AllSides.com - The "Objective" News Site Run By Republicans

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[News Media]
There's a new web site that is becoming increasingly popular among social media exchanges and people trying to find a way to wade through news reports and "find the truth through the bias."

One such site that's picking up traction is called, AllSides.com. But a look under the hood, or even a casual glance reveals it's not what it appears to be...


The site Allsides.com, positions itself as a news site aggregator that ranks online sources in terms of "left" or "right" leaning. Supposedly you can peruse current events and get links to what each side of the political spectrum thinks. Different sites/links are indicated with "R" or "L" icons of varying degrees to supposedly indicate how leftist or right wing their spin.

The premise seems to be, let's look at news from "all sides" of an issue, and those "sides" apparently are limited to a very small array of popular mega-corporate media that supposedly represent the vast political and ideological divide. (Spoiler: They Don't)


First off, the founder and CEO of allsides.com is a guy by the name of John Gable. He has a background of business and technology, having worked at Microsoft and later for various other tech startups. But his most notable work history relevant to this current project is the fact that he's not simply a republican, but he's a very active, non-centrist republican, having worked as an operative for a variety of hard core republicans, including Howard Baker, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, as well as the RNC itself.

Gable isn't just a registered republican. He's a bona fide republican operative and propagandist.

Having worked for Mitch McConnell who is unarguably credited with grinding democracy to a halt in the name of partisanship, at the expense of due process and the Constitution, and claiming you want to see "all sides" of anything, is the epitome of hypocrisy and hubris.

Now maybe Gable is trying to turn over a new leaf and save himself from retiring into a hot tub of fire later on, but a casual glance at his web creation shows this to not be the case. He's full speed ahead on pushing right wing agendas, now re-branding them as being "left" wing agendas also.

So what does Allsides consider left and right?

It goes without saying a web site run by a high level RNC operative is going to list a lot of right wing talking points. We don't need to argue over what they level at "right" - almost everything on the site is really right wing. What's more interesting is what they call left:

For one, apparently CNN is now always left, and often hard left. I'm not sure what exactly is "leftist" about CNN? They've never been anti-war. They're one of the many corporate news networks out there that is almost exclusively funded by advertisements by insurance companies, the one lobby most leftists consider part of the problem with our economy and culture. This is the network that wouldn't let the lies about Hillary Clinton die in 2016, helping the republicans stoke unfounded concern over her integrity. CNN was one of the institutions that made Trump happen. CNN has a long history of sabotaging democratic candidates, including their infamous destruction of Howard Dean because he said, "Ye Haww!" too loud at a campaign event.

So where is the liberalism coming from CNN? Is calling Trump's lies, lies, being "leftist?" Apparently so.

The network's most recognizable anchor, Wolf Blitzer. Is he leftist? This is a guy who was formerly head of AIPAC. The institution making sure the US perpetually funds the middle eastern civil war to the tune of $6B a year. Not very left leaning IMO.

But what about Anderson Cooper? He's gay. He must be liberal right? Anderson in reality is a bona fide, blue-blooded oligarch, son of Gloria Vanderbilt and heir to that empire. He comes from a castle just like Tucker Carlson. He may have some thoughts about basic civil rights for all, but he's a long way from being that concerned about the working class, a group his family has probably literally built moats to separate themselves from.

So what else is apparently "left" according to allsides.com?

Bloomberg. Really? The publication that panders to Wall Street is leftist?

Politifact - the non-partisan fact checking web site is categorized as "left." As is the New York Times.

Allsides also calls the Center For Public Integrity a "leftist" organization. This is an award-winning, non-partisan, quite transparent, non-profit organization that uses freedom of information act requests to report facts on what government is doing. Facts and their pesky liberal agenda!

Scientific American? Yea, bunch of left leaning people there with their evidence and peer reviews. In the example above, a Scientific American article on how to avoid misinformation was labeled too "left".

Vice.com? The news site that was founded by the same guy who founded the alt right domestic terrorist group, Proud Boys? Yea, Allsides considers them hard left.

And what's centrist? Christian Science Monitor? Really?

What appears to be a site metering out "all sides" of issues, is in reality, doing nothing of the sort. It's giving you mostly the same side of all issues, the corporate side, and pretending these positions are appropriately spread across the political and ideological divide. They are not. This is a thinly-veiled attempt to further a hard right agenda, by continuing to paint right wing and centrist positions as left-leaning.

But perhaps the most egregious sin of them all, is right in front of everybody's face.

The idea that we need to know both left and right sides to an issue, with no actual concern over what is and isn't factual? Where does evidence, logic and reason play into this spectrum? That apparently is not worthy of being enumerated.


 

no need for comments...
Posted by richard vallon on 2020-12-15 08:16:59
this article is complete. the point it makes is why do we need a web site to point out left or right talking points when facts are what is needed. Also note- a common joke among liberals- facts have a left leaning bias. Actually with nearly nothing but bullshit flowing from the right- this is a correct statement.
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Posted by 123 on 2021-05-03 02:52:45
Crypto article was pretty idiotic, but I like this one.

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