How biased is your news source?

[_Markk]

I'm not sure how one differentiates outlets like CNN, Fox, and CNBC? If you take their most popular "shows," they are all at the the extreme left and right...e.g. Hardball, RM, Hannity, Copper, Tucker?

in my opinion...The way one judges a new anchor or reporter, which translates to the network, is to never really perceive their personal opinions...i.e. their party affiliate, biases, religion, etc. That used to be a common goal in reporting, it seems long past, especially with social media.

In Sports, I listen to the Dan Patrick Show most every morning in my commute. I have no clear idea after listening to him for the past 8 years or so... whether he is a believer (born in a Irish Catholic family), a Democrat or conservative, a Trump hater, or supporter, a Obama hater, or supporter, or who his is real favorite teams are, he calls every team his team at one time or another...his journalism is fair and balanced when it comes to sports, he reports the story, with very little, if any bias. I say this as a example of what good reporting and anchoring should be like...again in my opinion.

[_Chap]

The symmetry is what makes me suspicious. This isn’t some type of random sampling. There’s no reason to expect such a symmetrical distribution. The categories on the x axis are treated as discrete categories, when in reality they overlap. Entities that do a sustantial amount of original reporting are not listed as such, I assume because they also run wire service stories. But that throws a wide range of outlets in terms of original content into the same bin. I could quibble with the right left scale for a couple of sources, but I think the problems with the X axis are more serious.

The Y axis wants to do three things at once. It expects that complexity of analysis, originality of reporting, and reliability move in the same direction at the same time. There's no reason to expect this and it's not true. The Enquirer is famous both for original reporting and unreliability. Jacobin is complex, but highly slanted. Fox News both routinely reports fabricated information and breaks news.

So far as I can see, the chart has no numerical scales on either the x or y axes, nor is it based on any kind of numerical scoring (please correct me if I am wrong).

Since the chart is purely qualitative rather than quantitative, the question of symmetry or asymmetry is meaningless. There is, for instance, no way to decide whether the interval on the y-axis between (say) 'Analysis' and 'Complex analysis' should be the same as that between 'Opinion: fair persuasion' and 'Analysis', or twice as big, or half as big. Similar considerations apply to the spacing of sources on the 'Liberal-Conservative' x-axis.

[_EAllusion]

I think it's meant to be a rough scale Chap. You can't put exact numbers on the things it is describing, so there's no numerical scale, but you are supposed to see this in terms of relative differences on a scale. When looking at it, I'm supposed to understand that the National Review is a little to the right and the New Yorker is a little to the left, but the Federalist is way to the right and the New Republic is way to the left. I'm supposed to know that Bloomberg is either minimal in its partisan bias or balanced and also a solid source of factual reporting, but Buzzfeed News is extremely biased and of questionable reliability.

[_Brackite]

I haven't seen Some Schmo post around here in a while. I hope that he is still all right.

[_Chap]

So far as I can see, the chart has no numerical scales on either the x or y axes, nor is it based on any kind of numerical scoring (please correct me if I am wrong).

Since the chart is purely qualitative rather than quantitative, the question of symmetry or asymmetry is meaningless. There is, for instance, no way to decide whether the interval on the y-axis between (say) 'Analysis' and 'Complex analysis' should be the same as that between 'Opinion: fair persuasion' and 'Analysis', or twice as big, or half as big. Similar considerations apply to the spacing of sources on the 'Liberal-Conservative' x-axis.

I think it's meant to be a rough scale Chap. You can't put exact numbers on the things it is describing, so there's no numerical scale, but you are supposed to see this in terms of relative differences on a scale. When looking at it, I'm supposed to understand that the National Review is a little to the right and the New Yorker is a little to the left, but the Federalist is way to the right and the New Republic is way to the left. I'm supposed to know that Bloomberg is either minimal in its partisan bias or balanced and also a solid source of factual reporting, but Buzzfeed News is extremely biased and of questionable reliability.

I'm sorry, but I am afraid that you are not quite getting the point. The scales on the x and y axes are not 'rough', which would suggest that they are fundamentally quantitative, but in some way approximate: that could be dealt with by simply putting uncertainty bars on the data points.

The scales are, at best, ordinal scales - in the sense that we can perhaps agree that 'complex analysis' is better than just plain 'analysis', and that 'analysis' is better than 'opinion: fair persuasion'. But there is absolutely no way that we can decide whether the extent to which 'complex analysis' is better than just plain 'analysis', is half as great or five times as great as the extent by which 'analysis' is better than 'opinion: fair persuasion'. The same applies to the intervals of 'conservativeness' or 'liberalness' between the sources on the x-axis. So neither the x-axis not the y-axis can be 'interval scales', let alone 'ratio scales' (which are interval scales with a zero point). And it is the differences on the x-axis that will produce symmetry or asymmetry.

The graph is almost certainly symmetrical because its creator thought it would be neater to draw it that way. Nothing more.

See here for an explanation of the terms used above:

https://www.mymarketresearchmethods.com ... val-ratio/

[_ldsfaqs]

I admit me and the Right are "biased", however the problem is our "bias" is pure Objectivity and a focus on what's actually True and Right.

For example, the Left doesn't want a Judge from the Right on the Supreme Court, but it's not that we have a "bias", it's that our bias is the actual founding values of this country, the Constitution, a belief and focus in actually judging things fairly and according to the Rule of Law DESPITE our biases.

An example of the Left not being able to do this is when every single Leftist judge on the court voted AGAINST the Human Right and Constitutional Right to Self-Defense, a.k.a. to keep and bear arms, yet only the Judges on the Right voted FOR that human and constitutional right. The Left falsely think "we" are the "radicals, the "bad", but we are in fact the very best values that have built Western Civilization while the Left are everything that is the worst of those in power.

At their core the Left doesn't believe in "fundamental rights", they believe in controlling and removing individual rights according to their personal biases and agenda because they think their values are superior, so it's perfectly fine to remove individual rights from people for their collective vision of utopia. Except the problem is their vision is actually dystopia...

For example, Capitalism/Freedom everywhere it's tried and the more of it, it succeeds, in contrast, to everywhere Leftism is tried, it fails, and the more its principles are enacted, the more it destroys. This is 100% factually correct, look to ANY country of history and current.

[_Markk]

I haven't seen Some Schmo post around here in a while. I hope that he is still all right.

We made a bet 2 years ago that he lost, hope paying up is not why he stopped posting.

I hope everything is good...probably just burnt out on arguing all the time, it gets old.

[_Res Ipsa]

The symmetry is what makes me suspicious. This isn’t some type of random sampling. There’s no reason to expect such a symmetrical distribution. The categories on the x axis are treated as discrete categories, when in reality they overlap. Entities that do a sustantial amount of original reporting are not listed as such, I assume because they also run wire service stories. But that throws a wide range of outlets in terms of original content into the same bin. I could quibble with the right left scale for a couple of sources, but I think the problems with the X axis are more serious.

The Y axis wants to do three things at once. It expects that complexity of analysis, originality of reporting, and reliability move in the same direction at the same time. There's no reason to expect this and it's not true. The Enquirer is famous both for original reporting and unreliability. Jacobin is complex, but highly slanted. Fox News both routinely reports fabricated information and breaks news.

Argh! Typed the wrong axis. It’s the Y I have the most trouble with.