Comment

Comment on Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker not?

The main problem that I see with MBFC, aside from the simple fact that it’s a third party rather than ones own judgment (which is not infallible, but should still certainly be exercised, in both senses of the term) is that it appears to only measure factuality, which is just a tiny part of bias.

In spite of all of the noise about “fake news,” very little news is actually fake. The vast majority of bias resides not in the nominal facts of a story, but in which stories are run and how they’re reported - how those nominal facts are presented.

As an example, admittedly exaggerated for effect, compare:

Tom walked his dog Rex.

with

Rex the mangy cur was only barely restrained by Tom’s limp hold on his thin leash.

Both relay the same basic facts, and it’s likely that by MBFC’s standards, both would be rated the same for that reason alone. But it’s plain to see that the two are not even vaguely similar.

Again, exaggerated for effect.

source

Sort:hotnew top

just2look@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
MBFC doesn’t only count how factual something is. They very much look at inflammatory language like that, and grade a media outlet accordingly. It’s just not in the factual portion, it is in the bias portion. Which makes sense since, like you said, both stories can be factually accurate.

source
- Rottcodd@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I haven’t seen any evidence that it does that, and quite the contrary, evidence that it does not - examples from publications ranging from Israel Times to New York Times to Slate in which it accompanied an article with clearly loaded language with an assessment of high credibility.
  
  It’s possible that it’s improved of late - I don’t know, since I blocked it weeks ago, after a particularly egregious example of that accompanied a technically factually accurate but brazenly biased Israel Times article.
  
  source
  - just2look@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The bot wasn’t assessing the individual articles. It was just pulling the rating from their website. If you look at the full reports on the website they have a section that discusses bias, and gives examples of things like loaded language found in the articles they assessed.
    
    source
    Rottcodd@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Right, nor did I expect a rating based an on individual article - sorry if that’s the way I made it sound.
    
    It’s simply that the rating of high credibility accompanying an article that was so obviously little more than a barrage of loaded language cast the problem into such sharp relief that I went from being unimpressed by MBFC to actively not wanting to see it.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
14th_cylon@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Both relay the same basic facts

NO, THEY DO NOT.

rex has a mange is factual statement, that can be investigated and either confirmed or rejected.

same goes for rex’s leash was inadequate and tom’s hold of the dog was weak.

there is a lot more facts in the second example, compared to first one.

it’s likely that by MBFC’s standards, both would be rated the same for that reason alone

no, they would not and it is pretty easy to find out - mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/

your powers of “paying attention, weighing, analyzing, reviewing and questioning” are not as strong as you think.

be careful not to hurt yourself when you are falling down from this mountain.

Image

source
- Rottcodd@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  So are you saying that you wouldn’t be able to recognize my second example as a biased statement without the MBFC bot’s guidance?
  
  Or did you just entirely miss the point?
  
  source
  - 14th_cylon@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    i am saying you are lying about the same facts in your two examples and i am saying you are lying about how these two statements would be rated by mbfc, because you either didn’t exercise your imaginary analytical skills, or you are intentionally obfuscating.
    
    you can read that. it is just above your last comment.
    
    Image
    
    source
    Rottcodd@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    All I see here is someone whose ego relies on a steady diet of derision hurled in the general direction of strangers on the internet.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments