Looking at the two big news publishers in my country. One isn’t reporting about the current bombings at all, while the other one is phrasing their words mostly anti-Palestinian.
Is there some neutral coverage I can keep up to? Where do you guys get your info from?
You can’t, it isn’t a neutral situation
The funny thing is how people on both sides could read your comment and agree with it, but for opposite reasons.
How is it funny? This is true of every war that has ever happened. There is no such thing as unbiased reporting of real time events. Its just the truth.
It’s funny, like when you look in the mirror funny.
u calling me funnylookin ?
Monkeh
There is no such thing as unbiased reporting of ANY events. Real time or historical. All reporting is biased.
While technically true, this attitude is desperately self-defeating. It is possible to look for the truth, and to get more or less close to it. This principle is the founding ethic of journalism, for instance. A world in which nobody believes in truth is a world of mass manipulation, of nihilism, most likely of totalitarianism.
A world in which nobody believes in truth is a world of mass manipulation
“Communication” is a form of manipulation. Your comment - and mine - are attempts at conveying thoughts to foreign minds. The best word for “mass manipulation” is “society”.
It is possible to look for the truth,
I reject the idea that such a truth objectively exists anywhere but within the realm of mathematics. Everywhere else, it is subject to the philosophical ideologies of the seeker: it is fundamentally and intrinsically biased.
This principle is the founding ethic of journalism,
Journalism is a systematic communication of thoughts, and as such, it is itself a form of mass manipulation, no matter how benign the intentions of the journalist.
What a load of meaningless waffle. Sorry, but it has to be said.
I think it is fair to say that every political entity involved has regularly walked away from peace talks. That every political power involved is regularly choosing violence over peace.
Short of glassing the whole region, the violence is only going to continue.
Honestly don’t think you can find any neutral news about it. I recommend use multiple news places to get the overall view (that’s what I do).
I feel like every news-publisher is leaning to one or the other.
https://ground.news/interest/israeli-palestinian-conflict
This site collects news from multiple sources, tells you their political affiliation, shows the difference in summary based on left / center / right news sources, and optionally shows a lot more like ownership network etc if you pay for it.
Nothing will be neutral, but I like it to get an overview.
Stick with reputable news sites. Reuters is my gold standard. Along with AP News. They tend to be some of the least bias sources out there and do their due diligence when it comes to reporting.
It’s worth noting that a lot of the news coverage may come across as pro-isreal and anti-palestinian but that’s because a lot of the news is “Isreal claims this” and “An IDF statement that” the sources themselves are biased.
Also keep in mind that this is an active war. There will be a lot of wrong information as media reports the best information available, it’s not the media having a bias, it’s just the fog of war as things rapidly develop.
I’m aware of that, and some of the current claims are probably subject to change in the future. I just browsed through reuters, and they seem unbiased. While my local news refers to hamas as “radical islamic terror organisation Hamas”, reuters just uses “hamas”.
Good journalists will never make their own opinion on the matter known outside the comment/opinion/analysis pages.
Not: Man eats a delicious red apple
Not: Man eats a red apple and says it’s delicious.
But: Man says he ate a red apple and claims it is delicious.
Or in some cases: Footage appears to show many saying he ate a red apple and claiming it was delicious.
If the journalist didn’t see it with their own eyes, they won’t state that it’s a fact.
It’s annoying how intertwined opinion and journalism have become, but it isn’t a journalist’s job to do anything more than report on what they saw, read or heard.
Unfortunately journalism has been in decline for so long now, that many people don’t know the difference between good and poor journalism. So when a good journalist simply reports on what someone said, they wrongly think the journalist is agreeing with them, instead of simply reporting on what they heard the person say.
Good journalism isn’t someone shouting about how angry something makes them, even if you agree with them. Good journalism is the equivalent of a court stenographer or someone who subtitles movies for the deaf.
Why is man “claiming” the apple is delicious? Is he in the pocket of Big Apple, and it really isn’t delicious? Or is the report from Fox Apple and they’re trying to cast aspersions on the man and his “claims”?
The apples are turning the frigging hourses gay.
Edit: horses. I had a stroke.
This might be the best eli5 of good journalism.
Right. It’s all about media literacy. Once you start picking up on loaded language like “Radical Islamic terror organisation Hamas” it starts becoming pretty evident what the biases are. That’s not to say the news they are reporting is false, just that it is going to take some extra work on your part to filter out all of the bullshit. Like you mentioned, the Common name of the government of Gaza is “Hamas” calling it anything else is an attempt to appeal to emotion to prime you to think about it a certain way. Like calling the Israeli government “zionists” it’s ment to sway to to something, not give you news.
Hamas is the government in Gaza because they seized power and do not allow elections.
Calling them a radical terrorist organization is both accurate and removes the citizens of Gaza from responsibility for the actions of Hamas.
Regarding media literacy, the number one book I can recommend anyone wishing improve theirs is " The News" by Alain de Botton.
Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about.
Obviously, with the fact that the Palestinians have been opressed for decades, which led for organisations like the Hamas to arrise, there’s no good guys / bad guys in this situation.
radical islamic terror organisation Hamas
This is an accurate, unbiased description of Hamas. They are exactly that, the same way ISIL/ISIS is.
While this might be true, it’s all about the context. They make it seem like the Israelis are targeting the “bad guys” and should be allowed to do so. But they don’t mention the unrightful suffering and death of Palestinian civilians at all.
You now what I mean? If they call the Hamas a radical islamic terror organization (which I’m fine with), why don’t they also call the Israelis a radical zionist terror organization?
What I want to read is, if the Hamas fucked up, then let me know about it, also, if the Israelis fucked up, I want to know about that too.
radical zionist terror organization
Because they aren’t that.
There is no country on the planet that would not respond military to a thousand civilians being murdered via state-sponsored terrorism.
But haven’t they oppressed the Palestinians for the past decades. Didn’t they evidently commit crimes that fall under the umbrella of “terror”?
At some point, it’s unavoidable for organisations to arise, that don’t play by the rules anymore.
Didn’t they evidently commit crimes that fall under the umbrella of “terror”?
No. Words have actual meanings.
Part of critical reading is collecting more sources, not less. You’ll have to read differing opinions and make up your own mind
That’s the neat part - you don’t.
The idea that there could be a truly neutral source is not really realistic, human minds do not work that way and there are many other reasons why it’s even harder than that.
As long as you stay away from the blatant extremes, partisans, people with some other stake in the game, etc., all you can do is evaluate relative bias, and try to adjust for it. It is inevitable that your take isn’t going to be unbiased, either, but this way you’ll have had a decent shot at minimizing wrongness.
Nowhere. There is no such a thing as a neutral report. You need to be able to think for yourself and identify possible biases in an author
There is nowhere you can get unbiased news. You have to analyze the bias and think critically about it if you want to really understand what’s happening.
Just read both Al Jazeera and The Jerusalem Post and take the average.
https://ground.news/interest/israeli-palestinian-conflict
This site collects news from multiple sources, tells you their political affiliation, shows the difference in summary based on left / center / right news sources, and optionally shows a lot more like ownership network etc if you pay for it.
Been using it for a few days now. Not a fan of the UI but seems quite reliable
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BBC is often well regarded but not for this issue, they definitely have a pro Isreal spin to their coverage.
And yet they find themselves being accused of “blood libel” by the government of Israel.
I’m with OP, I don’t know where to find facts that I can be assured are being related without (conscious) bias.
I just wish people of either side and outside could stop being shitty to each other for five goddam minutes.
Are you genuinely interested?
In knowing what’s happening? Yes, definitely.
Modern conflict in Asia/Middle East, (…) is largely upheld by western activity
That’s a funny way to spell Iran
Iran is a big one, but Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, they’ve all suffered western destabilization efforts. They aren’t in the news as much, so most people don’t even know about it, but that’s exactly my point.
Do you in all seriousness consider the current conflict in Yemen a Western plot?
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Iran funds an insurgency, Saudi intervenes, and it’s all the fault of the West. I see.
Do you believe there are significant conflicts in the world that aren’t a result of Western plotting? How guilty do you consider the West of the civil war in Myanmar, for example?
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What you said was that modern conflicts are upheld by Western activity. I’m trying to illustrate that you will usually have to dismiss the proximate causes, and sometimes construe very stilted and tenuous explanations, to make that statement fit reality.
America is very powerful and has a presence over much of the world. In virtue of this power, their involvement, or lack of involvement, is always an important factor in conflicts. This does not mean that they cause those conflicts.
AP News is ‘supposed’ to give unbiased news…they’re ok given how highly topical it is.
The most neutral coverage I’ve seen was from The Intercept.
It has a fairly anti-establishment bias, but that includes both Hamas, the PA, and the IDF.
They basically give a crap about civilians, but not about any of the institutional interests causing them to suffer, and spread that evenly across the various players.
I think BBC is pretty neutral, considering each side is accusing them of being biased towards the other.
The BBC literally had to apologise a week ago for parroting Hamas propaganda about the missile hitting the hospital.
They then had the audacity to lecture people on how to avoid “misinformation”.
I haven’t found any, let me know if you do!
I just try to find all the information I can from all sources of all types, and then stress about my complete inability to be sure what is even true, considering how much of it is contradictory. The only thing I’m certain I learned is that neither side of this wants to tell the truth all the time, and new news will often change over the course of a week or so as people get caught in lies.
Bad guys vs villains is never neutral. The winner writes the history and call themselves the justice. That’s how conflict works
