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LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong announced the paper is working on a “bias meter” that would give readers context of any bias in articles and potentially give people a version of the article from an opposite perspective.
The Big Picture: With the mainstream media losing trust — fairly or unfairly — among so many Americans, publishers are looking for ways to show that they can either be transparent about their biases or present various viewpoints.
Behind the Curtain: Speaking with LA Times editorial board member Scott Jennings on his Flyover Country podcast, Soon-Shiong laid out the publisher’s new tech innovation set to roll out next month.
- The bias meter would apply to both news reporting and opinion pieces.
- It would allow readers to press a button to give them both sides of a story (we’re assuming this may be partly done by AI).
- Comments will be a larger part of the LA Times ecosystem, which Soon-Shiong says “are as important as sometimes the story because you get a feel of what people are thinking and […] you can have a conversation, a discourse, a respectful disagreement.”
Closing Thoughts: Soon-Shiong believes that the tool will help curb “confirmation bias” among writers, editors, and readers. The paper’s editorial guild didn’t dig the suggestion that they held bias, fearing the claim hurts their credibility. Still, the LA Times isn’t the first to try to balance the scales (there’s NewsGuard, A Starting Point, and almost The Messenger), but the publication would be the first major newspaper to do so… which may kick off a trend.
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