I feel CNN is more biased towards 'establishment'. And Aljazzera more towards 'anti-establiashment'. Your views pse.

I think that it is hard to really objectively identify any unbiased news source. If any were, they would be real boring. But, given your example, I would have to say that CNN is more biased than reza.

As a biased quant, I'd say the worst bias I see in almost all news sources is way too much focus on a special story and nowhere near enough focus on the important overall numbers. Rather than hearing "Bush ousted Sadam" or "Bush helped his oil buddies", I for once would like to see a story made available for download for a month or so that accumulates the number of Iraqis who have gone without basic utilities over the past year or the like. Biases are basically the telling of a specific case rather than the total balance and facts, and that why I (unfortunately?) get much of my news from sources like Bloomberg, which I'm sure someone will tell me as its own biases.

QuoteOriginally posted by: chiral3I think that it is hard to really objectively identify any unbiased news source. If any were, they would be real boring. But, given your example, I would have to say that CNN is more biased than reza.I'd agree, CNN is more biased than Ali Reza.

Aljazzera seems to me to have really rather better integrity in reporting. It is hard of course to detect "bias" unless you know the truth, so I can't judge this very accurately.Aljazzera is more balanced than most western news organisations, and frankly Pentagon press releases are less biased than CNN. AlJ certainly covered the horror of war better than anyone else ,and provides a platform for all points of view varying from interviews with Tony Blair to OBL's latest video.If there is any hope for Arab Islamic culture, it is AlJ. It is a bit of cliche to say the truth will set you free, but if you choose only to get informatrion from sources that confirm your prejudices you are going to suffer.

I don't know ppauper how good your Arabic is (we may test) but I don't know about any Al-Jazeera's programs in English. They try to be objective (good school of BBC) and always to present opinions of both parties, hence some opinions there you could dislike.

Westminster University in London is very much so a 'university'.

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalThey try to be objective (good school of BBC) and always to present opinions of both parties, hence some opinions there you could dislike.The entire premise of this thread is not only left-wing, but it is obscene.Presenting two opposing opinions is not news, it is presenting falsehoods. Obviously, one of these positions must be wrong. Quite often, both are wrong. How good a news source is depends on how right they are, meaning the mean, not how little confidence they have. The less confident source is not necessarily better, the more accurate one is better.You are saying that a news organization which introduces incorrect information at the same time as introducing correct information is superior because it is unbiased!??!?!?!?!?QuoteOriginally posted by: exotiqI for once would like to see a story made available for download for a month or so that accumulates the number of Iraqis who have gone without basic utilities over the past year or the like.Correction: You would like to get customized news, which is of no real economic value to you, for free. How is this number any of your business? The proof that it is not your business, is that there is nothing you could do with this news that would cover payign even $3.00 for it!MP

Ironically, I think the self censorship of CNN, Fox et al actually undermines the position in Iraq.Since so little coverage is given to why Moslems are unhappy, I think many people are very vague about why there is conflict at all.From a political point of view, it is perhaps worse to be fighting a pointless war, than one that is merely bad. Bad of course means that the US Army is being used to make Americans richer. This explains why Bush hasn't really been hurt much by the absence of WMD. Journalists take it as a given that invading Iraq to grab their oil is a bad thing, which is basically the moral point of view. So much so that no politician is ever going to admit to it. Thus a debate about non-issues takes place. That would be merely amusing if it wasn't getting people killed.What would happen if Bush annexed Kuwait as a protectorate, and simply said "We took it, its ours, God Bless America", with no pretence at law or that Kuwait was a threat.

QuoteOriginally posted by: abumazenPresenting two opposing opinions is not news, it is presenting falsehoods. Obviously, one of these positions must be wrong. I think most of us accept that in complex geopolitical debates, it is nonsensical to say that one opinion is clearly true, and the other is clearly wrong.It is also perfectly acceptable for a news agency to report on the views of both sides. To report the views of only one side, and ignore the other, based on an editor's perception of which is the corerct one is simply censorship.See Fox for a good example of this.

Presenting two opposing opinions is not news, it is presenting falsehoods. Obviously, one of these positions must be wrong. Yeah, but which is the falsehood ?Do you know many journalists ? I've met a fair few, and trust me, they don't know.When you look at most sets of "opposing views" you find that they are actually pretty close, but that the protagonists focus upon a few points. Many of the "facts" they cite are ambiguous, and matters of opinion.

QuoteOriginally posted by: NorthernJohnQuoteOriginally posted by: abumazenPresenting two opposing opinions is not news, it is presenting falsehoods. Obviously, one of these positions must be wrong. That simply is not true. I might have the view that the higher rate tax band starts too high to be fair, you might have the view that it starts too low. Both are opinions, both are equally valid, and both are true within a certain moral framework.I told you not to talk to me because you know nothing about anything.I could drive over to your house and make you my sex slave, and within a certain moral framework it is true that this would be fair - perhaps since the shoe could just as easily have been on the other foot.To say that multiple morals can be right for the same person at the same time is to say that morals don't exist.If I were to assert the world would be better off with you as my sex slave, would that be true? Or are you biased?There are different states of the world, and different advocates of different states, from people with different values. It is accurate that everbody wants what he wants, and that people may want opposite things. These are not, however, opposite views.If it were reported on the news that you didn't want to be my sex slave, that would in no way contradict that fact that I want you to be my sex slave. Both facts are true. But if the news is reporting that you should want to be my sex slave, that is clearly false.I am not really opposed to the neuro-chemical manifestation of you not wanting to be my sex slave, rather I am opposed to the physical condition of you not being my sex slave.Reporting the contents of people's minds, and their values, is reporting news. Reporting their statements which refer to physical conditions as accurate depictions of those physical conditions is false, if there are opposing statements.In your tax example, obviously statements that one person likes the outcome of one policy, and another person likes the outcome of another policy, is in no way contradictory. But reports as to what is fair or not in any universal sense cannot be accurate or complete.But this confusion of ambitions with physical arrangements is where you go astray. Left-wing people believe there is no reality, but only what we all agree on. They believe the fact that they can report opinions as facts mean facts don't exist, or some such mush-headed thing.If this hasn't been clear, it is evidence that your post perhaps merist further analysis. In it may be revealed the precise differences in the definition of "reality" between left-wing and right-wing people, which can be used to isolate the fundanental way in which left-wing people are wrong.I will work on it.MP

QuoteOriginally posted by: NorthernJohnI think most of us accept that in complex geopolitical debates, it is nonsensical to say that one opinion is clearly true, and the other is clearly wrong.It may not be clear which one is wrong. But if they are contradictory, it is clear that one is wrong!Anyway, I am so close to pinning down the nature of your confusion. And it does arise, as I alluded to in the left-wing psychology thread, from a substitution of the frontal lobes for parts of the right brain and visual cortex.It's so weird, but I'm so close!MP

A-ha, I think I'm almost there: It's the collectivism of ends!People on the left believe that whatever we collectively wish for is possible, all that needs to be debated is what to wish for!As such, the reason some people don't have health insurance is not because health care has costs in a tragic universe. It is because greedy evil people don't want for them to have health care. If only we could all agree that they should have health care, or world peace, it would magically happen.For at least several thousand years, people only made that kind of decision. Now left-wing people think that is still the only decision we are faced with. Whereas trade and division of labor, we are confronted with a new type of decisions. And a new reality is of concern to us.There were no decisions primitive people could consciously make which would change the size of the pie. Their only conscious or flexible decisions were how to divide it up. Their entire production was governed by instinct, habit, and religion. The proof that they made none of the decisions we make today, is that wealth and population did not rise for thousands of years, whereas today wealth rises every year. 99% of the millions of decisions people make today, each of which result in tiny marginal improvements over alternative decisions, were not made even once, by anybody, for thousands of years on end.I'll work on it...MP