I’m enjoying Lemmy so far, for the most part.
Everything here is pretty good save for the fact that all the news and politics I can find is dominated by the same few accounts.
Half or more of the accounts have a very clear agenda. They modify headlines. Lie. Spread disinformation. And generally are just extremely toxic groups.
It doesn’t seem to be a secret here either. And moderators appear to have no interest in putting a stop to it.
So, where are you subbed to for reliable news and US/Global politics?
More to the point: where does anybody go for any reliable news? It seems like most news is now using hyperbole to make it entertainment. We have old man Rupert to thank for basically destroying a respected profession. That’s my 0.02 anyhow.
While not perfect AP and Reuters are ok. The news they report is honest but their shortcoming is what they don’t report.
This is how I do it as well. In general, understanding the overall bias of each news organization is more important to keeping yourself informed. You can combat the echo chamber effect by knowing what the biases of each source is and using differing sourcing to try to get as complete a picture as you can.
I would add to your list to check BBC, Al Jazeera, and NPR if you’re US focused.
I haven’t found any issues with Reuters but AP did this which is suspect on many levels:
Migrant Boat NFT
On January 10, 2022, AP announced it would start selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of their photographs in partnership with a company named Xooa, with the proceeds being used to fund their operations.[103] One of the NFTs they promoted on Twitter on 24 February was an aerial shot depicting an overcrowded migrant boat in the Mediterranean Sea. The tweet received negative backlash from users and other journalists, with AP being accused of profiting off of human suffering and the picture choice being “dystopian” and “in extremely poor taste”. The tweet was subsequently deleted and the NFT, which was to be sold the next day, was pulled from market. Global director of media relations Lauren Easton apologized, saying “This was a poor choice of imagery for an NFT. It has not and will not be put up for auction […] AP’s NFT marketplace is a very early pilot program, and we are immediately reviewing our efforts”.[104][105]
They aren’t great when you see a lot of their stories go by at one time, it’s not consistent.
I wish for AP to have RSS feeds, but they don’t. I think they and Reuters are aome of the better outlets out there and I’ve been (re)discovering RSS lately, but AP is one of the few news outlets that don’t seem to support it :(
RSSbridge may have you covered there! They’ve got a bunch of instances running you can check!
I find these two to be good for finding sources with different perspectives:
After some time, you might see that there are a few specific sites that you like, and you can just start going to them directly.
+1 to Ground News. I browsed them with a free account for a short time before subscribing to the middle tier. Their tools are really terrific at getting me to look at multiple sides of the same stories, and the blind spot feature is fantastic. I’ve been very satisfied with it and go to it multiple times a day.
The Flipside is also excellent at providing balanced views and counterpoints. It’s a newsletter rather than a site though. (Full disclosure: that’s a referral link. I figured why not).
I’m also partial to The Week which also presents a wide array of views - though it admittedly leans left.
I just took a look at both of them and found that I really like https://ground.news
AP and Reuters run the stories and everyone adds their opinions on top of that, or they rehash some Twitter thread. NPR tends to take those news stories and at least bring in competent analysts in to speak about them. I’d stick with those 3, for the most “fair” view of the happenings in the world.
I subscribe to WSJ, NYT, WAPO, and my local newspaper. You need to read all sides of a story in order to get a reliable take.
Also recommend: Memeorandum to see multiple sources to same story.
Half or more of the accounts have a very clear agenda.
Everyone has an agenda; if this makes you uncomfortable, strengthen your critical thinking skills.
The desire for a neutral source is a desire to stop thinking critically about the information you consume.
Well said and yea if you find a “unbiased source” for news, you’ve only fallen for their bias.
Be critical even of what interests you, and read things you don’t like as well.
This is just wrong as a general statement.
Across the world there are a lot of news sources that give their best to be neutral and objective.
That’s something that a lot of people miss, though: in many cases you can’t be both neutral and objective. If one assessment of an issue is objectively true and the other is preposterous, neutrality itself is a subjective bias.
Non-exhaustive list of topics where a false equivalence neutrality actually distorts reality: climate change, evolution of the species; poverty and the roots thereof; racism and other discrimination; crime and the “justice” system in general.
Why is everyone talking to me as if I have no idea what I’m doing?
This whole thread has such a weird feel. Everyone is acting as if it’s the media’s fault that people on Lemmy are modifying headlines and posting lies.
The media isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But, there’s sources you can trust, for the most part. As far as I’m concerned, at this moment, Lemmy is devoid of anything reliable.
I suppose if that’s what Lemmy is, then maybe it just isn’t the place for me.
I’m going to sound mean, but it’s because you sound like you’re lost. If reliability and neutrality are what you’re looking for, traditional media is the place for you. The internet should be treated as a propaganda machine first and foremost.
If you thought traditional media was bad, imagine all the pitfalls of traditional media but with fewer guardrails. That’s what the internet is.
You seem to expect more rigidity than what is required here, and few people will be rigid of their own accord.
All that said, if you want to spin up your own instance and run a moderate politics/no headline modification news feed, no one can stop you, and I’m sure at least a few people would come with you. Lemmy is what you make it, but it takes doing to make it so, you know?
Tldr; don’t let your dreams be memes, this is a diy community at heart right now, you have infinite potential to create this thing that you want to have.
Lemmy is no better or different than Reddit when it comes to astroturfing from political activists, state actors, and a variety of other groups. The astroturfers don’t care one whit about community standards or any lofty altruistic goals of the Lemmy community. They are simply here to sway opinion and shout down opposing views. Your best option is just to block all communities that are even tangentially related to politics.
I will be happy once regex blocks are available. That way I can recreate what I had at Reddit to block almost all political posts.
I would argue trying to find news on social media is the big mistake. It’s absolutely bad on Lemmy, but it’s not that much better on other platforms. Any story that isn’t a “win” for the larger portion of people on the platform will naturally struggle to get attention.
There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down in trying to find a way to get a solid, rounded and accurate view of current events, but imo step one should be to throw away social media as a news source. It’s only popular because the algorithms on other platforms will tell people what they want to hear.
Yup, especially on sites like Reddit or Lemmy where voting exists. The news you see will be the news that agrees with the majority opinion of the site. This isn’t inherently negative as long as one is aware of it, but it seems too many people are unaware of their own echo chambers.
This is unhelpful, but… I just don’t look at the news. If something actually important happens, I’ll hear about it indirectly and go look it up if I care, but I’ve found that not being tapped into the news (and especially political news) all day every day does wonders for my mental health.
Probably not what you want to hear but I’ve been absolutely bombarded with the right wing perspective my entire life and I’m pretty glad to have a place that doesn’t try to both sides everything. Where do I get my news? Twitter mostly I come here if I want to see something discussed further
