The Times could perhaps be leaning “right”. But the FT is, in my opinion, a legitimately neutral publication. At least through Britain’s default neoliberal lens.
The Times has lurched extremely far right within the last decade. The main difference between it and the Telegraph or Daily Mail is one of tone rather than content.
The FT certainly has its biases but I agree that it is generally the most reliable. Noam Chomsky once said it was the most trustworthy newspaper because of its incentives to tell the truth:
> Those who Adam Smith called ‘the masters of the universe’ have to understand the universe. They have to have a tolerably realistic understanding of the world that they are managing and controlling. That’s true of political elites as well, but the business world particularly.
> > Anwar Shaikh, the most left-wing economist in the world, introduced me to “The Wall Street Journal”. I met him in his office as he was writing the monumental “Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises”. He told that he reads the WSJ because it tells the truth about what is happening in the economy. It struck me then by the seeming oddity of the most left-wing economist in the world praising the most right-wing daily in the world. But Anwar was right. An economics daily has, in the part that deals with the real life, to be as objective as possible because if it spreads fairy tales people who believe them will lose money. Then no capitalist will buy it. For they do not like to lose money. In the trade-off between the fairy tales and cash, they chose the latter. Other dailies that appeal to the “pensée unique” do not need to worry about that kind of elemental truth. They can make things up.
Well, to be fair I don't have a huge amount of information about the FT as I'm not a subscriber. I do remember that they did publish at least some Keynesian economists during the 2008 financial crisis, although I think they were still part of the prevailing (and IMO mistaken) bias towards austerity.
But I think no publication is completely neutral. There are areas where they will accept opinions as viable alternatives, and areas where they consider opinions outside the pale and not deserving of consideration. A completely biased publication always picks one side everywhere, but 'neutral' publications usually are biased towards which opinions they will give serious consideration.
They other dimension is that articles written in a neutral 'style' aren't necessarily any less biased than ones written in polemic style.
truculent|2 years ago
The FT certainly has its biases but I agree that it is generally the most reliable. Noam Chomsky once said it was the most trustworthy newspaper because of its incentives to tell the truth:
> Those who Adam Smith called ‘the masters of the universe’ have to understand the universe. They have to have a tolerably realistic understanding of the world that they are managing and controlling. That’s true of political elites as well, but the business world particularly.
https://www.ft.com/content/bcdefd38-3beb-3506-b24c-82285ac87...
avgcorrection|2 years ago
> > Anwar Shaikh, the most left-wing economist in the world, introduced me to “The Wall Street Journal”. I met him in his office as he was writing the monumental “Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises”. He told that he reads the WSJ because it tells the truth about what is happening in the economy. It struck me then by the seeming oddity of the most left-wing economist in the world praising the most right-wing daily in the world. But Anwar was right. An economics daily has, in the part that deals with the real life, to be as objective as possible because if it spreads fairy tales people who believe them will lose money. Then no capitalist will buy it. For they do not like to lose money. In the trade-off between the fairy tales and cash, they chose the latter. Other dailies that appeal to the “pensée unique” do not need to worry about that kind of elemental truth. They can make things up.
ajb|2 years ago
But I think no publication is completely neutral. There are areas where they will accept opinions as viable alternatives, and areas where they consider opinions outside the pale and not deserving of consideration. A completely biased publication always picks one side everywhere, but 'neutral' publications usually are biased towards which opinions they will give serious consideration.
They other dimension is that articles written in a neutral 'style' aren't necessarily any less biased than ones written in polemic style.