Welcome to The Better Press
A new media company to make deeper, Better, and more honest news available to all.
Now more than ever, it is starting to seem more and more impossible to separate fact from fiction, honest from corrupt, and truth from lie. The American media landscape in 2024 is one of clickbait headlines, confusing article bodies, sensationalism-obsessed television anchors, and yes, paywalls.
News seems more accessible now than ever, but are you really getting “news”? What is “news”? Is it reporting the facts? Is it explaining why the facts matter? Is it presenting both sides in a fair light? At The Better Press, we don’t think that any of those descriptions fairly describe what news should be.
Of course, news is reporting the facts. News is also explaining why the facts matter. But it’s so much more than that. We believe that real news is objective. But, who would disagree with that? Let us define objectivity, in a way that many media organizations refuse to do.
Objectivity
Objectivity is defined by Oxford Dictionary as: “the quality of being objective.” Well, what is “objective”? Objective is defined by the same dictionary as: “not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.”
Nowhere in the definition of “objective” does it say anything about treating both sides of a given argument, situation, or issue equally. Nowhere does it say to sit on a fence on every issue. Sitting in the middle of opposing viewpoints is not fair, honest, or truthful.
Nearly all media companies, including the ones that you see on television every single day (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.), attempt to strike a false balance. You may have heard this referred to as bothsidesism. This occurs when “journalists strive to present both sides of an issue, even in cases where most credible sources fall on one side.”
This is often easier to understand when given an example.
Examples of False Balance
The debate over climate change and climate science has been a very contentious debate between those who support climate initiatives and those who deny the existence of climate change. It is honest to say that the majority of those who support climate initiatives are “liberal” or “progressive” and that the majority of climate change deniers are “conservative” or “Republican”. The media has created a bias in reporting on this issue due to their attempts to give equal airtime to the environmental advocacy groups and their ideas and climate change deniers and their ideas. This bothsidesism was bias, not fair reporting. Why? The media framed the issue as being 50/50, when in reality, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus supporting the existence of human-caused climate change, as well as its real impact. This bothsidesism gave conservatives a level playing field that they did not deserve.
In October 2020, right before the presidential election, an article was published by the New York Post about the existence and contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Conservatives, in this case, argued that the laptop contained communications regarding foreign business dealings and that it should be further investigated. Many progressives or liberals denied either the existence of the laptop, or the strength of the evidence that existed within it. This time, the media focused more on targeting misinformation, as Twitter and Facebook limited distribution of the reporting on the controversy, and framed the issue as having stemmed from questionable sources. Later reporting would verify the authenticity of the claims made by the New York Post in 2020, proving that media outlets failed to properly cover the issue due to skepticism based in their implicit partisan biases. This time, the bothsidesism caused an important issue to not come to light before the 2020 election, potentially having an impact on the results due to voter unawareness.
What is our responsibility at The Better Press?
We feel a responsibility not to engage in bothsidesism, but to report the truth, plain and simple. Truth is not, and will never be, bipartisan. Therefore, at The Better Press, we refuse to commit to bipartisanship. We do commit to honest reporting. Our writers, editors, podcast hosts and guests, and other contributers are not bipartisan. They have strong beliefs and values. These beliefs do not strip them of the ability to report and write honestly. In fact, the ability to set aside biases in research, writing, reporting, and editing is a sign of a strong contributer.
We’re just getting started
We hope that we convinced you today that the people deserve better news. Please stay tuned as we continue to build this company and strive to crush our goals. We’re in the process of looking for contributers, editors, funding, and ideas! Please reach out if any of those sound like something you can do; we’d love to get to know you.
Thank you,
The Better Press Team.