cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/16337814
The problem is that it doesn’t matter if they publish how they came to their conclusions if how they come to their conclusions is nonsense. Your link is a perfect example. In the bias section there is a paragraph consisting mostly of cruft followed by two sentences attempting to justify a left rating:
Editorially, opinion pieces tend to slightly favor the left, such as this Adopt green hydrogen strategy now, Swiss cantons tell Bern. In general, SWI is fact-based and hold slight left-leaning editorial biases.
One opinion piece on green hydrogen is apparently enough justification for MBFC. I actually can’t even tell if it’s an opinion piece because it doesn’t seem to have the author’s opinion in it anywhere, it’s quoting reporting from elsewhere and a letter.
Doesn’t that seem pretty paper thin? I don’t think they even bother referencing any of the categories from their own methodology in this one.
I feel like I’m the only one that has actually read any of their bias justifications because after you read one I don’t see how can take them seriously at all. Maybe I’m missing something though, or I’m just going mad because lots of folks keep referring to MBFC as a serious organisation.
The issue is that “left / right / center” are entirely subjective. You’re always going to have somebody bitching about “how can they say that’s left-leaning!” no matter what standard you set. What’s important is to make the standard you’re following transparent and to justify how you came to a result. Then people can adjust for what their personal offset may be.
Or mostly likely people will just continue to bitch and call it an arbitrary ranking.
Having a methodology or a standard and writing about how you came to your conclusion doesn’t absolve you of being completely subjective. It also doesn’t mean that it’s not arbitrary. My methodology could be that I roll a dice, a one is left leaning and a six is right leaning. I can be totally transparent and have a clear methodology, but it’s arbitrary.
MBFC’s methodology is totally subjective and arbitrary. It’d be almost a miracle if two people independently followed their methodology and came to the same conclusion. I think I showed how flawed it is with my previous comment, but if you think otherwise I’d be really interested to understand your reasoning.
Having a methodology or a standard and writing about how you came to your conclusion doesn’t absolve you of being completely subjective.
No shit. That’s what I said - it is subjective. But this is a way to quantify that subjectivity in a way that is methodological.
Like - “a lot of rain” is completely subjective. But if I say “I consider 2cm/hr to be ‘a lot’” then that at least lets you understand what I mean when I say “a lot”.
