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?
You must log in or register to comment.
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.
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.
God damn that’s a great point.
News is only remotely viable when done by a professional organization that at least tries to be impartial. You don’t want your news to be filtered by upvotes at the end of the day. Never really considered that.
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.
Same
If you don’t read the news, you’re uninformed. If you read the news, you’re misinformed
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
As others have said, you have to think critically about every piece of news you read. Ask yourself what the opposite side on a story might think, or look for an alternative opinion. If you’re reading an article in The Economist, read an article in Le Monde Diplomatique on the same subject. If you’re reading something about Russia in the Washington Post, read an article in RT on the same topic. Think critically, and the truth is likely somewhere between the two opposing points.
International mass media is a form of soft power for countries to exert influence. It’s not a conspiracy it’s a tool available to governments which is why you have the BBC, CGTN, RT, PressTV, CBC, etc. That the mass media in the USA is mostly private doesn’t change that fact and make it more independent, because the USA is essentially an ogliopoly.
Did you apply your critical thinking to this answer?
If you did, I’m gonna have to advise you to take your own advice, since this answer in no way answers the question.
So, if I think critically, the truth is somewhere in the middle?
Apologies if I said something to invite your passive aggressive response. You do seem quite passively calling out a few accounts but won’t mention them, I’m curious as to your politics now. Do you think it works like your neighborhood association where if you don’t say the word that people will get it and it will protect you from revealing your bias?
You came here and explained a bunch of nonsense. That’s why you got a passive aggressive response.
Your comment is not only jaded and wrong, but it’s also not what I asked. You just came here to pontificate about your conspiracy theories about the media.
Which, for the record, is exactly sort of stuff this post was inspired by. Hyperbole and dribble. You didn’t say anything of substance. You just talked down to me and rambled on about how nobody can trust the news. And that, is nonsense.
Replace the word “news” with “historical document” and OP is discussing how to conduct academic research.
Man, this whole thread has tried my patience. It’s as if not a single Lemmy user thinks that current events are worth following.
I’m not sure where everyone is getting their information, but this response is sorta terrifying.
Current events are certainly worth following and Lemmy could be a great place to add comments, ask questions and find additional context. A bot to scrape a relevant subreddit if content is needed.
Complaining about bias is what I was addressing. You can get unbiased media. Al-jazeera is surprisingly good for world news.
Isn’t Al-Jazeera a state-owned Saudi network? I’d trust them about as much as RT, Fox, CNN, or TikTok.
I wasn’t complaining about bias though. That’s the thing. I was asking for reliable news aggregation on Lemmy. Big difference
Nobody here seems to understand that though. Or, very few.
I know news is bias. That isn’t the point. It’s the posting of blogs, YouTube videos, altering headlines, using alts to brigade voting and push an agenda… Here, on Lemmy, not in the media.
The media is a known commodity. If I read an MSN article, I know their bias. If I read a fox news article, I definitely know their bias.
A bunch of edgy “communists” and qanon accounts manipulating the large news and politics community ON LEMMY is the point. Not the news
You didn’t say anything of substance.
He actually did but your mind is rejecting it.
Nobody can trust the news. That’s not nonsense, it’s a fact. There are no reliable news sources.
You can either deal with it or pretend that the source you find most comforting is the absolute truth and totally unbiased. But then you’d be lying to yourself, which is usually what makes people get defensive 🤔
Your definition of the word fact is seriously questionable.
What is the news? How can you arrive at a definition of what constitutes the news without introducing bias?
Okay. Fine. So, what is the solution then?
Nobody should pay attention to anything? Where should I get my information? Should I visit all the people and ask them?
How am I going to find out what happened today at the NATO Summit? Should I have gone to Lithuania and attended the summit in person?
Is it alright if I read the article on NPR that explains what legislation past the Senate in the US? Or do I need to go visit the Senate myself so I can eliminate NPR’s bias?
I’m very interested in science. Climate change and physics specifically. Where should I find out about the latest discoveries in science? Do I need to read all of the journals myself? Cuz, if so, I’m fucked. I don’t have that sort of time.
And, admittedly, even though I consider myself well informed, I’m just not up to speed on all of the equations in astrophysics. So, now, I’m really fucked. Do I need to know a physicist personally so I can ask them?
Sorry you feel/think that way.
Set up an Rss feed for AP and Reuters
I read the Newsletters from NPR and Morning Brew. If something catches my eye, I’ll look it up on ground.news then find something marked “center” to get more details.
But, isn’t that sort of the point of Lemmy? Link aggregation?
I’ve been going to all the individual sites as well since leaving Reddit. But, only because the news and politics culture in Lemmy is so atrocious.
Despite its faults, Reddit did an okay job of moderation. It’s a shit show here. The posts are all either bots or edgy 8th graders from troll communities. It’s a mess.
deleted by creator
Ha, man, finally, 20 comments in and someone understands the question.
Based on all the responses so far I’m assuming a well moderated place doesn’t exist on Lemmy yet, which is disappointing. I was hoping I just hadn’t discovered it yet.
deleted by creator
So you want currated news, why are you here?
Kind of, yes? I’ve commented on it more than once here.
This is the point you’re missing. Although, I guess I’m glad you’ve stuck around… For some reason…
A place where you have a variety of well vetted sources. A place where you don’t have to wade through a sea of “Hunter Biden’s laptop”, “lizard men” and Infowarriors.
Does news have a slant? Yes. Am I well aware of that? Yes.
The difference is, there’s no longer a “both sides”. I’m not interested in what some qanon blogger thinks about the Senate. And, here on Lemmy, that goal is achievable. And, I would argue, close.
However, the problem here is that you have bad actors operating unchecked. That is a problem of an immature platform, not an inherent problem with news in general as you’ve spent a lot of time and words intimating to me.
So, as we bring this bad boy around full circle and I put this behind me; the question is, is there a place for reliable news and politics? The answer to that question is, apparently, not yet. But, I’ll hold out hope that it happens because Lemmy is a promising platform that has a lot growing up to do.
What you’re looking for doesn’t exist and will probably never exist in our lifetimes. If you want some (USA) sites that aggregate news and provide an interpretation on it; nakedCapitalism, ZeroHedge (you won’t like), The Register, Breaking Points, MintPress News, RealClearPolitics.
Sigh… Nevermind. Thanks for trying. You and I live in two different realities. God speed
This doesn’t ask your question, but this may be of useful to people, anyway.
I’ve just joined ground.news, a pay site. The great part about this site is that it rates news as to left, center, or right leaning, and rates the “factuality” of the sites. Filtering out non-factual knocks out a large part of the outlier’s lies, and shows who the people are, who push them. like knowing the players pushing their agenda. One caveat is that some that push lies still slide through by quoting the people who spout lies without disclaimers of the reliabilty of their false claims. One rule of thumb that I find helpful is that I mentally filter out any pleas to emotionalism. Manipulating readers/viewers emotionally is the opposite of informing. Sites that try to be centrist and ignore whether the sources are reliable about facts, end up being half lies or propagandsa. It is useful to keep in mind that blatently propaganda sites work in some truth to give themselves some plausibility. Only the highest reliable news are worth letting in to your news sphere.
This is a worldwide problem as paid propagandaists muddy the news sphere. Welcome to our cyber warfare world.
I don’t get my news from any social media platform, including lemmy, no offense to lemmy. I used to do that with reddit, but it’s just too unhinged getting your news that way.
I stick with Associated Press, Reuters, and The New York Times, in that order. I also use Google News specifically for local news, but I don’t even peek at the main world news feed there.
More generally speaking, I stick to the old school human editorial board for my news. News that’s presented to me on AP, for example, has already been filtered by a board of humans who are smarter than me and whose opinions I trust on the state of the world. Opening up your selection of news to an easily gameable social media algorithm is just more trouble than it’s worth, in my opinion.
RSS to get a typical feed that people have become accustomed to. Set up RSS from sources you want to see then see. You get to see more instead of what individuals cherry picked for whatever reason.
This is the best way, for sure. And there are a lot of really great selfhosted projects for doing so!
I don’t. Lemmy seems to have the same issue as Reddit where people are towards the extremes with the only moderate people being those who don’t want to talk about politics in the first place.
I like to listen to CSPAN while at work, especially their morning show “The Washington Journal” where most of the content are regular Americans calling in to talk directly to guests or about issues they feel are important.
What specifically do you want lemmy mods to “stop?” What kind of lies are they spreading? What do you consider disinformation. Complaining that your world view isn’t being catered to is a lot less useful then pointing out specific things you find sus.
Good luck finding reliable news anywhere, this including the major TV and News organizations.
Lemmy and Reddit in general haven’t been good for reliable news for me. I’ve been using Artifact for the past few months to have a more personalized feed, but I much prefer picking my own RSS feeds.
The only thing that is lacking for me about RSS feeds is the ability to discuss content. If Lemmy can fill that void, I’ll gladly switch over.
I wouldn’t rely too much on lemmy for news and politics tbh, because posts can sway on way or another or even not get traction because most people don’t agree with it. Instead I think it’s better something like a RSS feed where you can pick your sources, or maybe just check a couple of less biased news outlets, so you can somehow have a more broad overview of what’s going from different perspectives.
