see.pessism.com Revised

 I stopped doing my news comparison/analysis at https://see.pessimism.com. If I were to do it over, I'd definitely use the new LLM AI techniques. However, over the years in which my site chugged along, other sites have started doing similar work and have done a much more thorough job than I. The main page now just directs visitors to these better sites.

My goal with the project had been to demonstrate that some sites are more or less biased and, presumably, more trustworthy that others. In some sense, I succeeded (in an admittedly not incredibly scientific way, mostly just by paying attention). Where I failed, I think, is coming up with an absolute answer. 

The best I could do was note that the more mainstream sites are held to a higher standard because everyone is watching them. If the NY Times gets something wrong, conservatives demand, and sometimes get, corrections or even retractions. The sites that cater specifically to a specific demographic aren't held to similar standards of accuracy.

On a similar note, I find it amusing--OK, incredibly frustrating--that people claim not to trust mainstream news such as the NY Times but whenever the Times reports something that conservatives agree with, they are quick to quote the Times as a reliable authority, thus completely contradicting all their negative claims about trust.

The mainstream news outlets show their bias through omission, placement, and framing more than outright lying:

Omission: Simply not reporting something. It is sometimes hard to tell whether the omission is because it simply doesn't seem relevant, at least from that organization's point of view, or if they are actually sweeping something under the rug.

Placement: A lot of articles are actually fairly balanced if you read them to the end. But many of them start with the point that suits the authors or editors and only add the other side's point of view much later, after many people have probably stopped reading, feeling that their world view is once again confirmed.

Framing: This is when you use a headline or accompanying picture to guide the reader into thinking a certain way. Fox does this more obnoxiously than most with so many examples that I wouldn't know where to start. I remember during the Oliver North trials, the Washington Post seemed to take joy in capturing Oliver North in those in-between moments, when one's eyes are closed, or the mouth is askew.  As far as I know, the only pictures of North published in the Post showed him looking like an idiot. So everyone does it to varying degrees.