hey Aubry what's shaken hi Lindsay I have a question for you okay where do you go to
read your news oh my gosh so I actually being a podcaster of course I listen to my news so in the
morning I listen to up first by I think that's an npr-owned channel uh and then in the evening
I listen to the Daily from The New York Times and the journal from The Wall Street Journal and then
I read the New York Times when I'm having lunch at my desk just pull up the New York Times read the
headlines uh I love it yeah I've started listening to news in slow Spanish and news in slow French oh
that's fantastic slow it down a little so I can understand really well and they're sort of quick
Snippets I love it good idea that is so good I'm getting ready for a trip to Argentina actually by
the time this trip comes out I'll already have gone to Argentina but I need to listen to more
Argentine Spanish you know it's a very different pronunciation side point for today but what are we
getting into in today's episode interesting we had a great question about by us in the news that's
why I want us to know where you find your news so we're going to answer this listener's question and
dive into this because it's a very fascinating topic it actually came up recently in one of
the live group classes I was teaching here at Euler's English was a fascinating discussion and
I'm curious how this is all over the world so come to YouTube find this podcast episode and let us
know how this is in your culture in your country I really want to know yeah and I think sadly this is
more of an issue now than it was five years ago and more than it was 30 years ago right so this
is becoming more and more important so here's the question from our listener here we go dear Lindsay
first of all I really want to thank you for doing all those English podcast it's my favorite English
podcast and it helps me a lot with my learning I really hope you guys can keep doing it awesome
Aubry great review I would like to bring up my question I want to read news in English and study
um the vocabulary and expressions that are used when it comes to formal occasions that
will improve my academic writing I know there are so many news agencies reporting news in
English that it's hard to make a choice so which ones do you recommend okay so you definitely got
our recommendations right there at the top of the podcast for the ones we actually listen to every
day but I think it's really valuable to think about which news sources do have some bias and
which try to be more unbiased so that you can try to get the facts yeah we're going to go into it
today I mean the first thing I just want to insert this right away I think the first problem of why
news has become so much more biased is money right if you you know if you look at things like public
radio PRX NPR those tend to be a little more trustworthy just because it's publicly funded I'm
not saying they're not biased um but they're even in these podcasts right podcasts have advertisers
and you know then they're making money they want to get downloads I mean that's it's a business
in the end so when you mix news with business it's kind of where you get in trouble I think
it really reminds me of the HBO show succession have you seen that Lindsay I haven't seen it but
now I'm gonna go watch it this weekend yes I highly recommend it it is about a family
that owns a media company in the United States and how they try at least to exert influence over the
news over politicians it is fascinating I think it's maybe based on a real family in the United
States but either way it's fascinating to see the kind of power struggle how money affects it and is
involved and how it affects this family and their relationships it's fascinating yeah it comes down
to money it really does I mean that's really what it's all about so we're gonna try to answer this
question for our listener today um what is the first kind of phrase We want to Define and talk
about yeah so just to define the word bias this is a spin toward a political stance or to benefit the
owners of a news Outlet when we're talking about the news you can have bias about anything right if
your opinion is a little slanted one way or another you are biased we talk about this a
lot in the news yeah and I mean I would just start by saying I think we all have bias in
everything like there's no way that the way you see the world is the same as the way I
do there's no way any situation you and I are going to see differently right but good news
good reporting like professionals professionals high standard reporting is trying to reduce bias
or take it out as much as possible just report on what's actually happening but as human beings
that is actually really really hard because there's so many things that influence the way
we see the world our past who we've spent time around there's so much right Aubry but when
it comes to the news we have these built-in structures we have editorials we have opinion
articles exactly yes to share your bias right that should be there totally actual news that's
claiming to be facts needs to as much as possible eliminate that bias and I think there might be an
issue with education too because I think nowadays A lot of people will read an opinion column in the
New York Times and pass it off as news you know and that's not even misinformation that's just
opinion right like yes right if you get your news on Facebook like a lot of that might be
editorial it might be someone's opinion and you may not know that because maybe you didn't learn
about that in college or in graduate school or whatever in high school so what's what the most
in your opinion Aubry probably in my opinion too definitely what is the most biased TV news station
you can think of yeah so CNN is very much has a strong bias toward the left as far as American
you know politics in the United States and Fox News has a very strong bias toward the right and
this it to me it just seems like fact because a lot of the political pundits that come on we know
their political leanings they're very much sharing their opinions and there's a sort of not a balance
on which types of opinions they're bringing on so you can just sort of see it there You Know It's
Tricky I heard somewhere that these news stations as they're coming down to their budgets and their
money and their advertising they're spending less money on investigative journalism and more money
on putting pundits in a room and sitting around a table and that's where I think you get in trouble
that's where you layer so much bias on top of the news because they're getting paid to entertain at
this point news has become like entertainment on both CNN and Fox News that's the problem if we
had more investigative journalists out there trying to really figure out what the heck is
going on with issues in our country in the world I think we'd have less of this yes oh I agree so
much so I think it would be really helpful for us to share the top four news resources that at
least try to be unbiased they have you know their goals as a company is to try to share the facts
and eliminate bias and you can research all of these these sources but they at least have a very
good reputation for being unbiased and that means unbiased news just means presenting a news story
without any bias or at least kind of reporting facts right I mean there may be some spin on it
but like you know I think it's attempting yeah so let's go through them let's go the what's
the first one Aubry yeah so the first one is the Associated Press it's very old it was founded in
1846 and it's very renowned as I would say right it has a really good reputation as a global news
organization it's actually received 53 Pulitzer prizes so that's very impressive yeah and it's as
we said it's kind of it's like a feeder for others so I think other news magazines and newspapers
grab their news from the Associated Press right Aubrey is kind of a supplier of news in a way
I don't know a lot about how that works oh yeah exactly right I worked for a newspaper um during
high school and we whenever we wanted to write an article we would always go to the Associated Press
to get a lot of our facts a lot of our details we know they have done the real work the research and
then we would just credit The Source you know or say from Associated Press and we were just sort of
compiling interesting okay so that that's a good one and can we go to actually I don't even know
this is there an actual like Associated Press newspaper or is it really just a supplier of news
to the papers like is there a place we can go to read the Associated Press and what's the website
there is a there is a website um you'd have to Google it might find out while we're chatting
they don't do a print publication as far as I know I don't know if they ever did but maybe at
one at one time but I don't know so they're um the website is apnews.com okay and you can get
all of their top stories there and it's possible they did at one time do a print news publication
um I'm curious about that yeah this is good so I love this episode
um uh so Wall Street Journal being the second one and I'm glad this is here
but at the same time I also feel like Wall Street Journal is I mean they they do present
um they present the fact like it's a high quality journalism but it's also
conservative leaning because it is the perspective of the investor business perspective so I think
there is some angle would you would you agree or I honestly don't read The Wall Street Journal that
often because I'm not into stocks I'm not into finances and it definitely has a reputation for
being a little more about that so that makes sense that you know often at least in the United States
those with a lot of money who want to avoid taxes on that money often do sort of lean to the right
because conservative politics help them protect that money so that is possible that the Wall
Street Journal has a little bit of bias a lot of what we're sharing too we were kind of looking at
um an article on makeuseof.com that was called the top unbiased news sources and a lot of it
really made sense to me but it could be that that this the Wall Street Journal does lean a
little bit to the right yeah I think maybe less so than a New York Times at least based on the
podcast that I listened to the two shows the the journal tends to be more straightforward around
found that their tagline is about money business and power right so they're they're talking about
these issues whereas the daily feels a little more um liberal leaning to me but you know our
listeners should listen to these podcasts read these newspapers and see for yourself how how
biased are these right I mean yeah interesting so third is routers which I would say this is a lot
more like the Associated Press right it is well respected and has a reputation as an unbiased news
outlet they really do try to focus on accurate reporting of the facts without the editorialism
nice I love it I I don't have a lot of experience with Reuters rooters so we'll leave that with that
one and it's just readers how do you even say it I thought it was Reuters I don't I don't know to
be honest I don't know I think that's the word neuter neuter is spelled the same EU so I assume
it's pronounced like neuter rooters but I don't know have I heard anyone say Reuters maybe Reuters
Reuters multiple pronunciations choose your adventure guys choose your adventure and in just
a minute we're going to talk about one other news source okay this one's good what is the next one
Aubry yeah the BBC so often United States citizens will look to international news outlets for their
news because they recognize that anything within the United States might be a little biased to one
side or the other so we often feel like the BBC has a really good reputation as the world's oldest
National Broadcasting Service one of the largest new services in the world and a good reputation
for trying at least to be unbiased yeah and I know that BBC even has a podcast for learning English
right the BBC learning English I've seen that in the podcast decks for a long time Neil here on
the podcast so go back and check that out from BBC learning English that's such a great podcast that
was a really fun interview with him good style we love the BBC I love it so were there any others
listed that we should know about yeah there were definitely quite a few recommended by this article
and I agree with you C-SPAN Pew research synonymous yeah these are all again they're
they're making an attempt to be unbiased and just share the facts so there are lots of options I
would just sort of avoid those you know ABC CBS NBC I mean sometimes it's fine but lots of times
you're going to have someone on there an expert who is very much sharing their opinion yeah last
night I had CNN on I will admit I do put it on sometimes just to kind of like have noise in the
background and there's one Republican that I only ever see on CNN like I never see any Republican
politicians on CNN maybe they won't go on there but there was this one guy on there last night
and I thought I saw you on here six months ago and I haven't seen any other Republicans since then
on CNN so fascinating it is really interesting how if someone is very right-leaning I know I
personally known quite a few people who will only watch Fox News because they think everything else
is fake news everything else is they're lying and then I know a lot of people leaning very far to
the left who would only watch let's see right you know maybe they try to watch other stuff but that
speaks to them right the most in what they're hearing there makes sense to them and I think
I would definitely recommend you guys to be more open-minded to I am a moderate honestly I think
it's so important to see both sides to see the value to be able to have an open conversation
100 being so focused on what you believe I just think once you get closed-minded it's dangerous
I 100 agree I'm leaning more moderate these days too because I'm getting older I'm reading more I'm
starting to understand things a little bit more and I can't be locked in One Direction or the
other extremes extremes are scary and you can be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal like it
is possible no Let's Get The Best of Both Worlds it's really tough it's really tough out there I
would say one thing about Pew research so if I think if we want to make sure we get a hundred
percent unbiased I think it's not going to be a newspaper it's going to be something like the Pew
research assuming they have high quality standards and how they gather just reading the research
what's the data say and then you interpret that data in the way you want because journalism is
always some kind of narrative interpreted on top of research so the Pew is a really trustworthy
name so you can go to their website and look up studies studies on demographics everything going
on in the United States in the world so yeah yes that's what's tricky is you know do we have time
to read the pure research about it like I want to be able to trust a journalist to research and
share it in a way that I can understand a very quick way but it's true you can't trust that
it doesn't have a little bit of bias yeah and the other piece that matters here is the last
thing I would say is the is the way that local news sadly is declining in the U.S so a lot of
local newspapers are getting shut down and that is dangerous for democracy yes that's worrisome
right it's more and more I think everyone finds their news on Facebook and so there's not the
funding for all of these other sources and that is troublesome it's worrisome I do I think we do need
to support the you know funds being still given to the attempt to get accurate news to everyone
I think that's really vital yeah so news is kind of becoming entertainment other than you know some
of the ones we mentioned which are less biased news you know big stations Fox CNN uh New York
Times sound kind of becoming more entertainment in a way um scary yeah kind of scary yep so what's
the take away for our listeners today I feel like we could talk about this for a long time but what
an interesting question thank you for sending it and I think it is so important to recognize bias
in the news to attempt to read news that reports facts accurately without political slant or spin
without that bias and I think we have some good recommendations here but definitely take the time
to research find what you like but make sure that it's not just telling you what you already think
that's right all right really really good stuff guys let us know if you have a follow-up
question from today's episode right to Aubry at allearsenglish.com and we'd be happy to feature a
follow-up question I want to come back to this topic because it is so important right now in
2022 we're about to go into the well by the time this is out the midterm elections will be done
um politics matter news matters okay definitely awesome Lindsay thanks for
having this great discussion I really loved it good stuff Aubry talk to you soon bye [Music]