# Are there any neutral news sources out there? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 8, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319 "2017-02-08T12:20:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/41 "2017-02-11T19:24:00Z")
A truly “neutral” news source would be useless. Facts aren’t neutral. They are what they are. For American news sources, NPR is pretty much as factual, accurate, and reliable as is possible. The New York Times and The Washington Post are also factual, accurate, and reliable. The problem here is not that there aren’t factual, accurate, and reliable news sources, but that since the mid-1960s, the right has made its strategy to declare a war on the mainstream media and on facts itself. At this point, it’s not mainstream news you need to be skeptical of. It’s the claims of bias that you need to suspect. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/42 "2017-02-13T19:49:14Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > I like NPR and PBS. They are terrified of losing their government funding and bend over backwards to be fair and balanced. NPR is terrified of losing its liberal listeners. So they bend over backwards to avoid covering the news in any way that could upset their sensibilities. That is why George Soros gave them almost two million dollars and why their board is made up of liberals. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/43 "2017-02-13T20:03:40Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > NPR is terrified of losing its liberal listeners. So they bend over backwards to avoid covering the news in any way that could upset their sensibilities. That is why George Soros gave them almost two million dollars and why their board is made up of liberals. Nice words-got any examples to show us? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/44 "2017-02-13T20:25:42Z")
> [@Algernon](#): > > I am a subscriber to _The Week_ magazine. In their articles they consistently provide perspectives from all sides, quoting both liberal and conservative writers/reporters. > > Here is a link to their online version. I assume it contains the same style of content.[http://theweek.com/](http://theweek.com/) It doesn’t really. It takes a different approach (see below). > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > If you are not a regular reader of news, _The Week_ is a very good magazine to get. Does a bang-up job summarizing what was being said, and looks at some very non-traditional sources to do that. However, their online website tends to have some very biased commentary, which is not always distinguished from “news” (a problem found on many a “news” site these days). I agree. The magazine reports stories in some depth, usually with brief summaries of several related editorials from external sources, and also has a selection of external editorials on various topics,. The website has a number of “quick read” (i.e., quite short) stories in short-lived rotation, and a slower rotation under the bylines of a group of regular contributors of several longer mostly opinion pieces. As you say, they aren’t generally labeled as such but it they always struck me as somewhat obviously editorial/speculative. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/45 "2017-02-13T21:00:01Z")
The chart linked to above seems reasonably fair to me. Also the New York Times is not liberal. Their opinion page maybe leans left but their news doesn’t. They helped Bush lie us into a war and they gleefully trashed Hillary for a year this past year. If they have a liberal agenda they suck at it. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/46 "2017-02-13T21:04:35Z")
I stumbled on a newer site Media Bias /Fact Check that’s come out of the "how do we deal with fake news? drama. They look at both bias and, for each source, rate them for “Factual Reporting.” In many cases they have notes specific to the source including links to issues they’ve had with the big name fact checking sites. They have a list of [Least Biased.](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/center/) As you move out from that center in their other categories their methodology can still let a source be High for factual reporting but show bias in other ways (emotionally loaded words, omitting factual information that conflicts with their bias, etc.) Their left/right center bias lists with highly factual sources probably isn’t a bad strategy either if you consume some from both to balance out the emotional loading. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/47 "2017-02-13T21:28:31Z")
i know i’m gonna get shouted at; but for straight talk in the world news i like **al jazeera** mc ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/48 "2017-02-13T21:52:31Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > i know i’m gonna get shouted at; but for straight talk in the world news i like **al jazeera** > > mc They do good reporting. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/49 "2017-02-13T21:56:51Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > By the way, I really did find CNN’s web site to be really neutral. However, and I guess part of this is my opinion, Trump has been berating them heavily and it would be easy to interpret their coverage now as “anti-Trump”. However, I don’t think they were anti-Obama, anti-Bush, or anti-Clinton, etc. Trump really has been hammering them as fake news. > > They look way more liberal now, but I think that they are generally the middle ground in cable news. Agreed. [CNN.com](http://CNN.com) is where I begin every day with a glance at the headlines. It’s not always well-edited, but I haven’t discerned any biases in its coverage. NPR leans a little left but has excellent reporting and I’ve never caught them in a lie. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2017, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/50 "2017-02-14T17:40:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Nice words-got any examples to show us? I didn’t want to do this because it is reliving bad memories but I went to the NPR home page and found two biased article in the first five articles listed. [Here](http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/02/14/515024057/the-problem-with-the-grammys-is-not-a-problem-we-can-fix)is a biased article about Adele and Beyonce. [Here](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/02/14/515024727/is-donald-trump-helping-or-hurting-twitter)is a biased article about Trump and Twitter. That is not nearly all. [Here](http://www.npr.org/2017/02/13/515043661/wall-street-journal-editor-defends-trump-coverage-at-staff-meeting)is another one. They are not even trying to hide it. It reminds me of a Seinfeld joke about professional wrestling referees. “They must get these guys from the same place the Harlem Globetrotters get their refs. There must be this whole school where they teach you to just kind of run around and not notice anything. They sit you down, show you a film of the rub-out scene from St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and if you don’t see anything illegal going on, you’re hired.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2017, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319/51 "2017-02-14T17:53:00Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > I didn’t want to do this because it is reliving bad memories but I went to the NPR home page and found two biased article in the first five articles listed. > [Here](http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/02/14/515024057/the-problem-with-the-grammys-is-not-a-problem-we-can-fix)is a biased article about Adele and Beyonce. > [Here](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/02/14/515024727/is-donald-trump-helping-or-hurting-twitter)is a biased article about Trump and Twitter. > > That is not nearly all. > [Here](http://www.npr.org/2017/02/13/515043661/wall-street-journal-editor-defends-trump-coverage-at-staff-meeting)is another one. > They are not even trying to hide it. It reminds me of a Seinfeld joke about professional wrestling referees. “They must get these guys from the same place the Harlem Globetrotters get their refs. There must be this whole school where they teach you to just kind of run around and not notice anything. They sit you down, show you a film of the rub-out scene from St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and if you don’t see anything illegal going on, you’re hired.” 1. Those are opinion pieces, not news reports, and 2. I’m not seeing the off-putting left-wing bias in these _opinion pieces_ that seem to be glaring out at you. Now, do you have any examples of left-wing _news_ bias on the part of NPR to show us? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-neutral-news-sources-out-there/779319.md?page=2)