Know Your Bias

In this time of unprecedented disinformation, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the news cycle. Previously trust-worthy institutions seem to be less reliable, and the word “fact” has lost its meaning.

I am a Xennial (tail end of Gen-X/Elder Millennial), and as such I have the natural Gen-X skepticism of the world. But at this point, my skepticism has turned into a reluctance to trust anyone or anything I see in the media. I expect I’m not alone in this.

Back when I worked as a librarian teaching information literacy courses, I had an assignment that revolved around Personal Information Management – freeing your information intake from the claws of the Algorithm(™). Here lately, I’ve been trying to get back into my own habit of “information trapping” as the ResearchBuzz’s Tara Calishain calls it. But I’m having trouble setting up my RSS feed because of my Gen-X lack of trust. I can’t decide what media outlets to subscribe to, because it feels like they are all pretty sh*t right now.

AllSides

The Good

Enter AllSides.com. I first discovered this site back when I was teaching, but had totally forgotten about it. Now, I’m using it to help select sites I want to subscribe to with RSS. AllSides is a public benefit corporation with the goal of “enabl[ing] a better informed and more empathetic populace” by “freeing people from filter bubbles so they can better understand the world – and each other.” They are very up front about where their money comes from. In addition, they are up front about their ownership, the biases of their owners, and exactly how they rate the bias of news outlets.

AllSides has rated the bias not only of 2,400 news media outlets, but also of influencers on X, of fact-check websites, and of news aggregators. Not surprisingly, their own website is ranked dead center of the news aggregators. It’s easy to say that this is a red flag (hello, skepticism!), but given how open they are about their process, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

The site also provides some interesting tools and resources. They offer 17 tools aimed at different audiences (individuals, media, civic groups & government officials, and businesses & organizations). These include both passive and active tools. For example, as an individual, I can search the site or the web for articles that have been rated for bias, or I can join in a hosted conversation or roundtable discussion. A business or organization can use the Bias Checker API to check their own publications for bias, or can provide a custom bias-free current awareness feed for their employees.

The Bad

The site does have its problems, though. For one, have begun using AI. They are transparent about how they use it (see this page, under the heading AI Journalism); but, as an AI skeptic I worry that the bias inherent in AI will start to undermine the whole project.

I also have concerns about the Red Blue Translator. This glossary of terms is a really interesting idea, poorly executed. It is meant to explain terminology used differently on different sides of the political spectrum in a way that each side will understand. Basically, it attempts to make sure we are all using the same vocabulary. But it is flawed. Take, for example, the term Invisible Hand. The first sentence reads like this (I’ve removed the definition in parentheses to make the grammatical issue clear):

“This free market theory of 18th century economist Adam Smith (...) continues to be seen with striking divergence.”

Huh? Then it goes on to say this:

“A more sophisticated approach acknowledges that the market fails systematically, but also that government fails systematically.  Thus the extent to which the market self corrects should not be judged relative to an abstract ideal.  This is a straw man…”

Is it a more sophisticated approach, or is it a straw man argument? It surely can’t be both. All the definitions I read had problems, though not all quite this glaringly obvious. It feels like they are trying a little too hard not to offend anyone with their definitions, and in the process fail to clearly explain anything at all.

Finally, while they do acknowledge the Overton Window, they don’t address how it affects their work. When they say something is “center,” is that a center that is shifted to the right with the Overton Window? Or is it truly center?

The Upshot

Ultimately, I think AllSides is doing an excellent job at something no one else is doing. They admit that they are not perfect, and they are fully transparent about their ownership, funding, and methodology. And the site is full of fun educational tidbits. I’m using their media bias chart to inform my news RSS feed. I may even follow their advice and get my news from left, right, and center sources instead of just center. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe I’ll post about this again once I’ve been using the system for a while.

Until then, stay skeptical, stay informed, and stay safe!