23-03-2005 16:47									#31
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quote: Originally posted by Zulu Elephant ?

He's making a ridiculous fuss about nothing.

They published a joke in a lighthearted/humour column (column, not news coverage) in the TV guide section. The quote (out of context) was this:

quote: On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

With the following apology later:

quote: Screen Burn, The Guide Sunday October 24, 2004 The Guardian The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer. “Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind.”

Apparently (according to nye) joking about killing politicians isn't funny in America. *shrug* Pretty normal here.

	23-03-2005 17:07									#32
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The Gruniad is crap for news, but a goldmine for a certain type of opinion. In either case it also can serve as a low grade toilet paper so that it can be used to clean up after itself.

	23-03-2005 17:10									#33
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The news coverage is excellent, as good as anything we get in UK papers. Of course most international people don't seee that because it is also a goldmine for certain types of opinion that cause massive messageboard rows, and that tends to be all they read but there you go.

	23-03-2005 17:21									#34
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The crossword is teh W00t!!!!!!111!!!11!

I (buy and) read the Grauniad six days a week and so am not qualified to enter this debate in the slightest. The news reporting is so good, though, that I was prepared to ignore a lengthy period of what I suspected was an anti-Newcastle bias in the footie pages. But I still wish that the idiots on the letters page would stop writing in to tell us all about the first flowers in their garden/the first time they tasted Marmite/their (or their parents') Co-op numbers/the myriad uses for 35mm film pots.

	23-03-2005 18:44									#35
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin A good journal will try to remove as much bias as possible and only present objective facts.

Do you believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus too?

	23-03-2005 21:37									#36
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There are two types of bias a paper can exhibit, thought of course it can exhibit both at the same time.

1. How it analyzes stories- ie, what spin is given to the facts in order to fit the given facts into a pre-existing view.
2. How it reports stories- chosing which facts to put in based on a decision of what should be included or not.

Of course, a source can be biased in its reporting and then be biased about the facts it chose to give.

To me the second is far more dangerous than the first- a piece can be very biased, BUT if it gives me the facts, I am free to chuck their point of view and make my own decisions, as long as I have all the facts. I am not bound to accept anyone elses annalys. BUt if a source deprives me of all the facts, then I can;t make a well educated annalysis on the issue.

So, with the Guardia, I note a lot of the first bias, but less of the second. In a place like the Washignton Times or the NY Post I note not only number 1, but a disturbing amount of bias type 2.

	23-03-2005 21:45									#37
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quote: Originally posted by Zulu Elephant 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.

OK, well maybe that is what is coloring my view point because normally I read the guardian articles posted online and EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM seem to be written by complete raving nutjobs. It is possible that we're just getting nutjobs here at poly picking and choosing which articles to post so that we get a nonsatistical sampling.

	23-03-2005 21:48									#38
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither How many other papers have published a plea for political assassination?

That is one of the things that made me write off the Guardian. The calls to kill Bush, the assinine letter writing campaign to American voters which every main stream American media source derided, and the transparancy of the anti Israeli views (at least as posted here at poly) made me believe other peoples' claims that the Guardian was full of nutjobs. I guess I'll have to take a second look.

	23-03-2005 21:50									#39
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quote: Originally posted by molly bloom What's an objective fact ?

Objective fact: A dog was run over by a car today.

Biased report: Evil capitalist pig dog brutally murder man's best friend in feindish plot. Is Bush to blame?

Same event but one sticks to the facts while the other interjects a whole lot of opinion.

	23-03-2005 21:53									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin OK, well maybe that is what is coloring my view point because normally I read the guardian articles posted online and EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM seem to be written by complete raving nutjobs. It is possible that we're just getting nutjobs here at poly picking and choosing which articles to post so that we get a nonsatistical sampling.

The opinion stuff will really get on your nerves, there are plenty of people who get pieces posted by them that I think are raving left wing nut jobs.

There may be a slight left wing bias on news but it's amongst the best in the country newspaper wise.

	23-03-2005 21:53									#41
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In terms of impartiality, newspapers available in Toronto go as follows:

1. Globe and Mail (right-wing)
2. Toronto Star (left-wing)
3. Toronto Metro (left-wing)
4. 24 Hours (right-wing)
5. Toronto Sun (right-wing)
6. National Post (right-wing)

I read the Guardian online, and I find that it has the same excellently objective reporting of events as the Globe & Mail, except that its opinion pieces lean to the left rather than the right.

	23-03-2005 22:04									#42
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin That is one of the things that made me write off the Guardian. The calls to kill Bush, the assinine letter writing campaign to American voters which every main stream American media source derided, and the transparancy of the anti Israeli views (at least as posted here at poly) made me believe other peoples' claims that the Guardian was full of nutjobs. I guess I'll have to take a second look.

I thought that letter writing thing was ridiculous as well but the point of that piece really was to show how the fate of a massive country could ultimately hang on a few votes in a few key counties.

you're still mostly likely to see the extreme opinion pieces posted though, the non controversial stuff isn't worth posting.

	23-03-2005 23:04									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon It is a liberal left leaning paper that also prints stuff from the right. It's about as close as you will get in Britain to being impartial.

Nah, the Times is way closer. I'm possibly slightly left leaning, and I consider the Times to be a pretty straight up newspaper. What politics it does talk is equally derogitory to both sides, and it always seems pretty clear what's opinion and what's news.

quote: Originally posted by Whaleboy The Independent

Yes, it's unbiased, but then it's also crap.

	23-03-2005 23:07									#44
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quote: Yes, it's unbiased, but then it's also crap.

Your Joking? The Indi is biased as hell for the left and against New Labour/Tony Blair

	23-03-2005 23:09									#45
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The Independant may be against Blair, in some ways, but that's because it always is against whoever's in power. It tries to show off it's independence from the Government by criticising everything they do.

	23-03-2005 23:38									#46
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To put Oerdin's disgruntlement in context, let's look at the offender.

Charlie Brooker wrote- "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"

Over the past 3 years, Charlie Brooker has also done the following-

1- Suggested that respected chat show host Michael Aspel is so sycophantic that he might as well fellate his guests.

2- Claimed that Tony Blair has a severe medical impairment of the rectum and wrestles naked in front of a fireplace.

3- Requested that Jim Davidson be replaced by a rag on a stick, before fantasising at great length about sawing him open for fun.

4- Accused John Leslie of attacking his guests with a broom while attempting to conceal an erection.

...and that's just from a quick flick through his work. It's a bad-taste humour page in the entertainment section of the paper. To hold it up as symptomatic of poor journalism is the reason we were laughing at Oerdin.

Plus the fact he banged on about deceitfully mixing opinion and news when a piece he cited had "Comment" at the top in a big font, denoting it as an opinion piece. Yep- we laughed.

	23-03-2005 23:48									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Objective fact: A dog was run over by a car today.

From the dogs POV maybe. Maybe from the drivers POV the dog ran in front of someone's car.

	24-03-2005 00:01									#48
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quote: From the dogs POV maybe. Maybe from the drivers POV the dog ran in front of someone's car.

Exactly. Pure fact is useless without context

	24-03-2005 00:07									#49
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For instance...Lets say fat people commit more crimes (I dont think this is true, but go with me)

This would be a 'pure' fact, based on statistics, but could mean one of three things.

1. There is something inherent in fat people that make them commit more crimes

2. There is something inherent in criminals that make them more likely to be fat

3. Something independent of both variables. For instance, poor people are more likely to commit crimes and are also more likely to be fat.

	24-03-2005 00:36									#50
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I'm with you Oerdin... I don't put any stock into the Guardian because of their bias. It's interesting reading at times, but they have little or no credibility, and I would never use a Guardian article to support any of my points.

Having said that, though, they aren't as biased as FoxNews is. Foxnews is directly related to the Republican Party. AFAIK, the Guardian isn't directly linked to any political party. THey have their bias, but it's the bias of individuals who work at the paper, not the bias of a corrupt junta hell-bent on shaping public opinion in their favor.

	24-03-2005 00:42									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Sava I'm with you Oerdin... I don't put any stock into the Guardian because of their bias. It's interesting reading at times, but they have little or no credibility, and I would never use a Guardian article to support any of my points. Having said that, though, they aren't as biased as FoxNews is. Foxnews is directly related to the Republican Party. AFAIK, the Guardian isn't directly linked to any political party. THey have their bias, but it's the bias of individuals who work at the paper, not the bias of a corrupt junta hell-bent on shaping public opinion in their favor.

Examples of bias?

	24-03-2005 00:47									#52
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I can't be arsed to provide examples... it's just my perception based upon my experience with their work.

	24-03-2005 00:56									#53
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I may be stating the obvious, but any person who only gets (or champions) information from one paper or one news channel is in serious trouble. Its why I have about 10 different news sources on my favourites browser, and watch 5 different TV channels news.

If you vary your media diet it makes these discussions a bit pointless from my POV.

And Apolyton is more than a bit biased as a news source too, but I still like to hear/read the editorialised news that this place gives me.

	24-03-2005 03:10									#54
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quote: Originally posted by St Leo In terms of impartiality, newspapers available in Toronto go as follows: 1. Globe and Mail (right-wing) 2. Toronto Star (left-wing) 3. Toronto Metro (left-wing) 4. 24 Hours (right-wing) 5. Toronto Sun (right-wing) 6. National Post (right-wing) I read the Guardian online, and I find that it has the same excellently objective reporting of events as the Globe & Mail, except that its opinion pieces lean to the left rather than the right.

I agree with the ordering based on impartiality, but the Globe used to be far to the right of where it is now. The Post was the best thing that ever happened to the Globe, since it forced the latter towards the centre and made it an actually readable paper.

The National Post can only be described as far right, as can the Sun. The Globe is centre right and the left wing papers are centre left. About the most lefty columnist in the Star is Linda McQuaig and she's just an old fashioned liberal really.

	24-03-2005 03:16									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Zulu Elephant Examples of bias?

Guardian bias? Ask the residents of Clarke County Ohio.

	24-03-2005 14:42									#56
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This isn't labelled as comment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1394150,00.html

quote: America's mom Today Laura Bush starts her second term as first lady with astonishingly high popularity ratings among both Republicans and Democrats. What does this say about the US, asks Sharon Krum ...she has (courtesy of her spin-meisters in the White House) framed her husband's disastrous invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq...

A NATO sanctioned operation to remove a renegade regime in Kabul was disastrous?

Do tell.

	24-03-2005 14:52									#57
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If you go back to the web page. It has a "G2" logo next to the peice. "G2" is an article/editorial pull out section that comes with the paper

	24-03-2005 14:55									#58
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Oh. Other articles I've seen say 'comment'.

That article, most of which is quite good, btw, looks a lot like a backgrounder. A backgrounder is facts presented for the reader to gain a greater understanding of a topic.

It sure doesn't read like an editorial, either.

Is that mixing news/facts and opinions?

	24-03-2005 14:56									#59
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In fact the link is a sub page (is that the right term) that comes off the main G2 Page of the website (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2)

Yes, if you link direct to the piece, it doesnt say editorial. BUT if you reached the said piece through the main g2 page (address above) the story would have appeared under a the title "Columns" or something.

Check out the address above and you'll see what i mean

	24-03-2005 15:02									#60
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So what?

The best parts that ever graced the Sun papers for many moons were pieces by Eric Margolis that were background.

His was a column, that would fill a full page with facts and background on governments and politics around the globe.

It was better than the news for meaningful information, since he gave the facts and explained what they meant (from his perspective, and he was pretty sharp).

How is this a lot different from some yahoo on Fox screaming an editorial during the news?