Thanks everyone. I was conflating factual accuracy with political bias and they are two very different things. Some sources are factually inaccurate, as well as politically biased, and I want to avoid those at all cost.
Agree. This is why we should be consuming information from a variety of diverse sources, just like a healthy food diet. Limiting yourself to chicken nuggets and french fries is not healthy, and it seems to be the same when it comes to information.
A once-in-a-while look at what you know is a biased news source wont hurt if you are mostly reading across a diversity of information anyway, and makes it much easier to identify the bullshit (and avoid news bubbles).
Just as a wild guess, in the US maybe NPR might be pretty unbiased. The problem with its television counterpart, PBS, is that its productions need relatively big money so they tend to be beholden to corporate sponsors and, worse, to political ideologues like the late David Koch.
As for the commercial US networks, Noam Chomsky said it best:
… There are outstanding reporters and commentators, but as a broad generalization, I think it is fair to say that the media adopt the basic framework of state and private power, mostly uncritically.
This is so true. With the exception of bullshit cable channels like Fox News which are a blatant propaganda arm of the Republican Party, the legitimate ones are not so much biased by political interests as they are by commercial interests like the pursuit of ratings and keeping their advertisers happy.
CNN, for instance, which had the potential to be a first-rate news network, is instead constantly in pursuit of ratings and hyper vigilant about the sensitivities of its sponsors. Its journalism is pretty much second-rate. In many respects even the American commercial broadcast networks are better, particularly ABC and CBS, the former home of the venerable Walter Cronkite.and before him, Edward R. Murrow. There is no better example of Chomsky’s quote than some of the CNN coverage of the first Gulf War. It was, arguably, a justified effort to prevent an Iraqi takeover of Kuwait, but some of the smarmy faux-patriotism on CNN was sickening.
As for broadcasters in other countries, I like the CBC and absolutely adore the quality of commercial-free CBC Radio One. On television, CBC News is pretty reliable and impartial (although I miss Peter Mansbridge, now retired, who was sort of our own version of Walter Cronkite) and many of their documentaries are excellent. I don’t know enough to comment about the BBC, but they’ve been embroiled in some weird controversies.
Yeah and for what the truth really is as well.
For example, if you come from a mindset where you don’t believe anthropomorphic climate change is a thing, you’re going to view ALL news outlets that accept that as fact to be hugely biased to the left. If you accept it, you’re probably more apt to view many of them as relatively unbiased, for example.
I think that the big issue is that the right-wing media have basically set themselves up as competing sources of truth, and we no longer agree as a nation on what the truth is. Which is a problem- we’re no longer approaching the same agreed-upon problems from different ideological positions, we’re now arguing over whether those problems are really problems at all, if we’re even arguing in the first place.
I agree. We have gone from arguments about ideology to arguments about facts and reality. The right is now built on a foundation of lies, and Trumpism has accelerated that trend a hundred-fold.
Just BTW, in order to maintain my reputation as an annoying pedant: 
anthropomorphic climate change
“anthropogenic”
anthropomorphic = having human form
anthropogenic = originating from human activity
Thinking about it more, I feel like the OP is sort of asking the wrong question. A lack of bias is not necessarily the most important element of getting grade A information about the world we live in.
Joe Rogan, for example, has a bias towards med spas, saunas, jacuzzis, meat, and living “natural”. None of that is, particularly, a political bias. Politically, he is or was a Democrat. Nevertheless, it corrupts his medical interviews and opinions because forming your medical outlook based on an unwillingness to give up jacuzzis and a fear of needles is stupid. It’s just not a smart and rational way to talk about the thing.
On the other hand, you might have an example where, say, one person is saying that we should focus on the success of American businesses because “It ensures employment, a continuing growth in the quality of life, and provides more growth in the value of your tax rate over time, without actually having to raise taxes.” And then you have another person saying we should focus on supporting people who can’t seem to make it in the mainstream, corporate/business world because, “There’s no economic benefit to anyone to do so. The free economy will take care of everyone else without intervention. Only government has any interest in trying to help people who are spiraling out, seeing that they don’t become a negative to the rest of society by turning to crime or violence, and helping them to come back into the rest of the productive community.”
Those are both biased but not unreasonable positions. And, in talking with the two you might find them both admitting to flaws and gaps in their systems - but, that they believe that a) the benefits outweigh the demerits and, b) you’re never going to find perfection, so that’s not unreasonable to have a bias towards something that does have flaws.
And then we also have to accept that you can have someone who has no particular political position, is deeply intelligent, but dishonest. For example, some huckster doctor, trying to sell you on snake oil.
In general, you’ve got three axes:
- Bias
- Intelligence
- Honesty
To some extent, the least important of the three is bias. If someone is honest and intelligent then it’s probably worth encountering their viewpoints and arguments.
And, likewise, the most important is probably honesty. If a person isn’t being honest then it’s probably an issue that their biases have overcome their intellect. At that point, it’s effectively the same as listening to an idiot.
In general, it’s good to have some familiarity with the different arguments for the different approaches to dealing with life. There’s not the one that’s correct (so far as we’ve determined yet), so trying to find that “one” is probably unreasonable. But there are people who are more honest and there are people who have better fleshed out ideas, with a deeper foundation of reasoning and evidence behind it. It’s that latter that you’re looking for.
Thank you for that important clarification.
Hey, even I agree with you totally on this one.
I too along with the OP was brought up to believe that Walter Cronkite was telling it like it was. We know better now. His biases were deep and disturbing, if unconscious and invisible. He told it from a white, middle-class, Eastern elite bias.
I read a book recently that covered the tv coverage of the 1968 Democratic Convention. The author detailed how the civil rights battles over delegates and issues were almost totally ignored by the networks. Vietnam got only somewhat more attention. The networks did not cover the collusion of LBJ with Mayor Daley. Because of the lack of small mobile tv cameras, almost all the police violence against the protestors was covered spottily and only hours later. Much more attention was given to anything that happened to reporters than to protestors. The main speeches didn’t occur until the wee hours so hardly anyone saw them.
The networks went out of their way to not comment on what they saw. That was considered unbiased reporting. The network news shows today continue that tradition, made easier because they seldom cover real issues, although weather-related disasters and shootings get many minutes each night.
Comment is necessary. Did any of us read through the entire Inflation Reduction Act? Or the 900 pages of Project 2025? Or Harris’ just released mere-81-page economic policy report? How could a news source report on that in an unbiased fashion? Television can’t. Newspapers struggle to do so. Some websites and magazines can devote the space, but how many of them can an individual read and master? And then what? Go on to the next set of extremely long and detailed reporting on another issue? Or is it better to get bits of large numbers of issues to keep up with the flow?
Dismal as this sounds, I do believe that getting some information and commentary is better than none. Mainstream news sources do their best. But if you want to know about black issues, read black sources. If you want to know about women’s issues, read women’s sources. If you want to know about gay issues, read gay sources. If you want to know about AI issues, read, well… Can’t help you. Nobody knows the future. Nobody knows the present, either. Some just put more work into it than others.
I would like to point out that framing every political debate into a simple left-right/liberal-conservative dichotomy often excludes other positions THAT do not fit into the framework,
Years ago, I had a shortwave radio that allowed me to listen to the BBC World Service news radio. It was interesting how they’d cover some event in an African capital (for example) that I hadn’t heard at all on ABC/CBS/NBC national news. So there’s some bias in favor of news from your city, state or country.
This, too.
I like to stay informed, and spend time each day watching both local and national news on CBS, NBC, PBS, or ABC affiliated stations. I find the reporting for the most part to be accurate and honest, and to my eyes and ears fairly unbiased. I also listen to NPR, read my local newspaper, and read in-depth articles on the Internet.
I don’t watch Fox News because I think it’s inaccurate, dishonest, and clearly a mouthpiece of the GOP. I know people who turn on Fox News in the morning and consume it exclusively all day until they fall asleep. It’s the only news they trust, and they think every other news source is lying. These are the people who believe immigrants are eating pets in Ohio simple because Trump mentioned it in a speech and Fox promoted the idea. The truth of the matter doesn’t factor in.
I think I get a fairly accurate view of the world from my various news sources, not that they are perfect, but I believe they are telling me the story honestly with a minimum of political bias. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t some better sources of news I should be watching or listening to instead.
I really appreciate the posts in this thread. A couple of observations.
Being in the middle or centre is not the same as being objective. Saying centrists are objective is close to saying they don’t have a position on an issue. That’s a bit like saying since Wayne Gretzky didn’t play left wing or right wing, he didn’t have a position. (American/non-hockey folks, feel free to add your own sports person who plays centre forward, middle linebacker, centre field, whatever.)
What changes if instead of saying everyone has a bias, we say everyone has a perspective?
“Newscaster” is not the same as "journalist."By the time Walter Cronkite and Peter Mansbridge were reading the evening news, they had long ceased being real journalists. By that I mean only they rarely covered and wrote stories themselves. So the trust they enjoyed came more from their personae as calm, reasonable readers. Nor were they hired to express an obvious viewpoint. The trust they won did not come from how they wrote the news but how they delivered it, and as noted above, that worked better with some audiences than others.
Noam Chomsky is a great commentator on media and much else, but he identifies as a communist anarchist in his politics. Does that mean he has a bias that makes him unreliable? Do you have to be a communist anarchist to appreciate him? If you do appreciate him are you in danger of becoming a communist anarchist?
(If so, call me. We have cookies.)
I think that some of the issue is that there are two different definitions of “biased” and often, two different definitions of “news”. As far as “bias” goes, there’s biased reporting. That’s when the story is slanted to one side- maybe it’s a person complaining that the police wouldn’t remove a trespasser from their home but the reporter for whatever reason doesn’t mention that the trespasser has been living there for two months and that’s why the police said it had to be done through court. It leaves out important facts or is misleading. That’s something that should never happen in news stories.
There’s also “biased coverage” where the bias is in which stories are covered. That’s fine if I’m watching extremely local news - there’s a hurricane hitting Florida but a hyperlocal news source in New York isn’t going to tell me much about it even though it will tell me about a library branch that is closed for renovation.( This week’s edition of my very local newspaper does not mention anything about an election.) If it goes as far as a major media outlet not reporting things that a presidential candidate said, that’s something else. But that’s also a problem you can easily solve by having a variety of sources.
There is news I consider balanced and reasonable. It is not possible to report news without any bias because decisions are made on what stories to emphasize, many people feel a certain way about things, and media owners sometimes seek to influence stories or subtly hint at what view would be preferred or make their opinions clear in editorials.
But obviously there are sources which are more balanced than others that seek to minimize distortion. It is pretty obvious which sources do this.