I appreciate your well thought out reply. I understand that most educators frown upon Wikipedia for the very reason you put forth though with so many contributors on most of the pages, I feel we get a better, more rounded source of information. With fewer contributors you get a page that lacks vital information and the well rounded wealth that comes from differing perspectives.

The page for Media Bias/Fact check for instance, it is a mere 4 paragraphs and it looks to be written only by those that disapprove of MB/FC and/or their methodology. I do utilize other fact checkers but thus far, most appear to merely address specific claims and not the sources in general. While I do agree that just because a site isn't necessarily known for their accuracy it doesn't prevent any one article from actually being factual, the credibility of the source does still play a part in whether or not others may believe what we put forth from that source. I also am one that prefers to put my trust and faith into more reliable sources rather than dig through tons of trash just to find one nugget of t***h, call it laziness.

I tend to look for sources that I can count on for the t***h and that way I can feel fairly safe in the knowledge that most if not all that I read from those sources are the t***h. I will still of course fact check anything that seems a bit off even if it comes from a reliable source. My use of MB/FC to call out certain sites as unreliable is merely in the hopes that others will consider finding more reliable sources that suit their tastes, even if those tastes may lean towards the fringe, if there even are reliable fringe sites. I favor those much closer to center but then everyone is different, I am just hoping that people will favor the t***h to fiction.

The Columbia Journal piece reads as an opinion piece written by someone with a low opinion of fact checkers in general and MB/FC in particular. Yes, I went to the actual site of the article that portion of the Wikipedia page referenced. The specific portion of the opinion piece mentioning MB/FC.



That is the entirety of what she said of MB/FC. She did not go into any detail to describe MB/FC's methodology or what flaws she sees in their methodology. I suppose if one were to assume that was the entirety of his methodology, they may consider it deeply flawed, which is why one must look deeper. Perhaps she could have too. I would have expected better from such a well respected institution.

That portion goes on further but no further mention of MB/FC.

Source: https://www.cjr.org/innovations/measure-media-bias-partisan.php



This piece also seems a bit more of an opinion piece than an in-depth factual look into fact checkers in general and specifically MB/FC, though it does provide sources, one to MB/FC's home page, one linking to a newsweek article and one liunking to a twitter tweet by one of the article's authors showing his bias against MB/FC. While MB/FC's methodology isn't some sort of super sophisticated, incomprehensible algorithm, it does appear to be a decent way to judge a site based on it's content. It also seems to do a pretty decent job in categorizing web sites based on biases and legitimacy of facts/sources.

Source: https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2018/heres-what-to-expect-from-fact-checking-in-2019/

Did you notice that neither article pointed out any errors made or even where they found flaws in MB/FC's methodology. You would think that an expert giving their expert opinion/assessment would at least show where they find an unresolved issue, wouldn't you? They both offered an opinion of MB/FC's work or lack thereof but neither point out any specific issues. I will ignore them both since both are clearly just the writers own opinion without them even bothering to back up their opinions.



Now for the Wikipedia page for MB/FC. Wikipedia is typically a very fine source for information, sometimes it fails due to A. Nobody has written a page concerning what you want to research, B. Someone has but they were too closely affiliated with what they were writing the page on and it is hardly more than an advertisement for the individual, company or organization the page was written on or C. Someone or several someones have written a page for what you want to research but they either have an agenda(s) or perhaps don't know much on the subject matter and the information may either be biased or severely lacking or perhaps even both. The wikipedia page for MB/FC DOES have a page so it isn't A. in this situation, the page does NOT come off as an advertisement so it isn't B. either, The page is severely lacking and it does in some ways come off as a hatchet job on MB/FC so perhaps C. MAY apply here.

I have often times gone to Wikipedia to quote some of what they say on certain subjects and in many cases, what I quote, often times in just one of several quotes taken from same Wikipedia page is often times larger than the entirety of the Wikipedia page for MB/FC. The page for MB/FC is definitely severely lacking information and it doesn't appear that the information it does actually contain shines a fair and balanced/unbiased light on the site. Hopefully more contributors will happen by and add to it and confirm the information or reject inaccuracies.

As for the last link you provided... Absolutely NO sources provided, the writer comes off as someone angry with MB/FC over something though I couldn't tell you what that could be considering MB/FC's review of his site which seems to be a decent review if somewhat inaccurate if you only look at the article you linked to.

The writer, Bill Palmer, wrote this about the "Notes" section of the Cosmopolitan review MB/FC did:



Here is the ACTUAL "Notes" section from that review:



To help you spot the discrepancies I have chosen to bold the text from before the discrepancy until after the discrepancy in both articles and in both spots to make it easier for you to spot them. The article blasting MB/FC was written 12:32 am EDT April 18, 2017, the review was written (D. Van Zandt 11/21/2016), see an issue here? The review has something in it that isn't in the article and the article has something in it that isn't in the review. the review was written first, the article later.

Overall, since it all appears to be based on opinion with no real criticisms nor errors pointed out, I lend no credence to these claims. If they had pointed out errors made or even errors in the methodology used, then maybe I would have to reconsider my opinion of this site's accuracy, no such evidence was given though. Would you care to show where MB/FC has made an error of judgement on one of their reviews? Of course even if you do find one or even several errors in judgement, they would have to be weighed against the volume of reviews the site has done to figure out a percentage of errors to reviews to decide just how accurate/inaccurate the site is. Another consideration to take into account is that sites get re-reviewed periodically if there is reason to suspect circumstances have changed significantly enough that a re-review is justified.

If you would like to try to find errors in that site's judgement, fact check some sites that they have reviewed and get back to me.

The opposing side to Moldyoldie would be all the Trump supporters, the ones freely posting away f**e news, while always claiming that the other side is the ones posting the "f**e news".




Edit: Damn, I used that term again didn't I? Before you ask the question again, since "the other side from Moldyoldie is the Trump supporters, "the other side" from them would be the liberals. It is just too easy to use the term "the other side", but yes, it can get confusing can't it?

Did you bother checking out my entire post, I DID check those out but Daily Kos should always be double checked because we must assure accuracy, especially the way the other side likes to jump all over any inaccuracies and call "f**e news". The Slate article alone was about the heat wave affecting France, which is right near Germany AND the U.K. as well.

I was only meaning to say that we should provide more reliable sources so that we can just shrug it off when they cry "f**e news" since we will KNOW the news ISN'T f**e at all. Theirs however...

France in large lt. green with U.K. across the channel and Germany on France's Eastern Border.

You're welcome.

Daily Kos is less than reliable, yes, MSNBC and CNN have guest pundits on their shows that may be less than factual, though CNN at least is rated high for their actual news content, mixed when you factor in their guest pundits. Huffington Post however is rated as high for factual reporting and they don't have guest pundits.



Non-vetted content? A fail fact check? Misleading claims? Not looking good for this source, my recommendation, check for other sources to back what this one says and you should be fine maybe.

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-kos/



Misinformation from the MANY guest pundits? They should vet their guest pundits maybe. Fact check the pundits and perhaps the actual news here.

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/msnbc/



Fact check the pundits, the news seems fine I guess.

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/



Looks as though this one should be readable.

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/huffington-post/


One has to wonder how the conservative side stacks up. Liberty Tree gave us 2 televised sources and 2 print/internet print sources, why don't we go with 2 and 2 on conservative media, I know of Fox news and OAN for televised and we can do Breitbart and Natural News for print/internet print since I know those 2 are quite popular.




Oops, conspiracy theories, yikes.

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fox-news/



Wow, goes from bad to worse, here we have conspiracy theories and we raise with a few failed fact checks. That's okay, television rots your brain anyways, let us see how print/internet print turns out.

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/one-america-news-network/



S**t, "numerous false claims"? I guess we hang all our hopes on Natural News then huh?

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/breitbart/



The picture becomes quite clear, this goes far in explaining why the right is so misinformed. They ignore legitimate sources of information for so much misinformation.

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/natural-news/

Sorry that I have such a poor memory and there are sssoooo many conservative sources that these are the ones that jumped to mind. Perhaps you can let me know which ones you go by and I can perhaps locate some much better examples of factual conservative media.

It does seem to be HonorNCourage57's favorite type of news. The bull s**t about her marrying her brother has been debunked, yet these imbeciles continue to swear it is true all the same, they never learn.



Got married to "earn" citizenship: Debunked. She became a full fledged citizen at age 17 in 2000. If you look at the next quote, you will see that she first married in 2011, 11 years AFTER she became a full fledged citizen and she married a British citizen, was she going for British citizenship?



Married her brother: Also debunked. Neither man that she married was her brother, not that it matters to these imbeciles that push all these stupid conspiracy theories. What troubles me is this, why do they cry f**e news on anything based on actual facts but believe every lie pushed by conspiracy theorists?

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilhan_Omar



Expect him to continue pushing these debunked conspiracy theories even though they have been debunked and are not based on ANY facts whatsoever, it's what he does.

Critical Thinking for Beginners

Bias
May 4, 2015

Bias skews our thinking, sometimes causing errors in logic. How do we finally arrive at the t***h? How do we avoid logical errors which we find ourselves making because of our own cultural or predispositional bias?

This is an exhaustive list – don’t expect to actually remember them all, instead use what you find as a basis for group discussion.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases




Argument and Persuasion
July 10, 2010

The core of critical thinking is developing the ability to understand and evaluate others’ arguments, and to construct arguments of one’s own.

We are surrounded by attempts to persuade us; we should accept some and reject others. This post is all about learning to discern which attempts to persuade fall into which category.

This means first learning to work out what argument – also what kind of argument – is being presented to us. This requires an understanding of the various elements of arguments, and an ability to read a passage or listen to a speech and reconstruct its argument. Any statement that attempts to persuade you that something is true by offering at least one reason for thinking that it is so counts as an argument. The second sk**l involved is assessing the strength of the evidence offered, keeping an eye out for any logical fallacies that might have been committed.



CATEGORY: DEVELOPING ARGUMENT

1B: Images as Evidence
April 4, 2010

You will often see images offered as proof that a claim is true. However, the camera can lie. To evaluate the support that an image lends to a claim, there are three criteria to consider: relevance, significance and selectivity.

RELEVANCE
The first criterion is relevance For an image to support a claim, it must depict all of the key ideas contained in the claim. It it doesn’t relate to any part of a claim, then it can’t prove the claim. Obviously, relevance is a matter of degree, but the more relevant an image is to a claim, the better the evidence that it provides.

SIGNIFICANCE
The second criterion is significance. This concerns how much interpretation of the image is necessary; does the image speak for itself, or must we make assumptions about it in order for it to support the claim?

SELECTIVITY
The third criterion is selectivity which concerns how representative the image is. If a general claim is supported by an image of a specific example, then we have to ask whether the example in the image is typical. It may be that it has been carefully selected to support a point, when in fact most examples would go against it.



CATEGORY: CREDIBILITY OF EVIDENCE

1A: Five criteria of credibility


We use the mnemonic RAVEN to remember the five criteria of credibility:

R = Reputation
A = Ability to See
V = Vested Interest
E = Expertise
N = Neutrality


REPUTATION
The first criterion, reputation is about whether the source’s history or status suggests reliability or unreliability. If we know that someone has told lies in the past, then we should be less trusting of them in future. If, on the other hand, they have been put in a position of authority and responsibility, then this suggests that they have earned it, and so this counts in their favour, to some degree at least.

ABILITY TO SEE
The second criterion, ability to see concerns whether the source in a position to know what they’re talking about. No matter how honest a source of information, if they don’t have access to the evidence then the value of their testimony is going to be limited. To assess a source using this criterion, consider whether the person was present to see what they are claiming occurred first-hand, and if they were, then whether there were any conditions that might have obstructed their view or otherwise impaired their access to evidence.

VESTED INTEREST
The vested interest criterion refers to whether the source of information has anything personally at stake. If they might gain something by lying, then their credibility is weakened by their vested interest. If they might lose a lot by being caught lying, then their credibility is strengthened by a vested interest to tell the t***h.

EXPERTISE
The fourth criterion is expertise. There are some situations in which it is difficult for normal observers to accurately interpret evidence because they lack specialised knowledge. For example, if I were to watch a high-level game of chess, my comments as to who was in the best position would be worthless, as even if I were able to see the board clearly I wouldn’t really know what was going on. My credibility about such matters would thus be weakened by my lack of expertise.

NEUTRALITY
The final criterion is neutrality or bias, i.e. whether someone is predisposed to support a particular point of view for reasons other than vested interest. Someone who knows other people involved in a dispute, for example, may be liable to side with them or against them depending on their relationship, weakening their credibility.

Source: https://johnct.wordpress.com

Not entirely accurate, he wasn't planning on removing them from the terror watch list, merely refocus the program to focus ONLY on the Islamic terrorists.

Here is one such article pertaining to that story.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-cut-white-supremacism-countering-violent-extremism-programme-neo-n**i-counter-extremism-a7558796.html

https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-mom-forced-out-of-library-d**g-show-by-cops-and-harassed-by-a****a-speaks-out.html

There is your link though the article is.... Questionable, if I am to be nice in describing it.



Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/christian-post/

I actually read the article. I believe a large portion of it is just exaggerations and made up stuff by h**e-filled people with an agenda.

You may be right Mllstd40.



Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-horn-news/

Overall, we rate The Conservative Brief Questionable based on promotion of propaganda, use of poor sources who have failed fact checks, plagiarism and a complete lack of t***sparency.
Detailed Report
Reasoning: Lack of T***sparency, Propaganda, Poor Sourcing, Plagiarism
Country: Unknown

History

Founded in 2018, The Conservative Brief is a strongly right leaning news and opinion blog. Like most questionable sources it does not have an about page or contact information. Further, a domain search reveals private registration and articles do not list authors.

Funded by / Ownership

The Conservative Brief does not disclose ownership and revenue appears to be derived from advertising.

Analysis / Bias

In review, most articles are rehashed stories from other right leaning or questionable sources that borders on plagiarism. For example, this story Islamic Czech Thought-leader Calls on Muslims to Arm Themselves, ‘Especially Men’, changes the headline and barely reassembles an article from the questionable Breitbart. In another story, there is use of strong emotional language such as this: Breaking: New Jersey Poised to Become Eight (spelling error in headline) State to Legalize This Horrible Practice, which is sourced to the right biased and mixed factual Townhall. In general, all stories favor the right and denigrate the left. This is a propaganda source for the right from unknown origins.

Overall, we rate The Conservative Brief Questionable based on promotion of propaganda, use of poor sources who have failed fact checks, plagiarism and a complete lack of t***sparency. (D. Van Zandt 3/28/2019)

Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-conservative-brief/


Just what we ALL should be looking for in a reliable source of quality information and facts. *Sarcasm intended*

Daily Kos wouldn't be my favored choice for proving a point personally, it has made misleading claims and failed a fact check before.



Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-kos/

But I did find similar information on another site rated high factually.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/france-records-its-hottest-ever-temperature-as-europe-roasts/news-story/21959267411dc84cd30ce5c42cead2ec



Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/news-com-au/

Or the more left biased but still rated highly for being factual, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/europe-heat-wave-france-hottest-day-ever.html.



Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/slate/

The bias means nothing so long as the facts are there to back what is being said. To be honest, while Trump is in office, any actual factual reporting will negatively reflect on his administration. It would take a ton of spin to turn his buffoonery into p**********l actions and spin IS dishonesty, non-factual, propaganda, LIES!

I AM somewhat conservative, I am also somewhat liberal as well. Liars are liars regardless of their party, or lack thereof. Those telling the t***h are telling the t***h, I much prefer t***h sayers over liars, just give me the facts and I am happy. But of course since I am "party challenged" (without a party or not aligned with ANY party), I will admit that the bias of the source does tend to be of little importance to me.

Yes, when reporting on scientific studies, they CAN be manipulated but then that would no longer be factual now would it? Spin as you like but we both know what spin is, LIES! Only the nut jobs try to counter known scientific facts. It appears as though the Trump party does appear to be mentally unstable, believing lies over t***h, fiction over fact, basically, to them, alternate reality > reality.

As for your assertion "If their reporting was merely self-admittedly biased against liberals/progressives you would not be quite so enamoured with it.", as long as the FACTS supported their bias, I would be fine with it. I am even somewhat amused by some of the mild bias I see in some conservative media. It is the alt-right bias that tends to annoy me the most, but then their bias isn't very factual, in fact, most of it is contrary to actual facts. The best comedy is that which has some basis in fact. I also am not too enamored with the alt left either. You don't seem very concerned about t***h or facts based on your attempt to lump me in as a Democrat or a liberal.

I must say that during this administration, I do prefer people mistaking me for a Democrat much better than if one were to try to call me a Trump supporter, that would be the true insult.

No, based on my logic, only reliable sources should be read by ANYONE. The lean of the reporting is unimportant, the only important thing is the factual content of the articles.