Comment by alasdair_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alasdair_ | Hacker News Reader

The Economist has a free-market bias that they openly admit, but they tend to be good at distinguishing opinion from facts and take several steps (such as making the journalists anonymous) to help minimize influence. Also, it was good enough for Karl Marx - hardly a free-market champion.

The Hill is surprisingly good for DC politics news.

The English version of Al Jazeera is Saudi-funded but usually covers stories fairly. (The arabic version is outright propaganda and should be avoided).

Vice News is pretty good. They have a new HBO show coming out.

The Intercept tends to get its facts right and sources them well. It's pro-Snowden and pro-Wikileaks but I haven't noticed any egregious slanting of the truth, or outright lies so far.

Even CNN (really!) has a couple of "real" journalists left working for them. The only one that seems to have enough clout to avoid editorial meddling is Fareed Zakaria (GPS).

John Oliver is biased, especially in terms of pro-Clinton content but his facts are usually correct. He's also funny.

Le Monde Diplomatique (French newspaper) used to be very good but I haven't read it in some time.

The BBC is generally accurate (and I give them props for funding an undercover investigation of their own director!) but I'd generally ignore it for hot-button UK-based political issues. It's one of the few sources that are legally-bound to be impartial however so they generally don't get TOO egregious.

The WSJ is still excellent for business news. Similarly the Financial Times in the UK. I'd largely ignore anything else they print however.

For the rest: I suggest just reading a story and then going straight to the source material to see how trustworthy it is. Any story that simply references another news outlet can be ignored - keep digging until you get to the actual sources then ask yourself if they are credible.

I decided to finally make an account because some of the sources that you listed are not only biased but outright wrong.

Al Jazeera is actually funded by Qatar, and you can read about the issues that they have here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_c... . This includes the English version.

You can't call CNN unbiased just because one reported has so far been good.

In every subject that John Oliver reported on that I knew a bit about, I had to stop due to the amount of fallacies. For example, in one of the most recent ones, he jokes about how police worry about people armed with knives. He then shows a clip of a police officer explaining why knives are dangerous, but cuts him off in order to laugh at how stupid he is. Let me explain as a former soldier exactly why criminals with knives are dangerous. While in striking distance (an arms length) it takes someone with a knife in his hand a fraction of a second to cause damage. Whereas it can take a trained soldier (I assume police as well) to draw, cock, aim, and fire a gun up to 2 seconds. 2 seconds might sound like not a lot but there was a study done that showed that if a knife man was armed and within 21 feet, he will be able to attack a gun man with the gun in the harness.

The BBC has its issues as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC

In the end, if you want a balanced view of the world. I would recommend listening to sources that state their bias from both sides.

Why people down-voted this comment? Nobody bothered to actually leave some feedback?

The correct objection to John Oliver being quoted in a journalistic context is simply that "John Oliver is a comedian, not a reporter".

The fact that he occasionally rises to a level of journalism that real news outlets fail to reach should be considered an indictment of such outlets, not an endorsement of Oliver's standards.

> I would recommend listening to sources that state their bias from both sides.

s/both/all/ , unless you're caught in the fallacy that there always two and only two sides to a story.

Anyway I used to think along similar lines, but to be honest, the rise of Berlusconi, Fox News, "shock jocks" and so on, basically turned me off to the whole idea. There is no "balance" to be found when one side is completely unhinged and wilfully lies all the time. By all means learn to discern bias, but it's entirely acceptable to simply discard sources altogether when they are too poisonous.

I logged into my hbonow just to find this clip you are referring to. I transcribed it for everyone to read for themselves because i think you are remembering this incorrectly

they were talking about how cops are legally allowed to shoot civilians, including a quote:

>fatal shootings can be considered legal even if they are unnecessary or disproportionate

and that police have a name for such killings as "Lawful but Awful"

JohnOliver:

>on top of all this, prosecutors can bring in expert witnesses who can present nearly any situation as a potential threat. Take dr Bill Lewinsky, who runs something called the force science institute; for years he has testified on behalf of police officers. here he is providing rationale for why it may be ok to shoot someone that has a knife

The clip starts, Bill Lewinsky talking:

>knives can actually be more dangerous than a gun, they dont have to be reloaded, they can be used at a close distance. And we know that a stab from a knife, or a stab or a cut can be extremely quick(Makes slashing motion)

John Oliver interrupts him there to make fun of his stabbing motion:

>come on, that is not the motion you make when stabbing someone, that is the motion you make when you are a teenage magician finishing a trick. 'is this your card?' but - but there is no doubt there is no doubt a knife is a dangerous weapon, but what if someone doesnt have a knife? Dr Lewinsky, could force still be necessary if someone is unarmed?

another clip of lewinsky plays,

>first of all its significant to know that unarmed does not mean theyre not dangerous. In fact, the fist may have been the first weapon that human beings used against each other. In fact ive measured strikes of human beings on other humans and the strikes can occur at a speed of 4 5 or 6 strikes in a second, and some of them (pounds fist into hand) really hard

Oliver then makes a rock paper scissors joke, and no more clips of lewinsky are played.

I dont think you could really call this John Oliver saying that knives are not dangerous, i dont see him joking about police being worried about people with knives - its clear that he thinks the use of deadly force is happening too often and with too little consequence for the officers, but thats the point of the segment.

sycril correctly states

"...there was a study done that showed that if a knife man was armed and within 21 feet, he will be able to attack a gun man with the gun in the harness."

This is commonly referred to as the "Tueller Drill", after a trainer who first published the phenomenon:

"How Close is Too Close?" by Dennis Tueller:

http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Tueller/How.Close.htm

Interpretations of Tueller's findings vary a great deal depending on the role one plays in an interaction and one's intent. For example, one might conclude that police should e.g., "shoot anyone within 21 feet who has a knife.", "One shot and they're out of action." or "Anyone outside of 21 feet and carrying a knife can be disregarded." and so on. But those 3 statements are not necessarily true and one must analyze further:

"Re-Thinking the 21-Foot Rule":

http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/article_archive/results/d...

"The Tueller Drill Myth: Why The 21 Foot Rule Isn’t a Rule At All":

http://www.itstactical.com/warcom/firearms/the-tueller-drill...

Google discussion of the Tueller Drill:

https://www.google.com/search?q=tueller+drill&client=opera&h...

It is quite astonishing how a simple experiment has revised thought about the old adage "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight!" Indeed it appears that within the 21 foot range, someone without a knife could be effectively unarmed (even if they have a gun).

As somebody who follows about 75% of those sources, those are definitely not the places to get unbiased news. Editorials, perspectives and opinion-based articles maybe, but half those sources don't even make being unbiased a goal.

As much as I respect The Economist, they have a very strong anti-Russian bias in their reporting.

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