Keeping an eye on the opposition

[Alpine]

So I thought I would take a moment and list some of the leftist media sources I monitor most days. I don't read these for pleasure (though occasionally I get schadenfreude), mostly I read these to "keep an eye" on what the opposition is doing and the narratives and agendas they are pushing.

Electoral-vote.com
The easiest and most concise place to check first is electoral-vote.Com
It used to be a polling and election monitoring site but has essentially turned into a foaming at the mouth Trump derangement blog. However it is convenient because the ex-pat moonbeam who runs it lists everything in nice bullet points and he also hyperlinks directly to the sources he references. In essence, he goes through the work of aggregating most news that libs think is important for me so I don't have to do much hunting.

Huffington Post
Huffpo is far off the deep end even by leftist standards but their giant block headlines make it easy to peruse the site quickly and see what is in their bonnet that day.

Nytimes
They aren't as rabid as Huffpo or EV however their site is still somewhat user friendly and they attempt to pass themselves off as moderate so keep that in mind when viewing them.

Wapost
The Washington Post is much more rabid than the New York Times and they have an annoying pop up that detects if you are running ad block software and tries to force you to disable it. The easiest way around it is to refresh the page and quickly hit the STOP button on your browser before it finishes loading. This way we can starve the site of ad revenue and still view it. Given that they have been caught using malware-laden ads there should be no qualms at all about doing this by anyone.

Msnbc
MSNBC.Com openly identifies itself as "progressive" which is actually nice. However that's where the niceties end. They are easily the most unbalanced and most unhinged media source and to make matters worse they have an awful website with few actual stories and mostly just video links, however perusing the headlines on the videos gives you the general idea.

For balancing I usually check
-daily caller
-Brietbart
-foxnews (however they are changing and maybe for the worse)

So yeah, believe it or not I start my day off by reading several lib media sites. It usually helps wake me up and it's a good idea to always keep your eye on the opposition.

[GeekWithGuns]

I've about given up on the MSM for news although I do *some* limited balancing. My news round up is:
- Fox
- Breitbart
- Washington Times
- Washington Examiner
- NRA-ILA for firearms news

When I want to balance I usually go to overseas news outlets like Deutsche-Welle (English) or sometimes BBC. Provides a different perspective not completely tainted by our poisonous domestic political atmosphere.

[Pablo]

Msnbc
MSNBC.Com openly identifies itself as "progressive" which is actually nice. However that's where the niceties end. They are easily the most unbalanced and most unhinged media source and to make matters worse they have an awful website with few actual stories and mostly just video links, however perusing the headlines on the videos gives you the general idea.

They are such a JOKE. I don't bother. Interestingly a neighbor from MS moved over to be an MSNBC editor. I now know for a fact they just make shit up.

One site to watch out for (well OK there are others) which tries to come across as a business/free market site: http://www.marketwatch.com

Plenty of joke articles.

[George]

www.drudgereport.com
www.thegatewaypundit.com
www.conservativereview.com
www.zerohedge.com
www.breitbart.com

[mcyclonegt]

All I read and listen to is NPR.

[PMB]

All I read and listen to is NPR.

I am stuck with that shower radio that I removed the tuning dial many years ago... They (NPR) irritate me with their blatant bias, but at least it is usually blatant and decently easy to filter.
NPR also runs neutral stories, so I still value the DATA from NPR much more than I do spin from anywhere. I am sick of spin.
I would guess that a full 50% of my raw data is intro'd to my processing center through WaGuns. I do not watch television nor listen to the radio except during showers.

I am kind of tired of feeling like a non-combatant between two highly biased camps shooting bazookas at each other.
I want data, not spin.

[Jonathan Brown]

Ok. It is just my opinion, but anyone who think Breitbart tells it straight, is kidding themselves. The only news org that comes close to being unbiased is NPR. Fox cowtows to Trump for ratings. It's cool to suck up to the president on live TV, know he is watching.

News just ain't what it used to be. News source choices require "picking a side" before watching, in most cases.

[PMB]

News just ain't what it used to be. News source choices require "picking a side" before watching, in most cases.

I was blissfully unaware of how bad the divide between the Ds and the Rs had become until joining WaGuns.

I am even more careful to parse a source that I agree with... I do not want smoke blown up my skirt, and it might be more likely for me to accept something that feels right.
It is called Confirmation Bias ( https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/conf ... n_bias.htm ) and every person has that weakness.

Was news better back in the old days, or were our citizens less polarized? We make the news and direct the content through our actions and inactions too.

[Jonathan Brown]

It is rare that news it reported. It is almost always "relayed" through a bias filter.

[Selador]

http://www.waguns.org/

[MadPick]

The only news org that comes close to being unbiased is NPR.

That's probably true. Unfortunately, as PMB said, I do think there's a clear bias even with NPR. You don't hear it every minute of every broadcast, like you do with some other media outlets, but it comes across loud and clear on a regular basis.

[Guntrader]

If you want to know how the rabid left thinks, check out the DU
https://www.democraticunderground.com/
Two minutes is about my max on there.

[mancat]

The only news org that comes close to being unbiased is NPR.

That's probably true. Unfortunately, as PMB said, I do think there's a clear bias even with NPR. You don't hear it every minute of every broadcast, like you do with some other media outlets, but it comes across loud and clear on a regular basis.

The bias is there on NPR but harder to detect. It shines through as clear as day on most 2A related stories, which would make the careful listener question the bias that may be applied to other stories and topics by NPR.

That being said NPR does cover a wide range of topics that some other networks would not even touch.

NPR News is also a completely different animal than many PRI shows that are aired by NPR which are often times extremely biased e.g. Tavis Smiley and Diane Rehm.

[Jonathan Brown]

What about Al Jazeera? The BBC?

[PMB]

The bias is there on NPR but harder to detect. It shines through as clear as day on most 2A related stories, which would make the careful listener question the bias that may be applied to other stories and topics by NPR.

That being said NPR does cover a wide range of topics that some other networks would not even touch.

NPR News is also a completely different animal than many PRI shows that are aired by NPR which are often times extremely biased e.g. Tavis Smiley and Diane Rehm.

I don't think it is difficult to see bias now, even if they try for subtlety. Once the blinders come off and you see it, the filter becomes a way of listening.
I think that once the blinders come off for one station that was previously trusted, all the rest become easier too. Spin detector activation.
I have heard some of those other shows when traveling- they don't have those two on OPB, the local station.