Xandax, I never claimed that
The Register and
The Inqurier are "unbiased". I merely meant that they are more likely to be
truthful in their reporting than media outlets which
make up "facts" out of thin air.
As for "biased" versus "unbiased" reporting, one of the biggest problems with the American mainstream media is the artificial importance they place on being "balanced". If a liberal says something, they feel compelled to present the "other side" even if it's a blatant lie just because "balance" is important. In the end, if two competing claims are reported with no guidance from the press about which claim is actually true, then people end up believing a lot of crap because no one ever told them it was crap. Our newspapers love to quote lies from anonymous sources without any accountability, and that makes them a perfect organ of deceitful propaganda. They deserve our full contempt.
I don't mind a little bit of "bias" if a valid point of view can help a reader determine what is true and what is false.
The Register and
The Inquirer both report what people say, but they always tell you whether you should take what those people said with a grain of salt. You NEVER see that in the American mainstream media. "Conservative pundits are claiming that the Democrats risk losing public support if they do exactly what 78% of the American public
wants them to do because, you know, they're Democrats, and Democrats supposedly are always unpopular even if they're not. That's what conservative pundits say. But as any sane, reasonable person can see, their claim is completely illogical and is merely wishful thinking in the face of what is to them an unpleasant reality." I'd rather read something like THAT.
A point of view can shape a story and provide a reference that helps people understand "what it all means". If a story doesn't have a point of view, then it can't make a point. I think that most people who actually read the news are intelligent enough to realize that not everything they read is true. And if an author's point of view is clearly on display, the reader is better able to judge for himself whether what he is reading is true. I don't mind reading alternative points of view. I can make up my own mind whether I think a source is credible. It's even better if the article itself provides enough information to make a good call. If an "unbiased" story leaves out essential information or provides false claims for the sake of "balance", then it isn't good journalism.
The truth of the matter is that the American mainstream media does in fact make assumptions that they incorporate into every one of their stories. That's because they want to maintain the same narrative they've been printing for the last decade. Democrats can't make up their minds. Scandals involving Democrats are always big news, but Republicans can do no wrong even when they get caught redhanded, because Democrats are immoral and Republicans are virtuous. Democrats are "unpopular" even when their approval ratings are 30-40% higher than the approval ratings of their Republican counterparts. The American people "love" George W. Bush even though he has the lowest approval rating of any President in 30 years. ANY variation from this beloved narrative compels mainstream journalists to reach out to any source that will tell them what they want to hear and confirm their twisted view of reality. And then they report it as if it were substantiated. That's exactly what is proved by
the example I linked to above.
The people at
The Register and
The Inquirer are certainly opinionated, and it's so obvious, you can treat their articles as "opinion pieces" if you want to. But they're still a great source for news. They even published a copy of Connie Meskimen's letter to an Arkansas newspaper in which she claimed that temperatures reached record highs in March because Daylight Savings Time gave us an extra hour of sunlight every day.
Most of the "risk" involved in believing what
The Register and
The Inquirer publish concerns future predictions, which are always a matter of speculation, anyway. No one can make a "true claim" about things that haven't come to pass. Any time you read a prediction someone makes, you ought to know there's a chance it might be wrong. If you don't, then it's obviously not safe for you to read the news.
Just think about the claims the American mainstream media were making back in May 2003 such as, "Bush has won the war, and everyone who said he couldn't do it have been proven wrong." These are the same people who are now saying, "We can't leave because there's more work to do in Iraq." It's as if they can't remember what they said before. If what they said before doesn't matter, then why should we listen to what they're saying NOW? I still remember the stupid arguments people were making back then, such as, "The fact that we haven't been able to find any WMDs is proof that we needed to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was so good at hiding them." Do you remember that crap? Time will prove that the arguments they are making now are JUST AS STUPID. I think I prefer the "biased" version of events.