Bias in news sources (Split from: Impeachment Hearings)

[YJ02]

1 hour ago, zapatos said:

At the risk of making you feel I am trying to shut down the speech and opinion of someone like you, would it be too much to ask for some evidence to support the above claim?

Evidence..seems to be a talking point of yours. Well, let me share something with you as a student of the social sciences; when it comes to the study of all of man's social mechanisms there are no absolutes, no 'proofs'. All one can do is cite what we hold to be accurate dates and events of history or facts/extracts from texts- like the Constitution for example.

 

Everything else is subjective, fleeting and subject to change based on change-like how public opinion can be readily changed by events, especially in the days of the 24 hour news cycle.

 

As a American Government professor of mine liked to joke "the professor over there in the (hard) sciences building like to say we all have hard science envy (a slimly veiled reference to penis envy/ erections... the whole Trump "big hands' thing  ) over here (in the social science building).

Because the hard sciences, as you all know, can readily be proven or there is a overwhelming amount of evidence to indicate that proof is there. We in the social science cannot do that.We can only observe, surmise and suggest and predict behaviors based on those observations.

But, once again, to feed your obsession. here is a site (one of a few) that rate the different media outlets as well as polling companies.

But that gives another question: who rates the raters?  It is all a subjective or better an inter subjective maze of supposition that is based on the social sciences attempt at applying the scientific method to matters of human thought and conduct.https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings?field_featured_bias_rating_value=All&field_news_source_type_tid[1]=1&field_news_source_type_tid[2]=2&field_news_source_type_tid[3]=3&title=gallup#ratings

[YJ02]

8 hours ago, zapatos said:

No kidding. I'm so tired of people who pull this stuff out of their asses, believe it passionately, and cannot believe someone has a nerve to question where they get their information.

It's a fucking science forum.

no, you don't say? but this sub forum, is not hard science, it is political. political science is part of social sciences. there is no proving anything when it comes to social science other then historical evidence.which is also not real proof in the way something can be proved in chemistry or physics. historical "proof" is always changing as new historical and archaeological finds are made.

BESIDES. providing anything approaching proof in this discussion is nothing more then a self laid trap.

If I give you a news source or a poll site, then the responses will undoubtedly be "well, that a right/left leaning organization, you can't use that"

that is why i inserted the table of media bias above from ALLPOINTS. but as  i stated as well, who is ALLPOINTS and who are they to say what is right,left or center? 

There is no academy of sciences or any other governing board that is without bias on politics or political information. You would need a computer algorithm to approach that--and then the issue would be the biases of the person who programmed the algorithm. 

[YJ02]

40 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

!

Moderator Note

It's not just a talking point here at SFN, it's recognized officially as a requirement for meaningful discussion in the sciences and all our topics. 

 

Well I tried that. Upthread you will see where I cited an article from national review. The response was national review was not valid.

well in political discussion, which is based on opinion, what is valid? it is all subjective. A pro Trump person throws in something from FOX or Newsmax and they are --rightly--told that it is right leaning.

someone then uses a left leaning sight..also, would not be valid.

All anyone can do in this subject area is observe and discuss. As I stated above, we in the social sciences attempt to apply the Scientific Method to human behaviors,such as political behaviors, it cannot be done with the same amount of accuracy as say a chemistry experiment.'

In the social sciences one could attempt to repeat the findings of another, but there is little chance that one would achieve the same results. There are simply too many unknown and uncontrollable variables in any application of the scientific method to human behavior, especially in group activities.

from the quote below, for Indiana Univ of PA, we see that the method can be used for political systems only, not thought, opinion or abstracts. All of this discussion on the impeachment is based on thought, opinion and abstracts.All of which is based on the actors involved.The scientific method can only be used for data; number of voters, votes received, bills submitted, bills passed to law, etc.

It sates that the study asks the question 'what ought to be?". Since we are a democracy where all are taught and encouraged to form their own views based on what facts are available, then 'what ought to be?' is subjective. there is no one right answer or single outcome as one could achieve in a physics demonstration.

"Although the study of politics and power is ancient, the discipline of political science is relatively new. Like other social sciences, political science uses a “scientific” approach, meaning that political scientists approach their study in an objective, rational, and systematic manner. Some political scientists focus on abstract and theoretical questions, while others study particular government policies and their effects.

Political scientists focus upon political systems, including the effect of environment on the system, inputs, the decision-making agencies which render binding public policies, and system outputs. Approaches to the study of government and politics include the normative approach, in which philosophical attention centers on values by asking the question “What ought to be?” and the behavioral approach, in which an attempt is made to develop verifiable theories through scientific methods by asking the questions “How?” and “Why?”"

https://www.iup.edu/politicalscience/about/

14 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

!

Moderator Note

Please learn the difference between "proof" and supportive evidence. Science isn't interested in "proving" anything.

 

if people here are continuing to use news sites and articles as evidence,i am sorry, that is just not evidence. they are only evidence of someone's opinion based on however that news source leans politically.

 

so, if that is what every one is asking for, I can give those all day long.

 

but in a discussion such as this, where each person is buried in their own opinions and views of the topic, no amount of evidence is going to sway anyone's opinion.

 

11 hours ago, iNow said:

This seems to be another of those unspecific claims unsupported by evidence. 

Speaking of evidence:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/70-americans-trumps-actions-tied-ukraine-wrong-poll/story?id=67088534

ABC news leans left (see media bias chart above), as such the article is biased.

Ipsos polling has also been labeled as left leaning as is ABC polls since it is part of ABC news

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/06/evidence_for_massive_liberal_bias_in_ipsos_polling_of_the_trump_vs_clinton_matchup.html

so this is not 'evidence' but it is evidence of opinions of a part of the american public

 

you see the issue? you can cite one news source, and anyone can choose to discount it based on whatever news source they are using

this is a major problem in american politics today as we have no real 'centrist' and truly objective news media any longer.

[J.C.MacSwell]

21 minutes ago, swansont said:

Who said that, and where?

I see only two responses to that post (quoting the link), and neither discounts the source the way you claim. One notes that none of the objections that are cited are valid. i.e. it attacks the (lack of) content in the piece. 

 

No, it's not all subjective. Most of it is not. Underlying it all are facts, and one can expect that any purported factual claims can be supported. 

I think you have some work to do, learning the difference between opinion and fact.

One of the other big problems in these discussion is people having this confusion, and asserting opinion as fact.

 

The problem I think is that we don't all agree on the trustworthiness of the sources of what we and others might consider facts.

Our biases still come into play in this regard, including how things are "liked", "disliked", and even moderated.

YJO2  provided some insights some may not agree with here, in a very respectful manner, and in my opinion closer to mainstream than many here would like to think.

 

 

 

[CharonY]

58 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

The problem I think is that we don't all agree on the trustworthiness of the sources of what we and others might consider facts.

I think there is nuance there that is lost in the discussion. For starters, there is a difference between whether a report is based on something that is factual or not. Opinion articles can be heavily biased, but they may or may not base some assertions on actual facts. Let's say for example there are reports praising or condemning the harsh stance on immigration. That in itself is a value judgement. However, in proper discourse you would want to analyze the underlying facts to see on what these judgement are based on. You will find, for example that folks against immigration assume that immigration is associated with a number of negative outcomes, such as drain on economy crime and dilution of culture. The last point does not really have a good measure whereas the former two points could (and have been analyzed) and in the US most studies failed to show that those are true. So if you report on this data and assert immigration is a positive you may show political bias but remain factual, whereas when ignore those studies and drum up assumptions, you show bias, but are not factual. This is the issue with the website posted in the (now) OP, it shows political bias but, as they acknowledge themselves, they a assert that they do not make any judgement on how factual reports are. There are other websites, such as mdiabiasfactcheck, though I assume that measures would be imperfect as fact checking takes more resources than a simple poll for bias.

Of course, one needs to discern which articles are supposed to be news and which opinion pieces to begin with. It also seems that there is quite a bit of imbalance when we look at the extremes in terms of the popularity in relation to how factual they are. For example the worst in terms of factual reporting on the left of the column from the image in OP are Alternet (mixed) whereas on the right side only the aforementioned National Review was not as bad or worse than Alternet. However, each publication had a much higher circulation/internet ranking.

Or to put it differently if we use the graphics in OP, there is only left publication out there that fails to be considered at least mostly true, whereas on the right there is only one publication that manages to achieve a mostly true rating. The fact that these are so vastly more popular than fact-oriented right-leaning reporting is a big issue for many of my Conservative colleagues. 

The issue for me is therefore less about bias (which we will always have) but whether we can agree on facts to begin with (before we start spinning). And there, I do not really see a symmetrical issues when we talk about the left vs right news sector for a long time anymore.

[iNow]

I find this chart far more useful than the one shared by our (now) OP:

 

Interestingly, it also offers evidence against his claim that ABC News skews left. 
 

2 hours ago, YJ02 said:

ABC news leans left, as such the article is biased.

Ipsos polling has also been labeled as left leaning as is ABC polls since it is part of ABC news

Nope, and it doesn’t matter anyway. You can’t just hand wave away the public sentiment about these actions. That’s not how this works.

If the polls are biased, you must show where, why, amd how. You can’t summarily dismiss them because of the source. 

[YJ02]

18 minutes ago, iNow said:

I find this chart far more useful than the one shared by our (now) OP:

 

Interestingly, it also offers evidence against his claim that ABC News skews left. 
 

Nope, and it doesn’t matter anyway. You can’t just hand wave away the public sentiment about these actions. That’s not how this works.

If the polls are biased, you must show where, why, amd how. You can’t summarily dismiss them because of the source. 

ok, sure, but I already addressed this. the issue of "Who rates the raters who watches the watchers"

So who is to say that Ad Fontes (chart you posted) is accurate in where they assign media organizations? Same applies to the chart i posted.

Also, note how you started your post: " I find this chart far more useful.."

"find" indicates a result of your reasoning;a subjective opinion. 'useful'. how exactly is it useful? by quality, quantity or simply because you agree with it and therefore it is useful in your statements?

i am really not trying to sharpshoot anyone or be personal about things, i am just addressing them as I was trained to address any other political opinion and observation in school.

much, if not all of this, would fall into the field of political psychology, my 'lens'

[iNow]

41 minutes ago, YJ02 said:

ok, sure, but I already addressed this. the issue of "Who rates the raters who watches the watchers"

So who is to say that Ad Fontes (chart you posted) is accurate in where they assign media organizations? Same applies to the chart i posted.

What data have they shared that you are suggesting is inaccurate? If you refuse to answer, then we can dismiss your concerns as an example of the logical fallacy of poisoning the well.

41 minutes ago, YJ02 said:

Also, note how you started your post: " I find this chart far more useful.."

"find" indicates a result of your reasoning;a subjective opinion. 'useful'. how exactly is it useful?

Because in addition to a one-dimensional break into political left/right columns, it also leverages the y-axis to show overall quality of the information shared, it's truthfulness versus fictionality, etc.

It offers more texture and provides reasons why it breaks the data as it does. It's also more expansive and includes multiple additional news sources that yours omits. Further, this is version 4.0.1, which shows they continue improving it with new data as it becomes available.

I'm not saying it's objectively more accurate. I'm saying I find it more useful, which is clearly an opinion. You're welcome to disagree.

Edited December 9, 2019 by iNow

[YJ02]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

What data have they shared that you are suggesting is inaccurate? If you refuse to answer, then we can dismiss your concerns as an example of the logical fallacy of poisoning the well.

i am not saying it is inaccurate, I am pointing out that there is no governing authority over any of these 'media watcher' groups. So there is no standard to turn to to scrutinize their methods, many people we just go with what network or polling site has info or data that appeals to them and re-enforces their confirmation bias .

a liberal will go to MSNBC, a conservative will go to FOX or Breitbart. Some one who considers themselves moderate and not interested in exhaustive partisan opinions in place of their news, could once go to CNN, but they too have departed from straight news for some time now.

Whether it is your example or mine--and I did (in bold letters) state that my example hs no more stadnig then yours-- there is still one fatal flaw no matter how much scrutiny they use to monitor networks, or how elaborate their ranking system is. The fatal flaw is that there are still humans designing the software and collecting,analyzing and publishing the data used to make their rankings.

------------------------

Let me give you another example if I could.

These linked to polls show that their has been a large increase among african americans , and non whites, for Trump over the last 6 months or so.

As much as a 30% approval rating for Trump is indicated (to which i call BS btw)

Now keeping in mind your statement of - "If the polls are biased, you must show where, why, amd how. You can’t summarily dismiss them because of the source. "

so, do you, or anyone here, accept them or dismiss them?

extract from: https://pjmedia.com/election/and-then-there-were-3-marist-poll-shows-33-approval-for-trump-among-non-white-voters/

"A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll concludes that 33 percent of non-white voters approve of Donald J. Trump's performance as president. 57 percent of non-white voters supposedly disapprove of his performance. Although these would be horrendous approval ratings for a Democrat, they're actually very good for a Republican. For example, back in 2005, African American approval of then President George W. Bush was a mere 16 percent.

As we reported on Monday, both a Rasmussen poll and a poll by Emerson show 34 percent approval for President Trump among African Americans."

 

 

[iNow]

34 minutes ago, YJ02 said:

The fatal flaw is that there are still humans designing the software and collecting,analyzing and publishing the data used to make their rankings

I’ve heard this same solipsistic/postmodernism reasoning used to dismiss climate models and evolution without ever pointing to where they’re mistaken, as well. I’ll just say it doesn’t appeal to me in this matter either. It’s absurd and lazy. 

34 minutes ago, YJ02 said:

so, do you, or anyone here, accept them or dismiss them?

 

I have no interest in chasing your red herring

Edited December 9, 2019 by iNow

[J.C.MacSwell]

15 minutes ago, iNow said:

I’ve heard this same solipsistic/postmodernism reasoning used to dismiss climate models and evolution without ever pointing to where they’re mistaken, as well. I’ll just say it doesn’t appeal to me in this matter either. It’s absurd and lazy. 

I have no interest in chasing your red herring

 

[iNow]

This is not a thread about African American support for POTUS nor the accuracy of an individual poll. It’s about polling bias and the trustworthiness of polls (and news sources) in general. 

Facepalm all you want. 

Edited December 9, 2019 by iNow

[Phi for All]

I've always felt bias in the news was fairly easy to spot, and wasn't as much a factor as the entertainment format we've had since 1996. Journalists used to point out bad reasoning and unsupported allegations. Now everything is portrayed as a contest between two roughly equal sides. Short, emotion-laden buzzwords are used instead of informative language. Everyone has a different definition for almost every word the newscasters use. Nobody understands anyone else meaningfully because the media keeps insisting we're all liberals, or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans, as if ANY of those definitions actually fit more than about 20% of the population. 

The media loves these broad stereotype labels. They don't have to actually inform the public when they can create an illusion that there are only two sides to each issue. Our media is for entertainment now, not for information. Two sides battling, classic storylines, let the audience pick who's the antagonist and the protagonist, it doesn't matter as long as you don't change the channel. News is about profit now, and poorly-informed citizens spend more money it seems.

[YJ02]

4 hours ago, iNow said:

I’ve heard this same solipsistic/postmodernism reasoning used to dismiss climate models and evolution without ever pointing to where they’re mistaken, as well. I’ll just say it doesn’t appeal to me in this matter either. It’s absurd and lazy. 

I have no interest in chasing your red herring

how are they red herrings? you see this is bias in action, you posted a news story from abc and you call it good, i post some polls and you call it a red herring

 

with a climate model or any thing else in the physical sciences, i would agree with you, you can't dismiss if something has the data to back it up

 

so now i am carefully assuming that you are a scientist? If yes, then I believe it is also reasonable to say that when you see information presented to you, then it all has been proven by use of long accepted methods, maybe peer reviewed and published? That would make it unassailable fact, yes?

this process in which you work in then forms your professional/vocational or academic bias. That is, you expect everything you see that is reasonably presented and seemingly well researched to have been done to the same standard and rigor as the scientific info. you are used to.

But, as I have stated before, every student in the social sciences learns that nothing can be proven in the field, there are no facts other then the basics; the function of the brain and CNS for psychology students; the discovered written records of history and the physical evidence of archaeology and a few others.

 

Everything else is incapable of being proven in the same manner as in science; one could run a psych experiment one day then the same a week later on the same group of people with the same variables and get different results. That would never happen in physical science.

This is why political science and the information extracted from data sets-like polling, is subjective and biased. Too many unknown and uncontrollable variables. Therefore all a poll taker can do is tally their data and make a opinion based on it. In this action of this person, bias is going to take effect. If he has some outliers, say one skewed to the right politically and the other left, and he is a right leaning person, there is very good chance he will include the right skewing data.

humans are flawed and the study of human behavior is as well. there is no way around it. we can only work with what we think are he best and most accurate data- a far cry from what the science community can do.

 

 

[iNow]

7 minutes ago, YJ02 said:

how are they red herrings?

What is this thread about? Is about African American levels of support for President Trump? Is it about this one Marist poll that shows his low AA approval is slightly up in May? 

No? That’s why it’s a red herring. The thread is about your assertions of all polls and all news being untrustworthy. 

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Red_herring
 

11 minutes ago, YJ02 said:

But, as I have stated before, every student in the social sciences learns that nothing can be proven in the field,

As science deals in evidence and provisional models of nature, it does not deal in proof, this assertion applies to all sciences, not just the social ones. Ergo, it’s functionally useless. 

I acknowledge that polls can be misused and require caution. I’m not ready to agree with you that they’re useless and biased by default... that they’re no better than reading entrails or tea leaves or a Ouija board. 

[MigL]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

The thread is about your assertions of all polls and all news being untrustworthy.

But obviously Yj02 gets his news from some source, so he considers at least one ( or some ) trustworthy.
The 'sticking point', INow, is that the ones he trusts are not necessarily the sources you trust ( or I for that matter ).
That is the subjective part.

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

What is this thread about? Is about African American levels of support for President Trump? Is it about this one Marist poll that shows his low AA approval is slightly up in May? 

No? That’s why it’s a red herring. The thread is about your assertions of all polls and all news being untrustworthy. 

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Red_herring
 

As science deals in evidence and provisional models of nature, it does not deal in proof, this assertion applies to all sciences, not just the social ones. Ergo, it’s functionally useless. 

I acknowledge that polls can be misused and require caution. I’m not ready to agree with you that they’re useless and biased by default... that they’re no better than reading entrails or tea leaves or a Ouija board. 

 INow. It is not all or none.

Where do you get that YJO2 claims they are useless and biased by default?

They are to some degree suspect.

This is to some extent true of climate change data (an example you brought up that no one is describing as a red herring...)

6 hours ago, iNow said:

This is not a thread about African American support for POTUS nor the accuracy of an individual poll. It’s about polling bias and the trustworthiness of polls (and news sources) in general. 

Facepalm all you want. 

It was an example. No one claimed you were obligated to respond to it. The facepalm was you not allowing the same courtesy.

 

11 hours ago, iNow said:

 If you refuse to answer, then we can dismiss your concerns as an example of the logical fallacy of poisoning the well.

 

No we can't.

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Where do you get that YJO2 claims they are useless and biased by default?

 

   On 12/8/2019 at 9:23 PM,  YJ02 said: 

...numbers and polls have become little more the manipulative tools for whomever it is paying for the polls.

[J.C.MacSwell]

7 minutes ago, zapatos said:

   On 12/8/2019 at 9:23 PM,  YJ02 said: 

...numbers and polls have become little more the manipulative tools for whomever it is paying for the polls.

Hyperbole, but more than a grain of truth to it with regard to much of current media.

How often have you seen the numbers at least seem reasonably honest but not match the headline?

By default, I rarely fully trust any media source at face value. That would have been much less the case a few years back.

But that doesn't make them useless to me.

[iNow]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

But obviously Yj02 gets his news from some source, so he considers at least one ( or some ) trustworthy.
The 'sticking point', INow, is that the ones he trusts are not necessarily the sources you trust ( or I for that matter ).
That is the subjective part.

I read it differently. He seemed to say that the content of the polls and data they share is subjective. He applied this same “reasoning” to news articles and segments... That because they’re authored by humans they’re all only as good as entrail reading. 

8 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

INow. It is not all or none.

Which is why I was sure to put a qualifying preface before that sentence... the one you even quoted. Here it is again: "I acknowledge that polls can be misused and require caution."

8 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

By default, I rarely fully trust any media source at face value.

The insertion of the word "fully" completely changes this discussion. As best I can tell, nobody here is suggesting we should "fully" trust anything, let alone media sources. The contention is whether or not polls are useless, or if we can dismiss something entirely just because it came from ABC News, for example.

[J.C.MacSwell]

40 minutes ago, iNow said:

 

Which is why I was sure to put a qualifying preface before that sentence... the one you even quoted. Here it is again: "I acknowledge that polls can be misused and require caution."

What I bolded: I’m not ready to agree with you that they’re useless and biased by default...

Your interpretation of what others are saying when they have different opinions from your own...try to read without picturing them in a MAGA hat...

It's not all or none

40 minutes ago, iNow said:

The insertion of the word "fully" completely changes this discussion. As best I can tell, nobody here is suggesting we should "fully" trust anything, let alone media sources. The contention is whether or not polls are useless, or if we can dismiss something entirely just because it came from ABC News, for example.

Only to you ...(because you feel it is easier to argue against?)

I don't get the impression anyone is claiming polls are, by default, useless.

We can all read the same words. Why is it that you insist on mischaracterizing in this manner? 

It doesn't make your arguments appear any smarter. 

Edited December 10, 2019 by J.C.MacSwell

[dimreepr]

[iNow]

12 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Why is it that you insist on mischaracterizing in this manner? 

Perhaps for the same reason you insist on consistently making every conversation personal and about me instead of remaining focused on the thread topic.

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

Perhaps for the same reason you insist on consistently making every conversation personal and about me instead of remaining focused on the thread topic.

Okay. Let's try not to do that.

I wouldn't have much to add if everyone shared my opinions. We should keep that in mind especially when conversing with new posters.

[dimreepr]

6 minutes ago, iNow said:

Perhaps for the same reason you insist on consistently making every conversation personal and about me instead of remaining focused on the thread topic.

its more about not being wrong 

10 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I wouldn't have much to add if everyone shared my opinions.

I wouldn't have much to add to me if I'm not wrong.