Too many people believe that we can balance excessive bias with excessive bias in another direction. In reality:
- bias cannot be eliminated, merely mitigated;
- the truth is not the average of all opinions;
- some sources are important even if their point of view is subjective.
Unfortunately, the whole internet seems to be engulfed in a nihilistic tribal war where everything is black or white. This kind of argument is a hammer you can use at any point when you don’t like an argument, because there is no objective source. Then, the conversation shifts to a discussion of the various point of views and all contact with reality is lost.
Why? The piece is written by "Katie Robertson", which according to her profile is "a reporter covering the media industry for The New York Times". That dosen't sound like new york times company management to me. She (and therefore the article) is at least more distanced away from this story than the union itself.
It’s not that black and white. Over the long term, shareholders are better off if the journal can maintain a reputation of impartiality, so it would be difficult to prove mismanagement in this case. It’s like when Apple cared more about customer satisfaction and doing the right thing than short-term ROI. Sure, shareholder could sue, but they would likely lose.
The idea that a company must only do what brings shareholder money immediately is a meme that is widely propagated by a certain class of people who stand to profit from it, but the law does not impose that behaviour.
The point is that you’re not going to learn about the world by averaging religious texts with flat Eartherism. Only once you have a foundation can you start measuring how each side is describing events.
Yes and it's a very good point but it's not relevant here is it? This isn't a case of one side being sane and the other crazy, or even both being crazy. It's two sides of a business dispute. Are you really going to draw your conclusion based on what just one side says?
> Yes and it's a very good point but it's not relevant here is it?
I was broadly agreeing with this in the parent post:
> Do you think bias is a one-dimensional tug of war that cancels each other out when combined?
I am not saying that we should not seek other sources, just that quoting the union on one side of the dispute is not better than a reporter paid by the journal on the other side. Even worse, because a journal has some incentives to keep a reputation for being truthful, while communications from a union are purely partisan. (That’s not some criticism and unions play an important role; journalism is just not it)
The point is, two wrong points of view do not magically average out to something right. Ideally someone reporting with some distance would be better.
Being unbiased yourself does mean listening to both sides. What an off request that you would want to hear only from one party and then only additionally neutral parties but not hear from the other side at all because of “bias”.
I also prefer the old fashioned notion that opinions from the writer of the piece are appropriate in stories labeled as opinion pieces and editorials, but not in news reporting.
