PS:

I should add....

I know, the virus is here.... I know it is contagious,.. and I am taking more precautions than I ever have in my life

However, I sincerely believe we over-reacted. The damage done to peoples' lives and our economy may be long-lasting. Furthermore, as this report stated, some 52,000 cancer patients [in Germany] did not get their life-saving operations. Somewhere else I read that some 1.5 mill TB sufferers, world wide, will die, because their treatment was cancelled because of Covid19

 https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/strategic-culture-foundation/

• Overall, we rate the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) a Questionable source based on extreme right wing bias, promotion of Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories as well as a complete lack of transparency with the goal to deceive readers. This is not a credible source.

here is the original 83 page report

https://www.ichbinanderermeinung.de/Dokument93.pdf

and a popular tabloid in Germany (I don't want to give this tabloid a high status of credibility, however, their article about medical consequences of our corona lockdowns echoes many other discussions about this issue)

https://www.bild.de/bild-plus/politik/inland/politik-inland/folgen-der-corona-massnahmen-52-000-krebs-ops-verschoben-70820748,view=conversionToLogin.bild.html

It is certainly nice to have mediabiasfactcheck sites as the one you showed

The only question is, are fact checkers biased themselves?

What tickles me in their analysis of the site I linked, is that it is not only accused of being biased, but it also delivers Russian propaganda.

In other words, we don't want to hear what Russian doctors might have to say about the virus.

Russia has universities, scientists and engineers.... so do Norway, France, Germany, Canada, Thailand, the UK, the Chech Republic, etc etc etc etc. 

A scientist's opinion in one country, is just as valuable as the opinion of a scientist in another country.

Let's not forget.... for example:   who sent the first satellite into space? who sent the first animal into space? who sent the first man into space? who sent the first woman into space? who sent the first spacecraft to the moon? Russia is the answer to all of these questions. Their scientists and engineers are no slouches

But on that fact-checkers website, Russia is mentioned as a negative.... sounds just like the MSM during the last 3 years of Russia investigations

Maybe, mediabiaasfactcheck.com should show a foot-note; "approved by our MSM"

Gunter,

I'll have lots to say about Mediabiasfactcheck itself being overall neutral ASAP. I'm putting something together starting now and continuing when I have time.

thanks... I have to leave also.... waiting for your comment... I do respect your opinion... I have been proven to be wrong once before.... OK, OK.... it was more than once

Thanks much Larry, I too value your opinion, especially because you are a statistician that uses facts.

My opinion on all Fact Checkers is that anyone of us, has access to information about almost everything that they do. I do use them constantly and mostly reliably because they can save me or you hours of time in researching and gathering facts.

After they gather all the facts, then they interpret them. In their fact checking discussion on specific items, they would never have room for the reams of pages that they likely gathered on the topic. What we see posted, is what they consider the BEST of what they have and it will always support what they say. 

For instance, they would not rate something is FALSE, then show legit evidence that its TRUE.

 Any legit evidence in partial truth should compel them to rate it partly True or mostly False at the very least.

This is the area where bias as a human being creeps in and I have seen it so many times with fact checkers. They only show evidence that supports their rating. If there is a case for something different, they will show the evidence for why THEY DECIDED it was bogus. 

The farther away from mainstream the topic is, the more likely they will disagree with it or rate it false...........and again, in the vast majority of cases they will be exactly right and save me a ton of time with their solid reasoning after they did hours of research on that topic.

But they are wrong sometimes and that too, has a correlation to being outside mainstream views. 

This makes me remember my 11 years on broadcast television..........back in the days when news reporting was less biased but still sometimes biased.

People in that business are very liberal in their political views. I was one of them and I knew many dozens personally.  During election nights, when the red lights on the camera were not on, many of them would cheer the results of close elections that went to the Democrat. Our 2 main anchors in the 1980's actually were personal friends with several local dems and especially one sided with their personal political views. 

One of them was in my wedding party and a close friend so I am just telling you what I observed about my friends.

When reporters/photographers prepare to cover stories, they don't just go out there with an empty slate/mind, gather information and let the facts determine what the message or importance is.

That can happen of course but in the majority of cases, they, the news director or assignment editor already know why a particular story needs to be covered. Besides it being newsworthy, in some cases there is a political element that often favors one side. 

When that is the case, if you are somebody that is very liberal, you will have a preconceived notion of what is important to cover in that story and why based on your politics. Why would a very liberal be thinking like a conservative or even understand/connect with the message of people that he/she thinks are completely wrong about something.

And they will be very sincere about how they cover the story based on what they think is legit/true because of how they view the world.  

So they and the photog may be out in the field for hours and shoot an hours worth of video and do dozens of interviews for a story that is 60 seconds long on the air.   Out of 60 minutes of video/audio, only 1 minute of it can make it in their story, the other 59 minutes is never seen or heard, so less than 2% of what they saw and heard. 

When they go into the editing booth with this, they will have evolved from earlier in the day, when they had a pretty good idea of what they wanted the story to say/show to trying to figure out how to cram 60 minutes of facts/information/video/audio story telling into just 1 minute.............discarding the other 59 minutes, 98%+.

If they were given 60 minutes for their story, they could show ALL of it. Both sides completely if they actually sourced 30 minutes from each side(which is unlikely).

But they have only 1 minute that must feature the BEST 2% of their material. Under these circumstances, its not likely that they will see that as meaning 30 seconds on one side and 30 seconds of the other side but sometimes this happens and regardless of how it goes, most of them really think they are being unbiased. 

But who is there, looking over their shoulder and viewing the entire 60 minutes and deciding what 60 seconds will make their story? Nobody. The photographer will know what they shot earlier but the reporter is the only person who knows what is on that 60 minute tape other than  that and they totally control what makes it into the 60 second story.

If the end product is biased to one side, even though the 60 minutes of on tape shows the complete opposite who will know?  

OK, the people that got interviewed can know. When watching the story on tv that evening, if the reporter took one sound bite to make it look like something they didn't mean or disagree with, they know............and that happens.

Most of the time it doesn't happen but in today's world with the political bias, it's happening much more than decades ago and it happens in particular situations. 

Again, the reporter is being sincere and showing what they think is the best 60 seconds to represent something that they might have a personal view on and NOBODY else is scrutinizing in the editing boot and telling them they should consider using more from the other side.

How is this related to fact checkers?

I often think of fact checker like news reporters. Gathering 100  time more information about the story or fact they are covering.  In this case, the fact checkers can't get away with what a reporter can, with their 60 minute tape that only they know about because we all have access to the same facts as fact checkers. So they must be more objective and honest or we can bust them.

But they still have control over what they post to support their final ruling/decision and almost nobody will go to the effort to fact check them to see that they disregarded key elements in their discussion. And their discussion, with their facts and data will ALWAYS be very convincing..........because that's all they will show. 

But sometimes, like the known biased reporters, what they show because they are human beings will be biased.