Breitbart: “Pet Dog in Hong Kong Tests Positive for Coronavirus”
Rawstory: “Hong Kong pets face coronavirus quarantine after dog tests positive”
The story didn’t interest me — I’ve already got 139 Firefox tabs open for must-read articles and novels; I’m getting further and further behind; and this story didn’t have the pressing urgency to dictate a 140’th tab.
However I was intrigued by the choice of news source. Breitbart? I don’t know if I’ve ever clicked there at all prior to doing the experiment described below. I wanted to ask OP of that thread how he got to Breitbart in the first place? I don’t recall ever seeing Google News direct me there. Was his browser hijacked by malware? Was one of OP’s Facebook Friends infected? Eventually someone came along and posted the Rawstory link; I decided to do an experiment.
I went to the linked pages, but didn’t read about the Hongkong dog. Instead I just looked at the list of recommended other stories. I’ve bold-faced some of the more alarming headlines.
Rawstory’s list:
[ul]
[li] Trump goes full racist to cover up his coronavirus lies and incompetence[/li][li] “You don’t even believe in evolution”: Ocasio-Cortez dunks on Ted Cruz for questioning her knowledge of coronavirus[/li][li] Mike Huckabee buried for bonkers claim Trump could suck coronavirus from patients’ lungs[/li][li] RNC fumes after Democrat threatens to fight Trump Jr over his coronavirus comments[/li][li] Stephen Miller’s new wife is in charge of approving all coronavirus communications[/li][li] Donald Trump has launched a 2020 campaign disinformation juggernaut – and it’s gaining speed[/li][li] Never Trumpers fear for their safety if they dare attend CPAC: report[/li][li] Trump accuses Democrats of coronavirus ‘hoax’ as confirmed cases in US gather pace[/li][li] Maddow guest predicts one-third of Congress will catch coronavirus ’ and Capitol Hill will close[/li][li] ‘This is the highlight of his year’: Trump won’t cancel speech to far-right CPAC - even with coronavirus epidemic [/li][/ul]
Breitbart’s List:
[ul]
[li] Poll: “Should Sotomayor and RBG be recused from Trump-related cases?”[/li][li] Ninth Circuit Reopens Border, Blocks Donald Trump’s “Return to Mexico”[/li][li] House Dems Block Amendment to Save Babies Who Survive Abortion[/li][li] Gaffe: Joe Biden Says He’ll “Appoint” First Black Woman to Senate[/li][li] CNN’s Angela Rye to Black Trump Supporters: “Shame On You”[/li][li] Video of Laughing Girl Having Abortion at Planned Parenthood[/li][li] Black Leaders Pray for Trump at Black History Month Celebration[/li][li] Don Jr. Condemns Democrat Call to Violence Against Him[/li][li] Watch Live: President Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally in SC[/li][li] New England Journal of Medicine: Coronavirus May Be No Worse than Flu [/li][li] White House Wins Don McGahn Appeal, Destroying Democrats’ Impeachment Argument[/li][li] James O’Keefe: Mainstream Media Cater to “Woke” Audience at the Expense of Truth[/li][li] Larry Kudlow at CPAC: Socialism, Not Coronavirus Will Sink the American Economy[/li][/ul]
I did the experiment three days ago but didn’t get around to posting until now. I see some of the stories have escalated since then. The Democrats are now hoping that millions of Americans die from coronavirus, or at least that’s what Vice President Pence seems to say. With Democrats like that, I certainly think “Sotomayor and RBG should be recused from Trump-related cases”, and think the GOP should be applauded for not insisting that Pelosi and her gang of communists be ousted from the House.
Pretend I’m from Mars and just landed here on Earth. Help me decide whether Breitbart or Raw Story is the better news source.
You can go to Media Bias / Fact Check.com and search each source.
Raw Story, "Overall, we rate Raw Story Left Biased based on story selection that favors the left and Mixed for factual reporting due to half-true, false and unproven claims, as well as promotion of mild pseudoscience misinformation".
Breitbart, “Overall, we rate Breitbart Questionable based on extreme right wing bias, publication of conspiracy theories and propaganda as well as numerous false claims.”
Your choice of news sources sounds rather like saying “Which is better: flu or coronavirus?” :smack:
From Wikipedia:
Breitbart is a far-right syndicated American news, opinion and commentary website founded in mid-2007 by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, who conceived it as “the Huffington Post of the right”. Its journalists are widely considered to be ideologically driven, and some of its content has been called misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by liberals and many traditional conservatives alike.
The site has published a number of conspiracy theories, and intentionally misleading stories. :eek:
The best news coverage comes from sources without biased owners.
I’ve found Rawstory to be a mixed bag. Their content is about equal amounts of reprinted columns from Salon and other liberal news sites, original reporting and commentary about the day’s events, and gossip of the “Here’s what this guy said on this talk show/on Twitter” nature. They also seem to cover every time George Conway, John Oliver, or David Cay Johnston say anything. I can’t recall any overt pseudoscience aside from them occasionally dedicating articles to psychiatrists who claim to diagnose Trump’s mental problems without having met him.
Breitbart I won’t dare pollute my browser history with, because the last time I accidentally clicked on a Fox News article I couldn’t get their ads and recommendations off of my devices for months afterward and I don’t need that from them.
I find links to Rawstory occasionally, and I don’t think they’re horrible, as long as you realize they’re kinda pushing rumors instead of facts. I fact check anything important they say, but I’ll be okay with their “stupid people news” stories.
Breitbart, on the other hand, feels more like they’re trying to present themselves as serious, and, frankly, I think the right wing conspiracy crap is more dangerous than the left wing speculation crap.
Neither are a good source for actually getting news, but I’ll at least check out a Rawstory article. I checked out a few Breitbart articles and they were just awful.
I don’t read Breitbart, but I do read Raw Story every day as a news agregator for stories from other sources. Raw Story is heavy propaganda. Just about every day, you will read headlines about (person with the incorrect politics) going on an “unhinged rant” after which (person with the correct politics) “destroys” them. When you watch the video, you will see two people having a relativly calm, reasoned conversation, nothing more. Anything said by (person with the incorrect politics) is always an unhinged rant, and anything said by (person with the correct politics) is always “destroying” them or “shutting them down.” Also, every couple of days (for years) there is a post where some medical person diagnoses Trump with an imminent full mental breakdown, and one on how the White House is in a chaotic panic about something. (Also, 99.9% of the time they have a headline about a “conservative columnist” saying something negative about Trump, they mean Jennifer Ruben. (Such as this recent example, which uses another of their common phrases, “mic drop”, which means (person with the correct politics) said something that we agree with.")) Raw Story is useful for links to outside articles, but their headlines are like something out of a North Korean news broadcast. Written by an emo 12-year-old North Korean intern.
Also, every single damn article there has at least one glaring typographical error in it. I don’t know if it comes from just not giving a damn about writing well or something like a trap street, but it really makes them look bad in a completly different way.
Pretty much. I’d say RawStory is terrible and Breitbart is even worse. I wouldn’t trust either of them for factual content, but RawStory’s nonsense is marginally less damaging than Breitbart’s nonsense.
I follow Raw Story more-or-less regularly. I kinda like it, largely because it provides a lot of brief-ish articles, so when one catches my interest I can then read more about it elsewhere.
To be sure, everything Darren Garrison says a few posts above, is pretty much correct – I was about to chime in here with a lot of the same comments.
The majority of its articles are no more than brief summaries (not excerpts) of articles found elsewhere, and (to my frequent annoyance) often don’t include a link to the original. They are fond of those incendiary headlines, which I find amusing. The summary stories sometimes don’t get around to whatever point the headline promised. They love dumping on Trump and Republicans, but will occasionally report on some stupid thing said or done by a Democrat too. septimus, you should have taken a look at their home page – same list of recommended stories and more, with thumbnail pictures too.
I’ve gradually reduced the time I spend at Raw Story (reading all the headlines but clicking on fewer of them) because, as you might infer from Darren Garrison’s post, they are quite predictable.
They do have some investigative journalists writing full-length stories that appear there too. David Cay Johnston is one of those.
Raw Story also owns AlterNet, and most of the same stories appear verbatim at both sites.
BTW, OP wondered where we Dopers are getting our news from and why. I should clarify that Raw Story is not the first place nor the primary place I look each day for the news. It’s often (but not always) the second place.
My most common first and primary source of news is Washington Post. That way, I can read Jennifer Rubin’s op-eds first-hand. Max Boot too, who is one of the other “conservative columnists” that Raw Story commonly refers to. Both are moderate conservative Never Trumper types who have quit the Republican Party in vociferous disgust. For the last three years they have written almost exclusively on Anti-Trump, Anti-Most-Republican, even Pro-Democrat Anybody But Trump themes and you’d never know they are conservatives! Max Boot recently wrote a column discussing what a horrible disaster he thinks a President Sanders would be, yet he would “reluctantly” vote for him over Trump.
To be (slightly more) honest, I like Raw Story because I love my daily fix of liberal progressive Recreational Outrage, which I can always find there all in one place.
ETA: Note also, BTW, that Jennifer Rubin is a prolific writer, often writing three to six op-eds almost every day, of which typically only one will appear on WaPo’s home page. You have to dig a bit to find all the others.
Breitbart is a systematically dishonest neo-Nazi propaganda tool, and completely untrustworthy. I know several forums that will infract people who insist on linking to or quoting it because doing so is considered inherently dishonest and bigoted. And both attracts and encourages neo Nazis.
In a world where anyone can access the Associated Press, Reuters, the BBC and (if you’re willing to pay the money) the New York Times why waste your time with any of this crap?
I follow Brietbart. I find it to be the most reliable indicator of what the policy makers in the USG are thinking.
Like Das Reich or Pravda in other places.
I didn’t know that. I used to click to Alternet sometimes for stories out of the main-stream. But stopped because they have some Javascript or such that brings Firefox (at least on my underpowered laptop) to a screeching halt.
Are you a paid subscriber? If not, do you have some secret to share about how to read it easily? (I read NYTimes by firing up a separate browser with Javascript disabled. Does that work for WPO also?)
Breitbart is a news source? It really comes across as a propaganda machine.
RawStory pops up in my Google News feed every now and then; I’ll read the story is the topic interests me, but there’s a definite slant to the writing.
Breitbart is a better source than getting your news from say, Izvestia or Kommersant. Another comparable source would involve listening to speeches by either Trump, Pence or Putin.
Disabling JavaScript works like this for WaPo and a great many other web sites. When you find a web site you like, try it and see. (Hint: Disabling JS also eliminates some or all advertising on many sites, including SDMB.)
But disabling JS is a mixed blessing. It also disables certain other kinds of content. I find that some (but not all) photos are blocked without JS. Commercial sites (like your bank account) typically require JS. Many sites load much faster without JS (because they load a lot less stuff), but some content may be missing.
A couple of things to remember about news sources.
“Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true—except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.”
—Knoll’s Law of Media Accuracy (Erwin Knoll, editor, “The Progressive”)
“…it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies—unless one counts journalists.”
—George Orwell, “Homage to Catalonia” (1938)