this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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askchapo

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What are your usual news sources? I have gripes with all of them of course, but some are better than others. (hexbear.net)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by MaoTheLawn@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Come contribute your analysis in the comments, vibes based or otherwise.

I think sometimes it depends on the topic.

Reuters is good at getting some key points and missing full state department spin, but the problem is that they have a reputation as non-biased, and that reputation means they/you do not bother to inspect their own ideology. In other mainstream media, it's easy to spot the political spin and bias if you know what you're looking for, but Reuters is much more clandestine, and possibly unintentionally so.

I imagine it to be ran by 'well meaning' liberals who have a level of journalistic integrity, that is born from 'do the right thing in the name of democracy' rather than from a serious political education.

So they thoroughly explore 'both sides' a lot, while presenting all of their information with a very 'objective' feeling register of language, in the process omitting important facts/framings that they would deem to be inducing a level of political bias.

That said, I will say they're not otherwise too worthy of my ire in comparison to other major media organisations.

Weirdly, I was researching Venezuela recently for a stageplay I'm writing, and Bloomberg gave surprisingly good coverage of events I didn't expect them to bother with. You wouldn't be able to form a meaningful analysis of venezuela based on their coverage alone, but I was still quite shocked that I found bits of their coverage to be pretty OK, and sometimes divergent from the usual state department shit that CNN or even The Guardian would put out. Very curious.

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[–] memory_adept@hexbear.net 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)

also spin is way less important than omission. if i could level a single criticism against western leftists and really have it be absorbed, it would be to spend less energy on media criticism of spin (or more accurately fandom of media critics who traipse after the NYT, Reuters, BBC, Guardian, France24, etc) and calling out internal inconsistencies and more time getting around the omissions completely

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The most important bit of wisdom I've gotten from citations-needed is that the basic unit of propaganda is emphasis, not lies. And emphasis goes both ways; you amp it up beyond emphasis by not even acknowledging the things you really don't wish to emphasize.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 10 points 4 months ago

something something media isn't good at telling you what to think, it's good at telling you what to think about parenti

[–] MaoTheLawn@hexbear.net 1 points 4 months ago

Oh, for sure. I guess I hadn't considered spin as a precise term - I was including omission in it. Yes, omission is by far the worst offender.

[–] context@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

the hexbear news bulletin, of course: https://hexbear.net/post/2526093

so mainly twitter and al jazeera

[–] NoLeftLeftWhereILive@hexbear.net 8 points 4 months ago

I've mostly stopped engaging with mainstream news. I sometimes have a look at Al Jazeera, maybe the Guardian and Reuters if I see something is happening, but more and more I don't. All that is relevant comes from Hexbear/Mastodon and my immediate work surroundings. Stopping reading my national warmongering news has especially made life better. I did not learn anything from them about Palestine, about the USA or any AES country.

I see plenty of the discourses in the few social media sites I am on. I also read a lot of books and slower format leftist articles (monthly review, naked capitalism etc.) and such, but the daily spectacle seems manufactured to distract and brainworm us.

Not really a good answer I know.

[–] Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net 8 points 4 months ago

Hexbear.

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Democracy Now unfortunately succumbed to the liberal brainworms about Russiagate and Ukraine, but otherwise is pretty good. Same with a number of other Pacifica Radio programs.

[–] memory_adept@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago

Reuters is good at getting some key points and missing full state department spin

😭

i feel bad about even reading naked capitalism since they're fundamentally contrarian investoids how do you come out swinging like this but yeah like most gommunists on here i start my day with activitypub, nakedcapitalism, monthly review's newswire, presstv, telesur, and about 5,000 other things in my rss feed

[–] brainw0rms@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago

Al Jazeera

[–] Chapo_is_Red@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

I regularly check: Financial times, Al Jazeera, Cgtn, Daily Sabah, Vietnamnews, The Guardian, Telesur, People's Dispatch and Ndtv.

Also Twitter

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

I shake a magic 8 ball

[–] iByteABit@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

Thankfully where I live we have radical left newspapers and their corresponding online portals, so leftists here can get some quality takes about ongoing events without looking too hard.

From global ones I honestly just go on Hexbear, but I've noticed Al Jazeera, Naked Capitalism and Reuters are good.

[–] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Tell me which part of Vuvuzela report did Bloomberg make divergent?

[–] MaoTheLawn@hexbear.net 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I only saved one of the sources, but they kept popping up around Operation Gideon stuff and some of the sanctions. This one, about JJ Rendon's election hacking was the only one I saved, and it was info that was hard to come by elsewhere:

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/

In retrospect, I suppose 2016 was before Rendon was implicated in Venezuela, and before Venezuela was the media's new punching bag, so they didn't exactly avoid spin.

[–] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I found this one... https://archive.ph/Gjutd

After reading this, I say, death to Rendon and Sepulveda... the gusanos can fuck off

[–] MaoTheLawn@hexbear.net 2 points 4 months ago

aye that's the Bloomberg one

Rendon filed a lawsuit against them over it and lost