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Comment by mulmen | Hacker News Reader

I will take your word for it that there are more left-leaning sources. I will also assume for the sake of argument that it is possible to quantify the political alignment of a news outlet.

What is your definition of "left-leaning"?

What is your definition of "fair" in the context of news?

Why do you believe news cannot be "fair" or that we cannot have it?

Is the numeric quantity of sources at any point on the political spectrum relevant? How do you find the middle? Is it an average of all sources? Is it just a scale from MIN to MAX? If it is min/max then can't an extremely conservative (or liberal!) organization move the middle simply by making outlandish claims on their side of the spectrum? Does that make sources that would otherwise be considered "fair" appear biased?

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These are good questions.

I'd say left-leaning sources are those that tend to report negatively on conservative politicians and positively on liberals. The Harvard study purports to measure what constitutes negative coverage, so this seems like it could be measured.

About numbers, it seems today often Fox reports favorably for the GOP, while CNN, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC seem to favor the political left. (I think the Harvard study seems to suggest this.)

I suppose a microcosm of the 'balanced list' I'm describing might be 'Real Clear Politics'. This site posts leftist articles, then immediately follows them with right-leaning articles in equal numbers one after the other. It's an interesting way to get news, and it allows the reader to study different biases, often on the same topic.

Thanks for that explanation. I'm still unclear on why the total number of sources or articles with a given alignment is relevant.

In your "Real Clear Politics" example two perspectives are given equal weighting in their representation. This seems to make an assumption that there are exactly two valid perspectives and that they can be easily balanced.

Can't that system be exploited by extremists? If an extremely left-wing organization publishes a story that is nearly fabricated in its bias does a right-wing organization need to publish an equally flawed piece on the other side? Should people even read the stories?

I think it's accepted that there is bias in reporting. I also think it is a trap to believe "middle" == "balanced" == "fair" because extremists can exploit that perspective by making increasingly extreme statements. This is the basis of much of cable news as I understand it and I believe it oversimplifies the issues and creates echo chambers by rewarding the biggest delta in opinion.

In my opinion it is more important to get diverse news sources than it is to try and balance ideologies, especially when those ideologies are defined by someone else.

Thanks for that. I agree, diversity in news sources is a good way to get differing perspectives. (Also, perspectives not being pushed from the same opposing ideologies, as you suggest.)

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