Alternative / neutral online news source?
- Thread starter Pawnless Endgame
- Start date
[FnG]magnolia;30438904 said:
Neuro-Linguistic-Programming
I usually read most media outlets from different countries and make my own mind up. It's the only real way to insure you take in all aspects to a story. afterall everyone has an agenda and a bias one way or another.
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You seem to have faith/belief in a rather odd conspiracy re: mainstream media and this 'NLP' nonsense. You don't seem to be able to post evidence to back it up though.
Soldato
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[FnG]magnolia;30438904 said:
Something Asim read in a magazine once, and now trots out in nearly every post he makes.
Neutral news as in fact reporting only or neutral in it's political commentary? I think these are two things that are not always easily separated.
The person writing the article will always consciously or subconsciously take the facts and apply their angle on it in an attempt to make sense of the information.
I read the Guardian, Telegraph, Spectator and a few things from The Intercept. Basically Left and Right leaning journalism. It's important to understand the arguments on both sides. The problem with the BBC is that they never tell you how people feel, what they actually think in their head. Giving just the facts is only half the story. We all spend our lives in our heads and have a worldview, journalists often ignore this.
The person writing the article will always consciously or subconsciously take the facts and apply their angle on it in an attempt to make sense of the information.
I read the Guardian, Telegraph, Spectator and a few things from The Intercept. Basically Left and Right leaning journalism. It's important to understand the arguments on both sides. The problem with the BBC is that they never tell you how people feel, what they actually think in their head. Giving just the facts is only half the story. We all spend our lives in our heads and have a worldview, journalists often ignore this.
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[FnG]magnolia;30438904 said:
neuro linguistic programming, a discredited mind control/brainwashing technique. also peddled as a cure for cancer and aids by alternative medicine nutters.
asim believes the government/various nefarious organisations use the media to try and control the thoughts of the population.
The BBC isn't really neutral. I've had two encounters with them personally (Iraq war protests and long ago when I worked with the NHS during the initial Connecting for Health program). In both cases I have seen BBC journalists knowingly misrepresent things. Also, when you move away from pure news and go to their other shows, you find starker examples of bias. You only have to watch a little of Andrew Neil's shows to witness his Bill O'Reilly attitude to the truth. They do however, value the appearance of neutrality very highly.
In general, there are two approaches to getting real news. The first is to go to financial sources of news. My gold standard for reporting is the private forecasting agency Stratfor. Unlike the general mass of news audience who approach news as a method of either entertainment or validation of their existing views (and a supply of factoids to support those views in argument), customers of financial and investment news sources require solid analysis and reporting that reflects reality because it directly impacts their business. An investor doesn't want to read that the people in the Crimea are good or bad, they want to know how organised they are, how much the USA is backing them and whether they'll end up as part of Russia or not. I know this is a contentious example so I'll try and keep it objective and to the point. Most of the people in the Crimea are ethnically Russian, want to be part of Russia and regard the overthrow of their president during the "Orange Revolution" as illegitimate. The Daily Mail wont lead with that! They wont say things like "the US-backed revolution" about it, but Stratfor will and does. That's not because Statfor isn't a US-based company without a predominantly US market - they're very much both these things. It's because their customers aren't interested in being supplied moral talking points. And quite frankly, as an audience made up of hoary old Real Politick die-hards, they regard moral justifications as a glob of sugar for the masses anyway. Genuinely, Stratfor is the least biased and well-informed news source I have yet found. I hope the particular example I picked doesn't detract too much from that by triggering reactions - it's simply the first that came to mind as something that gets a lot of emotive spin in the mainstream media but which isn't included in their coverage. If anyone thinks that's an example of bias, I assure they don't present Russia's assumption of the Crimea as anything other than a powerplay either. Their goal is to guide investors as to what is actually happening. Their analysis on Trump's policies and what it means internationally has been very good. Most media treat Trump as if he can single-handedly choose whatever he wants. They've been exploring the factors that constrain him.
Of course, Stratfor is a paid service (and not cheap). It also has a very limited remit which is geopolitics. However, the principle holds just about in other sources - the Financial Times is solid. Again for the same reason that people actually USE the information therein and will go elsewhere if it fails them. I have to add a caveat about The Economist, though. It has a very good level of both coverage and depth and I read it semi-regularly, finding it very good. However it does have a very notable bias that trips them up not infrequently. I recall them confidently asserting that Hollande would not be elected in France because he was "too socialist". They had clearly never met the French. So The Economist is good but very much immersed in their own economic theories. They don't have a bias to any political party particularly, but they do have a bias towards their own economic theories - all the more dangerous because they seem unaware of their bias. I'll give the Daily Mail reporters one thing - I'm pretty sure they all know what they do for a living and don't regard themselves as enlightened ones!
I'm also (and here come the boos) going to give a shout out to Russia Today. They have good coverage of subjects. They don't have a huge amount of depth. They are not, despite, accusations, a simple propaganda mouthpiece for the Kremlin and they frequently cover things that you wont find in the mainstream media. Even those here who don't like them will concede the following principle: If you want to know what your enemies are doing wrong, read your own media. If you want to know what you're doing wrong, read your enemy's.
And that final point illustrates neatly that no single source will provide you with an accurate view. Like diet, you need a balanced intake. You also need the willingness (hard to come by) to put aside what you think you know and accept you can be wrong some times.
I'll also give a shout out to The Guardian because despite terrible bias and some horrendous opinion pieces (including one arguing that the judge in the Keysha case should have found the company guilty despite the lack of evidence on the grounds that the accusation was so serious - yes, really), they are one of the few British papers that actually still employs real journalists. It wasn't the BBC that Dr. Kelly went to with his information about Iraqi WMD (and ultimately paid for his life with). It wasn't the FT that Edward Snowden supplied encrypted files to or whose journalist was detained by the police by.
A really good exercise to do, is to swap around your news sources for a period of time, and really read them and question them. I would suggest reading Russia Today for a week every day, and the Telegraph the next week. Read the Financial Times for a week and the Guardian for another week. All are good quality news sources coming from different angles. (And no, usual suspects, I'm not going to retract RT from that list - if the OP is really wanting to strip bias, they should include that not skip it because of what they have heard about it).
Anyway, I hope that helped or was at least interesting. I typically read The Economist, Stratfor (paid), The Telegraph, The Guardian and Russia Today and I alterante between those roughly once every few months.
In general, there are two approaches to getting real news. The first is to go to financial sources of news. My gold standard for reporting is the private forecasting agency Stratfor. Unlike the general mass of news audience who approach news as a method of either entertainment or validation of their existing views (and a supply of factoids to support those views in argument), customers of financial and investment news sources require solid analysis and reporting that reflects reality because it directly impacts their business. An investor doesn't want to read that the people in the Crimea are good or bad, they want to know how organised they are, how much the USA is backing them and whether they'll end up as part of Russia or not. I know this is a contentious example so I'll try and keep it objective and to the point. Most of the people in the Crimea are ethnically Russian, want to be part of Russia and regard the overthrow of their president during the "Orange Revolution" as illegitimate. The Daily Mail wont lead with that! They wont say things like "the US-backed revolution" about it, but Stratfor will and does. That's not because Statfor isn't a US-based company without a predominantly US market - they're very much both these things. It's because their customers aren't interested in being supplied moral talking points. And quite frankly, as an audience made up of hoary old Real Politick die-hards, they regard moral justifications as a glob of sugar for the masses anyway. Genuinely, Stratfor is the least biased and well-informed news source I have yet found. I hope the particular example I picked doesn't detract too much from that by triggering reactions - it's simply the first that came to mind as something that gets a lot of emotive spin in the mainstream media but which isn't included in their coverage. If anyone thinks that's an example of bias, I assure they don't present Russia's assumption of the Crimea as anything other than a powerplay either. Their goal is to guide investors as to what is actually happening. Their analysis on Trump's policies and what it means internationally has been very good. Most media treat Trump as if he can single-handedly choose whatever he wants. They've been exploring the factors that constrain him.
Of course, Stratfor is a paid service (and not cheap). It also has a very limited remit which is geopolitics. However, the principle holds just about in other sources - the Financial Times is solid. Again for the same reason that people actually USE the information therein and will go elsewhere if it fails them. I have to add a caveat about The Economist, though. It has a very good level of both coverage and depth and I read it semi-regularly, finding it very good. However it does have a very notable bias that trips them up not infrequently. I recall them confidently asserting that Hollande would not be elected in France because he was "too socialist". They had clearly never met the French. So The Economist is good but very much immersed in their own economic theories. They don't have a bias to any political party particularly, but they do have a bias towards their own economic theories - all the more dangerous because they seem unaware of their bias. I'll give the Daily Mail reporters one thing - I'm pretty sure they all know what they do for a living and don't regard themselves as enlightened ones!
I'm also (and here come the boos) going to give a shout out to Russia Today. They have good coverage of subjects. They don't have a huge amount of depth. They are not, despite, accusations, a simple propaganda mouthpiece for the Kremlin and they frequently cover things that you wont find in the mainstream media. Even those here who don't like them will concede the following principle: If you want to know what your enemies are doing wrong, read your own media. If you want to know what you're doing wrong, read your enemy's.
And that final point illustrates neatly that no single source will provide you with an accurate view. Like diet, you need a balanced intake. You also need the willingness (hard to come by) to put aside what you think you know and accept you can be wrong some times.
I'll also give a shout out to The Guardian because despite terrible bias and some horrendous opinion pieces (including one arguing that the judge in the Keysha case should have found the company guilty despite the lack of evidence on the grounds that the accusation was so serious - yes, really), they are one of the few British papers that actually still employs real journalists. It wasn't the BBC that Dr. Kelly went to with his information about Iraqi WMD (and ultimately paid for his life with). It wasn't the FT that Edward Snowden supplied encrypted files to or whose journalist was detained by the police by.
A really good exercise to do, is to swap around your news sources for a period of time, and really read them and question them. I would suggest reading Russia Today for a week every day, and the Telegraph the next week. Read the Financial Times for a week and the Guardian for another week. All are good quality news sources coming from different angles. (And no, usual suspects, I'm not going to retract RT from that list - if the OP is really wanting to strip bias, they should include that not skip it because of what they have heard about it).
Anyway, I hope that helped or was at least interesting. I typically read The Economist, Stratfor (paid), The Telegraph, The Guardian and Russia Today and I alterante between those roughly once every few months.
Well obviously they do.
Bloomberg is good. Very specific remit though which prevents it being a good general news source. Same deal as Stratfor.
Not really, 'tis a bit broader than that and was mentioned in addition to the others already mentioned.
don't believe the voices coming from your teeth.
Governments and big organizations obviously and demonstrably try to use mass media to control what and how people think. The EU has an entire agency (East Stratcom) dedicated to managing Russian news sources in Europe. The EU voted to further fund them further last month. I can't think of any government that doesn't actively fund some agency or the other for such purposes.
Governments try to use mass media to control people habitually and have done since the days of the printing press led to public pamphlets.
To try and play the "Conspiracy Nut" card against what I said is ridiculous. In the very literal sense that I ridicule you for trying it.
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I'm feeling brainwashed right now!
yeah except i was talking about his theory of literal mind control.
are you saying you belive the government is using discredited mid control techniques on you?