JoshTriplett
12 hours ago
Timeless quote:
> If Jimmy Allred says it’s raining, and W. Lee O’Daniel says it isn’t raining, Texas newspapermen quote them both, and don’t look out the window to see which is lying, and to tell the readers what the truth is at the moment.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/11/14/rain-look/
If an AI tool, or for that matter a meddling editor, says a headline is "framing the action as unprecedented in a way that might subtly critique the administration", the correct response is "yes, that was the idea".
zaphar
11 hours ago
I don't think most reporting bias takes the form of incorrect facts. It takes the form of picking which facts to share driven by the facts that matter the most to the particular reporter sharing them. This results in slanted coverage even if technically it's "factual".
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
11 hours ago
That as well as the words and tone that are used to describe things and the context surrounding those things. A headline that is neither negative nor positive is not strictly unbiased because it implies that the thing being reported is not very unusual. If it is unusual, then the neutral tone is communicating a bias that this unusual thing should not be regarded as such.
JoshTriplett
11 hours ago
Take a look at the headline flagged in the article, which the tool flagged as "framing the action as unprecedented in a way that might subtly critique the administration". The headline is factually accurate, and the facts are not cherry-picked.
Yes, some reporting is biased. But some reporting is simply accurately reporting damaging information, and "biased" is a way of attacking that without addressing the substance of the problem.
zaphar
11 hours ago
I agree that article's headline is pretty factual nor are the facts cherry-picked. But "some reporting is biased" is heavily understating the problem. And I hypothesize that the reason there is a leap to "This is biased" today on reporting is because the news media organizations have participated in the cherry-picked facts case to enough of a degree that trust has eroded.
Which is perhaps why organizations are searching for ways to not appear biased and begin to restore that trust. I think the reason the LLM approach is likely to fail is because it is unable to detect the "missing facts" case and can only really advise about sentiment and phrasing. Which is not I think the actual problem that needs fixing.
JoshTriplett
11 hours ago
I agree that an AI is unlikely to help. But also, I doubt that the primary reason is "restoring trust". I think the primary reason for many of them is that some of their readers react strongly to things they don't want to hear, and they're afraid of losing customers, so they're watering down their reporting to avoid being inconveniently right.
Or, even less charitably, management and employees have different politics, and management are the ones who find the articles inconvenient.
To be clear, there are absolutely biased news sources out there. For many of them, the bias is the point, and they have no particular desire to "restore trust" because they're already trusted by people who only want to read things supportive of their party. But a politician who finds the truth inconvenient will decry everything accurate as biased.
tempodox
11 hours ago
How could an LLM even decide whether facts are presented in a balanced way? Someone at Law360 seems to believe in a magical oracle.
sneak
10 hours ago
The factual accuracy of a statement does not have any bearing on the bias or agenda of the person making the statement.
I have seen many documentaries that contain only facts and real events, but nevertheless are pushing a heavily biased agenda. Which facts we report and which we highlight and how we frame them tells a story.
o11c
9 hours ago
That's why "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" is so important. Yet we don't even enforce the limited perjury laws we have.
The common "must present both sides" approach can fail the "nothing but the truth" criterion. But even with its many errors, it's better than not trying anything at all.
egberts1
8 hours ago
"slanted", isn't that a form of biasness? #headduck
IshKebab
11 hours ago
Yeah the BBC suffers badly from this problem, because they are required by Ofcom to have fair and "balanced" reporting, and they interpret that as meaning they always have to get one view from each side of a story. Doesn't matter how batshit or fringe a side is, they'll present them equally.
hitekker
10 hours ago
You might have seen different BBC stories than I have.
Like when the BBC said all converts to Islam are "reverts"; https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-did-the-bbc-say-musl... ; the nasty implication being that one religion is the status quo of humanity
Or when the BBC framed an Ad as racist, because it called out a politician's sectarian & anti-LGBTQ appeals https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg0g18989o https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1ksv0y7/refo...
The other day actually, I saw a newscaster describe the horrors Apartheid in South Africa as though it were happening today. She then closed with "... [Apartheid] is now no longer enforced" and transitioned quickly to the next topic. Not ended or abolished, but merely "not enforced".
Their bias is rather pernicious.
rafram
9 hours ago
> Like when the BBC said all converts to Islam are "reverts"
They didn't. They used their interviewees' own preferred terminology to refer to them in the story, which is fine. "Reverts" is the most common term among Muslims. Sort of like how capitalizing God in a story about Christians doesn't invalidate the beliefs of people who worship multiple gods.
> Or when the BBC framed an Ad as racist
The first line: "Scottish Labour has described [...]".
IshKebab
an hour ago
> Or when the BBC framed an Ad as racist, because it called out a politician's sectarian & anti-LGBTQ appeals
This is an insane characterisation of that article, which seems fair to me and not at all what I was talking about. Wanting your race to be represented in politics is a perfectly reasonable view and it doesn't need "calling out".
ars
11 hours ago
Is that why they come across as so antisemitic?
Obviously there are biased antisemitic news organizations, but of the high-profile ostensibly neutral ones BBC stands head and shoulders above the rest in the level of antisemitism.
(You don't have to take my word for it - a quick Google will find huge numbers of examples. Usually they'll get criticized and then post a correction, so in some sense they themselves acknowledge the problem - yet it keeps happening.)
bigyabai
11 hours ago
Which definition of "semite" are we using, today? It tends to get thrown around to mean a lot of different things on HN.
mhb
10 hours ago
You're happy to redefine genocide in a ludicrously expansive fashion but pretend to need clarification about what antisemitic means in this context? I know, you're just asking questions.
adrian_b
4 hours ago
"Semitic" is a word that includes both hebrews and arabs, because both are classified as descendants of Shem in the Bible.
Despite that, most people who use the word "antisemitic" apply it only to something that is done against hebrews, and not to something done against arabs.
Therefore it makes sense to request clarification about what someone means by that word, i.e. if they meant that BBC is anti-Israel or it is anti-arabs.
It would be much better if everyone who means that something is anti-Israeli, would say it clearly, instead of using the ambiguous word "antisemitic".
The word "Semitic" has been created due to a misunderstanding of the Bible, because there the classification of the people was not based on real descendance from common ancestors, but it was based on the political dependence of those people at the time when the Book of Genesis was written. Unfortunately, nobody has found a suitable replacement for this word.
(In the Bible, the descendants of Shem were those dominated by Assyro-Babylonia, while the descendants of Ham were those dominated by Egypt, regardless of their true ancestors. For instance the Phoenicians were classified as descendants of Ham and the Hebrews as descendants of Shem, despite being 2 extremely closely related populations, separated by little else except their different religions.)
mhb
an hour ago
Yes, of course. But in this context there was no confusion and no ambiguity.
bigyabai
6 hours ago
I don't believe I ever did that. Sounds like you're deflecting.
mhb
an hour ago
You never did what? Deflecting what?
mhb
10 hours ago
> Is that why they come across as so antisemitic?
If you're inclined to offer the most charitable interpretation in the universe, perhaps.
sandwichsphinx
12 hours ago
reminds me of the essay "Politics and the English Language" George Orwell wrote in 1946, it's a good read
user
10 hours ago
lazyeye
10 hours ago
This really is not it.
Outright lies are very ineffective in manipulating public opinion because they can be easily disproven.
It's much more about pretending its only a little rain when its raining alot. Ignoring the rain when it doesnt support your narrative. Pretending the rain is really important when its not important at all. Pretending it only rains where you are and much less everywhere else etc etc etc.
JoshTriplett
10 hours ago
> Outright lies are very ineffective in manipulating public opinion because they can be easily disproven.
I sincerely wish this were true. "A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on."
lazyeye
8 hours ago
Convenient half-truths, distortions, mis-characterizations (to support a desired narrative) go alot farther, faster.
thrance
9 hours ago
Have you looked at American politics recently? The current administration creates huge lies daily, and most of the media relays them uncritically. It's a level of shamelessness previously reserved for countries like Russia.
lazyeye
8 hours ago
The previous administration lied alot too but because of your own personal bias you are unable to see that.
thrance
an hour ago
I don't hold them in my heart, but no comparison is possible here.
lazyeye
44 minutes ago
Of course, that's as expected.
thrance
37 minutes ago
What is? Can you seriously claim that Trump and his administration are acting more truthfully than Biden's? Don't be stupid.
Just look at what happened in Iran, it's a shitfest of constantly changing narratives, going from warmongerism to peace claims. Lying about what they did and wether it was successful. Lying about wether Israel is on board with making peace.
xp84
11 hours ago
If “the administration” is The Good Party, the action is “groundbreaking” and “landmark.” If the administration is The Bad Man, the action is “unprecedented.” This is how you frame things to maximize the propaganda effect and scare/please the audience, while maintaining plausible deniability that you’re definitely not pushing an agenda.
(If my comment offends you, I assure you, don’t worry, your party is definitely the Good Party in this scenario.)
JoshTriplett
11 hours ago
I'm well aware of how spin works. However, that doesn't mean that such characterizarions are always wrong. One of the severe problems in current politics is that reporting that looks bad for a particular party will always be characterized as biased, whether the reporting is accurate or not.
JoshTriplett
7 hours ago
(off-topic)
> characterizarions
Sigh, mobile keyboard. *characterizations
rrr_oh_man
11 hours ago
"It says here in this history book that, luckily, the good guys have won every single time"