Topic: Accuracy in Media
An anonymously written Sept. 14 Accuracy in Media article complains about the latest Ad Fontes media bias chart:
Despite claims by Ad Fontes Media that its analysts are some of the chart’s findings are dubious at best. For instance, it lists Reuters as a centrist, fact-reporting outlet. However, just this past summer, Reuters displayed a blatant double-standard about what types of protests were at risk of spreading Covid-19. Reuters claimed that Black Lives Matter protests would not lead to spikes in Covid-19 cases but that protests in favor of Cuban liberation risked exacerbating the Covid-19 spike. How is an outlet that acts as a lobbyist for the socialist dictatorship of Cuba a “centrist, fact-reporting” source?
In addition to Reuters, other outlets such as NowThis, Teen Vogue, and Vice are categorized as only “skews left” and are a mix of fact reporting and analysis when in reality, these outlets put out extremist content frequently. Just recently, NowThis put out climate propaganda on behalf of the Biden administration. Vice insisted that Marines were actually neo-nazis while also advocating for controversial vaccine passports and downplaying valid arguments against them.
Well, vaccine passports are a health issue, not a political issue. Similarly, climate change is also not a political issues much as AIM has been indoctrinated by its fellow right-wingers to portray it as one. And Ad Fontes likely didn't rush to a snap judgment on Reuters' alleged bias based on three cherry-picked articles out of the thousands it publishes each year, like AIM did. Indeed, as the anonymous AIM writer goes on to quote from the group's website, “Ad Fontes Media has a team of over 40 paid analysts who rate individual articles, episodes, and shows of news sources. They are politically balanced left, right, and center, and come from a range of personal and professional backgrounds.”
AIM wasn't done complaining:
When it comes to right-wing media sources, the chart plays fast and loose in terms of who they list as “extreme.” According to Ad Fontes Media, conservative outlets and personalities such as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Ben Shapiro and Fox News as a whole are all borderline propaganda sources that are nearly on par with Alex Jones of InfoWars.
Unlike with the outlets it complained weren't placed left enough, AIM offered no evidence to support its claims that Carlson, Hannity, et al, aren't "borderline propaganda."
Based on these faulty complaints, the anonymous AIM writer concluded by whining:
The trouble with this is that the Media Bias Chart is taught in classrooms across the country. In fact, its website has an entire section dedicated to resources teachers can use for their curriculum.
[...]
How can a company that has so failed at identifying its own bias teach America’s youth about how to identify it themselves?
How can an organization like AIM credibly analyze "media bias" when it has trouble admitting there's any in right-wing media?
