Bias

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Bias is the more Politically Correct term for FakeNews, Liars, Frauds, double-standards and so on. This area has articles that stress things that aren't quite the whole truth, if not outright hypocrisy.

Of course, I have a bias myself -- and my goal isn't to present both sides of everything. I trust that people know the "popular" or common understanding of things presented, so I often shortcut or omit that, and tend to focus on more the other side of the story (the less often heard), or the ones that make these organizations/people/stories look less than 100% credible. The goal in counter-balancing the myths isn't to just ad hominem the sources, it is to dilute the fallacies of either Cult of Popularity or Cult of Celebrity. To encourage people to be skeptical of all sources, and recognize when either side might not be telling the whole truth, or leading by example.

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A once reliable non-partisan Civil Liberties organization, they devolved to first be spotty (issues based), and now are more likely to align with the DNC than with civil liberties. You can't be for minority rights and not for individual rights, as the smallest minority is one -- yet, when given the choice, they often choose collective rights over individuals, use racism to fix racism (affirmative action), and ignoring parts of the constitution they don't like.
Bloomberg is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981.
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In 1980 Ted Turner started CNN, and put his left center spin on "the news". His later marriage to Hanoi Jane Fonda didn't help perceptions, nor did the newsrooms agenda convey a fully objective tone. He wanted to be the 24 hour version of the same left of center news outlets like CBS, ABC, NBC. So it was founded on his flavor of bias, and went downhill. It wouldn't be quite so bad, if they were just honest about it: but the faux air of objectivity, and denial of any bias, makes it worse.
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Annenberg's FactCheck.org is another lefty front posing as a non-partisan fact checker. Actually, since they started taking money from Facebook, they should be called Zuckerberg's FactCheck.org: follow the money. And Facebook is completely non-partisan and has no biases or agendas, right? LOL. History proves that FactCheck.org was partisan and bias, but since their acquisition by Facebook, it seems that they won't have even the false front of being a "J-School", which are all partisan, it's just Zuckerberg's sock-puppet.
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HuffPo is a mockery of new journalism. The rules to get published seem to be (1) be popular (2) be wrong on everything you post (3) be sensitive to any corrections (4) have a flock of trolls.
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I so dread starting an NPR section, because I listen to them a lot, and hear at least 2 or 3 fuck-ups per hour, unless it's a weekend or later at night, then it's more like 10. Thus, starting this section would be a full time job of correcting much of what they say about Conservatives, Libertarians, or anything but left leaning feel good stories.
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A never great News Agency has become a shadow of their former self: admittedly biased by their own Ombudsman and editors, as well as exposed confessions. They still have occasionally good content, but that can't make up for their more frequent bad, or their willingness to deceive, commit lies of omission, or present things in a biased way. (Never trusting their readership with the whole truth). More than that, some insist on idol worship for what they publish, and abject denial of their obvious and omitted bias: and that fuels the backlash against them.
The New Yorker was once a renowned for their fact checking and quality. Then David Remnick took over as Editor and they became the cheap partisan low-quality mock-worthy rag that they are today. This details just a small portion of that.
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RMVP or Propagandaministerium of America. They exist to take things out of context, lie, distort, and feel that any means to their ends (of furthering the power of government over the people) is justified. At least based on their actions. If you can't look at anything they post, and find at least 10 things wrong with it, then you're not qualified to have a discussion.
PBS news has two solutions to every problem: (1) "government failed to solve this, or made it worse: the solution is more government", or (2) "I know, let's pass a law/regulation/tax to fix it". When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. And when you're subsidized by the Government, you're going to promote more Government.
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List of evidence that supports the popular opinion that PolitiFact is biased partisan hackery. Worse than that, they act like angry grade schoolers when caught, which is fairly often. So there are basically two camps: those that think PolitiFact is non-partisan, and those who know what's going on in the world.
Politico started when left-of-center John F. Harris, and the slightly less left-of-center Jim VandeHei (who left to found Axios in disgust, and penned a FU I'm outta here letter), got funding for a DC tabloid journalism (rumor mongering) on the DC set. Sort of what HuffingtonPost was to Hollywood, but only for DC, if HuffPo had even lower ethical and journalistic standards. The point isn't that I dislike Politico -- its looser quality controls allows for some people to get a voice that they wouldn't have elsewhere. So to me, it's like reddit or twitchy -- sure most articles are full of shit, but they allow both sides turds, and you can find some treasures in the sewage, if you are willing to wade long enough.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center is a far left site created to fear-monger for money. Their platform is used to attack anyone on the right, and by their own standards, they would qualify as a hate-group... if they applied their standards to left-of-center institutions.
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All sources have a bias, and all make mistakes. I don't care that Snopes was created by California couple Barbara and David Mikkelson, who decided to covert alt.folklore.urban newsgroup into a website. Despite a cabal of liberal editors, most of Snopes isn't that bad. But mostly fair, isn't completely fair -- and they have plenty of bias, un-corrected errors, and unfair interpretations. Each article deserves separate scrutiny/skepticism, with many falling far below journalistic standards. So despite their voracity supported by partisans and rubes, Snopes is far from the paragon of objectivity that some pretend. This article offers a small sampling of errors and bias.
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The Atlantic is a far-left Newspaper (not by ideology, just by bias), that occasionally lets a good article or two through, and even rarely has some diversity of thought. I had some hope when they hired the prolific conservative intellectual, Kevin Williamson, away from the National Review. But like so often happens in sheep flocks, they fired him for thoughtcrime of having once written a pro-life article -- while they defend authors that wrong complete fabrications that fit their far-left Anti-American narratives. You can agree or disagree with their editorial position of being a far-left propaganda pamphlet, just don't try to deny that's what they have become when the evidence of their bias is so blatantly overwhelming.
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USAToday has a long history of dumb, and they should have been renamed USSA (United Socialist States of America) because that seems to be their bend/lean. But here's an example of their dumb.
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Vice is a hard left outlet, that exists to twist every news story from a hard left PoV. Like the worst of WaPo, HuffPo and a basement blogger, all screaming against the injustices of the anyone with a clue. Other than the bad journalism, they were created as a pump-and-dump scam, that seems to have been successful -- sensationalism sells, and this was dot-com version of website replacing the old stodgy ink-stained fingers, with younger and hipper writing (ignore the quality beneath SuperMarket tabloids): it's clickbait journalism Pied Piper, only instead of leading the rats out of the sewer, it lead the other so-called jouranlistic institutions down into them.
A once great paper, now a liberal fake news rag that looks more like Bezos Blog (or the DNC's blog) than an objective Newspaper. To be fair, WaPo was always walking in the Grey Lady's (NYT's) shadow, and Jeff Bezos acquisition didn't change much... now that the NYT in the mud, it's no surprise that WaPo is crawling in the sewer. Here is a partial list of falsehoods, embarrassments, and mistakes.
Wikipedia is both hit and miss, with a lot more hits than misses. I reference it a lot, because most articles are pretty good, or at least good enough. Most of their lies and bias are lies and bias of omission. (What they say isn't usually wrong, but what they don't say might completely change the context). So they are a pretty good reference. But don't let that lull you into an "Appeal to Authority" or "Appeal to Celebrity" fallacy. Science is skepticism. Wikipedia is hegemony. Wikipedia has millions of articles, across hundreds of thousands of topics -- and each topic is a community (clique) of editors, and herd-think rules most of them. Some areas a fine. But if one clique is bad, that whole area can be bad; they won't allow counter-factual that disagree with their agenda. And there are bad (biased) areas of wikipedia. Especially in History, Science, Politics, and anything that's controversial. And everything can be political and controversial to folks that focus on any topic.
Everyone is biased, I'm open about mine, so that people can decide if I'm right in spite of them, or where I go wrong (if they disagree). It started in 5th grade when I learned early that the School textbooks and teachers were indoctrinating me with lies (spin). The Italian part of my family was dominant, and that was the normal operating behavior: believe your own lies (self delusion), and repeat them to others until they believe them too (it didn't help that many were in sales). Then I noticed it in movies, TV, books, and Newspapers. The more I looked into everything I was being told, sold or cajoled on, the more bullshit and bias I became aware of. So cynical skepticism (distrust of what I'm told) was ingrained early, often, and imperfect skepticism served me well in most topics I dived into.
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The AP carried the DNC's water when "fact checking" the Trump speech, basically twisting 11 true (or mostly true) things into looking like he was lying, then ignoring 43 other true facts, to keep their ratios down: Checking the Checkers: Clinton vs Trump speeches

So of course you expect they'd treat Hillary Clinton the same way, and measure her by the same yardstick? Don't be absurd. The AP doesn't stand for the Administration's Press for nothing. They are to Journalism what Michael Moore was to Documentary Film Making: slovenly, hypocrtical, obnoxious propagandists. ABC news, Yahoo and a few others ran the AP piece, which means they agree (or were too lazy to vet the material before publishing).

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I hate hypocrisy and duplicity. My mom's family was Italian, and they always had a loose relationship with the whole truth. It was more a fluid concept for them, where the truth was the best story you could sell -- or that if you repeated an embellishment long and hard enough, then success (acceptance) was proof of validity. From as long as I can remember, I recognized it and didn't like it. Not one bit. For me, the economics of a lie applied: in order for a lie to be valuable, it had to be trusted, or for that to happen, it had to be used as infrequently as possible. It helped form me into being a more honest person (with myself and others), and my self-righteous crusade against those who would fictionalize the past or present. Chuck Schumer is the antithesis of that, and everything I believe in.
Charles "Chuck" Todd is college drop-out and an NBC partisan moderator of NBC's Meet the Press (and on-air political analyst), ex-Chief White House correspondent for MSNBC, and Political Director for NBC News. Which makes him a partisan with some sketchy events posing as Journalism
Dan has it all, a career of sloppy rumormongering, fired from CBS for failing to vet forged documents (in order to undermine an election), suing CBS and losing, and still defending his actions to this day. He started his career reporting JFK's death before he could have it verified, taking the Vietcong's side in the Vietnam war, dressing up as a mujahideen fighter during Afghanistan war, his career is a parody of Ron Burgundy. If Ron Burgundy was less self-aware, and hated America.
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List of fake newsmen and some of their greatest accomplishments. Including:
  • David Lettermen
  • Edward R. Murrow
  • Dan Rather: CBS
  • Jon Stewart
  • Brian Williams


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Jimmy Kimmel was a misogynist and not-very-funny pseudo-commedian of the Man Show, before he became a host of late night TV. Then he decided to become "woke". Instead of taking the Johnny Carson tradition of poking at both sides, but mostly staying out of politics except for some zingers -- Kimmel became an SJW moron, that alienates anyone with a triply digit IQ. Instead of replacing Johnny Carson he decided he wanted to replace Jon Stewart, because Stewart had lower ratings, lower IQ audience, and won all sorts of Hollywood awards for his dishonesty. Who wouldn't want some of that?
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Kathy is a whiney, rude, shock-jock of comedy. Not quite as bad as many of her ilk: Sarah Silverman, Rosey O'Donnel, Samantha Bee and such. But still a generally caustic and not very funny human being.
Mika Brzezinski embarrassed herself and journalism by revealing her gossip on what someone said off-camera in a private conversation (when they weren't there to defend themselves). If Mika isn't fired, it shows how low of standards that MSNBC, NBC has. You destroy your credibility as a journalist by revealing private gossip as news. And who honestly believes Mika as the paragon of truth and non-exaggeration? Tucker Carlson eviscerated her for that.
Here's a list of abrasive and almost always wrong Democrats that are doing everything they can to divide the nation and champion falsehoods to their base. You don't get to pretend that you care about the truth or the tone when it's Donald Trump, then support people like this: Adam SchiffAlexandria Ocasio-CortezBarack ObamaBernie SandersChris MatthewsChuck SchumerCory BookerDan RatherDiane FeinsteinDonna BrazileElizabeth WarrenEric SwalwellHillary ClintonJim AcostaJohn KerryKamala HarrisMaxine WatersNancy PelosiStacey AbramsTed Kennedy
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Rachel Maddow lowlights -- again, this isn't to be a fair and balanced piece about her career and achievements, you can listen to her or MSNBC, CNN or any progressive if you want to hear that claptrap. This is more about some of the many of reasons her detractors are not fans.
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Sean Spicer: Press Secretary for an unpopular administration means he's the victim of repeat yellow journalism and hatchet jobs. It's not that he doesn't say dumb things, he does. He just does it less often than the other side of the aisle, and when caught saying the same dumb things they did, the Press makes 10x the sink out of his mistakes. This lists a few examples.

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Once considered the paragon of a fair Journalist, now a parody of journalism, often reminding people of how partisan and biased he was all along.

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NYT, LAT, Time, CNBC, ThinkProgress all whined about the $314M cost of the MOAB (Mother of all bombs), only it cost $170K, they were using a source that Alex Jones / InfoWars warned his readers against trusting, and not one fact checked, or offered their readers or warning, or went back and corrected their online articles.
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The AP (Administration's Press) did a couple of comedy pieces, playing a DNC water carrier, poorly disguised as fact checking. (WaPo, PBS, ABC, Yahoo, and a few other places ran these pieces, so they own that bias as well).

The idea appears to have been to cherry pick the worst 11 things Trump said, and play pedantics to make them look worse, while ignoring 57 things he said that were correct facts. Then compared that to the 11 best things Hillary said (with a few sacrifices to look objective), then excusing most of them, while ignoring 60 things they could have criticized her on, if they were measuring her by the same yardstick as Trump. Michael Moore couldn't have done it better.

The article's below summarize each of the two speeches and "FactChecks" to show not only how they use selection bias, standards bias, and other techniques within each "fact check" -- but also how massively obvious the bias is when you compare them side-by-side. (Assuming you believe that both side's politicians lie equally).