this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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In this case I think they're not wrong. Israel does fucked up things wrt arrests and Palestinians.
Exhibit A: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/ahed-tamimi-latest-palestinian-girl-14-years-prison-kicking-spitting-israeli-soldiers-protest-family-a8149411.html
I did not want to say they are wrong, just give an objective estimate about bias and origin of Al Jazeera.
Objective to whom? How is it objective? Can you explain me their methodology or are you just putting in your blind faith?
I'd never seen the page before. The few sources I checked seemed to match up with my expectation (except one or two I would have seen as more left were marked centre left). They have a page that explains how they calculate left vs right. That page seems to concentrate on American issues a lot more than international, which is a problem considering they are rating international sources too and might explain why I (not coming from the US) saw some sources as differently positioned.
I could not immediately see their method for ranking factuality. They have notes on each source with information on why they chose the score they did, though.
All in all, it doesn't seem to me like they're trying to push a certain message with their ratings. I saw plenty of left and right based media sources with mixed factuality scores.
They claim on their website that they don't do most of their own fact checking:
"Media Bias/Fact Check rarely conducts original fact checks as many other sources are faster and do a better job. We primarily rely on fact-checkers affiliated with the International Fact-Checking Network ( IFCN)."
According to Media Bias/Fact Check's Wikipedia page, writers at the Poynter Institute, developer of the IFCN, have made the following statement: "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."
It is interesting that one of Media Bias/Fact Check's criteria is biased wording and then they made the following assessment about Times of Israel: "The Times of Israel covers Israeli and regional news with minimally loaded language..." Meanwhile, the caption for the top headline on the Times of Israel at this time is: "PM’s office says families of those slated to be freed have been notified * G7 foreign ministers urge further extension of ceasefire between Israel and Gaza-ruling terror group" Terror group does not sound like minimally loaded language. Now if the people who created the criteria to measure biased language are not concious of the fact that terror or terrorist in place of militant or rebel is biased language, then that will skew results through algorithmic bias.
You really gotta learn what the word bias means.