Hello World, As many of you have probably noticed, there is a growing problem on the internet when it comes to undisclosed bias in both amateur and professional reporting. While not every outlet can be like the C-SPAN, or Reuters, we also believe that it’s impossible to remove the human element from the news, especially when it concerns, well, humans.
To this end, we’ve created a media bias bot, which we hope will keep everyone informed about WHO, not just the WHAT of posted articles. This bot uses Media Bias/Fact Check to add a simple reply to show bias. We feel this is especially important with the US Election coming up. The bot will also provide links to Ground.News, as well, which we feel is a great source to determine the WHOLE coverage of a given article and/or topic.
As always feedback is welcome, as this is a active project which we really hope will benefit the community.
Thanks!
FHF / LemmyWorld Admin team 💖
The Intercept getting only a “mostly factual” rating (3rd highest) despite their admittance it has never failed a fact check.
This is literally in bold at the top of the page:
Overall, we rate The Intercept progressive Left Biased based on story selection that routinely favors the left. We also rate them as Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to previous fabricated work and censorship of writers.
Fabricated work.
Is there anything that’s more of a capital crime in journalism than fabricating quotes? Surely we can all agree that publishing fiction as news is the opposite of factual reporting? They may not have failed a fact check in the last five years but it just isn’t possible for them to have published fabricated news without ever failing at least one. By their own admission they failed five in that incident alone.
I’m not going to die on the intercept hill here I’m fine with the fact that even though they fired the person it’s a stain on their record so sure let’s say that rating is fine.
It was one of the first 3 I checked so I’m sure I’ll find more that are problematic when I have a chance to look because it’s their methodology that’s biased. Also the other 2 I pointed out are clearly not correct.
Got rebuttals for any of my criticisms about the methodology?
Got rebuttals for any of my criticisms about the methodology?
I do!
I think the importance of American bias is overstated. What matters is that they’re transparent about it. That bias also impacts the least important thing they track. People often fixate on that metric when it has little impact on other metrics or on the most important question for this community: ‘how likely is it that this source is telling the truth?’ Left and right are relative terms that change drastically over time and space. They even mean different things at local and national levels within the same country. It’s not really an MBFC problem, it’s a the-world-is-complicated problem that isn’t easily solved. And it’s not like they’re listing far-right publications as far-left. Complaints are almost always like, “this source is center not center-left!” It’s small problems in the murky middle that shouldn’t be surprising or unexpected.
It’s also capturing something that happens more at the extremes where publications have additional goals beyond news reporting. Ignoring Fox’s problem with facts/misinfo, it doesn’t really bother me that they’re penalized for wanting to both report the news and promote a right-wing agenda. Promoting an agenda and telling the truth are often in conflict (note Fox’s problem with facts/misinfo). CBC News, for example, probably should have a slightly higher score for having no agenda beyond news reporting.
It might matter more if it impacted the other metrics, but it doesn’t really. Based on MBFC’s methodology, it’s actually impossible for editorial bias alone to impact the credibility rating without having additional problems – you can lose a max 2 points for bias, but must lose 5 to be rated “medium credibility”. I don’t know why FAIR is rated highly factual (and I’d love for them to be a bit more transparent about it) but criticizing bias leading to them being rated both highly factual and highly credible feels like less than a death blow. If it’s a problem, it seems like a relatively small one.
MBFC also isn’t an outlier compared to other organizations. This study looked at 6 bias-monitoring organizations and found them basically in consensus across thousands of news sites. If they had a huge problem with bias, it’d show in that research.
On top of that, none of this impacts this community at all. It could be a problem if the standard here was ‘highest’ ratings exclusively, but it isn’t. And no one’s proposing that it should be. I post stories from the Guardian regularly without a problem and they’re rated mixed factual and medium credibility for failing a bunch of fact checks, mostly in op-ed (And I think the Guardian is a great, paywall-less paper that should fact check a bit better).
So I think the things you point out are well buffered by their methodology and by not using the site in a terrible, draconian way.
I think the importance of American bias is overstated. What matters is that they’re transparent about it. That bias also impacts the least important thing they track.
It affects the overall credibility rating of the source, how is that the least important thing? They also seem to let it affect the factual reporting rating despite not clearly stating that in the methodology.
Based on MBFC’s [methodology](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/), it’s actually impossible for editorial bias alone to impact the credibility rating without having additional problems
This is only true specifically when you’re thinking about it as a great source can’t have its credibility rating lowered. A not great factual source can get a high credibility rating if it’s deemed centrist enough which again is arbitrary based on the (effectively) 1 guys personal opinion.
High Credibility Score Requirement: 6
Example 1
Factual Reporting Mixed: 1
No left/right bias: 3
Traffic High: 2
Example 2
Factual Reporting Mostly Factual: 2
No left/right bias: 3
Traffic Medium: 1
See how weighing credibility on a (skewed) left/right bias metric waters this down? Both of these examples would get high credibility.
On top of that, none of this impacts this community at all. It could be a problem if the standard here was ‘highest’ ratings exclusively, but it isn’t.
That’s a fair point and I did state in my original post that despite my own feelings I’d be open to something like this if the community had been more involved in the process of choosing one/deciding one is necessary and also if we had the bots post clearly call out it’s biases, maybe an explanation of its methodology and the inherent risks in it.
The way it’s been pushed from the mod first without polling the community and seeing the reaction to criticism some of which was constructive is my main issue here really.
