I know MediaBiasFactCheck is not a be-all-end-all to truth/bias in media, but I find it to be a useful resource.
It makes sense to downvote it in posts that have great discussion – let the content rise up so people can have discussions with humans, sure.
But sometimes I see it getting downvoted when it’s the only comment there. Which does nothing, unless a reader has rules that automatically hide downvoted comments (but a reader would be able to expand the comment anyways…so really no difference).
What’s the point of downvoting? My only guess is that there’s people who are salty about something it said about some source they like. Yet I don’t see anyone providing an alternative to MediaBiasFactCheck…
They literally publish their methodology and scoring system.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/
So they do say exactly what their criteria is, and how it is scored. None of that is buzz words, it’s just a summary that fit in a few sentences. You can look at the full methodology if you want more than just that small bullet description.
I’m not saying that you have to agree with their scoring, or that it is necessarily accurate. I just think if you’re going to critique a thing, you should at least know what you’re critiquing.
But what even is this false left-right, liberal-conservative, Democrat-Republican one-dimensional scale? The first thing they state on this page is that all this is inherently subjective. Who is MBFC to determine where the middle of this scale exists? If people want to seek out their opinion, that’s fine, but this is inherently a subjective opinion about what constitutes “left center” vs “center,” for example. I don’t get how MBFC deserves their opinion on every news post.
Also the formatting of the bot is awful as displayed on most Lemmy apps. On mine it’s a giant wall of text. Other posts/bots don’t look bad, just this one.
They cover what they consider left and right. This way you can judge whether it aligns with what you believe. And it allows you to interpret their results even if they don’t follow the same spectrum you do.
And if you know of a way to discuss political spectrum without subjectivity I would love to hear it. Even if you don’t use a 2d spectrum, it’s still subjective. Just subjective with additional criteria.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left-vs-right-bias-how-we-rate-the-bias-of-media-sources/
Of course that doesn’t exist, my point is why does this specific subjective opinion get promoted on here?
Why does any opinion get promoted on here? Because somebody posted it. And then there is a voting system and comments for people to express their agreement or disagreement.
I honestly don’t care either way if the bot exists. I just think it’s silly that people are claiming that MBFC is terrible based on basically nothing. You can disagree with how they define left vs right, or what their ratings are, but they are pretty transparent about how their system works. And no one has given any example of how it could be done better.
It shouldn’t be done on Lemmy at all, which is why I downvote the bot every time I see it.
Also if you actually read and understand their system, then even if you dont agree with it, you can recalibrate the ratings based on what you know their system works like.
Bravo for bringing the notes. On a first glance, some of these feel like they require subjectivity (like, do we really believe the political spectrum is 1d?), but I agree I could run the computation myself from this.
There is definitely some subjectivity. Language isn’t something that is easily parsed and scored. That is why they give examples on the actual report about the kind of biased language they saw, or whatever other issues led to the score given.
I don’t think they mean for their website to be the end all bias resource. More of a stepping off point for you to make your own judgments.
There is a lot of good stuff there but it’s still opaque when it comes to bias specifically. I mean, am I missing somether here? I genuinely feel like there must be a whole section I’ve missed or something based on some of the other commenters. The bias methodology is no more a methodology than “grind up some wheat, mix some water and yeast before chucking it in the oven for a bit” is a recipe for bread. You rate 4 categories from 0 - 10 and average it, but the ratings themselves are totally subjective.
What does this even mean? If a site runs stories covering the IPCC recommendations for climate action but doesn’t run some right wing conspiracy version of how climate change is a hoax, is that biased story selection?
What did I miss here?
Oh look. You copied my link!
Sorry. No they don’t.
That’s not “rigorously defined”. It’s a bunch of weasel words and vagaries.
For example. In “factual reporting”, to get a “very high” score:
What does “consistently factual” mean? What qualifies as “a credible source”? What does “prompt” mean?
Those are all nice sounding words, but they don’t really tell you anything. Prompt could be anything from seconds to weeks. (And let’s be honest, probably varies from researcher to researcher.)
Oh they go into more detail….
A questionable source, for example:
Who defines their extreme bias? What is propaganda?
Voice of America is literally a government ran propaganda service yet they assign it high factual, least-biased and high credibility.
Sorry, but their methodology isn’t a methodology, and the only thing that’s inherently reproducible is their fact check rating. Everything else relies on what their subjective analysis.
Consistently factual is exactly that. Both of those words mean actual things. And they go on to say that they can’t fail fact checks. And prompt corrections likely means that as a story develops, that if there were incorrect things reported, they are corrected as soon as the new information is available.
As for who defines extreme bias, it’s literally them. That is what they are saying they are doing. And they spell out what their left vs right criteria are. And how they judge it. Of course this is subjective. There isn’t really a way to judge the political spectrum without subjectivity. They do include examples in their reports about what biased language, sources, or reporting they found. Which allows you to easily judge whether you agree with it.
As for VOA, they say in the ownership portion that it is funded by the US government and that some view it as a propaganda source. They also discuss the history and purpose of it being founded. And then continue on with the factual accuracy and language analysis. You may not agree with it, but it is following their own methodology, and fully explained in the report.
Again, there isn’t anything saying you have to agree with them. It is a subjective rating. I’m not sure how much more transparent they can be though. They have spelled out how they grade, and each report provides explanations and examples that allow you to make your own judgments. Or a starting point for your own research.
If you can define a completely objective methodology to judge political bias on whatever spectrum you choose, then please do. It’s inherently subjective. And there isn’t really a way around that.
So what constitutes “consistently factual”, then? if the ‘consistently factual’ means ‘always factual’, then the explanation of allowing ‘prompt corrections’ is unnecessary. A “correction” is different than an “update”, after all. so what rate of error is “rigorously” defined here?
Further, how do they deal with (the vast majority) of fact checkers, using qualified language like “mostly factual” or “misleading” or “out of context”. or “distorted”?
“likely…” They don’t say that. I wonder why they don’t just say that?
You’re assuming that’s what “prompt” means, but that’s… an assumption. as I said, it could be anything from seconds to weeks. I assume- i don’t know, lets just be honest here- that their language is intentional. which means it’s probably not that.
Seems like it would be a super easy thing to actually define. Like. ‘Consistently Factual’ could be “No more than X percentage of articles requiring corrections or otherwise failing a 3rd party fact check”.
So glad we agree on that.
Compare, VOA’s to Al Jazeera’s. Which, Al Jazeera is Qatar-owned. even so, It’s widely considered a reliable news source; where as, VOA was literally forbidden from being served within the US borders precisely because it was propaganda, until 2013- when it decided to open up drops to the internet specifically to “counter” Al Qaeda messaging. (aka. propaganda.)
VOA:
it should be noted that A), its so nice to know that their journalists are held to a standard. (I’m sure Al Jazeera journalists aren’t…) and b) that there’s a survey saying 84% of people that actually look at VOA is reliable. A survey conducted by… their board of governors… and the linked source is the appropriations PDF…
Compared to Al Jazeera:
now, I’m not saying Al Jazeera isn’t Qatari propaganda, it more or less is. but you see the the totally different tone here?
Now lets move onto the bias/analysis section. VOA:
Emphasis mine (also the italics just to make the headlines clear.) Now the emphasised bits is straight up bullshit. it’s government funded. It’s entire purpose- even today- is to disseminate pro-US propaganda everywhere outside the US. it’s forbiden from radio broadcasts that might reach US soil, and it’s only allowed to drop things on the interent because of a special provision specifically to counter messaging by terrorists.
Factual or not, it’s a propaganda outlet.
Al Jazeera:
now, VOA’s review is easily seen as pure spin. MBFC goes out of their way to assauge any doubt what so ever that they’re factual and not biased. nop. no sir. Now, it would be fair to say that because they literally define bias using the US discourse as the meter stick… that there is no bias. Sort of chicken and the egg, right? any how… there’s no mention of Al Jazeera’s code of ethics… and the cited failed fact checks? date to 2018, one of which falls outside the 5 year window since it was last updated- the fact check was published august of 2018, when it was updated in October of 2023. Pedantic, I know, but the 5 year window is their rule.
all it takes is a five minute scroll through VOA to see that they have the same misleading bias towards the US/US government as Al Jazeera has towards Qatar.
VOA’s was last updated in… Nov 2022.
you don’t need to define something that’s not subjective, exactly. But they need to explain what the methodology is. they’re looking for loaded words? then we need examples of what are loaded words that they’re looking for. that shouldn’t be too hard. it doesn’t even need to be exhaustive. just exhaustive enough.
Putting it on the individual articles makes it arbitrary. ask yourself… is “deadly” a loaded word? Or is it qualitative leading to understand that people actually died from the “deadly attack” rather than were just sent to the hospital in “an attack”. or that people died in a wildfire, hurricane or something else. Nobody can check every article to get a sense for their own criteria, and what they posted as a methodology is far from sufficient to the task of repeating their process. Ideally, I should be able to take their methodology article, follow it more or less step by step, and produce at least similar results. Can’t come even close.
With your own reply you show that they have given you most of the information needed to make your own assessment. Like I’ve said other places in this thread, you don’t have to agree with them. I have never claimed they are correct. I’m saying that they provide information about how they arrived at their conclusion, you can assess that information and decide whether you agree.
It still stands that it is at least a reasonable place to look to gather basic information about a media source. And provides you with a solid starting point to research and make an assessment about a news source.
I agree that using the US political spectrum pretty significantly skews things since US politics is almost all center to right if you compare it to the wider spectrum globally. But since they gave their information, and what spectrum they are using it makes it pretty simple to get a baseline for most media outlets at a glance if it’s not one I’m familiar with.
And with the number of outright insane news sources people like to share, it’s useful to have a way to get at least a decent snapshot of what to expect.