Would you suggest this chart to a friend us useful or a school district teaching civics?
Looking at your decisions, was there a pattern where you differentiated between paid journalism and free journalism as far as its quality or bias?






It is a little hard to tell, but then again, it is trying to capture a changing dynamic.
Americans tend to forget that, originally, the idea of an unbiased media would have been almost laughable. Journalism at the beginning of the republic was made up of newssheets that were partisan instruments, bought and paid for by partisan bodies and political parties.
Indeed, there was really no expectation of an "unbiased media." Patrons bought from the newspapers and periodicals that were sponsored by the parties that they supported.
The idea of an "unbiased media" only really began to take shape with the advent of mass publication newspapers and magazines. Think Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, and the publications in major cities like the NYT and the Washington Post most famously.
It was not that these were fully unbiased as one might think of that term. Rather, it was that in order to reach a broader market, they had to temper their biases to expand their audience.
This was further intensified with the advent first of silent movies and then "talkies." (Think newsreels in the theaters.) Then came radio and finally television. Again, these were not perfectly unbiased, but the need to reach a mass market tempered their coverage.
Ironically, this has changed with the advent of modern communications technology. First cable, and now the Internet, allows publishers and broadcasters to target specific audiences and still maximize exposure and profit. The net result then is that modern technology and given a renaissance to the ethos of 17th century journalism.
This made worse and intensified by the fact that algorithms will identify a reader/listener/viewer bias and target that media to the recipient. Thus media has even less incentive to be unbiased. This then conducing the bitter tone of the nation's journalism and politics and the current acidic nature of the culture.
This may, in time, rectify itself as the culture grows weary of the vitriol and conflict that currently dominates society and its' media. (These tending to reinforce one another.) The parallel is not unlike how the relative - it is ALWAYS relative - tranquility of the 1950s conduced to relative instability of the 1960s and 1970s and then back to the relative tranquility of the 1980s and 1990s. The difference being that in these previous eras, media and technology was much more homogenous.
That all said, for the time being, the chart is relatively accurate. However, it is a gross oversimplification of a much more complicated phenomenon. A phenomenon that will shift - as it already has - across time.
There are minor upsets to me like OANN should be farther right than Fox News…. THE HILL should be closer to the center… Reuters, BBC, TIME are all 100% Neutral I must say. PBS too is Neutral.
OANN I acknowledge for telling the truth on the internet saying Trump lost the 2020 Election & Biden is the projected winner though on TV Broadcast spread lies about it. Fox News on their smaller local news stations are definitely leaning neutral more than full blown Fox. THE HILL is neutral for its programs that lean Republican & lean Democrat and fact checking each side. Reuters just stays on major topics / world news as a whole and found it quite enlightening above all these. I was reading a TIME Magazine article back in the day and it said what Obama & Romney were doing on the campaign trails as Presidential Nominees for their parties and didn’t show favoritism or anything just explained how elections worked educating me…. PBS does this showing how each candidate grew up and how their perspectives shifted as time went on which I’d say allows the viewer / listener to compare & contract the views of the candidate to reach a conclusion themselves.
This is just my opinion, maybe Trump & Harris are so different that it is a stark contrast that you end up with the non biased takes being “biased”. How do you make someone look good when they’ve only been a flip flopper, compulsive liar, guilty convicted felon, and a President who failed to deliver his major legislative promises the first time around who is incapable of getting it done again. Saying the facts isn’t biased, it would be biased to hide the facts acting like it is a 1:1 comparison, apples to apples….
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It was probably mostly accurate back when it was made in 2018 but things have shifted quite a lot since then. Most notably with the right wing buying influence or outright ownership of companies and moving the bias to the right.
Not a new phenomena by any means. It has been going on quite a while now and its actually funny to see how many news organizations has been captured by the right wing. Local news stations has basically been entirely monopolized and whenever the owners sends out an order it becomes obvious since everyone repeats the same script word for word.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/C-4HOgULcd8Old example here.
Here is the original full mashup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo
Nah. The problem is that society is complex. The only reason to boil it down to a single dimension is to demonize it. For instance, what do you do with Trans Rights, who support Palestine, but the Palestinians would toss them off a building?
Just like I refuse to think all white people are racists or all black people are thugs, I don't boil people's infinitely nuanced politics to a number on a line.
Slightly accurate. I watch the left media, been years since canceling cable, but it's still the same. They don't try to hide their bias. I remember 40 plus years ago when CNN was first Turnered out. You got the news. No agenda. No hiding news or spotlights news to paint the narrative. Now I'd like to beat the hell out of most involved with it. And that would be getting off easy.
Pretty inaccurate. Whoever made it is obviously far left liberal.
Can you cite examples of errors?
I'm waaaaaayyyyyy out of my league with US medias lol. Unsurprisingly, the only names ringing a bell are either neutral or liberal haha
I'll put some royals behaving badly tabloids next time!!
Well, it's not as if I was really connected to newsmedia in my own country, I know the basics and can detect editorial policy if not told but yeah, I have to admit news aren't my favorite hobby oopsie
I'm laughing my ass off, especially at the ones the call "neutral".
Which is the best sources?
None of those corporate mainstream outlets are credible. They are in the business of social engineering, not investigative journalism. Their mission is not to provide information with which people can develop informed opinions.
They may tell you what's happening from day to day but they only share information that they want to share. So the result is, you get shallow, one sided information.
Their propaganda tactics are unnoticeable to those who aren't informed.
I will say that Tucker Carlson comes the closest to practicing journalism because he hosts a variety of guests. For example, I recently saw him do the most wonderful, hour long interview with Glenn Greenwald.
Tucker, himself, is a bonehead, but he 'tries' to think. And he doesn't bend to corporate pressure.
I don't tune into him. But I occasionally get steered to some of his broadcasts.
I don't read or tune into anything in particular on a daily basis. I often just check things out that come across my radar from a variety of sources.
I had dozens of the brightest, best informed people in the world as Facebook friends before Facebook started censoring everything. I'm still in touch with some of them.
I am signed up with some outlets and individuals (including completely trustworthy, independent journalists). So I get email notifications and read or watch things that interest me. Certain ones specialize in specific issues like Gaza/Palestine/Israel, but others cover the broad range of current events.
Real journalism has names, dates and direct quotes. Who, what, where, when. Not opinions.
Eva Karene Bartlett is one extremely courageous independent journalist who travels on her own dime to conflict zones, takes videos and does interviews. She practices the purest form of journalism.
A couple outlets whose articles I read often are Global Research, Epoch Times, and Consortium News. Redacted News has some good podcasts and interviews. There are others.
I like Greg Maybury a LOT. Peggy Hall is very informative.
I read and listen critically and definitely don't just swallow everything I hear or read. But I really like info that corporate media won't touch. When I hear new things, I research them further.
I don't think any news source is able to provide investigative journalism without being under a banner. To me, anyone pretending to be neutral or factual based is either unaware or covering agenda. It is impossible, from a marketing perspective, to me to maintain audience without knowing who the audience is and serving that audience right.
You named Tucker Carlson in first intent, his agendas are well identified, he is nowhere near apolitical or unknown on the market, so the choices he makes are certainly carefully considered, both conforming to political views and marketing
@Maybe_Maybe_not. 95% of all mainstream outlets are owned by 5 mega corporations who are all on the same page when it comes to most issues. They are all part of one big club. Between them, their job is to manufacture the illusion of consensus by creating an echo chamber.
I have caught them lying more times than I can count.
And they consistently cover only one perspective.
The talking heads read off of scripts that are sent down from above. Their scripts are often identical, word for word, to the other outlets.
So-called journalists (hacks/prostitutes) for mainstream publications like the NYT and WaPo, know better than to write anything that would go against their corporate ideology. They want to keep their lucrative jobs.
Mainstream corporate media is the fakest of the fake news.
I totally disagree that there are no objective journalists. I know several. But they sure as hell can't get jobs with corporate media. And if the succeed in building a large following, corporate news and social media giants make a point of discrediting, slandering, banning, defunding and de-platforming them.
It's funny that you chose to single out Tucker Carlson after what I said. The mere mention of his name must have triggered you. It indicates that you have a liberal bias.
Didn't he quite Fox for refusing to toe the line?
I don't even like him much, as I indicated in my comment. And I never claimed that he didn't have any personal bias. But at least he doesn't let anyone dictate what he can and cannot say.
Not a liberal bias actually, I'm at the left of the left ! So far left that I can't even remember what is right lol
It's mostly accurate. Some changes I would make:
Move FOX News up a bit, completely into the orange rectangle
Move NPR to the left, just inside the Skews Liberal column
Add Newsweek directly under TIME
You forgot "totally inaccurate" - which it is.
OMG I didn't mean that! Damn voice to text! Apologies.
Why totally inaccurate?
Since I've never heard of any of the outlets on the bottom left, but have of all the ones on the bottom right, I'd say the picture should be thicker at the propaganda end on the right, thinner on the left.
Well I can tell you that CNN is NOT neutral. They are EXTREMELY bias well known to be so too. Was the pre-selected answers supposed to be biased as well or was this whole question a kind of sarcasm?
I don't watch any of them... so I would not know
Reuters, AP, NPR. NBC, Time, NY Times. Washington Post are all fake news organizations that democrat operatives with press passes.
What does "fake news" mean to you?
* here starts a conversation leading nowhere * 🤣
* here end a conversation leading nowhere *
Ok but does it mean:
Biased?
Ommissions?
Curated?
Manufactured?
I've never gotten anyone to explain what fake means!!
@DrPepper12 All of the above.
Why do millions around the world continue to pay for the privilege of being lied to? From a capitalism POV, liars with low quality products fail in the marketplace. Correct?
It is broadcast news. That is the problem. Many people in America cannot afford cable , especially the elderly and they are isolated from a lot of what is going on in the country,
I live in a city where all the local news outlets and the two local news papers are all in the tank for the democrats.
There are two hotels near where I live that were taken over by the state and a thousand illegal aliens are living there. One of them raped a 15 year old girl. This story never made any of the local TV news stations and the two newspapers squashed it too. I read about it in the NY post and saw it on Fox news.
your chart says NPR has minimal bias? Bahahhahahahahahahahahahhhaaahahahahahahaha
I'm ASKING if it's accurate!
The answer is ‘no’
Wait, government radio isn’taccurate?
Cable "news" is a propaganda machine filled with bias not worthy to be trusted.
Local 30 minutes news is actual news.
That chart is fake news. BBC, NPR, and AP are all known to have a liberal bias for my entire life. To suggest that they are anything close to neutral is laughable on its face.
David Muir is neutral? I don’t think so
Seems mostly accurate
It looks mostly accurate to me.
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