The Atlantic is NOT a left-leaning publication. I have always viewed it as slightly on the conservative side of moderate, but as you say it is accurate, and also presents in-depth, thoughtful, and perceptive articles, which sets it apart from so many right-wing publications that it may seem liberal to some.
Well, according to Media Bias/Fact Check, The Atlantic has a "
LEFT-CENTER BIAS" (the same let-center bias as PBS News Hour).
That's the irony of the right claiming that the "liberal biased media" is the enemy of the people. But they are happy to allow a right biased media like Fox be the primary source of information to help them form their opinions. Here's the MB/FC
RIGHT BIAS assessment of Fox...
RIGHT BIAS
These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.
Factual Reporting: MIXED
Notes: Fox News Channel, also known as Fox News, is an American basic cable and satellite news television channel that is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of 21st Century Fox (Wikipedia). Fox News Channel has been accused of biased reporting and promoting the Republican Party and has been deemed the least accurate cable news source according to Politifact.
And this is what MB/FC said of
PBSLEFT-CENTER BIAS
These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation.
Factual Reporting: HIGH
Notes: The PBS NewsHour is an American daily evening television news program that is broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), airing seven nights a week on more than 300 of the public broadcaster’s member stations. As the nation’s first hour-long nightly news broadcast, the program is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events (Wikipedia). PBS produces high quality journalism that is sourced and factual. They have a left-center bias in reporting.
And given the massive embarrassment that Fox just endured by having
The Judge (Andrew Napolitano) claim that the British spied on Trump for Obama and induced Trump and Spicer to go on TV and reference the Fox reporting as "proof" of the allegation, I'm hoping Fox and Trump have learned a lesson. With Fox I suspect so since the judge has been sidelined indefinitely. In the case of the President, there is no such method of sidelining a president short of impeachment. And given Comey's testimony yesterday, that might not be too far off :~)
That's the irony I find so frustrating...the right seems so limited in their sources of news that when one of the right biased media is so wrong, that it's almost impossible to get them to to accept the actual reality of the facts.
The New Yorker (left biased) had this article
WHY FACTS DON’T CHANGE OUR MINDSIn a new book, “The Enigma of Reason” (Harvard), the cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber take a stab at answering this question....
Stripped of a lot of what might be called cognitive-science-ese, Mercier and Sperber’s argument runs, more or less, as follows: Humans’ biggest advantage over other species is our ability to coöperate. Coöperation is difficult to establish and almost as difficult to sustain. For any individual, freeloading is always the best course of action. Reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or even to help us draw conclusions from unfamiliar data; rather, it developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.
“Reason is an adaptation to the hypersocial niche humans have evolved for themselves,” Mercier and Sperber write. Habits of mind that seem weird or goofy or just plain dumb from an “intellectualist” point of view prove shrewd when seen from a social “interactionist” perspective.
Consider what’s become known as “confirmation bias,” the tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs and reject information that contradicts them.
If reason is designed to generate sound judgments, then it’s hard to conceive of a more serious design flaw than confirmation bias. Imagine, Mercier and Sperber suggest, a mouse that thinks the way we do. Such a mouse, “bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around,” would soon be dinner. To the extent that confirmation bias leads people to dismiss evidence of new or underappreciated threats—the human equivalent of the cat around the corner—it’s a trait that should have been selected against. The fact that both we and it survive, Mercier and Sperber argue, proves that it must have some adaptive function, and that function, they maintain, is related to our “hypersociability.”
Mercier and Sperber prefer the term “myside bias.” Humans, they point out, aren’t randomly credulous. Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we’re blind about are our own.
The final paragraph, in mentioning all three books that were referenced said:
“The Enigma of Reason,” “The Knowledge Illusion,” and “Denying to the Grave” were all written before the November election. And yet they anticipate Kellyanne Conway and the rise of “alternative facts.” These days, it can feel as if the entire country has been given over to a vast psychological experiment being run either by no one or by Steve Bannon. Rational agents would be able to think their way to a solution. But, on this matter, the literature is not reassuring.
So yeah, The Atlantic is a bit Left-Center biased...but that's ok, the left tends to get their news and information from multiple places and sources so can filter out any bias. Unfortunately the right doesn't tend to rely on multiple sources and are getting most news and info from limited sources that can often be both biased and incorrect but the right doesn't get the advantage of multiple sources of news. Of course, the right will dispute that because it doesn't fit with their world view due to confirmation bias.
To the right, the left is wrong and only the right can be right.
