The systematic bias arises from story selection, not from whether a specific investigation is accurate.
So I am absolutely not suggesting this story is not accurate or that Boring Company isn't at fault.
In the long run selective coverage creates an inaccurate picture of reality: constant stories about private greed, almost none about institutional self-dealing within the state.
Given that the current president is right wing, wouldn't the left have a vested interest in talking about self-dealing in the state?
Regardless, we are on a news aggregator here. Whatever selection bias this source has should be counteracted by hn drawing from many sources. At least on the source level. HN is going to of course be biased towards stories hn finds interesting.
>Given that the current president is right wing, wouldn't the left have a vested interest in talking about self-dealing in the state?
If there wasn't a permanent bureaucracy of sorts, then yes, but in this case there is in fact a permanent bureaucracy, what some call the deep state, which is a constant regardless of which party is in power. And this political bloc overwhelmingly supports the Democrats and is threatened by potential cuts from Republicans.
Covering self-dealing within the state would give the Republicans' efforts to cut some of these programs and departments moral legitimacy in the public eye, so left-wing news sources would not do that.
So what outlet would choose to not cover this? One that doesn't care?
I think you misunderstand the whole concept of journalism. They report, you interpret. Left wing or right wing might matter in what words they choose, to influence your perception.
Not reporting something like this is not bias, that's just not caring.
I never said that they shouldn't cover this. In fact, it's maybe reasonable that people with agendas do investigative journalism that only covers the malfeasance of one side and faction. I'm not really sure. I certainly wouldn't discourage any outfit to do credible reporting on any story just because it might help or harm another side or just because they might or might not have biases. But that being said, I do think it's worth pointing out that the outfit does have a bias. What's the harm of letting people know?
So I am absolutely not suggesting this story is not accurate or that Boring Company isn't at fault.
In the long run selective coverage creates an inaccurate picture of reality: constant stories about private greed, almost none about institutional self-dealing within the state.