Latest media bias chart V3.0

[pmv]

The Daily Mail doesn't just 'skew right', in some particular ways it can be far right. It infamously said approving things about "Mr Hitler", back in the 1930s. But it has it's own particular culture and set of specific prejudices, it caters to a distinct demographic - the fearful and resentful lower-middle-class (fearful of those below them, resentful of those above). The interests of that class can vary depending on the current situation and the precise topic. As with all of them, the paper exists to cater to the interests of its particular audience, not to fit into a slot on some supposed left-right spectrum.

 

[shortylickens]

The Daily Mail doesn't just 'skew right', in some particular ways it can be far right. It infamously said approving things about "Mr Hitler", back in the 1930s. But it has it's own particular culture and set of specific prejudices, it caters to a distinct demographic - the fearful and resentful lower-middle-class (fearful of those below them, resentful of those above). The interests of that class can vary depending on the current situation and the precise topic. As with all of them, the paper exists to cater to the interests of its particular audience, not to fit into a slot on some supposed left-right spectrum.

Umm, Time named Hitler man of the year back in 1938.
Do you think its a right-wing magazine?
No.
Nobody knew what he was really all about back then. He was getting Germany back on track. It made sense to analyze him.

 

[Amused]

Natural News is hard right, not left.

Mike Adams is a hard core Trumper and right-wing conspiracy potato.

 

[pmv]

Umm, Time named Hitler man of the year back in 1938.
Do you think its a right-wing magazine?
No.
Nobody knew what he was really all about back then. He was getting Germany back on track. It made sense to analyze him.

Well that's up to Time to answer for (I'd put Time, along with Newsweek, in the category of 'bland follow-the-pack' media, that seems to be common in the US - certainly it embodies one kind of conservativism, it's not in any way 'left wing', that's for sure). Though I suppose their argument would be that 'man of the year' isn't a vote of approval. The Daily Mail, in contrast, was quite enthusiastic about Hitler - there's a famous photo of Lord Rothermere hanging out with the Furher. And of course the Mail is aimed at pretty much the same social group who voted for Hitler back then.

Are you really trying to defend 1930s support for Nazism?

 

[pete6032]

Latest media bias chart, Copyright 2017.

 

[ewdotson]

Umm, Time named Hitler man of the year back in 1938.
Do you think its a right-wing magazine?
No.
Nobody knew what he was really all about back then. He was getting Germany back on track. It made sense to analyze him.

Being named Time's Man of the Year doesn't imply an endorsement by the magazine - just that Time felt they had the greatest impact on the world. Said article described Hitler as the "greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today. "

ETA: here's the actual article. It is not a puff piece.

Adolf Hitler: Man of the Year, 1938

Greatest single news event of 1938 took place on September 29, when four statesmen met at the Führerhaus, in Munich, to redraw the map of Europe. The three visiting statesmen at that historic...

content.time.com

 

[Bitek]

Are they just filling in the wacko far left sources to try and balance the chart out?

Everyone has heard of infowars.

Us Uncut?
Pratr...Antibiotics.. Whatever...

WTF.. sounds like some bullshit nut-job-with-a-blog type crap.

I'm sure you can find some loonies, but this seems a bit desperate.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Even Wonkette proves that facts have a liberal bias-

Joni Ernst Castrates COVID Science While Iowa Burns

She's a natural born campaigner!

www.wonkette.com

 

[zinfamous]

Well that's up to Time to answer for (I'd put Time, along with Newsweek, in the category of 'bland follow-the-pack' media, that seems to be common in the US - certainly it embodies one kind of conservativism, it's not in any way 'left wing', that's for sure). Though I suppose their argument would be that 'man of the year' isn't a vote of approval. The Daily Mail, in contrast, was quite enthusiastic about Hitler - there's a famous photo of Lord Rothermere hanging out with the Furher. And of course the Mail is aimed at pretty much the same social group who voted for Hitler back then.

Are you really trying to defend 1930s support for Nazism?

No, he's not endorsing what was somewhat popular support for Nazism back in the 30s, just pointing out the perspective. ...Time's naming him man of the year also doesn't mean an endorsement. They named Trump Man of the Year. They fucking HATE Trump.

But Shorty is also incorrect in saying that no one knew what the Nazis were at the time. A lot of people did, in all countries. However, Hitler did receive a lot of praise from various political parties in the world because of how quickly "he turned around Germany." ...if not for all of that "inconvenient rhetoric" that a lot of the US WASPs would "rather not hear"...I mean, they were anti-semitic for the most part, too, just like today they'd rather not the quiet part being said out loud...at least not as loud as Hitler said it.

 

[zinfamous]

Are they just filling in the wacko far left sources to try and balance the chart out?

Everyone has heard of infowars.

Us Uncut?
Pratr...Antibiotics.. Whatever...

WTF.. sounds like some bullshit nut-job-with-a-blog type crap.

I'm sure you can find some loonies, but this seems a bit desperate.

I know, right? I got the feeling that they convinced themselves that "fair and balanced" was actually a phrase with merit (it isn't and it never was), and decided that the left side needed some more wackadoos...otherwise the chart-makers feared a label of bias? ...some of those make no sense at all. It's just, beyond the pale. perhaps a mistake that wasn't edited, because I remember the earliest versions of this chart and I would have remembered them being misplaced, then.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Lol nothing more funny than morons here dismissing this chart under the guise of "I've heard of Infowars but I haven't heard of

Anyone who has left leaning friends and has ever been on social media has undoubtedly heard of plenty of these shithole lefty sites.

 

[zinfamous]

Lol nothing more funny than morons here dismissing this chart under the guise of "I've heard of Infowars but I haven't heard of

Anyone who has left leaning friends and has ever been on social media has undoubtedly heard of plenty of these shithole lefty sites.

Are you actually reading what people are saying or just mouthing off again without thinking? lol--I know the answer to that.

Here, please answer the primary question that pretty much everyone is asking: Do you think Natural News is a lefty sight?

Everyone here has also pointed out that it is very strange/probably inaccurate that they rank FNN as more batshit than OANN. It isn't just "lefties bitching about unfair lefty treatment"...but you don't read.



Also, let's recall the context of you saying that "anyone with lefty friends has pretty much heard of plenty of these loony things" while you also said that you have never heard of OANN or RT.

seriously, you said that....and still want us to think you are an informed person.

 

[pmv]

Lol nothing more funny than morons here dismissing this chart under the guise of "I've heard of Infowars but I haven't heard of

Anyone who has left leaning friends and has ever been on social media has undoubtedly heard of plenty of these shithole lefty sites.

The point that's been made is not that the 'left' sites are ones people haven't heard of, but rather that people have heard of them and know that they are in fact right-wing sites.

I mean Loise Mensch - far left???? Her voting record as a Tory MP is a matter of public record. You'd have to be out of your mind to classify her as any kind of 'left', even 'centre right' would be pushing it. 'Far left' is just crazy talk.

I only today heard that the founder of the John Birch society considered Eisenhower to be a secret communist sympathiser. Seems like that sort of perspective still holds.

 

[nickqt]

Lol nothing more funny than morons here dismissing this chart under the guise of "I've heard of Infowars but I haven't heard of

Anyone who has left leaning friends and has ever been on social media has undoubtedly heard of plenty of these shithole lefty sites.

Look, it's Nobody, yet again, screaming at a mirror.

Keep it up, Nobody. You're really telling it like it is!

 

[woolfe9998]

The Daily Mail doesn't just 'skew right', in some particular ways it can be far right. It infamously said approving things about "Mr Hitler", back in the 1930s. But it has it's own particular culture and set of specific prejudices, it caters to a distinct demographic - the fearful and resentful lower-middle-class (fearful of those below them, resentful of those above). The interests of that class can vary depending on the current situation and the precise topic. As with all of them, the paper exists to cater to the interests of its particular audience, not to fit into a slot on some supposed left-right spectrum.

IIRC, they've been big on climate change denial in the past. That would seem to serve more of a corporate interest than the particular demographic you describe.

 

[pmv]

IIRC, they've been big on climate change denial in the past. That would seem to serve more of a corporate interest than the particular demographic you describe.

Fair point. I'd have to do a bit more work to fit that into my theory.

I think that climate change denial does have a constituency beyond just those who actually own fossil fuel companies, though. It's not hard to persuade ordinary people - particularly a certain strand of the working class and lower-middle-class - who consider car ownership and use to be a marker of wealth and success, that that kind of 'freedom' is under threat from attempts to address climate-change. When those corporate interests have the money to push that agenda, they are partly pushing at an open (car) door.

But the Daily Mail pretty much led the campaign to impose a levy on plastic shopping bags, for example - because that kind of 'environmentalism' is something that appeals to their readership, who don't like seeing their pretty villages littered with discarded bags.

While I'm on the topic, in my opinion, the saving-grace of the Mail is that its readership, being what they are, tend to strongly dislike criminal thuggery or disorder. Which is why it often surprises by expressing sympathy for the victims of criminal violence - even when the victim is a member of a group the Mail usually dislike. The most famous instance by far being its stand in the Stephen Lawrence case, when it named the suspects, IIRC risking legal concequences for doing so. The Lawrences were as 'respectible' a victimised family as you could hope to find, I think they even had a personal connection to the then Daily Mail editor, the father having done building work for him, so the Mail naturally sided with them over the racist lumpenprole criminals.

I could also point at reports like one on an elderly Muslim guy who got assaulted in the street (in my neighbourhood) or another involving someone on disability benefits who was murdered by an angry white yob (who mistakenly thought he'd been rude to his girlfriend). Or others where the victim was an asylum-seeker or gay or Polish. I feel like that distaste for yobbery in all its forms is why it can never quite be a house-paper for the far-right.

I find the Express to be far worse. It doesn't even have the budget or journalistic competency that the Mail has (it carried the stupidest climate-change-denial article I have ever seen, for example - a list of 'reasons not to care about global warming', which were a mixture of untruths, complete irrelevances, and utter 'not even wrong' nonsense.)

(The Express is also aimed largely at angry pensioners without much formal education, a slightly different demographic from the younger and more female Mail readership, and that really shows in the content of each paper - the Express seems particualrly fascinated with any story that might scare old people to death, while the Mail is weridly obsessed with celebrity women's bodies, particularly any imperfections thereof)

I mean there's a history there, of how the Mail began, and how it was aimed at the rising class of newly-educated 'clerks', the 'respectable' working class.

Of course, as with the Nazis in their own time, the crunch can arrive when the Daily Mail demographic start to fear thuggery is on the rise anyway, and want a 'strong man' to protect them from it.

 

[Bitek]

Lol nothing more funny than morons here dismissing this chart under the guise of "I've heard of Infowars but I haven't heard of

Anyone who has left leaning friends and has ever been on social media has undoubtedly heard of plenty of these shithole lefty sites.

Guess I don't have too many lefty friends, and I'm not on that online fecal cesspool called Facebook.

Regardless, you have Alex Jones... and who's his equal in extremism AND influence on the Left?

Alex Jones interviewed Trump before the 2016 election, continued to praise him, and often repeats conspiracy theories started by Jones.

Where is Biden doing that?

 

[shortylickens]

Being named Time's Man of the Year doesn't imply an endorsement by the magazine - just that Time felt they had the greatest impact on the world. Said article described Hitler as the "greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today. "

ETA: here's the actual article. It is not a puff piece.

Adolf Hitler: Man of the Year, 1938

Greatest single news event of 1938 took place on September 29, when four statesmen met at the Führerhaus, in Munich, to redraw the map of Europe. The three visiting statesmen at that historic...

content.time.com

OK, I never said anything like that but by all means go ahead and argue points nobody brought up.
That seems to be the preferred method on Anandtech. And the rest of the internet.

 

[pmv]

OK, I never said anything like that but by all means go ahead and argue points nobody brought up.
That seems to be the preferred method on Anandtech. And the rest of the internet.

You raised Time Magazine's "man of the year" thing as somehow being a defense of the Daily Mail's positive comments about Hitler. If that wasn't implying the Man of The Year thing was a mark of approval, what was the point of bringing that up?

I mean, yes, parts of the right and the ruling class generally across the West were quite sympathetic to Hitler. It strikes me as a curious irony that the two individuals who did correctly see the threat he posed were so different, and both in a kind of exile from the centre of power in their respective countries at the time, and neither were listened to by those actually in office. Churchill and Trotsky. The former only being in 'political exile' the latter being literally exiled. They also both had blood on their own hands.

 

[ewdotson]

OK, I never said anything like that but by all means go ahead and argue points nobody brought up.
That seems to be the preferred method on Anandtech. And the rest of the internet.

Dude, you wrote "Nobody knew what he was really all about back then. He was getting Germany back on track." Go read the Time article and tell me that's it's an article about him "getting Germany back on track" or that it's somehow comparable to the Daily Mail's support for fascism.

ETA: Another quote from the article if you don't want to actually read it:

Germany's 700,000 Jews have been tortured physically, robbed of homes and properties, denied a chance to earn a living, chased off the streets. Now they are being held for "ransom," a gangster trick through the ages. But not only Jews have suffered. Out of Germany has come a steady, ever-swelling stream of refugees, Jews and Gentiles, liberals and conservatives, Catholics as well as Protestants, who could stand Naziism no longer. TIME'S cover, showing Organist Adolf Hitler playing his hymn of hate in a desecrated cathedral while victims dangle on a St. Catherine's wheel and the Nazi hierarchy looks on, was drawn by Baron Rudolph Charles von Ripper (see p. 20), a Catholic who found Germany intolerable. Meanwhile, Germany has become a nation of uniforms, goose-stepping to Hitler's tune, where boys of ten are taught to throw hand grenades, where women are regarded as breeding machines.

 

[woolfe9998]

Oh, and since we've covered "Natural News," David Wolfe happens to be a Trump supporter who thinks liberal pols are pedophiles and Trump is the only one who can stop them. So he's qanon.

While his website almost never mentions politics. It's just a cesspool of woo.

Yet another bad flub on that chart. I have no idea where they're coming from. Someone seems to think that anyone who advocates for "natural" foods and looks like a hippy must be far left.

 

[hal2kilo]

Oh, and since we've covered "Natural News," David Wolfe happens to be a Trump supporter who thinks liberal pols are pedophiles and Trump is the only one who can stop them. So he's qanon.

While his website almost never mentions politics. It's just a cesspool of woo.

Yet another bad flub on that chart. I have no idea where they're coming from. Someone seems to think that anyone who advocates for "natural" foods and looks like a hippy must be far left.

Long hair, and smoking dope, no longer has any partisan meaning either.

 

[fskimospy]

Oh, and since we've covered "Natural News," David Wolfe happens to be a Trump supporter who thinks liberal pols are pedophiles and Trump is the only one who can stop them. So he's qanon.

While his website almost never mentions politics. It's just a cesspool of woo.

Yet another bad flub on that chart. I have no idea where they're coming from. Someone seems to think that anyone who advocates for "natural" foods and looks like a hippy must be far left.

Their methodology is essentially they ask a few people of supposedly different political views how they would rate several stories on the site.

While hopefully they have a validated rubric and all it doesn’t exactly seem to be super empirically sound. The fact that they have so egregiously misclassified natural news seems to support this.

 

[woolfe9998]

Their methodology is essentially they ask a few people of supposedly different political views how they would rate several stories on the site.

While hopefully they have a validated rubric and all it doesn’t exactly seem to be super empirically sound. The fact that they have so egregiously misclassified natural news seems to support this.

As in, someone reads an article that is complaining about "pollution" and that means it must be super far left. Never mind the frothing at the mouth, qanon supporting, climate change denying stuff. That must have been in the other articles that their test subjects didn't read.

That's TWO egregious misclassifications I've found and I haven't even looked at most of what is on there. Something is seriously wrong with this methodology.

Edit: while the OP's chart is "version 3.0," subsequent versions (they are up to 6.0) don't contain Natural News or David Wolfe. I suspect they either dropped them from the chart after realizing they don't really qualify as news media, or because their test subjects were obviously misclassifying them.

https://www.adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Media-Bias-Chart-6.0_Licensed.pdf

 

[pmv]

Long hair, and smoking dope, no longer has any partisan meaning either.

I don't believe it ever did. Never trust a hippy.