this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Looking at the two big news publishers in my country. One isn't reporting about the current bombings at all, while the other one is phrasing their words mostly anti-Palestinian.

Is there some neutral coverage I can keep up to? Where do you guys get your info from?

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[–] [email protected] 137 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You can't, it isn't a neutral situation

[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The funny thing is how people on both sides could read your comment and agree with it, but for opposite reasons.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (5 children)

How is it funny? This is true of every war that has ever happened. There is no such thing as unbiased reporting of real time events. Its just the truth.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's funny, like when you look in the mirror funny.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

u calling me funnylookin ?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I think it is fair to say that every political entity involved has regularly walked away from peace talks. That every political power involved is regularly choosing violence over peace.

Short of glassing the whole region, the violence is only going to continue.

[–] [email protected] 103 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Honestly don’t think you can find any neutral news about it. I recommend use multiple news places to get the overall view (that’s what I do).

I feel like every news-publisher is leaning to one or the other.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

https://ground.news/interest/israeli-palestinian-conflict

This site collects news from multiple sources, tells you their political affiliation, shows the difference in summary based on left / center / right news sources, and optionally shows a lot more like ownership network etc if you pay for it.

Nothing will be neutral, but I like it to get an overview.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Stick with reputable news sites. Reuters is my gold standard. Along with AP News. They tend to be some of the least bias sources out there and do their due diligence when it comes to reporting.

It's worth noting that a lot of the news coverage may come across as pro-isreal and anti-palestinian but that's because a lot of the news is "Isreal claims this" and "An IDF statement that" the sources themselves are biased.

Also keep in mind that this is an active war. There will be a lot of wrong information as media reports the best information available, it's not the media having a bias, it's just the fog of war as things rapidly develop.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

but that’s because a lot of the news is “Isreal claims this” and “An IDF statement that” the sources themselves are biased

It's also important to keep in mind that when you read "Gaza health ministry claims", in reality it's the same as "Hamas' health ministry claims" since Hamas has been ruling that area since 2006 and tortured the Palestinian opposition ever since (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/05/gaza-palestinians-tortured-summarily-killed-by-hamas-forces-during-2014-conflict/ ). Same thing with claims by Al Jazeera since Qatar hosts Hamas' leadership and funds their lavish lifestyles there so it wouldn't be right for them to suggest in their own newspaper that they're hosting terrorists, thus their news will rarely be critical of Hamas.

What's the solution? There are a few choices you could make. You could cherrypick pro-Palestinian sources like Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye or Electronic Intifada and automatically dismiss whatever Israel says as disinformation and it could make you feel good about yourself as it's very easy to oversimplify the conflict as just one big high-tech state abusing poor people fighting back with stones. You could also do the same cherrypicking for a pro-Israel position. Or you could dismiss any pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel source and only listen to news sources that provide a "balanced" account of the events (Associated Press is indeed very good). Or, much better but will require more thinking on your part: you read all of them and you dismiss none of them.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Ugh. That link is horrible. I mean the descriptions behind it.

It looks like non-Hamas Palestinians have two enemies working against them.

Makes me wonder what exactly a Pro-Palestinian position is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (7 children)

A pro-Palestinian position is (for now) anti-Hamas and pro-Abbas, supports the removal from Hamas from power, supports Israeli action against Hamas, but decries the limitations of aid or the blockades from Egypt/Jordan/etc against even short-term refugees.

Palestine would currently be a country, for the first time in human history, if Hamas did not exist.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (7 children)

I'm aware of that, and some of the current claims are probably subject to change in the future. I just browsed through reuters, and they seem unbiased. While my local news refers to hamas as "radical islamic terror organisation Hamas", reuters just uses "hamas".

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Good journalists will never make their own opinion on the matter known outside the comment/opinion/analysis pages.

Not: Man eats a delicious red apple

Not: Man eats a red apple and says it's delicious.

But: Man says he ate a red apple and claims it is delicious.

Or in some cases: Footage appears to show many saying he ate a red apple and claiming it was delicious.

If the journalist didn't see it with their own eyes, they won't state that it's a fact.

It's annoying how intertwined opinion and journalism have become, but it isn't a journalist's job to do anything more than report on what they saw, read or heard.

Unfortunately journalism has been in decline for so long now, that many people don't know the difference between good and poor journalism. So when a good journalist simply reports on what someone said, they wrongly think the journalist is agreeing with them, instead of simply reporting on what they heard the person say.

Good journalism isn't someone shouting about how angry something makes them, even if you agree with them. Good journalism is the equivalent of a court stenographer or someone who subtitles movies for the deaf.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Right. It's all about media literacy. Once you start picking up on loaded language like "Radical Islamic terror organisation Hamas" it starts becoming pretty evident what the biases are. That's not to say the news they are reporting is false, just that it is going to take some extra work on your part to filter out all of the bullshit. Like you mentioned, the Common name of the government of Gaza is "Hamas" calling it anything else is an attempt to appeal to emotion to prime you to think about it a certain way. Like calling the Israeli government "zionists" it's ment to sway to to something, not give you news.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 11 months ago

Part of critical reading is collecting more sources, not less. You'll have to read differing opinions and make up your own mind

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago

That's the neat part - you don't.

The idea that there could be a truly neutral source is not really realistic, human minds do not work that way and there are many other reasons why it's even harder than that.

As long as you stay away from the blatant extremes, partisans, people with some other stake in the game, etc., all you can do is evaluate relative bias, and try to adjust for it. It is inevitable that your take isn't going to be unbiased, either, but this way you'll have had a decent shot at minimizing wrongness.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago

Nowhere. There is no such a thing as a neutral report. You need to be able to think for yourself and identify possible biases in an author

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago

There is nowhere you can get unbiased news. You have to analyze the bias and think critically about it if you want to really understand what's happening.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://ground.news/interest/israeli-palestinian-conflict

This site collects news from multiple sources, tells you their political affiliation, shows the difference in summary based on left / center / right news sources, and optionally shows a lot more like ownership network etc if you pay for it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Been using it for a few days now. Not a fan of the UI but seems quite reliable

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago

Just read both Al Jazeera and The Jerusalem Post and take the average.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

AP News is 'supposed' to give unbiased news....they're ok given how highly topical it is.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

The most neutral coverage I've seen was from The Intercept.

It has a fairly anti-establishment bias, but that includes both Hamas, the PA, and the IDF.

They basically give a crap about civilians, but not about any of the institutional interests causing them to suffer, and spread that evenly across the various players.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I think BBC is pretty neutral, considering each side is accusing them of being biased towards the other.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

BBC historically have shown bias based on what they do and don't report on, however what they do report on is generally a gold standard for neutrality

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Bad guys vs villains is never neutral. The winner writes the history and call themselves the justice. That’s how conflict works

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

I haven't found any, let me know if you do!

I just try to find all the information I can from all sources of all types, and then stress about my complete inability to be sure what is even true, considering how much of it is contradictory. The only thing I'm certain I learned is that neither side of this wants to tell the truth all the time, and new news will often change over the course of a week or so as people get caught in lies.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

So far nowhere. You have to read multiple takes and glean the truth within.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Reuters and AP are about the most neutral, reputable news sources youll find.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

If you find a reliable source, let us know

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (5 children)

I'll continue to recommend an app called Improve the News. It'll let you filter things, but more importantly, shows you the source of articles, and explains different angles at the end of articles. Really well done.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

There is no middle ground between their two conflicting narratives, so neutrality would be impossible unless you found a source that was criticizing every last individual who happened to be in the conflict. The closest you'd get is maybe a Bahai source, and I only say that as a tragically creative solution because Bahais don't believe in discussing politics while being forced to talk about this because their leadership has been caught in the crossfire of the attacks, having shared a promised land with the Jews and being headquartered there.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

All I can suggest is to read many sources. Keep a mental tally sheet. See which sources correct themselves when they are proven wrong. Note how often they present provably false information. Try to look up the original source material (some will misquote or distort to advance their agenda). Look for widespread corroboration from other sources. After a while you'll know how each spins their information, how well they vet their material, and their overall journalistic integrity. That will allow you to rank credibility.

Misinformation often has only one source, and that source will usually have a history of misinformation or extreme bias.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Just remember as you read news, these are inherently biased sources. Basically all of them are. Look at who they are citing to understand how bias might affect the information being relayed to you. For example, if Hamas or Gaza Authorities are saying something, it is probably coming from a pro Hamas perspective, if IDF or Israeli authorities are saying something, probably comes with some bias too. This is true of all news, all the time. The spin is real. Anyone claiming a lack of spin are probably the biggest spinners of bullshit. It sucks that to be well informed you have to be able to be literate not only in the language but also how to read journalism itself. But that's the reality.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Read a few sources from both sides. It definitely isn't a one sided situation.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Highly recommend using mediabiascheck.

But if you're looking for neutrality, social media ain't the place to be, especially not lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I found Israeli news (in english, still) to offer a much less propagandistic view of the situation than American news.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I think CBC has had very fair reporting on the subject.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

NPR/PBS is generally the way to go. Some bias can creep in, but they do their best.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Good question. It’s unfortunately difficult because it requires some knowledge of history and since there’s a cycle of back and forth violence (which most media only reports the latest episode and not what prompted it), it’s hard to follow the big picture.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

This is a topic that has centuries of history, dating back well before the existence of either Israel or Palestine as countries. You won't find a single source that can actually get into the thousands of nuances involved. Don't think there are only two sides, either. Read from everywhere, make up your own mind, but honestly you'll never fully understand it.

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