Actual fair and balanced coverage

Recommended Videos

drthmik

New member
Jul 29, 2011
142
0
0
Daystar Clarion said:
drthmik said:
Daystar Clarion said:
Your mistake was watching an American news station.

Dat shit is bad for you, yo!
Sounds like an accusation to me
I'm pretty sure most people know how politically orientated US new broadcasters are :3

It's essentially common knowledge.
that excuses you demanding that others do what you will not?
you accuse US news of being biased and being "bad for you"
you are stating your opinion as though it was a fact without stated reference or corroborating evidence
yet you demand these things when someone disagrees with you about your preferred news source

Captcha
double crossed
 

Da Orky Man

Yeah, that's me
Apr 24, 2011
2,107
0
0
As everyone else is saying, the BBC is usually rather good. Over the past decade or so they've been accused of being right-wing, left-wing, racist, politically correct, anti immigration, pro immigration, and so on. Basically, when the Conservatives are in, the BBC is claimed to be left-wing, and when Labour is in, their called right-wing. I figure it all evens out in the end.
 

RaNDM G

New member
Apr 28, 2009
6,044
0
0
MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN/CW are more political commentary than real news. I stick with CBS and ABC.

If you want international news, can't go wrong with the BBC or Al Jazeera.
 
Dec 14, 2009
15,526
0
0
drthmik said:
Daystar Clarion said:
drthmik said:
Daystar Clarion said:
Your mistake was watching an American news station.

Dat shit is bad for you, yo!
Sounds like an accusation to me
I'm pretty sure most people know how politically orientated US new broadcasters are :3

It's essentially common knowledge.
that excuses you demanding that others do what you will not?
you accuse US news of being biased and being "bad for you"
you are stating your opinion as though it was a fact without stated reference or corroborating evidence
yet you demand these things when someone disagrees with you about your preferred news source

Captcha
double crossed
Well, that's what I get for not expecting the Spanish inquisition :D
 

sanquin

New member
Jun 8, 2011
1,837
0
0
I mainly get my American news from TYT (the young turks) on youtube. They're highly opinionated on the news they cover, but the actual information is unbiased as far as I can tell. Other than that I have "Volkskrant" (translation: People's paper) for my own country's news, though I take it all with a grain of salt. And finally Tweakers (A dutch tech/computer site) for my tech news.

It's a lot if I watch the mainstream news on TV or listen to the radio's news maybe...once a month. And that's only when I'm visiting my mother and it happens to be on.
 

gdv358

Regular Member
Nov 11, 2009
36
0
11
sanquin said:
I mainly get my American news from TYT (the young turks) on youtube. They're highly opinionated on the news they cover, but the actual information is unbiased as far as I can tell. Other than that I have "Volkskrant" (translation: People's paper) for my own country's news, though I take it all with a grain of salt. And finally Tweakers (A dutch tech/computer site) for my tech news.

It's a lot if I watch the mainstream news on TV or listen to the radio's news maybe...once a month. And that's only when I'm visiting my mother and it happens to be on.
Yeah, I watch The Young Turks too and, while they include their own personal opinions, they usually point out exactly where their opinion comes in. Plus, if you want to see someone who's not going to go to bat for a specific ideology then you really can't find a more balanced approach. They tend to call out both sides of the aisle equally (sometimes to their personal detriment since their audience tends to get pissed off at them either direction). I wouldn't call them detached by far. But fair? Yeah, I would call them fair (if extremely passionate).

I think the best measure of how fair they are has been how many times they've corrected their mistakes when called out on it and how often they've changed their opinions when someone has provided a solid argument. You don't find a lot of anchor teams admitting they were wrong but I've seen TYT do it several times over the last few years of watching them.
 

Amakusa

New member
Jul 12, 2012
113
0
0
For me, i watch and website browse Al-Jazeera and the BBC. They seem to be high quality reputable news stations. Al-Jazeera shows like north south etc give diverse range of opinions and is informative.

For Australian stuff (since i live there), generally it's Sydney morning herald and ABC (australian broadcasting network) news station. Or if you can afford the price / subscription, The Australian Financial Review (for economics and some world stuff, follow the money for political/policy trends)

I don't touch Murdoch papers (daily telegraph/website/MX) or the commercial (7, 9, 10) news stations in australia. I have a view that they make you stupid in the long run.
 

CpT_x_Killsteal

Elite Member
Jun 21, 2012
1,519
0
41
For Australia it's gotta be the ABC and SBS news stations. The others usually just do fluff pieces but they're brave in their own way when they want to be.

Don't watch Faux news. When I first saw them on Youtube I thought it was satire.

Now I have to run outside if anyone on that network says the sky is blue.
 

loc978

New member
Sep 18, 2010
4,900
0
0
Read.Your.News. From multiple contradictory sources. Also, watch a little documentary called Patriocracy. They do a good job of defining "journalism" versus "entertainment news show". If it's news on TV available in the US, it's almost always the latter.
 

Killclaw Kilrathi

Crocuta Crocuta
Dec 28, 2010
263
0
0
Also as an aussie, ABC is the best. Their radio station also plays stuff from the BBC regularly which is good. Oh, and avoid all talk radio if you're in Australia, it used to have quality hosts that were very impartial but nowadays they all seem to want to be Bill O'Reilly.

Online I watch a lot of The Young Turks on Youtube, they're biased as anything towards the left but they've got a good track record of reporting it as it is even if it means condemning the groups they side with. Just expect a lot of opinions along with it.
 

UrinalDook

New member
Jan 7, 2013
198
0
0
Lawyer105 said:
BBC's just as biased as the American news services, in it's own way. It's just a little more subtle about it. Where the American stations can and will straight-up fabricate stuff (or outright omit pertinent details, as appropriate), the BBC will simply... slant. In many ways, that's worse than outright lying. Basic fact checking will catch the media out if they lie. Slanting the news is far harder to catch and far more insidious.

Face it. Like the politicians, the media is bought and paid for. They report the news they're told to report and ignore the stuff that doesn't serve the corporate interests. "Independent" is just a label they like to stick on themselves to pretend that they're better than the competition.
Yeah, BBC is hilariously biased. Their website is still probably one of the best news sites around, but the TV coverage is awful. The weird thing is that BBC aren't exactly biased towards one political side, they're just depressingly anti-everything. They always try and put a negative spin on things, and the number of uncomfortable interviews I've watched where the BBC reporter has tried to put words in the mouth of the interviewee to try and make their situation look dire, only for the interviewee to come back and say "no, actually, things are fine" is staggering.

If you're a Brit looking for impartial, professional TV news, it's Channel 4 all the way. John Snow and Krishan Guru-Murthy are dons. Not to mention that Channel 4 is prepared to spend way more time on international news, rather than bitching about local politics.

I can understand why the BBC might nonetheless appeal to an American audience, however. Especially if you only get 'international' coverage out there.

EDIT: Of course, as a couple of people have already said, the only way to really appreciate a news story is to try and see how's it's covered by different sources. The internet is an absolute god send for that.
 

Sethzard

Megalomaniac
Dec 22, 2007
1,820
0
41
Country
United Kingdom
I'd definitely say the BBC and Al Jazeera (it's not what you think most of the time).
 

FieryTrainwreck

New member
Apr 16, 2010
1,968
0
0
If 24-hour television news is a kiddie pool, everyone contributes to the urine content - but Fox News is the only one shitting its pants. Don't let false equivalencies overshadow the important of staying informed.

BBC is your best bet.
 

ThreeName

New member
May 8, 2013
459
0
0
Aris Khandr said:
Al Jazeera also tends to be pretty good.
Definitely vouching for this. It really is quality international news. Australia's SBS has a good world news program too. And frankly, if it doesn't affect the world or you haven't heard it from word-of-mouth, it probably doesn't matter.
 

SecondPrize

New member
Mar 12, 2012
1,436
0
0
DarklordKyo said:
I need to start watching the news, but I keep on hearing about so-called "journalists" that would rather stay as biased as possible rather than report what's actually happening (with those same people still keeping their jobs for some reason). Granted, it's primarily Fox, but I'd heard some accounts of it happening it in CNN, MSNBC, etc. I'd like to ask if anyone would like to throw in their two cents when it comes to who they believe is, objectively, the most reputable (or, at the very least, least biased) news station out there.
As surprising as it may seem to a 'murrican, Al Jazeera is actually pretty good as far as holding to journalistic standards. BBC World News is OK, I think, but I haven't watched them all that much.
The problem here is that, in addition to political bias, you have to contend with the problems that arise with ownership of the news outlets. The same corporations that make news also own the companies which actually make the news.
 

OneCatch

New member
Jun 19, 2010
1,111
0
0
Lawyer105 said:
BBC's just as biased as the American news services, in it's own way. It's just a little more subtle about it. Where the American stations can and will straight-up fabricate stuff (or outright omit pertinent details, as appropriate), the BBC will simply... slant. In many ways, that's worse than outright lying. Basic fact checking will catch the media out if they lie. Slanting the news is far harder to catch and far more insidious.

Face it. Like the politicians, the media is bought and paid for. They report the news they're told to report and ignore the stuff that doesn't serve the corporate interests. "Independent" is just a label they like to stick on themselves to pretend that they're better than the competition.
Out of interest, would you say they slant to the left or right?
-------------

OT, multiple goddam sources people!

I tend to use; Beeb + Guardian for UK news, Telegraph and New Statesmen for opinion pieces.
For world news I use Beeb, Russia Today (they do sometimes pick up on stuff the western media misses, even with it's hilarious bias), Al Jazeera, Al Arabia, CNN, or other more specific ones if relevant.

Yes, there's not a lot of conservative representation, but that's because the UK conservative press is either terrible or paywalled. And Fox is ridiculous (though I will use them to see what they're up to if nothing else).
 

Madman123456

New member
Feb 11, 2011
590
0
0
I've heard that the flood in central europe can only be seen as an act of justice from god. Yeah, we have those types over here as well.
If that guy would have been talking someone who didn't know that there was a flood, he'd know now. Furthermore, he'd know that germany has crazy people as well.
And that is pretty much the same degree of information that you may be able to suck out of a news report. If the bullshit filters in your brain are working overtime.

Most news outlets became pretty useless when they let their personal bias trickle into their work. If i can't turn off my bullshit filter when watching news, if i have to be on the constant lookout because the reporter is probably stretching the truth, i might as well not bother. I'd rather read message boards where i can be somewhat certain that whoever wrote the text is stretching the truth but doesn't have as much experience in nebulous anchorman speech so the bullshit will be easier to sort out.
 

Bluestorm83

New member
Jun 20, 2011
199
0
0
Every single "news" network out there skews to a side of the spectrum. How could it not? The news is researched and reported by people, and people have beliefs. We have this insane idea these days that a person can function 100% apart from the basic tenets that form every aspect of how they act.

Yes, FOX skews to the Conservative. But MSNBC skews to the Liberal. Most news networks skew to the liberal these days, actually, simply because most of television culture skews to the liberal. I rectify this by watching both conservative AND liberal programs (despite finding that I am more conservative myself.)

Someone did a study at one point, where they took two groups of people, one that was moderate to liberal, and one that was moderate to conservative. They had these groups discuss hot button issues; abortion, religion, healthcare, birth control, all the stuff that makes people these days cut themselves and wail in the street. They found that just by talking among themselves, the moderate to liberal group started to act and talk more like hardcore communists, while the moderate to conservative group started to act and talk more like hardcore fascists. The consensus was that when you only interact with ideas that you already agree with, you become more entrenched in those ideas.

Human beings are Mammals, and as such we have Basic Mammal Instincts. One such instinct is to act like other people. It's a survival thing; they act like this, they are still alive, therefore if I act like this then I will continue to live. And that's a great instinct, when it comes to how we handle that wild animal, how we handle parenthood, how we react to this exciting new bottle under the sink that has warnings all over it. It doesn't work all that well when we get to the higher-brain society functions.

So my recommendation is to watch equal parts of conservative and liberal things, and try to understand how both sides think. Because honestly, we need both viewpoints if we're to survive as individuals, a society, and a species. Too much of either and things get really bad, really fast.
 

Randomologist

Senior Member
Aug 6, 2008
581
0
21
The BBC is mostly unbiased on the website, with the exception of certain sporting articles. Their TV breakfast news on the other hand is much too heavily focussed on UK news and cultural things (Music, film, theatrics), their interviews taking up much more time than foreign news stories.

Da Orky Man said:
...Over the past decade or so they've been accused of being right-wing, left-wing, racist, politically correct, anti immigration, pro immigration, and so on.
For anyone not from the UK, this is entirely true, in all its contradictory detail.