@71247a99  I’m back. This will be long.

No worries, you seem to be polite and arguing in good faith I think… So please take all the space you need.  The main argument you’re making is that having a bias precludes producing responsible journalism.

I am not saying that at all, though I can see why you might think that as what I am saying is subtly but critically different.

What I am saying is that when you intentionally encode bias into your news as a feature… which is what you do when you label news as “for progressives” and choose intentionally loaded language.. only then does it preclude responsible journalism. A person who is simply biased but goes out of their way to do their best that those biases dont influence their reporting, in those cases they can be very responsible. But that not what we have here, we have a news agency who prides itself on being biased and offers it as a feature, intentionally.  But if they publish a story that states facts, gives sources, and exposes information that is important to me (as this is, I live in the city that attracts these occupations), then that is valuable journalism.

Should be… but when there is intentional bias encoded as a feature when they do it then you are getting that information with intentional brain washing.. words matter, and when the news is presented with highly loaded and opinionated language sprinkled throughout the feed your hate, you wind up walking away a worse person, even if facts are sprinkled with it, you are effected by the news by being a worse human being, you just got some facts as you got it… It also means that almost always facts that are counter to the agenda wont ever reach the spotlight. So while you get facts, you get incomplete facts designed to persuade you to a conclusion rather than to inform you fairly.  (You’re taking a hard line for objectivity, but there is no such thing. We’re all hairless apes constructing our own realities out of extremely limited sensory data with a brain that likes to make up stories so we can find food and mates, and avoid danger.)

There is a huge difference between people being flawed and being unable to achieve perfect objectability vs intentionally being bias and baking that into your news as a feature rather than an accidental effect.  The rest of this seems to be differing opinions on the meaning of terms.

Not about the meaning of terms at all, its about the use of loaded language indenting to show intentional bias.  “PressProgess”: This is a progressive journalism outfit. The name fits.

Yes the name fits, and makes quite clear they have the intention of being biased.. that bias is the goal, not a side effect.. thats the problem.. the fact that the name fits is exactly why they have no journalistic integrity.  Try convincing any new organization trying to attract subscribers that they will succeed with an unexciting, straight-down-the-middle name and they will laugh you out of the boardroom. “18% Grey News! Not too dark, not too light. Perfect and featureless!”

You are absolutely right.. delivering news with journalistic integrity wont succeed.. That is exactly the problem. I dont blame them for selling out and becoming a propaganda machine, any business man would, its the same reason Fox news exists, its just good business…. This is exactly why for-profit news should already have you suspicious fromt he get go.. you cant maximize profit and actually have journalistic integrity, because thats not what people want.

This is exactly why the few good objective news agencies are all non-profit agencies… because they can focus on doing good journalism, not how popular they are.

@ec40ea5e 

 @b05df304 @ec40ea5e I guess we’ll have to disagree on this one. I agree with the general sentiment – a little bias can reinforce itself over time, until you have the highly polarized society that social media algorithms have helped create. So any bias should be examined critically.

However, I’m *sure* that you’ll have a very hard time finding a news story that is accurate, complete, and unbiased, no matter the source. The best you can hope for is knowing the expertise and bias an organization has, and reading the article critically. I stopped paying for the local newspapers because every time they reported on subjects I had some expertise in, the articles were rife with errors. I couldn’t trust them on the stuff I was less informed about.

Not only that, but there is also the issue of framing, conscious or unconscious privilege, and so forth. As an example, right now in my city there is a lot of discussion on public transit. The discussion is completely polluted with assumptions heavily biased towards car culture, in which we’ve been immersed for many decades. So there is a bias there, even if *nobody* notices it. If the car was invented today, and proposals made to cover half the city with asphalt so people could have their own personal hunk of metal, plastic, and glass conveying them around at speeds higher than they can manage without losing control or crashing… It would be a complete joke.

In short (j/k I talk a lot), I don’t accept the premise that good journalism is devoid of any kind of bias. It is reporting and story-telling by humans, and the intelligent consumer will weigh it appropriately.

I also think that you are far too harsh on PressProgress. They are not the far-left opinion slingers you make them out to be. Those organizations exist, but PP isn’t one of them. To your last point in your post - I’m not sure about that. It takes funding to do good journalism, and non-profits struggle. Larger, for profit, organizations do good work but there’s always someone pulling the strings… The landscape is always shifting. We’ve had some seriously good work done by independent outfits lately, though. 

 @71247a99  I guess we’ll have to disagree on this one.

Ok certainly nothing wrong with that… ill listen.  I agree with the general sentiment – a little bias can reinforce itself over time, until you have the highly polarized society that social media algorithms have helped create. So any bias should be examined critically.

Good, yes, agreed so far  However, I’m sure that you’ll have a very hard time finding a news story that is accurate, complete, and unbiased, no matter the source.

Yes absolutely. In fact one reason I am so vocal about it is because very very few news agencies or journalist exist who maintain journalistic integrity. The proper response isnt to accept it, its to call it out when we see it and reward it when we dont, as consumers. Moreover, we should find solutions or ideologies that help ensure journalistic integrity is maximized. Accepting it doesnt do that.

I will tell you what does.. two things really.

1) lack of explicit bias or bias as a feature (like we have here).

2) lack of a for-profit model.

For #1 we discussed this already alot so ill leave that to the rest of the discussion

#2 is important though// Anyone who knows me on here will tell you, im pretty damn capitalistic, I start companies for almost for a living, I very much lean center (left of center, but center) and economically at least I lean right (socially and welfare programs I lean left). So I am the last person anyone expects to be anti for-profit… but there are two places I am non-profit all the way, healthcare, and journalism. Because in both these fields maximizing profits is counter to their intended purpose of making healthcare affordable, or journalism faithful to journalistic integrity.  In short (j/k I talk a lot), I don’t accept the premise that good journalism is devoid of any kind of bias. It is reporting and story-telling by humans, and the intelligent consumer will weigh it appropriately.

This is again a misrepresentation of my stance.. you are disagreeing with somthing I never said.

My criteria is not “devoid of any kind of bias”.. the criteria is that bias is not baked in as a feature.. that a reasonable attempt is made to eliminate and reduce bias, NOT to intentionally add bias as a feature.

I hope you can see how these are two wildly different things.

@ec40ea5e 

 @b05df304 @ec40ea5e I was on @qoto.org for a while, I’m familiar with your background – What you say about your personal viewpoints isn’t surprising. (I kind of miss the character limit that qoto had, but I need to edit for brevity most of the time, anyway 😄)

Totally agree on areas that should be non-profit. I'd add education, mass transit, and prisons to that list, too - the profit motive is counter to societal good. (I'm sure I can think of a few more... Anyway, we're on the same wavelength there)

I don't mean to mischaracterize your stance on bias. But I think we’re seeing two different things with PressProgress. I don’t feel that there is an effort to bake in left-wing bias in this article. It comes across as factual to me, and despite my own sympathetic political leanings, I don't think I'm fooling myself. I'm sure that the gentlemen pictured in the article would have a different take, though. 

 @b05df304 @ec40ea5e Just so you know, I have a tendency to enjoy a debate and take up a contrary position for fun. Hopefully I make that clear when I do. 

But for this particular discussion, yes, I’m arguing in good faith. 

 @71247a99 

Enjoying a debate is fine.. if you take a contrary position for fun all I ask is you make it clear you are doing that... just say your playing devils advocate... Otherwise I may think you beleive a thing, and while I will respect you as long s you are respectful, I , liek anyone, will judge your character based on your opinions.. so you should want to give me an accurate picture of you so I can judge you accurately :)

@ec40ea5e