> This leads the platform to publish dodgy stories from the right, with the appearance that they are just as valid as high-fact reporting from the left or the center.
Sadly, this is downstream of mainstream news itself. I think if Ground News attempted to truly solve this problem, the right would condemn Ground News as "fake news" or controlled by Soros like they do Wikipedia.
I'm looking to be skeptical of Ground News, because almost all YouTube sponsors are scams, and we remember Honey was recently exposed as a scam, but this isn't enough to convince me.
Summary: Ground.news puts far too much faith in the legitimacy of many right-wing headlines; giving them front-page views as "blindspots". Meaning: Even though the story itself is complete BS/non-factual, the algorithm shows it as a legitimate thing that isn't being covered by left-leaning or centrist news.
To fix this, Ground.news should update their algorithm to perform much more scrutiny for headlines trending on right-leaning sites. Especially considering that nearly all their right-leaning sources have very low or basically non-existent factuality ratings.
...or just remove (entirely) any "news" source that doesn't have a high factuality rating. That would be the most logical choice but I do sympathize with the fact that would remove nearly all right-leaning "news" sites.
If I were in charge I'd reorient the leanings so that sources like NPR would not show up as "left-leaning" but as centrist (i.e. a more European alignment which is more historically accurate/real, IMHO). Which is where they actually sit (in reality). Sites like Breitbart would be discarded entirely as failing tests of factuality.
I see where the author is coming from. The author's main gripe is that non-factual right-wing stories are being presented as left-wing blindspots. The author would seemingly prefer that those stories be flagged as being untrustworthy due to low factuality scores among its sources. Understandable but I think it defeats the purpose of Ground News.
I think the idea is that if you are seeking the truth, and Ground News shows you a story that's being covered exclusively by right or left wing sources, that's their signal that the story could be either a) bullshit, or b) something one side is conveniently ignoring because it runs counter to their agenda. Ultimately it's up to you to you to decide. But, this way, if you hear this story being talked about elsewhere, you've now encountered it and know that it's being almost exclusively covered by one side.
Most of the examples this article cites are ones that exclude any coverage from left-leaning sources—and these are often highly biased articles, frequently lacking in merit. Even with tools like Ground News, media literacy is still essential; you can’t just throw it out the window. From my perspective, it offers a much broader view than simply sticking to one or two news outlets—especially ones you'd normally avoid at all costs (which, to me, is the whole point of the Blindspot feature). While it does provide some historical data, media ownership information, and other insights depending on your subscription level, ultimately it's up to the reader to decide whether the coverage is legitimate.
Left leaning author is of the opinion that left-leaning stories tend to have far better sourcing than right-leaning ones, and are less politically polarized. News at 11.
Am I missing something? Seems the problem is with dodgy, poorly sourced journalism, not Ground News who seem to be doing what they can.
I think there is a false sense of everything being left v right. Perhaps there could be a few more spectrums on there e.g environmental, fiscal, social?
>The data collected here shows that left-leaning stories tend to have far better sourcing than right-leaning ones
In the same breath, he quotes an article about it dousing Newfoundland in microplastics; a broad sweeping conclusion from a laughably flawed study method for the given results. And to be fair, this isn't a diss on the student's effort: scientific study is the holy grail. However, that headline and what was actually done represent two incredibly different things.
So in actuality, perhaps he's just calling his own biases out: The Left leaning articles published in Ground News often attempt to invent consensus by quoting one-off studies. Perhaps his own desire "to be right" or social pressure "to be on the forefront of knowledge" fans the thirst for early conclusions.
Similarly, the author's "Truth" sections are rather glib and misleading. Each one could be its own article and analysis, i.e., a proper fact-check, but he seems to have rushed to the conclusions.
That first stacked bar chart appears to have "left" and "right" mixed up, if the analysis just below it is correct. Not confidence-inspiring, and hasn't been corrected in 18 months since the post was published...
I think the only way to approach this is to have a panel of credible people for each beat (maybe from academia) who can qualitatively asses a range of articles and curate a spectrum of articles.
However this is all scooting around the fundamental problem that we are all individually responsible for critical thinking - ideally developed through primary and secondary education.
Track major new sites over time and build a portal that lets you see the front page news with some time delay (1 month, 3 month, 1 year) and annotate each story with “what happened since then?”
Too often big stories get ignored and forgotten. Or baseless fearmongering and speculation never confronts the fact it didn’t come true. I think we’d all benefit from this ability to step back from the rapid news cycle and see a bigger picture.
Tried but can't say I particularly liked it. The axis they're splitting things on is very US centric Democrat vs Rep...which just isn't all that useful to me.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 31.5 ms ] threadSadly, this is downstream of mainstream news itself. I think if Ground News attempted to truly solve this problem, the right would condemn Ground News as "fake news" or controlled by Soros like they do Wikipedia.
I'm looking to be skeptical of Ground News, because almost all YouTube sponsors are scams, and we remember Honey was recently exposed as a scam, but this isn't enough to convince me.
To fix this, Ground.news should update their algorithm to perform much more scrutiny for headlines trending on right-leaning sites. Especially considering that nearly all their right-leaning sources have very low or basically non-existent factuality ratings.
...or just remove (entirely) any "news" source that doesn't have a high factuality rating. That would be the most logical choice but I do sympathize with the fact that would remove nearly all right-leaning "news" sites.
If I were in charge I'd reorient the leanings so that sources like NPR would not show up as "left-leaning" but as centrist (i.e. a more European alignment which is more historically accurate/real, IMHO). Which is where they actually sit (in reality). Sites like Breitbart would be discarded entirely as failing tests of factuality.
I think the idea is that if you are seeking the truth, and Ground News shows you a story that's being covered exclusively by right or left wing sources, that's their signal that the story could be either a) bullshit, or b) something one side is conveniently ignoring because it runs counter to their agenda. Ultimately it's up to you to you to decide. But, this way, if you hear this story being talked about elsewhere, you've now encountered it and know that it's being almost exclusively covered by one side.
I think there is a false sense of everything being left v right. Perhaps there could be a few more spectrums on there e.g environmental, fiscal, social?
In the same breath, he quotes an article about it dousing Newfoundland in microplastics; a broad sweeping conclusion from a laughably flawed study method for the given results. And to be fair, this isn't a diss on the student's effort: scientific study is the holy grail. However, that headline and what was actually done represent two incredibly different things.
So in actuality, perhaps he's just calling his own biases out: The Left leaning articles published in Ground News often attempt to invent consensus by quoting one-off studies. Perhaps his own desire "to be right" or social pressure "to be on the forefront of knowledge" fans the thirst for early conclusions.
However this is all scooting around the fundamental problem that we are all individually responsible for critical thinking - ideally developed through primary and secondary education.
Track major new sites over time and build a portal that lets you see the front page news with some time delay (1 month, 3 month, 1 year) and annotate each story with “what happened since then?”
Too often big stories get ignored and forgotten. Or baseless fearmongering and speculation never confronts the fact it didn’t come true. I think we’d all benefit from this ability to step back from the rapid news cycle and see a bigger picture.