Assessing Brietbart

[Sparko]

I do not agree that they have "intentionally created fake news." That is a right-wing mantra. They have a bias to the left, without question. It is not substantial, but it is present, so I have to carefully read from multiple sources to screen out the bias. The age of unbiased reporting is pretty much gone, which is why I value sites like allsides.com, realclearpolitics.com and fivethirtyeight.com.

I have also provided several places where Brietbart published inaccurate news stories, and several places where they published extremely slanted news stories. The difference is, they never retract (that I have seen) and never fire (that I have seen). The latter informs me. The former makes them largely useless to me, just as Jezebel and Mother Jones (the Brietbarts of the left) are largely useless to me. Huffingpost is also pretty far to the left and not of much use to me. Fox is slanted pretty far to the right, but not as extremely as Brietbart, so I am somewhat more willing to spend the time "unslanting" their news stories. Generally, I prefer "soft left," "soft right" and "centrist" news sources.

To me, "soft left" includes ABC, NBC, CBS, The Atlantic, LA Times, Washington Post. "Soft right" includes Judicial Watch, Fox News (not the editorial programming), The Federalist, and the Washington Times. "Centrist" outlets include WSJ (news, not editorial), The Hill, RealClearPolitics, Politico, FiveThirtyEight, BBC News and the AP.

That pretty much aligns with the general public view of these outlets (https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings) as measured by some fairly well established metrics (https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/about-bias).

So I have to admit, I am not seeing a double-standard.

Of course you don't.

[carpedm9587]

Of course you don't.

So, presumably, you read exactly one sentence of the post.

[Sparko]

So, presumably, you read exactly one sentence of the post.

I read your entire post. Full of rationalization to justify your opinion.

[Charles]

I read your entire post. Full of rationalization to justify your opinion.

And yet you are not giving a single example or providing any reason for us to agree with you.

[Mountain Man]

I read your entire post. Full of rationalization to justify your opinion.

If left-wing sources continually make grievous, one-sided "errors" that only ever portray Trump in a negative light, why, they're just innocent mistakes. Nothing to see here.

But if a conservative source presents factually correct information but with a bias, it's blasted as an unforgivable betrayal of public trust.

[Charles]

But if a conservative source presents factually correct information but with a bias, it's blasted as an unforgivable betrayal of public trust.

Could you give an example please?

[carpedm9587]

I read your entire post. Full of rationalization to justify your opinion.

The media slants I cited were actually aligned with all.sides.dot, and their methodology was published (and I provided the link). The articles of Brietbart that were wrong/slanted I have provided, and I have noted the absence of any retraction/firing. If you know otherwise, please provide the information about the retractions/firing. I reviewed your links and found a set of articles that, when there was an error, there was a corresponding correction/retration, and some of them had a firing/suspension associated with them as well.

If these are "rationalizations," then...

But I don't think I am the one clining to a position without supporting evidence, since I provided all of mine.

[Leonhard]

I've heard that accusation before, but I have yet to see any proof.

A short Google search produces several, here's a few. I won't start a thread collecting errors they make, but these are the ones I know of which are obvious and w As I tend to assume that most papers makes errors due to hasty reporting, template journalism, click-bait titles and political bias. As I said before, if only one news source is stating something then I rarely believe the claims by them.

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http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017...church-alight/
https://www.thelocal.de/20170105/ger...e-on-new-years
They claimed a mob of 1000 muslims set the oldest church in the city on fire. The problem is, there was no 1000 man mob. It was New Years Eve, and people were shooting fireworks. The kernel of truth is that there was apparently a smaller crowd of people, shouting Allahu Ackbar and who were throwing fireworks at police and other spectators and homeless people. There was a small fire started on a scaffolding (the kind put up to allow repair crews to work) that was surrounding the roof of a church building. The fire was put out in 12 minutes by the fire workers.

Breitbart claims there's a conspiracy against them by German news media. That they were denied access to better photos. They've not retracted any of the claims, except that the Church was not the oldest church, and they've moved a statement from the church actually being on fire, to a small fire happening near it. The police reports again show no evidence of it being intentional. And in Breitbart's article there is zero evidence that any set this fire. The assumption is made, and it sells with right-wing crowds who don't fact check. When it was pointed out that it was a New Year celebration, and that police reports showed both immigrants and non-immigrants were on the streets, that the Church in question hadn't burned down and hadn't even caught fire.

Breitbart doubled down. With respect to the size of the mob being 1000 people they claimed, and I'm not kidding, "there is no sign of non-participatory revelers". Basically they were asking others to prove a negative. Whereas it was them who made a claim, that was fairly easy to show was questionable. Breitbart has access to two, and only two recordings that night. One was of a huge crowd firing fireworks, and another was a smaller group of men shouting allahu ackbar and flying a Syrian Free Army flag. That's it. They're asking others to prove that the rest of that crowd wasn't all one big mob. Which is ridiculous. Both the police and German news reporting had the opposite conclusion.

Breitbarts defence article then simple claims that the European news are part of a conspiracy. Whether you read the above as fake news depends on whether you have an a priori distrust of German news.

I've experienced several new years in Denmark, and there's always been some groups of young punks throw fireworks at people. That doesn't mean I was a terrorist when I was out celebrating 2018.

Here's two examples of some more politically neutral cases, where Breitbart themselves have admitted they got it wrong.

https://www.facebook.com/ktvu/videos/10155080254167061/
http://www.breitbart.com/california/...n-sonoma-jail/
They states that a man, whom they took care to describe as an illegal immigrant, has been arrested for starting a fire in Wine County which claimed 40 lives. Only problem is he (a homeless man) was arrested two days before the fire, for starting small fires he used to keep himself warm and he was not a suspect by the police. Breitbart updated the story, and retracted the erroneous parts.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...an-oppression/

[Sparko]

And yet you are not giving a single example or providing any reason for us to agree with you.

I already did and he just rationalized it away. Nothing more to say.

[JimL]

A recent discussion with MM made me wonder about this. I'd be curious to know how people here assess Brietbart as a news source. I have not been shy about the fact that I find them jornalistically unscrupulous, with a propensity for slanting stories/titles to give them an extreme right slant. I have previously provided several examples and reasons for this perspective.

MM seems to think I have "unreasonable bias" and everyone here can see it. That made me curious. Do others here find Brietbart to be a credible news outlet that they frequent as a source of information?

The far right Billionaire Mercer family controls Breitbart as was made obvious when they had Steve Bannon ousted after his break with the Trump administration. Its not news, it's strictly political spin, propaganda, like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh.

[Charles]

I already did and he just rationalized it away. Nothing more to say.

It's quite easy to see you actually did not give a single example or provide any reason for us to agree with you with regards to that specific post. You can say "Nothing more to say" as much as you like but so far you have hardly said anything about it anyway.

[Sparko]

It's quite easy to see you actually did not give a single example or provide any reason for us to agree with you with regards to that specific post. You can say "Nothing more to say" as much as you like but so far you have hardly said anything about it anyway.

I gave a link to my post where I did just that.

Charles, why don't you just go play in the corner for a while since you obviously can't follow a single conversation on this site and are just going around making comments from the peanut gallery. You are like a little yipping dog barking at the heels of some big dogs thinking you are helping the fight when all you are doing is being annoying.

[Charles]

I gave a link to my post where I did just that.

Charles, why don't you just go play in the corner for a while since you obviously can't follow a single conversation on this site and are just going around making comments from the peanut gallery. You are like a little yipping dog barking at the heels of some big dogs thinking you are helping the fight when all you are doing is being annoying.

The link does not concern the particular post. As for your personal attacks I think you would do far better without them and giving some answers instead. Otherwise people may think you have not got them.

[carpedm9587]

I already did and he just rationalized it away. Nothing more to say.

You call it rationalizing - I call it providing evidence for your claims not being adequate. I reviewed the links you sent, and the various articles referenced. Most are fairly infamous on the right, and all of the ones I chased down had corrections, retractions, and some had associated disciplinary action. For me, that is the hallmark of an ethical media outlet. I did not find a single instance of "fake news" nor do I have any reason to believe any of it was intentional. You are entitled to your views, but I do not find them grounded in fact, so I cannot share them.

[Sparko]

The link does not concern the particular post. As for your personal attacks I think you would do far better without them and giving some answers instead. Otherwise people may think you have not got them.

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