What do my fellow Dopers think of the Huffington Post as an unbiased news source?
I originally thought it was an excellent source but my loyalty is beginning to slip. I think my slippage is due to their habit of posting large, attention grabbing headlines that are followed up by stories that don’t seem equal to the headlines in content.
Anyway, I’d like to hear opinions other than my own.
Thanks in advance.
It seems to have a good take on one side of the story. However, it is far from unbiased. IMHO, YMMV and all that. I try to use two news sources, one more left leaning (HP) and more more right leaning (Politico) because somewhere in the middle is the truth.
Their science coverage is dreadful.
They are a hangout for all the woo:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/what_to_do_about_huffpo.php
The stuff they print on vaccines is particularly awful. You routinely read nonsense by Jenny McCarthy and her moronic allies. Believe none of it.
Politico is right-leaning?
The Huffington Post is to unbiased what Lexus is to minestrone soup.
I thought they were - maybe I’m wrong! They’re not Fox by any means!
LavenderBlue beat me to my response. Their “Health” section is a bastion of homeopathy-lovin’, Big Pharma-hatin’ nonsense. They give regularly space to Joe Mercola and Kim Stagliano. They continue to beat the drum of “vaccines are evil!” regularly.
As to their news coverage - they are definitely left-leaning.
That bad, huh?
At the moment, I scan, on a daily basis, Google News, NPR, Fox News*, CNN, Reuters, MSNBC, and the Daily Beast----I don’t have a lot to do these days. No matter which news source I read, I end up enraged (literally) and wishing I had one, good, solid, unbiased source as a “final” word.
I guess I should have asked for recommendations instead of opinions but thanks for the replies. Sadly, I agree with the criticisms of Huff Post; I had really wanted it to be good and reliable.
*Fox News is cheaper than most purges and just as effective. I read it just to try to keep abreast of the enemy.
I wouldn’t say “bad,” but “irrelevant” comes to mind. I never had the idea that the site purports to being unbiased.
I don’t think it claims to be; I had hoped that it would be, that’s all.
Well, for one thing it’s not unbiased. To claim so is as ridiculous as saying Fox News is fair and balanced.
I typically glance at it once or twice a day along with several other news sites like NYT, NPR, CNN, WP, just to see what’s going on. But the headlines are often as misleading and hyperbolic as those on Drudge.
Also the comments sections on any story about food or health are typically filled with the sort of overly smug, Whole Foods-shopping, agribusiness trashing, “woe be to anyone who eats at McDonald’s” wankery that gives liberals a bad name. And I say that as someone who likes shopping at Whole Foods and has little love for big agribusiness (though I do love me those McDonald’s double cheeseburgers).
What I came in here to say. HuffPo is occasionally good for a laugh, not good for anything approaching balanced reporting.
The Huffington Post list its news sources at the bottom of its website.
What do you and other Dopers think of The Huffington Post’s news sources?
Here’s an article typical of the health woo Huffpo churns out on a regular basis, “The Secrets Of People Who Never Get Sick”.
The author, Gene Stone has written a book on this, which oozes credibility thanks to his background as screenwriter, “journalist” and Peace Corps volunteer.
Among the “secrets” he touts are eating dirt, consuming brewer’s yeast, closing the toilet lid before flushing (I kid you not), colloidal silver (a hugely overhyped and basically worthless remedy that can turn chronic users’ skin permanently slate-blue) and everyone’s all-time favorite, a “positive attitude”. Never mind that this old chestnut has been debunked time and again, and is particularly disgusting in that it’s used to blame people for their illnesses (“If you had a positive attitude, you wouldn’t have cancer”).
There’s a token anti-woo article every now and then (like one currently running about lessons of the Andrew Wakefield antivax debacle). The overall thrust of HuffPo, however, is decidedly towards promoting a culture of woo and encouraging health fraud. Reading the comments sections of these articles will really make you sick, as these folks totally lap up the Big-Pharma-Conspiracy-Magic-Foods-Vaccines-Are-Evil crap.
Whenever I want to get really riled up for teaching my students about the scientific method, I read those. But lord love a duck, those comments indicate a level of anti-science insanity that is truly mind-blowing, and very, very frightening.
Although this article seems to be a cut above their normal stuff.