• lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    Offtopic: Before the war started, I used to think that western media1 (read AFP, AP, Reuters, and BBC) were least biased sources, unlike the corrupt media of my country.

    But now I’ve become suspicious whenever a news regarding world affairs is published by them.


    1: I don’t consider other sources like the sun, CNBC, etc. since they don’t enjoy as much positive reviews, and aren’t as big outlets as the once mentioned above.

    • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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      11 months ago

      The first 3 are wire services. They do have staff reporters, but most of their content is generated by other news organizations that are subscribers to them. I wish more people understood how wire services work. It’s part of being media literate.

      Basically if I’m a subscriber to AP (true of Reuters and AFP as well) I can publish their content and edit it however I want, and I can contribute my own content (put it on the wire) as long as I use their in-house style-guides which for AP is the industry standard in the US anyway.

      All of which is just to say that a wire service story may or may not have been reported by someone who actually works for that wire service. Usually, at least with AP and Reuters, it will say in the biline.

      • lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        I understood that they give access to their articles to other news services, but didn’t know that they themselves source it from other news servicesk if this is what you mean?). I used to think they were the primary producers.

        most of the stories I read say AFP or AP either in the beginning or the end, so does that mean they published them? or just that they got it from them?

      • lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        not this article(hence the “offtopic” disclaimer), but an amalgamation of news reports published by these outlets since the beginning of this month. I’ve come to the conclusion that they have certain bias towards Israel.

    • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      This is a really salient point.

      I get a lot of news from Australian Broadcasting Corp. Generally considered to be reasonably balanced.

      Just as a “random” example, this is the most recent article on the gaza conflict:

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-29/israel-says-war-with-hamas-enters-next-phase-in-gaza/103035732

      It’s factual as in “this person said this, someone said that”, but there’s no mention very much of what Gaza’s political leadership (yes, Hamas) has to say. By contrast, in the Ukraine conflict it was all about what Ukraine had to say but there were at least interjections of Russia’s public statements.

      That said, they’re not really pulling their punches, comparing death tolls et cetera.