Be aware who is paying the bills. The consumers/adverisers in typical newspapers? Purely advertisers as in television/online reporting? Government in state funded broadcasting? I don't believe reporters will bend their views to match the person paying the bills. Instead reporters with unsympathetic views will often not get hired in the first place (probably not a lot of leftwingers in Fox or rightwingers on MSNBC). I'd strongly recommend reading Manufacturing Consent for more information.
4) Let your choices evolve. The editors today may not be the editors tomorrow. Companies get bought out, new ones arise. How much longer will the Guardian's editor remain?

My recommendations:
The guardian -- You already have your reasons. I think their dissimenating the NSA leaks and wikileaks info when no one else would is justification enough.
al jazeera -- Particularly foreign viewpoint, high quality.
Democracy Now -- Not the best quality but clearly believe what they say and is run off donations. Also provides an American (important to me as I am one) viewpoint on things.
Their are others I think are probably good and have seen other posters mention already but I'm not experienced enough with them to know.

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[smooth wombat]

The so called "bloggosphere" tends to be more accurate in my opinion.

Glad it's only an opinion because there is no evidence to suggest this is true. One can use the Boston bombing as a classic example of how the blogosphere got it completely wrong. Same with Sandy Hook, to use just two examples.

The reason why blogs appear to be more accurate is because they generally cater to one specific area whereas those in the industry cover just about everything and need to put that information in a form digestible to the masses. Even though they may have a reporter dedicated to an area, that one person has to cover the gamut of the subject which isn't easy under any circumstance. When you're on a deadline, it is much more difficult.

Unless someone is on the scene, recording things as they happen then write about it in an unbiased manner (or as unbiased as they can be by not using terms such as "pigs", "gestapo" and so on), their reporting will be significantly less accurate than those who do this for a living. Further, and as previously mentioned, they need to put concepts and ideas into neat and compact sound bites for people to understand.

That said, and to use a tired quote, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Same with the blogosphere.

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[Aighearach]

My opinion of The Guardian, they are better at standing tall on a big story, but they're totally full of **** most of the time. They run political lies like a tabloid, just lie lie lie lie lie. They stand tall behind their lies just as much as their scoops. And something like Snowden's leaks, there is no journalism involved. They didn't investigate something and get to some answers. Somebody dropped a golden egg in their lap, and their editors have the business sense to jump on it strong. That's the only reason any of it is even true. And in the first week of the Snowden leaks, they were actually phrasing a lot of it in a dishonest way; speculating about things they later reported on, that we now know the details of, which were typically not what they were speculating. So they managed to tarnish even that. If you look at those first weeks, the Washington Post was giving more honest, less sensational reporting, based on the same leaks. And the Post is a pretty awful rag.

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[Aighearach]

Honestly, I would recommend reading diverse viewpoints.

I totally agree. Most of these journalists and editors do find out the truth, before they decide how to spin and twist and embellish it to create either sensationalism, or their preferred narrative. And since they don't all have the exact same goals, an intelligent critical thinker can often tease at least some of the truth out of the differing lies.

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[gander666]

Beat me to it. I have been a subscriber for more years than I can remember. Worth every penny.

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[ShanghaiBill]

http://www.economist.com/

I second this. The journalists at The Economist are mostly British, although most subscribers are American. It is very entertaining to read news about America from an outsider's perspective, especially about typical American issues, like our dysfunctional health care system, guns, abortion, etc.

As for American news magazines, like Time or Newsweek, I wouldn't even use them to line my parakeet's cage, for fear that I would end up with a retarded parakeet.

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[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.csmonitor.com/

Despite its obvious origins I often find they have well researched foreign news that is all to lacking in the US.

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[Anonymous Coward]

for example, a plane crash one of my classmates was involved in, it was reported that all passengers died when in fact there was a survivor.).

Yep, that was me. But in all fairness they tried to correct the thing and sent a hitman after me.

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[TheMiddleRoad]

There is enough leftist hatred and antisemitism in the Guardian to kill a civilization.

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[Frosty Piss]

The so called "bloggosphere" tends to be more accurate in my opinion.

Exactly. They seem more "accurate" to you because the ones you visit share your views.

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[FrankHS]

"Real journalists" have a conflict of interest. They want to keep their jobs and their access to government sorces. As a result, they become stenographers for government PR people.

The media owners also have a conflict of interest. They are intimidated by the government and demand that the journalists do what it takes to keep the midia owners business safe. They are also intimidated by the threat of lawsuits.

As a result the media has become garbage. I am sad to say that there is no high quality media in the United States today. Better coverage can be had from foreign sources and bloggers.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Not a newspaper but a magazine: Science et vie (French). Most articles are well-balanced presenting bost sides of the story, and try to make it readable for the layman. They've had really informative articles on astronomy, fracking, the plight of the reactors in Japan, and of course the usual discussion of climate change. Unfortunately they don't have a big presence on the internet and their issues are hard to find in North America.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen a 800mm prime lens recently? Anybody could have mistaken one for an RPG, the issue on the video was not that mistake that killed the reporters but what happened afterwards.

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[komodo685]

There is enough leftist hatred and antisemitism in the Guardian to kill a civilization.

Great! Then you will have no trouble citing multiple stories The Guardian has written indicating as much.

For extra points provide some commentary from other news sources, which typically leaning pro-Israel (especially in America), would no doubt have torn apart those same Guardian stories.

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[DoofusOfDeath]

The English translation of the German magazine, Der Spiegel.

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[komodo685]

Given his, AlphaWolf_HK, other remarks on this same page:

Except wikileaks (and Assange himself) is already known to embellish the truth, or even outright fabricate it. For example, what they claimed were cameras in that "collateral murder" video were in fact weapons. I'm not even an expert and I clearly saw both Kalashnikov and RPG being carried by those people walking - I don't know how anybody could mistake those for cameras. Assange himself admitted that his intent is to cause outcry, even if he has to lie about it.

All of which are false (those in fact were cameras, held by the two reporters named Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh working for Reuters), more info here. I think we have additional evidence that in fact bloggers are a much worse source of news than reporters. Instead tending to reinforce the beliefs and opinions of those that seek them out rather than provide accurate commentary. Slashdot, please mod AlphaWolf_HK down.

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[NatasRevol]

I'd probably recommend the reverse order.

Things will get less factual as you proceed from right to left (in your list).

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[jregel]

In the UK, I rate the Independent, along with the aforementioned Guardian.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend that works in a small NGO... she got told that she joined the big leagues by some folks in Greenpeace when she got misquoted by the news.

The news is just a bunch of stories, slightly more realistic than fiction.

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[NoImNotNineVolt]

Have you not noticed the steady decline in quality at the Economist?

I used to be a huge fan of the Economist. However, I won't be renewing my subscription this time around.

The Economist's "outsider perspective" on America has become anything but.

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[wiredlogic]

There are a lot of prima donnas out there operating under the guise of being journalist while acting as a surrogate mouthpiece for whatever powerful entity helps them further their career. They aren't real journalists despite their claim to the contrary. The NYT and WSJ editorial staff are good examples of these shills.

These are the same people that put up a fight claiming that bloggers can't be journalists. Essentially, because independent bloggers aren't part of the bought and paid for scheme the "professionals" have set up, there is a risk that real news may be reported on in an intelligent and insightful way. It is analogous to how lawyers involved in politics have created governmental policies and laws that serve only to benefit their own kind.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Worse would be a "journalist" using a blog or social media as his/her source feeding a even bigger echo chamber.

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[HornWumpus]

The issue we're discussing is the edits and editorials that wikileaks added to the video.

They are not an unbiased source. If they edited it, it can't be trusted.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not even an expert and I clearly saw both Kalashnikov and RPG being carried by those people walking - I don't know how anybody could mistake those for cameras.

Say hello to your buddy ColdFjord for all of us here at Slashdot who
would be happy to take a crap on your heads, you lying dickeating
sack of shit.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I clearly saw both Kalashnikov and RPG

No, you didn't. As for Ak-47's, those were explicitly allowed by the occupational forces - was Bush not merciful - for personal defense.

Which means that if a SWAT team saw a licensed permit holder walking down a street in America, and opened fire with automatic weapons, you'd support that, right? And then also fired upon anyone who tried to rescue the wounded, right? Right?

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[HornWumpus]

Same as newspapers and web sites then.

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[HornWumpus]

Two were cameras, the rest were weapons. They were imbedded with combatants and had nothing to complain about when they were righteously killed. They bought their tickets, they took their chances.

Goes double for the fool who tried to use his van full of kids as a combat ambulance.

That the version presented was so far from the truth is what cost wikileaks their credibility.

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[Deluvianvortex]

No, its because independent bloggers have no editors or anyone to check their sources. In the world of blogs, waiting on fact checks is suicide. Its post post post and hope that something you wrote was right. Who gives a shit if you spread misinformation, its a fucking blog.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing we're on Slashdot!

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[eulernet]

In France: Mediapart http://www.mediapart.fr/ and Le Canard Enchaîné http://lecanardenchaine.fr/
Mediapart has an english version: http://www.mediapart.fr/en/english

Mediapart outs corrupt politicians, while Le Canard Enchaîné has a lot of information from government's insiders.
Mediapart is serious, and wants to go on a crusade against corruption.
Le Canard is humorous, full of excellent puns, and somewhat disillusioned about politics (they are systematically sued, but rarely lose their lawsuits).
Both are feared by politicians and lobbyists.

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[utkonos]

This paper does still count for your request, since it has an English language online version - Novaya Gazeta from Russia. This is one of the trustworthy news sources from Russia. Most news outlets in Russia are state owned, but this one is a rare occurrence of the paper's staff controlling 51%. This, however, is not the reason why I find the paper trustworthy. It is a bit of a grim statistic, but Novaya Gazeta has more journalists killed than any other news outlet in Russia. The majority of whom were either murdered by the state, or at least the state turned a blind eye to their death.

This next one is Russian-language only, and a radio station in Moscow. But it is a fairly good, unbiased news source. It's called Echo Moskvy or Echo of Moscow.

Unfortunately, one of the best English language news sources in Moscow, The eXile, closed its doors a few years ago. There are two possible reasons: one, that the paper was harassed into closing by the government. Or that the editor, Mark Ames, was tired and used some light harassment from the government as an excuse to close shop. Either way, it used to be a good source of insanely funny gonzo journalism with a constant streak of hard-hitting honest journalism.

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[eulernet]

And I forgot Le Courrier International, which is less France centric:
http://www.courrierinternational.com/

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[Anonymous Coward]

You really are a piece of shit. Righteously killed?

Fuck you.

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[whistlingtony]

I'll third this. I like the Economist. I don't always AGREE with them, but they clearly do their homework, they are decently good at seperating their opinion from the facts, and reading them makes me more informed. It probably does help that they are Brits. I enjoy their take on the US news. Tony

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[whistlingtony]

Or maybe you're just disagreeing with them? They have pretty evenly been conservative leaning in their opinions for a long time. Lately, they HAVE been bandying around the opinion that the state of the US is pretty stupid, and they've been naming blame.

Perhaps you don't like who they're blaming? Lately, it's been the conservatives.

Out of curiousity, what decline in quality are you noticing? Can you give some more information? They seem just as informative and fact presenting as they've always been to me.

Tony

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[BradMajors]

Newspapers are never reliable when reporting on significant domestic issues. If you want to learn about country "X" you need to read newspapers written in country "Y".

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[davesag]

Certainly the New Yorker has shown it doesn't know the difference between "insure" and "ensure". That error appears three times in their article. Standards sure have slippedâ¦

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[Anonymous Coward]

What?

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[Anonymous Coward]

The Economist

Nope. I used to read them daily but I discovered over time they are extremely biased - just good at misdirection and hiding the bias. Much of what they print is based on ideology, not science. Not even the dismal science (economics).

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[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. The dozen or so times I've known details about something reported in a newspaper they've gotten pretty much everything wrong. I wouldn't trust them to spell their own name right let alone properly report on an event. What's in the newspaper is complete fiction when compared to reality.

So why does Wikipedia only accept citations pretty much only from newspapers?

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[cavreader]

They also "produced" the film "Collateral Damage" by editing out anything that did not support their non-objective analysis. The full version of the video was released later but by then the unquestioning masses had already firmed up their opinion on the whole matter and were not particularly interested in seeing anything that might not agree with their particular line of thought. The release of the edited video by Wikileaks was the first glaring sign that despite all the bullshit about just setting anonymously submitted information free to the masses it was no more than another political action group looking to use the data to drive a political agenda.

Lies of omission, lack of context, and sentence structure is how you construct biased propaganda and the creators can honestly claim there were no outright factual discrepancies in the published article. This type of news reporting is done by all sides on any issue. The truth is being lost and the Internet has turned into the ultimate tool for spreading misinformation in record time. As for the Guardian all you need to do is visit their reader comment talkbacks and you will see how their non-objective articles has turned 90% of it's readers into non-questioning drones patting each other on the back for having the same great insight to worldly issues. I believe the technical term is echo chamber.

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[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/~cavreader

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[tomtomtom]

I'd add either the (UK, not Australian) Telegraph or (preferably) the Financial Times to that list (much better than the WSJ). Particularly for financial/business stories I almost never read the mainstream press, they are simply awful at reporting these things (usually misunderstanding, missing key details, or over-sensationalising stories as well as over-simplifying - the BBC is particularly bad at this). Bloomberg generally does a decent job most of the time on them and is worth following for that as it's free to read on the web (unlike the FT).

It's also WELL worth picking up a copy of the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, or Foreign Affairs on occasion (as well as The Economist, although that's a bit lighter-weight) - they are not really "real time" but they will give you much more to think about when you are reading the day-to-day news (just be aware that they each have their own institutional biases too).

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[manu0601]

French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique (also known as the "diplo"). International editions are available, including english edition.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your valuable insight, random anonymous dickhead.

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[DarkSabreLord]

Without citing sources, your comment seems to be on the same ground you accuse them of standing on - no investigation, dishonest phrasing without justification, and tarnishing their reputation via speculation instead of hard documents.

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[Anonymous Coward]

They also "produced" the film "Collateral Damage" by editing out anything that did not support their non-objective analysis. The full version of the video was released later but by then the unquestioning masses had already firmed up their opinion on the whole matter and were not particularly interested in seeing anything that might not agree with their particular line of thought.

Yes, that's a well known talking point, but it's also well known that the people making it are full of shit. Because you never have any actual points to make, like a guy in a pimp costume being edited into the clip when he wasn't there, or an RPG that was fired at the helicopter and missed.

At no point was the attack justified, as your hair-on-fire-tautology-without-a-shred-of-evidence would pretend.

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[Badblackdog]

I know what you are talking about. Awesome movie!

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[s.petry]

Fox is more factual than the BBC? I'm not claiming that the BBC is "good" mind you, but Fox has as much credibility to me as "The Star". This is the company that fought up through the US Supreme Court that "News is Entertainment" and that they had no journalistic responsibility to show people factual information on the "News." Sadly they won...

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[Anonymous Coward]

I used to read The Economist regularly, and also had a print subscription for a year too.

As an Indian, let me tell you this: The Economist doesn't have "outsider's perspective". Although that is how it is marketed (and is received in most of the Europe). It is a British publication. And, as any avid non-European reader can tell you, it is vapid anti-China. You should take that seriously because it is coming out of an Indian's mouth.

I guess it looks more balanced than most American publishers because the British politics is simply more liberal than American politics. The Economist has historically been pro-"free market" and has historically supported wars in middle-east for that end, the latest being the war in Syria. It has always been pro-DRM, anti-Wikileaks, anti-nationalistic for every country but anti-EU when it comes to Britain.

I got hooked to it for the same marketing reason that you are giving, and got other people hooked too. But the bias is so strong and obvious to non-Europeans like me that I had to stop my subscription. I still read it, though sparingly, but increasingly find it less intellectual and more predictable. My friends are still reading it regularly but they also acknowledge the vapid anti-China and pro-British slant.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking idiot.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Dear slashdotters, The Guardian is quickly becoming one of my preferred references. Can you help me broaden my horizons by naming other good newspapers? (English/French/Spanish language only sorry)

I've always loved BBC News and recently I've been put on to Russia Today.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Were you aware that the helicopter was flying top cover and scouting the area for a battle going on all that morning about a mile away? Did you know that the foreign fighters wear no uniforms or other insignia identifying them as combatants? Were you aware that the journalists were literally dragged out of their hotel by gun carrying combatants? Were you aware that the combatants like to film their attacks and what better way to accomplish that then taking some journalists to the scene of attack? Were you aware that the journalists were not wearing the vest that identifies them as journalists on the battle field? Were you aware that the children injured were hidden in the van? Are you aware that the wounded children were rushed to a US medical facility? Are you aware it is SOP for the combatants to collect the weaponry of people killed and the second vehicle that came on the scene was doing just that? And are you aware that, right or wrong, there was a hot war in progress and people actually die during war? And are you aware the combatants hide amongst civilians but are still capable of initiating deadly attacks putting the lives of US soldiers at risk? Any hesitation can be fatal. The soldiers on the ground and in the helicopters are not the ones that decided to initiate a war or set the rules of engagement. And finally are you aware that prior to launching the attack the helicopter pilot contacted his superior and a JAG officer to get permission to engage?

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[turning in circles]

I read the Wall Street Journal, or at least the headlines. It is interesting to see what issues the people who only care about money care about today.

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[Falconhell]

I saw nothing but cameras in that video, your ideology is clouding your vision.

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[dbIII]

Thank you for your "Death to all enemies of Lenin" style post. I know now exactly how little value to put in your words.

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[Anonymous Coward]

There's also PressEurop, a news aggregator for many European newspapers. It's also the only site I've seen where the commenters flame each other in 5 different languages at the same time (I blame embeddable Google Translate for making this atrocity possible).

Re:Reference Newspapers

[bfandreas]

I've been looking for something similar in English, German and French. Sorry, there's only DER SPIEGEL and teh Gauniard. A word to the wise, though. The Kindle edition of Hte Guadrian seems not be be poorly edited but not edited at all. but not edited at all it reads exactly like this post. And as a UK newspaper expect a lot of reports on badger culling, the latest NHS bungling and some soccer/football.
DER SPIEGEL being DER SPIEGEL does not have a Kindle edition. They rely on apps for iOs and Android and very yesteryear payment methods. By the way there is a distinct difference between the print and the online edition of this particular rag. There is some reuse but not a lot. They seem to have a separate editorial staff and the two halves of the publication give the impression that they don't really talk.

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[TheMiddleRoad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Accusations_of_anti-Semitism_and_bias_in_coverage_of_Israel
http://cifwatch.com/2013/04/30/guardianap-story-on-tunisias-jews-omits-history-of-antisemitic-persecution/
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/91164/antisemitic-guardian-gaza-cartoon-shows-jews-puppeteers
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/08/reuters-bbc-and-guardian-celebrates.html#.UleSExBFNoo
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/06/1207175/-Guardian-Battles-Financial-Woes-Antisemitism-Allegations
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/624/the_guardian_acknowledges_a_degree_of_anti_semitism
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100196562/the-guardian-speaks-up-for-paedophiles-flirts-with-anti-semitism-and-jumps-on-every-crazy-leftist-bandwagon-in-sight-what-happened-to-quality-control/
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/michael-white-guardian-assistant-editor-cries-israel-in-response-to-concern-over-lord-ahmeds-antisemitism/
http://cifwatch.com/2013/05/22/top-10-warning-signs-you-may-be-a-guardian-left-anti-semite/

Eagerly awaiting your reply. I'm especially excited about how many points get you on the last one.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[mynamestolen]

1. Mediapart - French website with both French news and world news http://www.mediapart.fr/en/english Edwy Plenel heads it and is a great bloke. Mediapart has now attracted paying subscribers and is making a profit. Mediapart broke the story of President Francois Hollande's budget minister evading taxes when he was supposed to be cracking down on tax cheats. After vehemently denying the allegations, in the face of overwhelming evidence, Jerome Cahuzac was forced to resign. Mediapart also did the Bettencourt Scandal which embroiled Sarkozy. 2. Crikey.com.au The first successful online pay newsite in Australia.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You misread his comment - right-to-left puts Fox below the BBC on the 'factual' scale.

Also, the Fox case that you're referring to only involved a local Fox station in Florida, and did not go to the US Supreme Court: http://www.projectcensored.org/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/

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[Anonymous Coward]

In french, for technical journalism : reflets.info

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[mutube]

fox news

Adding noise to your sample doesn't improve its accuracy.

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[mutube]

The Independent is another good UK paper. It seems positioned slightly less left/more liberal/more free market compared to the Guardian (my take). They also make a point of having intelligent dissenting opinions in the paper - so you get to see well reasoned arguments from different sides instead of a battle of talking-heads-who-shout-loudest.

Makes a good reading companion to the Guardian.

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[Anonymous Coward]

www.elpais.com
Amazing newspaper in spanish, focusing a lot on international news. Its webpage html title is "EL PAÍS: el periódico global en español".
First pages are for foreign (not spanish news), and -like it or not- that happened in 2004 Madrid train bombings (2004 Madrid train bombings) as well.
Highly recommended!

Re:Reference Newspapers

[coolmadsi]

Dear slashdotters, The Guardian is quickly becoming one of my preferred references. Can you help me broaden my horizons by naming other good newspapers? (English/French/Spanish language only sorry)

Not sure if it counts as a newspaper (it comes out fortnightly), but in the UK there is the Private Eye. A lot of the content is satire, but they also report on topics not covered by other papers.

As an example, when the Leveson report was being released, they covered the bits that the other papers were not reporting on (namely the bits that made them look bad), and also recently have reported on some of the big the tax evasion techniques being used by big companies (again, some of the other newspapers either use these techniques or are owned by someone who do, so miss out on this reporting)

Re:Reference Newspapers

[advid.net]

My three daily readings are :

new.google.com - not a reference site per se but sometimes news can be reported from less mainstream media. Chose a national edition (/?ned=xx in url) for other languages, spanish speaking world has quite a different coverage.

Al Jazeera , as many pointed out here. Many subjects are covered with much less biased point of view than in western media. Pretty good and quality journalism. Some in-depth coverage samples: BP disaster and one year later.

Slashdot ... again not a reference site per, but I don't have time to read much more than those three sites.

In French: Mediapart and Rue89 for some alternative views.

I'll have a look at the crowd advice here, nice thread.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[pjt33]

If you're going to mention the Canard Enchainé in France you might also want to mention Private Eye in the UK.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware of what a gigantic crock excuse making shit your post is? Even if you want to chalk up the mistaking zoom lenses for RPG's as an honest mistake, there is nothing on God's green earth that justifies firing on first responders.

Did you know that the foreign fighters wear no uniforms or other insignia identifying them as combatants?

Why not toss in "human shields" why you're at it? Get the fuck outta here with your bullshit excuses for war crimes.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[jools33]

The independent has some very good journalists and good stories, although slightly more tabloid oriented they are quite happy to take on the establishment. Especially a certain Robert Fisk (if you're interested in middle east news at all) his columns are unmatched.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Yomers]

As a Russian I can not agree with you on Novaya Gazeta and Echo Moskvi. AFAIK those are very boring - whatever happens it's always one conclusion - Russian government is shit and country is going down. For example Snowden? Same - http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/dobrokhotov/1127964-echo/ . Really, anything that happens anywhere - conclusion is always the same, it's just boring. Unbiased news source? LOL

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Tore S B]

A blog with the heading "Monitoring and combating antisemitism, and the assault on Israel's legitimacy, at the Guardian (...)" is definitely going to be a useful source in this discussion.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

So what did you replace it with? I'm all for bashing something (if it deserves it) but I'm moire interested in an alternative.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

People might value your opinions more if you could tell your left from your right.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

>> A 'diversity' of falsehoods is worthless.

Completely illogical, like trying to find the murderer by compiling a list of who was innocent. Worthless.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Sqr(twg)]

The cameras were cameras, but the weapons carried by other members of the group were wepons. The lessons to learn from this are:

If someone asks if you want to join the military (in a country which might invade other countries) just say "fuck you!" Otherwise you might soon find yourself in a situation where you either fire on what might be innocent civilians, or risk exposing your friends and colleages to an enemy assault.

If you ever find yourself organizing an armed resistance movement (because your country was invaded) make sure you wear uniforms, armbands, or some other kind of identifying marks whenever you operate. It may make you more of a target, but it may also save the lives of civilians around you.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

or worse, your parakeet joins the tea party

Re:Reference Newspapers

[NatasRevol]

Come on, dude.

What I said was Fox was the least factual.

Please go re-read my comment three times.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[C0C0C0]

I'd love for for someone to suggest a good conservative newsource. One where the writers support the conservative cause but won't intentionally skew the news when their side is ion error.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Aighearach]

It was not my intent to represent my comment as reference material that would cite sources; it was actually my own commentary, my own opinion, and putting references into it would be silly.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a newspaper, but The News Hour on PBS is exceptionally good these days

Re:Reference Newspapers

[s.petry]

I believe that your "reverse" comment prior to the ordering was what became confused. Apologies for confusing the statement, in my head I reversed then looked at the order instead of taking them as two separate and similar statements.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[NatasRevol]

I think that's the first apology I've ever received on slashdot!

Re:Reference Newspapers

[s.petry]

If I am wrong, I will usually apologize. Maybe not to an AC, but nearly always to a named account.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite.

The Guardian, independent et al present a slanted view just like all other newspapers. The Guardian take sponsored content, for one thing. The Indy had Johann Hari, 'nuff said. Both report on (and are read by) small cliques. There is nothing actively wrong with this but just because the Guardian's stance in the Snowden instance appears to an external observer as courageous and godknowswhat does not mean that anyone should assume they are paragons of accuracy and investigative journalism.

The Guardian have apparently made the conscious decision that they are looking for an American audience (their recent .co.uk to .com change being one example). It is clear that they will need to diversify if they are to survive because whilst their print circulation numbers are not as bad as the Independent's hilariously low 78,000 daily copies, their 193,000 is not enough to keep them in bolly and stolly either. As with anything of this nature, they are essentially marketing a lifestyle product - the Guardianista experience. Long since a staple of British life, they are presumably planning to sell it in the US too. That's fine and presumably they will report a lot of high-quality news on the way, but it's important to remember that these papers aren't run by idealistic innocents. They have a profit motive.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[lissnup]

Seconded, and I would add the long-running British 'Private Eye' for politics heavily laced with satire. Rolling Stone also seems to have its moment of clarity, although I can never decide whether they're genuine.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have heaps and heaps of free time...

Re:Reference Newspapers

[iMactheKnife]

A New Jersey newspaper once claimed I was ten thousand years old and from another planet. Really. I'm not even half that age.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[TheMiddleRoad]

Possibly!

Re: Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

The Christian Science Monitor is well regarded for its reporting.

Re:Reference Newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

Still waiting for your reply to TheMiddleRoad, but not holding my breath...

Re:Reference Newspapers

[TheMiddleRoad]

Can you feel the love?

1st amendment

[schneidafunk]

Very interesting read. The thing that shocks me the most is that there is still such extensive censorship going on around the world, including in the U.K.

" On Davies’s advice, Rusbridger took the unprecedented step of bringing in the New York Times as a partner. A British newspaper might be blocked from publishing, but an American outlet would have First Amendment protection."

Re:1st amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Very interesting read. The thing that shocks me the most is that there is still such extensive censorship going on around the world, including in the U.K.

Then you should get out more. They're called D-notices, and are one of the well-known aspects of the UK press for the past century.

Don't be naive.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian is a hard-left medium that has proven itself to be anti-American over the decades.

Re:Don't be naive.

[whizbang77045]

You bet. Just because somebody puts something in print doesn't mean it is correct, or that they are on are side. What amazes me is that the Guardian hasn't gotten nailed for violation of the British Official Secrets act.

Re:Don't be naive.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian is a hard-left medium that has proven itself to be anti-American over the decades.

Your point being?

Oh right, you think america should be given respect for free instead of earning it through deed like everyone else has to.

Re:Don't be naive.

[biodata]

The open question is what is a private citizen employed by a private company employed by an agency of a foreign power doing with access to British secrets. If Britain shares its secrets with foreign citizens then it seems only appropriate for the Guardian to share them with British citizens.

Re:Don't be naive.

[ak3ldama]

According to modern (US) interpretations of "secrets" anything that has happened or been shared outside of your house is no longer a secret.

Re:Don't be naive.

[HornWumpus]

There were two sides in the cold war. Anti-American doesn't imply impartial; just the opposite. They had a side and still haven't accepted that their philosophy didn't just lose but was WRONG.

Re:Don't be naive.

[Anonymous Coward]

There were two sides in the cold war. Anti-American doesn't imply impartial; just the opposite. They had a side and still haven't accepted that their philosophy didn't just lose but was WRONG.

What about the Non-aligned states? Or do you just not count them because they aren't so powerful?

Re:Don't be naive.

[Anonymous Coward]

‘

regarding NAM member-states , they are not-pro-nor-anti commie nor pro-nor-anti-capitalist.

please forgive the naive yank. their impression is "if you dont trust Obama", "if you dont trust Janet Yellen", or if you dont trust the cia", you must be a commie or a German.

Sirs, media-ethnographs, please!

Re:Don't be naive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Noam Chomsky had an interesting comment on this : both sides used the capitalist/communist rhetoric for cynical aims... the west because the capitalists were afraid of losing much of their wealth in a communist revolution, and the Russian leadership because they wanted to paper over the fact they were a dictatorship by trumpeting a morally superior ideology (and communism was once thought of as superior in both east and west). How did western society win the ideological argument? By moderating capitalism by spreading economic benefits ie. inventing the welfare state. Now? That's being dismantled because it's no longer needed. Those making the decisions have half a century of intense propaganda from both east and west backing them up, so the decisions aren't questioned which is why the west is sliding backwards except in the socialist democracies which still have the late cold war standard of living.

Re:Don't be naive.

[Jahta]

The Guardian is a hard-left medium that has proven itself to be anti-American over the decades.

Ah, the ever popular "everybody who disagrees with me is wrong and/or evil" gambit. Currently much in vogue with the NSA/MI5 and US/UK government spokesmen.

Re:Don't be naive.

[radio4fan]

The Guardian is a hard-left medium that has proven itself to be anti-American over the decades.

The Guardian supported the Iraq war, which doesn't seem very hard-left or anti-American.

Perhaps the world is not black and white.

Re:Don't be naive.

[HornWumpus]

Leftism always leads to dictatorship. Concentration of power is the key flaw in leftest thinking. Chomsky doesn't get this.

As to your counter examples. Most are capitalist welfare states. The rest still have time to descend to dictatorship.

Regarding your claim of 'dismantling the welfare state': Budgets and political reality say bullshit. The accurate critique of the welfare state is: 'Democracy can survive until the masses realize they can vote themselves money from the public purse'. (para)

Finally: Globally, the middle class has never been stronger. Was 'Think Globally' only empty rhetoric?

Re:Don't be naive.

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

The Guardian is a hard-left medium that has proven itself to be anti-American over the decades. Your point being? Oh right, you think america should be given respect for free instead of earning it through deed like everyone else has to.
Seeing as the Graun is responsible for Operation Clark County, nobody should ever accuse them of good journalism, even a blind squirrel can find a nut.

You make it sound so TAWDRY

[Anonymous Coward]

But I want to feel it inside me, too, so do it to me one more time.

Not even disguising Slashvertisements any more?

[Anonymous Coward]

...think about buying a subscription. The article also talks about the financial side of the newspaper business, and real journalism is not going to happen unless somebody pays for it.

So, we're not even remotely attempting to disguise Slashvertisements any more - just outright asking people to buy stuff? Yeah. This bodes well for the quality of news on this site in the coming months...

Re:Not even disguising Slashvertisements any more?

[mellon]

I think that's a bit unfair. I appreciate very much what the Guardian is doing with Snowdon's revelations, and would love to support them. It's too bad that their best user interface is the free web version, and all the editions you'd pay for are less usable. It's a classic case of "why won't you take my money?" I have the same problem with Wired—I'd gladly pay to get access to the web site without ads, but that's not on offer, and I do not want a subscription to their paper version or their horrible iPad edition.

However, in the case of electronic editions, one can subscribe to it just for the sake of doing it, and not actually read that version. This works okay for the Guardian web site, which has a pretty good ad-to-content ratio.

Erm, ok...

[girlintraining]

Given all the snark on Slashdot about the sorry state of modern journalism, it is well worth a read to see one organization that got it right.

And that's where you biffed it. The Guardian is as heavily biased as Fox News is. But you tend not to see biases towards things you agree with as clearly as things you disagree with, so I forgive your temporary bout of insanity in making that statement. Maybe they got this one instance right, maybe not. An entire slashdot thread has been created just so we can scream at, er, I mean, debate, the veracity of that statement. But... the Guardian is biased. Sorry man.

Re:Erm, ok...

[PhilHibbs]

So? You can be biased and still do good journalism. In fact, I'd say it's impossible not to be biased. Everyone is biased, it's human nature. Organizations can go some way to mitigating that bias but you'll never remove it entirely.

Re:Erm, ok...

[dyingtolive]

I read that line, and all I could think was, "Awww, you DID notice!"

...and then I realized it was an anon poster, not timothy himself.

Re:Erm, ok...

[seyyah]

And that's where you biffed it. The Guardian is as heavily biased as Fox News is. But you tend not to see biases towards things you agree with as clearly as things you disagree with, so I forgive your temporary bout of insanity in making that statement. Maybe they got this one instance right, maybe not. An entire slashdot thread has been created just so we can scream at, er, I mean, debate, the veracity of that statement. But... the Guardian is biased. Sorry man.

You don't have to be a post-modernist to agree that all media (hell, everyon) is biased. However, I don't think it is fair to compare the bias of the Guardian with the bias of Fox News. There are degrees.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is trying to claim that The Guardian isn't biased. Of course it is. All media outlets are biased, and any readers who believe in unbiased media are biased themselves, aligned with their supposed unbiased media.

All of this is obvious.

The point is, it is a publication which isn't completely controlled by government and corporate entities, which is a rarity nowadays. They have their own self-serving agenda alright, but still stand out as quite different than pretty much every other major news outlet.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Stan92057]

Everyone has an opinion but reporters are to report the news . They should be like the wildlife cinematographers of old. No interference just pure animal life anything less is fake. I don't want to pay for opinions that what i read Slashdot for and watch MSNBC or CNN. Far too much opinionated. This is all IMO but i have seen the news change for the worse over the years.

Re:Erm, ok...

[girlintraining]

ObDisclaimer: I happen to like the Guardian.

So? You can be biased and still do good journalism.

That is the third-most stupid thing I have read on slashdot this week; And this week has been particularly harsh on my brain meats. While the literal definition of journalism, "the activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television," does not include mention of the ethics of journalism, I expect people to have a grasp on it. As you do not, I shall now dispense a brief explanation of why it's so important.

Democracy can only function well with an educated populace. You simply can't vote the most capable candidate into office unless you know the issues, and that means knowing facts. Not interpretation of them. Not skewed versions of them. Not partial lists of them. You need to know everything about it, or you're not making an informed decision, you're making a decision based on propaganda and lies. When your audience is millions of Americans, your voice carries a lot of power. With great power comes great responsibility. And anyone who passes off their own biases as fact is not a supporter of Democracy and I do not want them on my team.

In fact, I'd say it's impossible not to be biased. Everyone is biased, it's human nature. Organizations can go some way to mitigating that bias but you'll never remove it entirely.

Your argument is that because we can't be perfect at something, we shouldn't even try. This is such a classic mistake we've given it a formal name: The Nirvana Fallacy. And yes martha, there is a wikipedia on it.

Organizations can go some way to mitigating that bias but you'll never remove it entirely.

The institution of science does a pretty good job of limiting the effects of bias. Oh yes, you can point out the problems. Oh yes, they're very real. But compared to say... Fox News, they're doing a pretty good job. There's a reason scientists have been alternately revered and burned a the stake throughout history -- it's because of their stubborn devotion to the truth regardless of religious or political preference. And that stubborn devotion has catapulted forward all of humanity from banging rocks together to make fire and foraging for food, and sleeping in caves, to all the modern conveniences you have before you.

So I see your nilhism and perfectionism and raise you... rationality. Your move, Internet.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that, and this maybe trolling, but I would add, if the media/press did its job the NSA and other unknown agencies would have been exposed years ago., instead of waiting until some unknown person coming forward claiming to have the inner workings of the NSA. Instead we have to put up with mindless babble (actually you don't have to put up with it) over an earthquake, or some storm or some random shooting, for 2 straight weeks.

Not to mention how the media/press continues to push government propaganda upon the people that watch/read. They did this with just about everything from communism to terrorism, the war on drugs, ect. the only way to see any real journalism is to find underground internet press, and not the ones that push absurd paranoid theories.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian is as heavily biased as Fox News is.

That's complete and utter bollox. Typical yank, firing off their gob when they know nothing about the subject or any have relevant experience. Twat!

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy can only function well with an educated populace.

So I see your nilhism and perfectionism and raise you... rationality. Your move, Internet.

A republic, on the other hand, can function quite well with an under-educated populace. The democratic part of the USA's democratic republic is only allowed to work as well as the people within the republic ruling circle allow it to work. People seem vehemently determined to believe that the entire country is not run by a select few.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Aighearach]

I don't think it is fair to compare the bias of the Guardian with the bias of Fox News. There are degrees.

I gotta say, they're just as biased as Fox News, just differently biased since they are from a different country with a different political landscape. If you're looking for less-biased news from the UK, the gold standard example is the BBC. And once you've seen good reporting, then it should be pretty obvious that The Guardian is heavily biased.

The problem with the BBC is that their abhorrence for bias can lead to excessive caution.
 

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

You simply can't vote the most capable candidate into office unless you know the issues, and that means knowing facts. Not interpretation of them. Not skewed versions of them. Not partial lists of them. You need to know everything about it, or you're not making an informed decision, you're making a decision based on propaganda and lies. When your audience is millions of Americans, your voice carries a lot of power. With great power comes great responsibility. And anyone who passes off their own biases as fact is not a supporter of Democracy and I do not want them on my team.

Ähm... no. Hunter S. Thompson was a brilliant Journalist and the total opposite of your definition. He was neither a complete tool, wich seems to be the basic requisite of working for Fox...

Re:Erm, ok...

[girlintraining]

People seem vehemently determined to believe that the entire country is not run by a select few.

I would very much like to meet such a person, who probably also rides a unicorn into work every day. The only people who believe that are our children, who aren't yet experienced enough to know that civics class is based largely on fiction.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian is as heavily biased as Fox News is.

No. Fox News is far more unbalanced. The Guardian is middle left from a european point of view and Fox News would be far right. And there is one other point. You can be biased and write smart stuff. One of them does, the other...?

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

So I see your nilhism and perfectionism and raise you... rationality. Your move, Internet.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4

Re:Erm, ok...

[mellon]

You could go so far as to say that if a news outlet claims to be free from bias, they probably aren't doing journalism. Because they probably mean that they present "balanced" stories, meaning not neutral, reality-based stories, but rather stories that always present two and only two sides to an issue, even if the only proponent for one side is an obvious idiot or crook, and even when there are four sides with equally valid points to make.

Re:Erm, ok...

[mellon]

The BBC is great, but they are just as biased as any news outfit. Their bias tends to be toward a sort of civilized middle-of-the-road establishment view, but it's a mistake to think that that is not a bias.

Re:Erm, ok...

[girlintraining]

You don't have to be a post-modernist to agree that all media (hell, everyon) is biased. However, I don't think it is fair to compare the bias of the Guardian with the bias of Fox News. There are degrees.

I happen to disagree. About the only way they could be more biased is if they had a love van in the back lot and were handing out fliers on Marxism. But let's be objective about this; Do you consider them to be more, less, or about as biased, as the New York Times?

If you answered the same or more, I have some bad news for you.

You simply cannot see your own biases. It's what I said originally. They're called cognitive blind spots for a reason. And this is one of yours. I'm sorry, but they're biased. They're about as biased as Fox News. You just think Fox News seems more biased because your own bias puts you left of center, which makes Fox News seem comparatively farther away than the NYT or the Guardian.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason why Snowden's material didn't end up in the hands of the New York Times, or Fox News. Both would have buried the story. The NYT to protect Obama, Fox News to help continue the neocon warfare state.

You say there are degrees, but in fact the far left and far right commentators are pretty much the same.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except a lot of wildlife documentary makers have interfered with wildlife in their film pursuits over the years. Sometimes this is done by virtue of the fact that some things are known to happen in the wild, but are (or were) nigh impossible to capture unless staged.

In fact, it could be said that the whole strict non-interference thing is a fairly recent invention, as far as things go. Robotics, remote monitoring, smaller cameras, and other technologies have enabled this to happen.

Re:Erm, ok...

[ppanon]

I think he meant that reporters' biases will guide what they think is worth investigating, and therefore some may be less likely to cover certain areas of public or political life. As long as other reporters with different biases choose to cover those areas then that's actually good. Keeping all other things equal (training, talent, skill), those with passion for their work will tend to do a better job of it. However once their subject is chosen, those reporters' investigations may still be carried out and reported in a thorough and unbiased way despite their biases, if their professionalism is sufficiently high.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

That Freakonomics article doesn't mention what their methodology is. They say you can go back and find it, but I couldn't after a few minutes of searching. In addition, that "study" of media bias was done by a conservative who is clearly biased himself. How can I trust this?

Since you're the one making the claim, the onus is on you to show that Guardian is in fact just as biased as Fox News.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to be a post-modernist to agree that all media (hell, everyon) is biased. However, I don't think it is fair to compare the bias of the Guardian with the bias of Fox News. There are degrees.

I happen to disagree. About the only way they could be more biased is if they had a love van in the back lot and were handing out fliers on Marxism. But let's be objective about this; Do you consider them to be more, less, or about as biased, as the New York Times?

If you answered the same or more, I have some bad news for you.

You simply cannot see your own biases. It's what I said originally. They're called cognitive blind spots for a reason. And this is one of yours. I'm sorry, but they're biased. They're about as biased as Fox News. You just think Fox News seems more biased because your own bias puts you left of center, which makes Fox News seem comparatively farther away than the NYT or the Guardian.

And you can't see yours:) From a US perspectively you may be right, but from a European one the Guardian is left-of-center to some extent while Fox is so far to the right it falls outside our mainstream left/right scale.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Organizations can go some way to mitigating that bias but you'll never remove it entirely.

The institution of science does a pretty good job of limiting the effects of bias. Oh yes, you can point out the problems. Oh yes, they're very real. But compared to say... Fox News, they're doing a pretty good job. There's a reason scientists have been alternately revered and burned a the stake throughout history -- it's because of their stubborn devotion to the truth regardless of religious or political preference. And that stubborn devotion has catapulted forward all of humanity from banging rocks together to make fire and foraging for food, and sleeping in caves, to all the modern conveniences you have before you.

So I see your nilhism and perfectionism and raise you... rationality. Your move, Internet.

The institution of science is an organization? You've got to be kidding me. Scientists are some of the most difficult people to organize in the world.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Aighearach]

Your claim seems to be that everybody is equally biased, and that is a failed argument on any subject, not just bias. If you can't distinguish between different sources, then how can you even measure them to say they're the same? You'd need to be claiming that you can see differences in the field, before it would make sense to claim that two particular examples are equally biased.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has an opinion but reporters are to report the news . They should be like the wildlife cinematographers of old. No interference just pure animal life anything less is fake.

Oh but we left THAT ideal decades ago. The media has gone from passive observation to "let's go make some news" about the same time as Cable TV news got started. Of course talk radio doesn't help.. But you are right, there SHOULD be a wide gap between commentators who are offering opinion and reporters who are giving facts. These days, they are one and the same person and rarely do they understand that there is a difference between the two jobs.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Deluvianvortex]

peer review

Re:Erm, ok...

[whistlingtony]

I want 3:37 of my life back.....

Re:Erm, ok...

[fritsd]

girlintraining, you sound like a scientist to me.

So see it this way then: you conflate bias and variance, which is a big no-no in experimentation:

• The Guardian: noticeable left-wing bias, low variance signal
• De Volkskrant: slight left-wing bias, moderate variance signal
• BBC: slight right-wing bias, moderate variance signal
• NRC Handelsblad: noticeable right-wing bias, low variance signal
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: strong right-wing bias, low variance signal
• Elsevier Magazine: strong right-wing bias, high variance signal

I don't dare to comment on others because I haven't read them often enough. The idea is that you can subtract or add YOUR perception of known bias to calibrate a signal to approximate what you think the real value is, but with high variance the signal is just too noisy to bother.

I have never seen more than soundbytes of Fox News, but is it true that a reporter had to claim that he was legally insane, in order to continue to spew lies without being called on it? I.E. "everybody knows its only entertainment, we don't claim to produce real news". That's just ... odd.. why don't they call it Fox Entertainment then. Truth in advertising.

Re:Erm, ok...

[dkleinsc]

Everyone has an opinion but reporters are to report the news.

"Reporters reporting the news" is hardly immune to bias:
1. What is considered "the news" anyways? I think we can agree that "Planes Flown Into World Trade Center" is news, and "Area Man Posts Cat Video" is not, but how about "50 People Protest" versus "Double Homicide On Fleet St" versus "10 Brokers Convicted of Mortgage Fraud"?

2. Who do you talk to in order to understand the news story in question? For example, in discussions on Syria's chemical weapons, does your report mostly contain information from (a) the White House, (b) US Congressional opposition leadership, (c) the Kremlin, (d) the UN, (e) Bashar al-Assad's government, (f) Syrian rebels, (g) the Israeli government, etc, etc.

3. Who's information do you believe, if there is disagreement about something? Which sources do you challenge aggressively and which sources do you treat as fairly impartial observers? For example, on an economics story, do you accept a government report as truth if there's a competing report by another group, especially if that group has a political ax to grind?

4. Even if you've perfectly balanced issues 1, 2, and 3, what comes first in your report and what becomes the headline? For example, on 9/12/2001, many headlines in the US read "America Attacked", which was true but conveys a somewhat different story than "18 Terrorists Attack World Trade Center and Pentagon".

Re:Erm, ok...

[dkleinsc]

You simply can't vote the most capable candidate into office unless you know the issues, and that means knowing facts. Not interpretation of them. Not skewed versions of them. Not partial lists of them. You need to know everything about it, or you're not making an informed decision, you're making a decision based on propaganda and lies.

It is completely impossible for any one person to know everything about every major issue. Whatever you know about something outside of your extremely narrow specialty will necessarily be incomplete and relying on expert opinion of some sort.

For example, if you ask many people on Slashdot the proper way to calculate algorithmic efficiency of a Quicksort, you'll get some definitive answers. If you ask those same people who provided definitive answers about how to properly determine cost-of-living increases to Social Security checks, you'll get some barely educated guesses, because they aren't operating in their area of expertise and not only don't know the answer but don't know (thanks to the Dunning-Kruger Effect) which of the available expert sources to believe and which are cranks. You'll run into the same problem if you ask an expert chemist about astrophysics or vice versa - the person you ask will have intelligent guesses but nowhere near a definitive answer. Even a well-intentioned and wise politician would run into this problem if, say, his background was financial law but the decision is about environmental regulation, or vice versa.

You can and should know some basic information about a lot of things, but that is a far cry from having expert-level detailed knowledge immune from propaganda.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Asking for "unbiased journalism" is like asking for "judges who just apply the law without interpreting it". It's not only a practical impossibility, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the job entails.

Journalists are biased, period. From Thucydides onwards, journalists have always done what they do because they believe passionately in... something. Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Hearst, Pulitzer, Ed Murrow, Woodward and Bernstein - none of these people became famous by sitting on the fence and refusing to take sides.

I would go further and say that the myth of "objective" journalism is the biggest single blight on the profession today, and directly responsible for at least 70% of what's currently wrong with American journalism. But that's a longer argument than I want to go into here.

Re:Erm, ok...

[manu0601]

You can be biased and still do good journalism.

If you are aware of your bias and tell your reader, you are an excellent journalist.

If you are aware of your bias and do not tell about them, you are a propagandist

If you are unaware of your bias, you are a terrible journalist

If you do not have bias, you are not a human person

Re:Erm, ok...

[Stan92057]

When their bias interferes with the truth then its a problem. There are always 2 sides to a story Its his/her job to dig for it.

Re:Erm, ok...

[girlintraining]

So see it this way then: you conflate bias and variance, which is a big no-no in experimentation:

Er, no. My comment was about a person's perceptions. This has nothing to do with reality; People's perceptions are highly skewed based on expectation and personal biases. One of the first things they try and teach you in any art class is overcoming this; You have to throw away your ideas about what something should look like, or you'll never get past stick figures. Instead, you draw as though you are seeing this thing for the first time. We intentionally take everyday objects in class and hang them upside down, or throw it in with a pile of junk, and the sole reason for doing this is to break this need for the rational mind to enforce its expectations on even the simplest of perceptions.

A person cannot, without training and significant self-awareness, overcome these biases, these expectations, these preconceptions. And while you might think art and science are on opposite ends of a spectrum, they are very much alike -- science is about accurate observation. Curiously, so is art.

I've looked at the data regarding popular sources of news and the biases they have at the institutional level; The author of Freakonomics did a TV interview about it. While admittedly it was not a robust and extensive study, it was certainly a lot more effort than anyone here has put into it -- and he found that Fox News and the New York Times were about as equally biased relative to average (zero point).

Now I've been modbombed into oblivion for daring to go against the rabid hipster crowd here on Slashdot that wants to make Snowden a hero and suggesting that The Guardian is a biased source of news... but I will continue to say so no matter how many times someone goes through my comment history and blows all their mod points on me.

People despise having a mirror held up to them -- everyone. Every. Single. Person. On this website considers themselves above average, intelligent, thoughtful, and blah blah blah. And when they come across evidence that goes against this, they get very vindictive. To me, nothing confirms the veracity of my statements like this reaction does. Even you managed a strawman here, and you seem at least somewhat more thoughtful than the other guys imagine themselves to be.

Personal biases are incredibly hard to see, and even more difficult to overcome. They are cognitive shortcuts that very often serve us well in everyday life -- but these shortcuts are overused and eventually move into the subconscious, where until they are dragged kicking and screaming back to conscious thought, they will sit, quietly distorting every perception that person has. There are monks living up the sides of mountains that spend their entire lives trying to transcend this glitch in the human mind. There's a reason racism, sexism, religion, etc., are all so prevalent -- this is not easy. If it were, I wouldn't ever need to post anything on Slashdot ever again; We'd all be reasonable and unbiased people... and there'd only ever be a couple of comments in each story. -_-

But we aren't reasonable, and we're biased as hell. All of us. Me, you, the person reading this. It's human nature to have them, just as it's human nature to hate people who point it out.

Re:Erm, ok...

[PhilHibbs]

That is the third-most stupid thing I have read on slashdot this week... As you do not (understand the ethics of journalism), I shall now dispense a brief explanation...

Great way to engage with someone. Jump to concusions and throw insults. Good luck.

Re:Erm, ok...

[pjt33]

I think we can agree that "Planes Flown Into World Trade Center" is news, and "Area Man Posts Cat Video" is not

Sadly, Yahoo! (or the wire services they syndicate) seem to disagree on the latter. The bulk of the "Oddly Enough" section is at the level of "area man posts cat video", when it used to be interesting but unusual actual events.

Re:Erm, ok...

[dkleinsc]

There are always 2 sides to a story

No there aren't: Sometimes there are 5 sides. Sometimes there really is only 1 side. Sometimes, what's being examined is so obscure that nobody has taken sides yet. Interesting stories typically have a lot of different completely truthful angles to take, and reducing everything to 2 sides is probably misleading.

This is especially true of political stories: If you've talked to 1 liberal and 1 conservative, you are not actually done accurately reporting the story, because you should be then determining who lied to you about what, go back and say "We think you're full of it with regards to ____, what do you have to say about that?", then figure out if how they lied again, etc.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

trouble with political stories is that neither side may have lied. A lot of politics is view point and opinion. They may see two very different end results from the same legislation and have their own opinions about why which can run contrary but be valid.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Xest]

The BBC can be a bit hit and miss. It really depends who is writing the article.

Robert Peston can be a bit of a plonker and revert to his Tory-boy Telegraph journalistic roots sometimes and make a tit of himself, or just make a tit of himself in general, i.e. see this article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24427274

Originally it was titled something like "Treasury could clean up from help to buy", he obviously was trying to create an overly dramatic headline with an agenda implying the help to buy scheme was pure genius by the treasury, but eventually after successive edits he relented upon realising he'd got his math wrong which obliterated the entire premise of the original article.

Also Mark Mardell the US correspondent lets his biases shine through, and Rory Cellan-Jones has almost fanboy levels of bias to certain technology companies.

But others like Nick Robinson always seem pretty decent and level headed.

I agree The Guardian is biased but it's certainly not at Fox levels, I'd tend to rate media that broadcasts in the UK using the following examples:

Most extreme (where Fox News would go):
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mirror
Russia Today
The Sun

Sometimes extreme:
The Telegraph
The Times
Sky News

Reasonably objective:
The Independent
The Guardian
Channel 4 News
The BBC

Most objective:
Al Jazeera

The independent I would have put in the most objective category but since it's became influenced by the Russian oligarch that took it over it's gotten worse. The most extreme listings just aren't worth the time of day, they're so full of lies and propaganda that you just can't extract anything of value from them. The sometimes extreme category sometimes have valuable articles, but usually it's a bunch of biased tosh, and all the others are worth paying attention to. Even the most objective category has it's biases sometimes though, but I'd argue they're still markedly less numerous than those in the reasonably object category.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's fair to compare Fox News to organizations that do news reporting. That makes as much sense as comparing the ride comfort of various four-door sedans to that of an angry orangutan. I mean, sure I suppose you could ride one, but you're not going to get very far and you'll likely wind up injured or covered in poop.

Fox News, isn't.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you just say that a state-run news outlet is unbiased? Please commit to a reality-check up at your local paranoid.
Wow, and you have a 5 digit user id... Even if you signed up when you were five, you should know better by now.

Re:Erm, ok...

[mellon]

I didn't claim that they are equally biased—I claimed that they shared the same quality of being biased. There is no way to compare bias in the sense that you mean, because it isn't a number, or even a vector. The idea that that is the right way to address the problem of poor journalism is a red herring.

Practices like starting from your bias and looking for facts to confirm it, and then writing the story around those facts, are common, and produce garbage. Practices like going and getting someone's take on the story without doing your own careful research, and then finding someone who disagrees with the first person you went to and presenting the story in the context of the disagreement between these two parties, implying that balance is to be found somewhere between their positions, also produce garbage. This is because this reporting is not being done by the reporter, but simply packaged up based on what a few sources have said about their own positions and each others' positions. So it's fairly useless for actually coming to any understanding about the topic.

What I do want is a news source that does actual reporting: asking experts, sure, but then fact-checking what they say. Not pitting the experts against each other, but testing their arguments, doing their best to figure out what's really going on, and then reporting on that, with as much information about how they arrived at their conclusion as possible. Then, even if they are biased, I can correct for that. If the input is garbage, the bias doesn't matter, because when you correct for it, you're still left with garbage.

Re:Erm, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

I say the following as someone who enjoys some of the Guardians work and who even happened to buy a copy or two way back when it was paper or nothing.

It's funny (in a tragically sad way) to read all the different (and hopelessly invalid) suggestions people make but yours prodded me to comment. There are no simple answers or lists or silver bullets, and if one doesn't realize this fact no matter what background one has then one is still wildly delusional no matter what one should happen to read, see, or hear.

Anyway... your comment.

You have to be pretty god damn far radical left to perceive anything from the culturally marxist BBC as having a “slight right-wing bas” :D

I hope you cherish the fact that according to your point of view whatever “modern” nation you happen to live in must be dominated in the extreme by what must to you be a massive majority of super-ultra-far-right common people (none of this is the case of course; if anything most people are vaguely anti-political). Even if you don't: have a nice day and thank you for cheering me up :)

Heh the aunty being right-anything, I'll grin each time i remember that. Just because the BBC themselves are derogatory towards grauniads throwing packets of organically grown beans during their daily hissy-fits doesn't place the BBC anywhere remotely on the right, it only means they're not quite as rabidly to the left (or any direction really) as the iconic and stereotypical readership the Guardian has become known for in Britain.

Also your variance meter needs looking at, it lets 50% bullshit through (not trying to be mean but you probably read too many newspapers relative to your rather low degree of cynicism and scepticism).

Don't read the papers for the news, read the papers for seeing what they want people to consider as news (use them as a fucking spam filter). Do this for many enough sources (but you can safely drop absolutely everything American except the occasional loonie site or Slashdot at 0 as well as any hyper-specialized sources on stuff you aren't clueless about including mailing lists, but don't waste too much time on these places either because there's so much shit everywhere) and you'll detect all the obvious patterns of insignificance that dominates their output.

Modern journalism

[mseeger]

What do you expect from journalism?

As long as a story about Lindsay Lohans latest rehab draws ten times as much readers as some background article about the NSA spying capabilities while being less risky at the same time, the development is clear.

Do you really expect someone to risk the ire of that organisation that can dig (or make) up your dirtiest secrets in order to get less readers? You have to be an idealist or crazy (or preferably both) to do so.

Re:Modern journalism

[cold fjord]

We all know that NSA surveillance .... wait, did you say there was a story about Lindsay Lohan? In rehab? I can't find the link, do you have one? ;)

Re:Modern journalism

[mseeger]

12600 Links according to Google News ;-)

Re:Modern journalism

[RubberChainsaw]

What we need to get the attention of the average person are stories about Lindsay Lohan being spied on by the NSA.

Re:Modern journalism

[mseeger]

I had once the idea to spin a story that the NSA had nude pictures of a celeb and anyone could get them with a FOIA request ;-). But that would be too evil.

Re:Modern journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect from journalism?

As long as a story about Lindsay Lohans latest rehab draws ten times as much readers as some background article about the NSA spying capabilities while being less risky at the same time, the development is clear.

What do you expect from journalism? As long as people feel helpless to do anything about the situation, whether this or global warming or endangered animals, why should they care more about that than Lindsay Lohan? You just want people to get mad? Then what?

Re:Modern journalism

[xded]

True.

But the point here is not what an average person thinking about himself would do. The point is what a non-ordinary person caring about society can do.

Whether you want our times to be told by the former or the latter, it remains your choice.

What the definition of 'journalist' should be, this is the matter of discussion.

Re:Modern journalism

[Deluvianvortex]

25500 for 'nsa spy' I think that's enough to prove the OP wrong

Re:Modern journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Change their votes, at least? Most voters still fuckin' vote for Republicans and Democrats; it's time to give someone else a chance.

An anonymous reader writes...

[Anonymous Coward]

...if you support the type of journalism the Guardian has been engaging in, think about buying a subscription....

Am I connected with the Guardian journalists? Oh, dear me, no! The Guardian Marketing Department is a separate company....

less "getting it right", more "Mulligan."

[SuperBanana]

Given all the snark on Slashdot about the sorry state of modern journalism, it is well worth a read to see one organization that got it right.

You mean like the fact that the reporter in question thought Snowdon was fucking with him and ignored him, until Snowdon managed to find an intermediary?

I don't really call that "getting it right." I call that a Mulligan. The whole thing damn near went into the toilet because the reporter couldn't be bothered to explore the goldmine that fell into his lap.

Re:less "getting it right", more "Mulligan."

[Anonymous Coward]

Classic example of the snark described in the summary. So much so, in fact, that one must assume you are being ironic for comedic effect. I didn't laugh.

Re:less "getting it right", more "Mulligan."

[interkin3tic]

I think everyone would prefer it if journalists would have an accurate crystal ball to determine who they should listen to and who they shouldn't, but such a thing doesn't exist, reporters are human, and mistakes are going to happen. I'm sure reporters get all types of crazy sounding conspiracy theory nuts. This one turned out to be right in retrospect, but how did he know that in advance?

Not just journalists. I'd prefer if I, a scientist, knew which bits of preliminary data and which hypotheses to chase after. Some of the few that I've actually gone somewhere with sat on the back burner for an embarrassing amount of time before I came back to them and realized what I had been wasting my time with was far less important or likely to go anywhere.

Re:less "getting it right", more "Mulligan."

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. Is your position:

1) Greenwald should have taken and published in the information without an approrpiate degree of skepticism, like Judith Miller? In which case I'd ask how many deposed Nigerian princes you're waiting to hear back from.

2) Greenwald should have hopped on a plane to fly to the other side of the planet to meet someone he's never heard of before, someone making fantastic claims. In a world where the United States has bombed press offices (Al Jazeera in Iraq), urged foreign countries to keep journalists in brutal prisons that had been cleared for release (Yemen), conducted a worldwide torture (Bush) and kidnapping program (Clinton, Bush, Obama), sentenced whistleblowers to longer prison terms than actual spies that actually sold information to the Russians, and entraps them into FBI-planned attacks that are then broken up by the FBI?

Re:less "getting it right", more "Mulligan."

[bfandreas]

Snowden had to use a couple of layers of obfuscation which didn't add to his credibility. I would suggest that an investigative reported gets a lot of calls from the tinfoil hat brigade and what Snowden announced sounded so ludicrous that I also would have assumed just that.

Sometimes you do need such a bullshit filter. This is how communication works.

Unbiased and impartial quote!

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS JUST IN:

Editor of paper claims they're the only ones doing something right and that all other competitors are spineless!

News at 11.

Guardian = Blair's Fabian mouthpiece

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian is infinitely more repulsive than ANY of Rupert Murdoch's outlets, including Fox News. Even fans of Fox News know it is rabble rousing lying garbage, even if they feel it is pulling for 'their' team. Fans of The Guardian, on the other hand, are so very thick, they NEVER see the propaganda or manipulation.

The Guardian employs the most racist war-mongering zionists to promote Tony Blair's campaign of rolling holocausts in the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike Murdoch, who pushes the "white is right" message, the Guardian pushes the "White Man's Burden" fabian ploy that is a twisted evil form of liberalism found in the Victorian reformers.

Now I note that Slashdot, like other George Soros outlets in the pseudo-independent left-leaning media outlets, is REFUSING to cover the fact of the BBC caught red-handed faking 'chemical weapons' propaganda.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/10/fake-bbc-video/

Craig Murray was a Blair loyalist working in one of the most depraved regimes in Blair's direct sphere of influence. When Murray got 'blood' on his nice white diplomatic 'nazi' uniform, he did his nut, and demanded that Blair condemn the atrocities that his allies were carrying out in ex-soviet states (like the one Murray was ambassador in). Blair refused, stating that Britain fully supported dictators that boiled Humans alive, giving Murray no choice but to resign, and become a full time critic of Blair and his war-aims. This is the well-known phenomenon of the 'good nazi' as seen with various people in WW2 who KNEW what Hitler was up to, but could not stand remaining a member of the party when they personally suffered the truth rubbing in their own faces. Humans in power can be so hypocritical this way- the old "do bad things- just never let me see them" adage.

Anyway, Craig Murray became a tireless attack dog after his conversion, and is a rare example of a once high ranking member of Blair's war-machine who now spends his time revealing the crimes of his former master.

While Snowden is revealing a TINY fraction of the truth about the NSA and MI5/MI6, the information is years out-of-date and tells people nothing they did not already know, if they had been paying attention to outlets OTHER than those in the mainstream media, or run by George Soros. Snowden has been allowed to access and disseminate this information at the highest level. It is an inoculation project to get the sheeple passed the idea of FULL SURVEILLANCE so they get bored thinking about it, and allow the Xbox Ones and TV's with cameras and internet connections into their homes.

At the same time, the full surveillance projects of the NSA, GCHQ and similar agencies in most other significant nations, are growing exponentially, driven by the ever decreasing cost and ever increasing power of commodity computer hardware. Modern computer systems can trivially gather ALL the data generated by ALL Humans daily, and store this information indefinitely. The sick minds behind the technology at the NSA and GCHQ cannot resist the temptation to do whatever the technology theoretically allows. No concept of morality comes into it.

The Guardian is a FABIAN outlet. The fabians believe that society should be split between masters, and cattle. The difference between fabians and other master-race apologists of recent times (like the zionists) is that the fabians are NOT racist, but social Darwinians. Those that run the Guardian believe ALL Humans should be given EQUAL opportunity to succeed over a number of generations, and then the 'winners' be recognised as a master race with the right to do with the rest of Humanity whatever they so wish. Tony Blair is their 'Jesus Christ'.

Understand this. When you look at the rolling series of horrific wars created by the West in recent times, America is ONLY responsible for the muscle. The 'brains' of this project are entirely British. Blair began this project in earnest when he tried to coerce the Americans to invade Kosovo, after Blair began the Kosovo war. How

Who pays for news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why am I paying a newspaper or website money just so that they can regurgitate AP/Reuters/AFP stories? Or so that they can report on how Miley Cyrus showed her cunt again on MTV? Or how amazing the new *insert comic franchise* reboot is going to be this summer? Or so that they can spew their opinionated garbage under the guise of being 'objective reporting'?

Most 'news' is nothing more than reprinted boiler plate material. The newspapers take PR information from publicists and reprint it for easy content. Or they take some boiler plate content from the Associated Press and without having any reporters verify the information they reprint it. How many newspapers, websites, and tv networks actually investigate the majority of their content? How many have majority original and not reused content?

Most investigative reporting is just a biased report from the editor. Want to show someone in a bad light? Just make a quote and say "from off the record conversation". Want to make up a fact. Say it was from "anonymous sources". Look at how often the 'news' contains absolutely zero research or confirmation. Most reports are nothing more than hit-pieces or talking points meant to drive bumper sticker level political conversations.

And who are we supposed to trust in the news? Wikileaks? With their insane agenda driven content and ridiculous 'gotcha journalism' and tabloid editing of 'Collateral Murder'. The Guardian? Glenn Greenwald who said on Real Time on HBO that Islam is a peaceful religion and that if America stopped the war on terror that nearly all Jihad would stop. What kind of utopian fantasy thinking is that?

Where are the reports that the U.S. was running guns to Mexican terrorists? Guns that were used in school shootings? The media seems pretty silent on Fast & Furious. Benghazi? Nothing to see here. IRS targeting political enemies of the current administration? Nothing to see here move along.

When a good book comes out about Benghazi I'll buy it. But waiting for the 'news' to report anything substantial is a joke. I'll wait on Snowden and the NSA as well, until someone in the intelligence community writes a book. Or Snowden himself distances himself from Guardian/Greenwald and writes his own book. But having Snowden's information put through the Guardian/Greenwald filter is a hilarious sham. Just more biased crap.

Blogosphere vs. Old Media

[ErichTheRed]

One of the side effects of the rise of the blogging hordes is the death of traditional journalism. Even if old media is biased one way or another, the decent newspapers of record have some respect for journalistic integrity. Reporting on a government corruption scandal is very different from reporting on the latest iPhone over at Engadget or the endless stream of celebrity garbage "news." Seeking out the real story from actual, verifiable sources rather than a blogger posting their own opinion as fact is the difference. While I'm sure some bloggers are journalists in the traditional sense, not all are, and blogs are even more sensitive to producing content that makes people click than newspapers are.

Some people may cite this as anti-progress, but look at media prior to the Internet, in fact, before cable TV. There were only 3 network news sources, and a few newspapers of record producing content. Now there's tons of media outlets, thousands of random bloggers, and an increasing trend of the medial outlets crowdsourcing content from their readers (CNN iReport, etc. etc.) Having so many choices means that opinions are more diverse, but conversely it also means that it narrows people's viewpoints. Conservatives are Fox News fans, but they're also fans of even more conservative bloggers. It makes liberals more liberal and conservatives more conservative, and that leads to situations like we're in today with Congress and the Tea Party faction. You would never have something like this in the 50s/60s simply because the population didn't have enough customized hot-button content to whip them into whatever polarized frenzy they're into.

Traditional journalism does need to return to media, but as the submitter states, you have to pay for it, and integrity doesn't pay the bills like the latest unverified rumor from a friend of a friend of Lindsey Lohan...

Re:Blogosphere vs. Old Media

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a guy named Matt Drudge, I'm sure most of you have heard of him. The ONLY reason he is famous now is because ABC was given the Lewinsky scandal 3 times over a 9 month period and decided to bury it every time. Drudge used the new internet thingy and made a name for himself posting it. Had ABC done journalism Drudge and thousands of other internet news outlets, and probably Fox News as well, wouldn't exist. Fox News only exists because Roger Ailes, working for MSNBC, wasn't allowed to run the news department his own way and couldn't run the news he wanted to.

A LOT of those other news "outlets" wouldn't exist if the big media did their job, but they chose not to. Those big 3 networks buried countless stories while they were in charge and there was no real way to get around it. Now they HATE that when they bury a story to help their buddies in DC that Fox News will run it instead, or it will end up on Drudge or The Blaze. Their ONLY hope is to discredit those sources, but they have proven themselves out too often, check the ratings, that when people say Faux News the rest of us know they are just idiots who think censorship should exist because they can't win an honest debate.

CNN in the last presidential election lost all credibility when their moderator interrupted Romney to lie and protect Obama and they cheered her for it. They have had to make massive cuts since then and continue to hemorrhage viewers. They will probably never get another presidential debate again because of their stunts, but at least they have their biased integrity.

Re:Blogosphere vs. Old Media

[ErichTheRed]

obDisclaimer: I have a left wing bias to say the least. But that's not important for this post since it applies to both sides equally.

You do have to admit that Drudge, the Huffington Post and all the others serve as echo chambers for extreme viewpoints. The conservative side gets bombarded with anti-liberal stories day in and day out, and doesn't have to listen to any other opinion if they don't want to. Same thing happens on the liberal side. You wouldn't have heard Walter Cronkite on CBS news during the Vietnam War talking about "godless baby killers" or something like that, but I could definitely see a more targeted media organization, or let's face it, some dude with a blog, saying something like this. There's no consequences for the blogger dude, and the media outlets will be rewarded for offering this as entertaining fare to their audience.

Personally, I have some very conservative relatives who, while very smart, don't get exposed to differing viewpoints on issues. And when you hear something catchy that you agree with, then repeat it to your friends, then have those same friends amplify your beliefs, you do end up with a very polarized population. Both liberal and conservative talk show hosts know this and use it to their advantage. Suddenly all those people on both sides go out and elect officials that share their polarized opinions of the world, and a sensible debate over healthcare policy turns into a protracted fight that neither side will give ground on. So, talking with people like this for me feels like I'm Rob Reiner ("Meathead") from All in the Family. Yeah, Meathead was a pinko-liberal commie but his character was reasonable compared with Archie...

I don't know, maybe people were more reasonable back in the day when we were fighting a cold war with an adversary who could wipe us out if they were having a bad day.

Re:Blogosphere vs. Old Media

[HornWumpus]

Watch 'All in the Family' again, with 20/20 hindsight.

Meathead was an arrogant blithering moron who understood nothing (aka philosophy major). Archie was stuck in the 50s but was a decent human when push came to shove. e.g. He let Meathead live in his house for free.

Re:Blogosphere vs. Old Media

[dbIII]

One of the side effects of the rise of the blogging hordes is the death of traditional journalism

Budget cuts pretty well killed that off before this site even existed let alone most blogs.

Re:Blogosphere vs. Old Media

[bfandreas]

The Bloggers have the edge on speed. But they only get the obvious or stuff they are personally involved.
Investigative journalism takes a lot of analysis of data from a lot of sources and that takes time.

The bloggers also write short 500 word texts. In contrast a proper newspaper will have much longer texts with a lot more detail. I remember reading an article in a weekly publication about the Boston bombers just the week after it happened. They had quotes from the mother, friends, people who knew them. They had information on their lives in the US. They painted a much more complete picture of the brothers than anything I had read in the Web or presumably seen on TV. That article had more than 10k words but then again Die Zeit is a very slow and very thourough publication.


Journalism is like food. There is fast food junk for people who can't be arsed and there's the real stuff. Most bloggers provide less than a printed menue from McD.

Apologies for the cognitive dissonance ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apologies for the cognitive dissonance. It certainly seems that The Guardian's intentions here are good. As per the link below, they may need to re-earn some people's trust.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/09/02/2210227/the-guardian-and-the-wikileaks-encryption-key

Stopped reading after the first sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

the Guardian, Britain’s liberal daily

The Guardian is not liberal at al. In fact, it is quite strongly pro-Labour.

Re:Stopped reading after the first sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, like 95% of the readers on a US tech site can make the distinction - which is neither large nor important.

You fuckwit.

Re:Stopped reading after the first sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do not consider two opposite sides of the political spectrum as a large or important distinction, you might not be the right person to call other people fuckwits, especially not based on unsubstantiated claims and made up statistics.

The Financial Times

[gamanimatron]

www.ft.com

Their focus is mostly financial, but I really enjoy their world news reporting. Whenever I pick up a "normal" paper here, even (especially?) one of the "big" ones, it seems that they're trying to sell me an extreme viewpoint - and maybe some male enhancement products to go with it - rather than actually impart any information. The FT is much more reporting like I remember it used to be. Maybe because they actually charge enough for their paper to cover their costs.

Re:The Financial Times

[Anonymous Coward]

The FT Weekend is excellent summary/analysis of the week BTW. I dont get to read the news everyday, and love their weekend edition.

Posting AC to avoid losing moderation.

What if Snowden had gone to the New York TImes?

[Required Snark]

If Snowden had gone to the NYT they would have folded to government pressure. At a minimum they would have "vetted" the releases with the Feds, and as a result all of the important revelations would not be published. It is more likely the Times would have handed over the raw files and then published a bunch of bland articles that whitewashed the entire situation.

The NTY has been riding the work of Woodward and Bernstein since Watergate. That was a long time ago, and now they are in the pocket of intrenched special interests, just like the rest of US journalism.

It's a sad day when no major new organization in the US can be counted on to stand up to external pressure, whether it be economic or political. It ironic that a newspaper in the UK is doing the heavy lifting in this case, since there is no constitutional protection of the press in England, and there is in the US.

Re:What if Snowden had gone to the New York TImes?

[Anonymous Coward]

W&B worked for the Washington Post, not the NYT.

Re:What if Snowden had gone to the New York TImes?

[Anti-Social Network]

You may be correct referring to NYT buckling if it stood alone. However, if you RTFA (why yes, I AM new here, why do you ask?), you'll see that the Guardian actively partnered with the Times in processing and releasing the leak documents. Part of the reason is specifically as you stated: that as an American company, NYT has First Amendment protections that the Guardian does not.

There was also a contingency to release articles in ProPublica if Guardian were suppressed in some fashion. So, since the articles were going to publish anyway, it's easier for the Times to shrug off any pressure from the Feds, and they clearly have an economic incentive to be a party to the newsworthy data .

Re:What if Snowden had gone to the New York TImes?

[Anonymous Coward]

there may be no constitutional protection, but there is legal protection in the form of the european convention on human rights, which the UK is fully signed up to. The current government wants to withdraw, ostensibly so it can deport "terrorists" to countries where they can be tortured. For some reason, this policy is popular in the UK.
It would be another shameful result of this 'terrorist' obsession if the UK left the ECHR, a document which is fundamentally british in content, not some complex, long-winded european waffle, but a clear document derived (like the American version) from the british bill of rights of 1689 or whenever it was (it was drafted in 1950, a time when, with some justification, the british felt entitled to impose its values on europe).

Those weren't real journalists then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just your ordinary run of the mill modern corporate journalists.

The NYT would be reporting it if Bush were Pres

[srichard25]

If a Republican were in the White House, the NYT would have reported on this instantly and heavily. When Bush was in office, the NYT leaked confidential info that put our troops in danger. And look at the constant stream of stories they did on Abu Gharib and interrogation techniques. Why weren't they scared of the feds then?

The main reason the American media are holding back on this story is because Obama is currently in the White House.

Re:The NYT would be reporting it if Bush were Pres

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that time with the Iraq war and the cheerleading?

Re:The NYT would be reporting it if Bush were Pres

[dbIII]

they did on Abu Gharib and interrogation techniques

At that point there were still high ranking members of the military that were sickened by what the spooks were up to and willing to talk about it off the record.

Re:The NYT would be reporting it if Bush were Pres

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, it was disgusting and almost every US reporter is guilty (as well as PBS, BBC, et al).

Re:The NYT would be reporting it if Bush were Pres

[Anonymous Coward]

When Bush was in office, the NYT leaked confidential info that put our troops in danger.

Citation please.

Abu Gharib is easy to explain, photos distributed all over of low-ranking soldiers with very little that could implicate anyone of any importance.

That can be broken.

[sethstorm]

He has a really useful piece of equipment that most editors don't have, which is a spinal column.

The only thing keeping him (and about anyone handling those files) vertical is the lack of will to break any support - or a willingness to stand against those who support betraying this country (hint: Snowden did, Clapper didn't).

Snowden betrayed the country and others (such as the Guardian) only wish to aid/abet his actions. The only valid action is to make the consequences of aiding/abetting him to be certain peril.

Yea, Except

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as newspapers and web sites then.

Yea. Except the blogs lack flocks of professional investigative reporters, properly educated writers who can effectively convey a coherent thought, editors the likes of which Slashdot has never seen, a vague sense of accountability...

If you can't see a difference between a blog, even major ones like Huffington Post or Boing Boing, and a proper newspaper like The Guardian, New York Times, or Washington Post, then you are too big a fool for me to be able to help with.

Re:Yea, Except

[HornWumpus]

Blogs occasionally will admit the were wrong. Newspapers just double down.

The fact remains there are newspapers tuned to every political viewpoint. The ones tuned to yours are the ones you think are unbiased.

Re:Yea, Except

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed, you fucking tool.

NSA Has All Your Dating site Info

[Anonymous Coward]

Subject says it all.

But I'll embellish - like to suck cock on the low down? Carpet eater? Secret lover?

Looking for love?

They have it ALL.

Cooperate or be outed - lose your job, your significant other(s), your family, your house, your car, your reputation - all of it is in the hands of unscrupulous people.

All of it.

Paging Ben Dover!

false diversity

[globaljustin]

good comment, definitely we should all make a point to seek out different points of view in news...

however, having worked in news (Fox affilitate in Iowa a century ago) I can tell you this is not going to get you 'diversity'

I would recommend reading diverse viewpoints. I read fox news, huffington post, bbc....

It's the Fox News thing...

See it's a false dichotomy and drastic oversimplification to say 'MSNBC is for liberals, Fox is for conservatives, therefor to have balance I must watch both'

The premise is wrong, based on an oversimplification...

Fox is not a news organization. It **resembles** a news organization, and sometimes what they do could be termed 'reporting' but it is not a news organization. When you watch Fox, you are seeing not 'news' but propaganda for a certain position presented as news. It is not fit to be compared to other news organizations.

It is a publicity company that leverages the need for 'news' to carve out a market for itself. Sure they wiill claim in their ads and promotions that Fox News is 'Fair and Balanced'...that doesn't make it true. To falsify my point, take the Washington Post...it has a conservative bent (and their opinion page is open to the highest bidder) but they proudly and rightly claim that they are not like Fox, and other journalists defend them.

Diversity in your news is going to take more work. True value-added, objective reporting is difficult even when you are part of a **real** news organization.

You need to start thinking mainstream/non-mainstream...that's where you will find stories that others do not report.

Also, the BBC should be watched with caution regarding U.S. news...I've yet to see them demonstrate a true understanding of how our 2-party, 3-branch system works...maybe b/c they are still a monarchy?

Re:false diversity

[dbIII]

Also, the BBC should be watched with caution regarding U.S. news...I've yet to see them demonstrate a true understanding of how our 2-party, 3-branch system works

Alastair Cook used to explain it very well to non-US audiences via the BBC but he is sadly no longer with us. The gruesome footnote to him spending decades explaining the weirdness of American to the outside world is that his grave was robbed by people looking for artificial joints to sell into your utterly fucked up health system.

Re:false diversity

[Yomers]

BBC and Fox often present the same message different ways. For example on foreign wars - BBC shows some children in caves, children are suffering - cold, hungry, afraid of bombings by pro-government forces and want to return to normal life. After successful campaign children miraculously disappear - like in Libya, where anarchy currently is so widespread that PM was recently kidnapped. But evil dictator is dead, so children must be ok now, sure :) Fox message is just like "He is an enemy of US, we will destroy him!" - more straightforward, less sickening.

I remember how those "think of the children" news are made - I was around 15 y.o. in Moscow, it was around 1992, presumably Japanese news channel (there was russian producer who told us that) filmed as as "Russian punks". They told us to come to building in our block that was scheduled for demolition, generously gave us each 2 packs of marlboro and some vodka, somebody brought a guitar. So we were to sing russian punk songs while drinking vodka from a bottle and smoking cigarettes, all this with broken windows and overall mess of a building scheduled for demolition as a background. I do not know if it was shown or not, if shown we could be orphans of war near dwelling, half destroyed by government aviation in Chechnya, or where it was needed at the moment.

Re:false diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

I've yet to see them demonstrate a true understanding of how our 2-party, 3-branch system works...

Maybe because it doesn't?

Re:false diversity

[loom_weaver]

Reminds me of National Geographic. They came out once to my neck of the woods where I grew up: idyllic farm setting in the mountains.

I guess the natural beauty wasn't good enough. They wanted one of the locals to bring a bathtub outside to the field and pose in it. We were like eh?

Re:false diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox is not a news organization. It **resembles** a news organization, and sometimes what they do could be termed 'reporting' but it is not a news organization. When you watch Fox, you are seeing not 'news' but propaganda for a certain position presented as news. It is not fit to be compared to other news organizations.

Oh, so you are saying Fox is a mouthpiece for the right. Just like the Guardian is a mouthpiece for the anti-American far-left.

Re:false diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you numpty. Try again.

Re:false diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so you are saying Fox is a mouthpiece for the right. Just like the Guardian is a mouthpiece for the anti-American far-left.

Precisely :)

false diversity

[globaljustin]

good comment, definitely we should all make a point to seek out different points of view in news...

however, having worked in news (Fox affilitate in Iowa a century ago) I can tell you this is not going to get you 'diversity'

I would recommend reading diverse viewpoints. I read fox news, huffington post, bbc....

It's the Fox News thing...

See it's a false dichotomy and drastic oversimplification to say 'MSNBC is for liberals, Fox is for conservatives, therefor to have balance I must watch both'

The premise is wrong, based on an oversimplification...

Fox is not a news organization. It **resembles** a news organization, and sometimes what they do could be termed 'reporting' but it is not a news organization. When you watch Fox, you are seeing not 'news' but propaganda for a certain position presented as news. It is not fit to be compared to other news organizations.

It is a publicity company that leverages the need for 'news' to carve out a market for itself. Sure they wiill claim in their ads and promotions that Fox News is 'Fair and Balanced'...that doesn't make it true.

To falsify my point, take the Washington Post...it has a conservative bent (and their opinion page is open to the highest bidder) but they proudly and rightly claim that they are not like Fox, and other journalists defend them.

Diversity in your news is going to take more work. True value-added, objective reporting is difficult even when you are part of a **real** news organization.

You need to start thinking mainstream/non-mainstream...that's where you will find stories that others do not report. Look at the NFL concussion story as an example:

ESPN pulled a documentary that exposed the NFL's negligence in dealing with concussions. The documentary presented damning evidence...and ESPN decided not to air it...instead the documentary ran on PBS's 'Frontline'

Here's an article explaining the whole mess w/ link to the Frontline report: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/sports/football/by-shunning-concussion-documentary-espn-gives-it-a-lift.html

Watching another sports network won't get you "diversity" in that situation...you have to seek it out through a non-sport independent non-profit or you'd miss it!

Also, the BBC should be watched with caution regarding U.S. news...I've yet to see them demonstrate a true understanding of how our 2-party, 3-branch system works...maybe b/c they are still a monarchy?

posted in wrong place

[globaljustin]

/.'ers please forgive my error, I posted the above comment in the wrong thread...will look more closely before I post next time ;)

Re:posted in wrong place

[Aighearach]

Forgiven.

So is anyone else worried

[turning in circles]

About what GCHQ and MI5 and the NSA are going to end up doing to the Guardian editor and journalists? This is not the end of their troubles.

Re:So is anyone else worried

[bfandreas]

Ah. The Daily Fail never stops to deliver as expected.

In contrast today's issue of the Guardian has a 5k words piece with quotes from editors of other(and reputable) publications explaining how responsible journalism works. They used very short words but I don't expect that they will get the message across to the Daily Fail or the people who wrap their cod&chips in it.

Re:So is anyone else worried

[turning in circles]

Good point, but I don't think the Guardian got the gist across to David Cameron (see Slashdot reference of today). Perhaps the Guardian should have used even shorter words.

Re:So is anyone else worried

[bfandreas]

Good point, but I don't think the Guardian got the gist across to David Cameron (see Slashdot reference of today). Perhaps the Guardian should have used even shorter words.

David Cameron understands. He even understands the complicated bits. He does not act out of ignorance. Nor does Theresa May. I think those two are genuinely evil.

If you think espionage is right...

[Anonymous Coward]

"it is well worth a read to see one organization that got it right" - only true if you agree espionage is 'right'.

Event on Privacy next Tuesday at Stanfor

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=480

Everyone is mining your data.

In the next minute, Google will receive over 2 million search queries, Facebook users will share nearly 1 million updates, and over 200 million emails will be sent. Large scale data-mining and analytics have enabled data brokers, like Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon, to build detailed profiles on you and over 700 million other consumers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, privacy concerns are shaking up the $120B online advertising business, and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) reports that the lack of trust in U.S. networks may cost us between $22 to $35 billion dollars.

As the loss of privacy in the digital age becomes more rampant, entrepreneurs are fighting back - securing your data, protecting your web traffic, and encrypting your communications. Will they succeed, or do we live in the age where privacy is forever lost? Join us on Tuesday, October 15th to find out.

Moderator
Seth Rosenblatt, Senior Writer, CNET

Panelists
Casey Oppenheim, Co-Founder, Disconnect.me
Nico Sell, Co-Founder & CEO, Wickr
Jack Yang, Associate General Counsel - Global Privacy Office and Enterprise Risk, VISA
Jacques Benkoski, Partner, US Venture Partners
Phil Zimmermann, Creator, PGP, and Co-Founder, Silent Circle
 

News sources around the world....

[bayankaran]

With all its faults, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times are American publications I take seriously.

Many have pointed out Economist, Al Jazeera and The Atlantic. Here are few others worth mentioning...

The New Yorker

The Times of India

The Indian Express

The Hindu

Outlook India and Tehelka (Indian weekly news magazines.)

Der Spiegel (they have an excellent English edition.)

South China Morning Post

Caijing Daily (they also have an English version.)

South American publications with English editions - from Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are missing from the above list. The Japanese publications with good English editions are rare, and the ones like The Japan Times are not that interesting.

Re:News sources around the world....

[bfandreas]

...which is propably a copy&paste list of the publications who defined their view on journalism in today's edition of the Guardian. I've read that too on my daily commute. There's a lot of repition in it but it still is a highly interesting read.

Just be warned that the print edition of DER SPIEGEL differs quite a lot from the online version. They have different editorial staff and the truly valuable articles of the print edition never make it into the online version(but you can buy them as PDF). The Guardian in contrast simply publishes todays online version as tomorrows Kindle edition with no editorial oversight whatsoever. But you can't compare those two. One is a weekly publication and the other has daily issues. Then of course there still is the Observer.

BBCFOX

[globaljustin]

BBC and Fox often present the same message different ways.

I see this too, in even historic coverage back to the "War in the Crimea" the news was used to stoke sentiment exactly as you describe.

Charge of the Light Brigade indeed

Fox News talking heads are now openly praising Putin:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/10/putin-is-one-who-really-deserves-that-nobel-peace-prize/

full analysis: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/06/a-right-wing-media-star-is-born-vladimir-putin/195756

The U.S. is recovering from the Bush years, it has to in a way...the question is how much progress can democracy make against colonial-era revenue chains?

Interesting insight, the other side

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this guy refreshing to read, as the Guardian's drip-drip of leaks is rather agonising.

http://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/edward-snowdens-incredibly-mutating-document-trove/

Know who else had a spine?

[gelfling]

Stalin. All Hail the Great Guardian.

What Alan Rusbridger really has

[Anonymous Coward]

is a complete hatred of America.

Re:What Alan Rusbridger really has

[RockDoctor]

What Alan Rusbridger really has [...] is a complete hatred of America.

And the problem with that is ? What?

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you RTFA?

"On Davies’s advice, Rusbridger took the unprecedented step of bringing in the New York Times as a partner. A British newspaper might be blocked from publishing, but an American outlet would have First Amendment protection."

Ignorant, undereducated masses

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck can Required Snark's post be marked as Insightful when he cannot get his basic facts correct nor knows not of "who worked where", "what paper published what", nor that it was the "NTY" that had the guts to publish the Pentagon papers? PS: Around 2002, the only news group worth its salt was Knight Ridder. KR was the only group that did not kneel in front of Dick Cheney, DR, PW, & lil' bush when they invaded Iraq (esp that hack Woodward who wrote 2 books praising bush before he finally work up & wrote a 3rd). For four years, eevery major US news reporter sucked hard while covered their eyes, ears, and BS meters. You can take the Iraq lesson and then use it for future ref... The key is to use your brain. If is smells like BS, it probably is BS.

>>>>If Snowden had gone to the NYT they would have folded to government pressure. At a minimum they would have "vetted" the releases with the Feds, and as a result all of the important revelations would not be published. It is more likely the Times would ha blah blah blah

Naturally, Disagree == modbomb the poster.

[sethstorm]

Moderation -2
    50% Troll
    50% Flamebait

Looks like the pro-Snowden collective can't handle the truth. They can be broken, the only barrier is willpower.

Not read it in years now...

[Ambient Sheep]

Until Rusbridger apologises for the contempt with which he treated his readership over the Max Gogarty affair, I will never buy another edition.

Eagerly awaiting your reply...

[TheMiddleRoad]

You asked for proof. I gave you some. And you have what to say?

Still waiting

[TheMiddleRoad]

for your response.