> When was the last time you read a news article in any "major" news source, of the kind that typically appears on Google News, about a subject you know well and you thought, "This demonstrates an accurate understanding of even the big picture elements of the story"?
Most of the time? Maybe I don't know what you mean.
Most of the news that appears via AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo, etc. is largely factually accurate. Especially when you're looking at their core competencies of covering domestic US politics, basic foreign affairs, and domestic economics/business. E.g. they've been doing accurate jobs on factual reporting about the recent battles for house majority leader, events unfolding in Israel, and events unfolding in Ukraine. Sometimes you might be bothered with their "present both sides and don't take a stance" but it's still largely factual, accurate reporting about what is happening and what public figures are saying.
If by "big picture" you mean analysis, however, that's not exactly news. Analysis is necessarily opinionated -- declaring that a public figure is lying, that another public figure ought to do X. That's not what Google News is for -- that's what publications like the Economist, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Vox, or New York Magazine are for. (Or pick your own preferred set.)
But you need both. 24 hour political and international news is very necessary for a lot of people in decision-making positions, and for people affected by a lot of these events. If it's unhealthy for you personally, then you shouldn't consume it however. For example, I read tons about politics and economics, but I don't look at crime reports stuff at all. (And Google News doesn't show it to me either, since the "For You" tab is really good at learning your preferences.)
It’s entirely possible to be 100% factually accurate while still presenting a slanted view of the world. The stories they choose to cover or not cover can paint a picture all on their own, not to mention which angles of which stories they focus on, which facts they choose to present in the first paragraph vs further down the article etc.
I’m not saying they (Reuters, NYT, WaPo) don’t do much better fact checking than most outlets but there’s still a wide gulf between “no outright falsehoods” and “truly unbiased coverage”.
Of course, and I entirely agree. But that's not what the commenter I was responding to was complaining about -- they were complaining about large, big-picture inaccuracies occurring in most news articles.
And that just doesn't seem to be correct, by and large. But you're absolutely right that choosing what to cover and what to emphasize is a conscious choice, and that there is no such thing as neutrality there.
I'll admit I don't have any deep first-person familiarity with major political events. It's possible they're right about those things. Maybe my point doesn't generalize.
But I do have deep familiarity with other topics that are of similar impact and complexity, and the gaping holes in the writers' understanding of the topics in the articles on these topics are so gigantic you could drive trucks through them. I'm not talking about nuanced issues. These are big-picture mistakes.
It's certainly possible that they're only wrong about the topics I understand. Maybe they really are right about everything else.
What are the topics that you are a knowledgable of that major outlets get wrong all the time?
It would make make sense that reporters get political news right more than more niche topics - that’s most of what they report on, it’s most of what they read, and something politically adjacent is probably the most common major for a journalist besides journalism itself.
Anything else and the reporter is likely straying a bit out of their wheelhouse. Eg if they’re reporting on a scientific discovery they go to one of a handful of their reporters with scientific backgrounds, who may not have studied the specific field in question, and gets reviewed by even more removed editors. Compare that to political news where everyone in the chain is very much family with the broad subject matter.
> It would make make sense that reporters get political news right more than more niche topics - that’s most of what they report on
Except for specifically political reporters, no, its mostly not. OTOH, for TV, network anchors seem to generally have spent some time on a political beat.
> it’s most of what they read,
Where do you get this?
> and something politically adjacent is probably the most common major for a journalist besides journalism itself.
In the US, ISTR that the top 3 majors for journalists, and the only ones above a 10% share, are, in order, Journalism, Communication, and English. Even if Poli Sci is next after that (and I think it is), its a really small share of reporters.
Years of experience crafting he-said/she-said dueling press statements from politicians and other government officials and interested lobbying groups into narratives doesn't equate to understanding of politics or government.
> Most of the news that appears via AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo, etc. is largely factually accurate. Especially when you're looking at their core competencies of covering domestic US politics, basic foreign affairs, and domestic economics/business. E.g. they've been doing accurate jobs on factual reporting about the recent battles for house majority leader, events unfolding in Israel, and events unfolding in Ukraine. Sometimes you might be bothered with their "present both sides and don't take stance" but it's still largely factual, accurate reporting about what is happening and what public figures are saying.
Regardless of how “factually accurate”, selective reporting is no different than selective omission. The very nature of a finite space to print (or display on the front page in the digital age) means that there is always an angle.
Google News is an interesting one because they add a level of indirection. They pick the sources they’re willing to aggregate. It’ll never be all news everywhere. It can’t be anyway. There’s always going to be some editorialization, even in the selection of “factually accurate” information.
> they've been doing accurate jobs on factual reporting about ... events unfolding in Israel
Well no. Just a few days ago most of them ran a story as front-page news that turned out not to have happened. Hell, a lot of them even seem to have Google image-searched for "bombed-out hospital" to get an accompanying photo, again of something they can't possibly have verified first-hand because 16 hours later the evidence came out that the hospital hadn't been bombed at all.
If you read the New York Times article in question you’d see they didn’t actually get the facts on the ground wrong.
They reported that a Palestinian official claimed that Israel bombed a hospital. This report was factually correct, but the claim was a lie.
It was bad journalism for other reasons - the headline didn’t emphasise the uncertainty, and it wasn’t wise to publish the official’s claim when they knew so little about the facts on the ground. But they said nothing factually incorrect.
They made no claim themselves about what Israel did, and the official said what they said he said.
I agree with your analysis. I think news is generally accurately reported. I agree there can be some slant and distortion in the telling, and in my opinion it calls for response; I love efforts like alas shuttered Newstrition that would display a news nutrition label, with things like a "spin" factor. I think there are layers we can and should be getting better at to temper ourselves as consumers. https://ijnet.org/en/story/newstrition-labels-aim-help-reade...
However, the bulk of the parents argument wasn't about the veracity of the news, albeit your quote did show a strong dig from the parent. The parent was chiefly arguing that being aware of the world seems to be a bad thing, and that globally we would be better people by not being aware at all of the world. No matter what the news looked like, the parent argued, we shouldn't read it.
It feels like some crazy dark world shit to me. I can't imagine a return to the darkness, to being unaware of each other & the happenings of this planet. It's a burden, yes, and I think there's a ton to recommend about finding balance where local matters and our own lives aren't so entirely outshadowed or even sandblasted away by the enormity of the acts unfolding upon the global stage. But I just think of ignorant easy to manipulate peasants & awful fuedal systems, when we can't or won't consider the setting & events of this planet.
We are a better species for this noospheric connection we have, and rather than fret about whether we should go back, I'd like to figure out how to progress forwards, like to figure out how we can do it better.
Parent here. I don't think I said we would be better off with no awareness of the broader world. I said we would be better off without Google News and the kind of megacorp news networks it features. I also said that our awareness of issues we can actually affect should outweigh our awareness of things we can't.
If you know ten of your neighbors by name, you're in a vanishingly small minority in much of the Western world today. I would happily take a bet saying no one in this thread can name ten of their neighbors, what they do for work, and two things those people care about, without counting more than two from the same household.
That is "some crazy dark world shit" to me. People don't know the people who spend half their lives within a mile of them, and yet they can spout of random information about dozens celebrities or conflicts or politicians thousands of miles away.
Humanity is weaker because of this. Only when we can do this better can we afford to try to extend our awareness.
Most of the time? Maybe I don't know what you mean.
Most of the news that appears via AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo, etc. is largely factually accurate. Especially when you're looking at their core competencies of covering domestic US politics, basic foreign affairs, and domestic economics/business. E.g. they've been doing accurate jobs on factual reporting about the recent battles for house majority leader, events unfolding in Israel, and events unfolding in Ukraine. Sometimes you might be bothered with their "present both sides and don't take a stance" but it's still largely factual, accurate reporting about what is happening and what public figures are saying.
If by "big picture" you mean analysis, however, that's not exactly news. Analysis is necessarily opinionated -- declaring that a public figure is lying, that another public figure ought to do X. That's not what Google News is for -- that's what publications like the Economist, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Vox, or New York Magazine are for. (Or pick your own preferred set.)
But you need both. 24 hour political and international news is very necessary for a lot of people in decision-making positions, and for people affected by a lot of these events. If it's unhealthy for you personally, then you shouldn't consume it however. For example, I read tons about politics and economics, but I don't look at crime reports stuff at all. (And Google News doesn't show it to me either, since the "For You" tab is really good at learning your preferences.)