Current Events > AI "bias checker" promises to make news worse.

(+) Yeah! (+)

On June 12, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administrations decision to deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles in response to anti-ICE protests was illegal. Law360 reporters were on the breaking story, publishing a news article just hours after the ruling (which has since been appealed). Under Law360s new mandate though, the story first had to pass through the bias indicator.

Several sentences in the story were flagged as biased, including this one: Its the first time in 60 years that a president has mobilized a states National Guard without receiving a request to do so from the states governor. According to the bias indicator, this sentence is framing the action as unprecedented in a way that might subtly critique the administration. It was best to give more context to balance the tone.

Another line was flagged for suggesting Judge Charles Breyer had pushed back against the federal government in his ruling, an opinion which had called the presidents deployment of the National Guard the act of a monarchist. Rather than pushed back, the bias indicator suggested a milder word, like disagreed.

The National Guard story is just one of hundreds of daily stories published by Law360 that are now expected to go through similar AI audits. I reviewed nearly a dozen examples of changes suggested on real Law360 stories. Editorial employees told me these examples were symptomatic of problems they faced in their everyday use of the bias indicator.
Often the bias indicator suggests softening critical statements and tries to flatten language that describes real world conflict or debates. One of the most common problems is a failure to differentiate between quotes and straight news copy. It frequently flags statements from experts as biased and treats quotes as evidence of partiality.

For a June 5 story covering the recent Supreme Court ruling on a workplace discrimination lawsuit, the bias indicator flagged a sentence describing experts who said the ruling came at a key time in U.S. employment law. The problem was that this copy, may suggest a perspective.

For a May 29 story covering a disability and sex discrimination lawsuit filed by an anesthesiologist, the bias indicator flagged a line that said the suit spotlighted challenges with ableism and sexism in the healthcare industry. This copy was flagged because it frames the lawsuit as a representative example of systemic issues. Instead, the bias indicator said the story should state the facts of the lawsuit without suggesting its broader implications. Suffice to say, that edit is at odds with any attempt to deliver legal analysis. In most cases, reporters chose not to accept these edits, but they were still required to go through the motions.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/law360-mandates-reporters-use-ai-bias-detection-on-all-stories/

Bump

AI doesn't check for conspiracy

Finally, a news source fitting for Neutrals.

It is fitting that this use case for AI is to generate more reliably both-sides slop reporting.

Oh great, as if the deranged obsession the media has with being "unbiased" wasn't bad enough without AI.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I'm firmly of the opinion that we no longer have a future, worthwhile or otherwise.

SpawnShadow posted...

I'm firmly of the opinion that we no longer have a future, worthwhile or otherwise.

There's a nonzero chance that the reason rich people are buying politicians so blatantly now is because they're setting up their fiefdoms in preparation for environmental collapse.

And they aren't exactly writing these plans in a ten year calendar, if you catch my drift.

seeing as there is no way to ensure a bloody stupid oligarch doesn't futz with the models used we should never use an AI for bias-checking

DrizztLink posted...

There's a nonzero chance that the reason rich people are buying politicians so blatantly now is because they're setting up their fiefdoms in preparation for environmental collapse.

And they aren't exactly writing these plans in a ten year calendar, if you catch my drift.

It's quarter by quarter thinking, IMO.

any sort of large-effort bias checking like this is going to be impossible I think, AI or not

people who really push for it don't understand what they are asking for