The Guardian

[Whaleboy]

The Independent

[DanS]

The FT isn't nearly as good as the Wall Street Journal, mind.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
You don't know when to let it lie - you're now trying to spread this argument somewhere else because you got your arse so badly kicked at CG

I simply don't see it that way. It basically degenerated into a "Yes, it is", "No, it isn't" type thing so I'm looking for a second opinion. Someone who might be able to interject a bit of fact into the discussion.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Agathon
It's weird, but virtually all the papers back in NZ (except things like The National Business Review)have no political agenda at all. I suppose I could call the NZ Herald "boring", but people wouldn't buy a biased paper.

It's one reason I find buying papers in Canada so offensive. They can't just report the damn news, they have to pontificate about it.

Then it sounds like New Zealand has a few things going for it compared to the rest of the English speaking world.

[RGBVideo]

The worst kind of bias is the sort which you can't notice...

But haven't you already realised that Guardian is a crap newspaper, Oerdin? I thought you were the first ones who dared to ridicule it's contents here? Why, just take a look at their reporting from Iraq and compare that to your own experiences.

[Dinner]

Yes, I do believe it is a crap paper but at another site some people were claiming it was just peachy and they even got into a big laughing fit when I stated the Guardian was biased towards a political view point and that is often didn't clearly separate facts from opinion. I guess different countries have different standards as to what constitutes good journalism or some people just want to hear their own views reinforced.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
There is no such thing as objectivity, and all journalists make certain unstated assumptions. I much perfer a journalist who wears his heart on his sleve, so you know what bias your source actually has, as opposed to those who have them but keep them hidden.

Exactly. Everybody is biased one way or another. A person may be biased subconsciously, consciously, or both.

How a story is written, where it is located in the paper, amount of space devoted to it, etc. all serve to colour a reader's opinions.

[Dinner]

You are right that bias can never be completely removed but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The guardian doesn't even try. A good journal will try to remove as much bias as possible and only present objective facts.

[Zulu Elephant]

I'd say that the Guardian and the the Financial Times and the least biased UK Papers. The Times isn't SO bad either.

The Independent has become a complete mess over the last few years. I used to buy the Guardian Monday to Saturday and get the Independent on Sunday (no Guardian published on a Sunday) but a couple of years ago the Indi suddenly seemed to lose it. They hate Blair so overtly that its cringeworthy. Also (although I agree with them) - their front page spash last summer about what the EU does for the UK, a very biased list of things that the UK gets out of the EU, was ridiculous. It essentially printed a huge editorial in bullet point form on the front page. Although with the huge bias of the right wing papers, maybe we need a liberal-left paper to start to fighting fire with fire.

Back to the Guardian. People here on poly seem to have some bizarre view of the Guardian. Its really a pretty moderate paper by European standards. The editorial section is filled with a mass of different views - Conservative politicians, Labour politicians, Social Democrats, old-school Socialists - but the only articles that ever seem to get posted here are the lunatic ones. If you want a paper where the editorial section has a concise political agenda, then dont buy the Guardian, but if you want to hear a range of views then it's the paper for you.

As for bias in the news reporting itself - I agree with what has been said above about total impartiality being impossible but I challenge anyone to find a news article in the Guardian that is anywhere NEAR as biased as something I could find flicking through the Sun, the Mail, the Indi or the Mirror.

[notyoueither]

How many other papers have published a plea for political assassination?

[Zulu Elephant]

Originally posted by notyoueither
How many other papers have published a plea for political assassination?

?

[Pekka]

Guardian has lots of bias. I wouldn't trust it as my source for news.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The Economist seems to be very impartial about delivering the news and they clearly deliniate what is editorial (I.E. opinion) from news facts.

Like the Guardian.

[Pekka]

I should make it clear, that even though I consider Guardian biased source, it doesn't make everything it says untrue 100%.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Oerdin
You are right that bias can never be completely removed but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The guardian doesn't even try. A good journal will try to remove as much bias as possible and only present objective facts.

What's an objective fact ?

Such a rara avis that I've certainly never seen one used in American political discourse.


There seem to be 'liberal' facts and Right wing Christian facts, Creationist 'facts', African American facts, et cetera.


If you're going to criticise the Guardian's reporting as being biased, and being biased towards a particular view, then use examples, rather than just saying 'it is' again and again.


So biased it is it towards 'a' or 'one' political view, that it had the likes of Melanie Phillips and Julie Burchill and Germaine Greer writing pieces. Which single viewpoint do they all espouse ?