The survey is useless. Even if a decent amount of non-NST followers happened to respond to this survey, and even if they had any familiarity with the org, they'd be answering the wrong questions. The bias of NSToday lies not in over-representation or under-representation. As some have claimed, representation is dependent on the authors' interests. I agree. I'm willing to accept -- for the sake of argument -- that a bunch of NSLeft reporters are infatuated by the elections of a few select regions. I'm even willing to accept that there is no over-representation or under-representation at all, or that it's the reverse, and regions like TRR are over-represented.
This survey conveniently redirects attention towards representation, an argument that NSToday is bound to win through reasonable doubt. The bias of NST stems not from its writers, but instead from a few members in its leadership. Ironically, those members strangle their own organization with a (mostly-)unspoken fear of bias, forcing it to only cover election results-- forcing it to avoid thought (I use that word fearing it that it would sound pretentious, but will leave it from lack of a better word). As a result, the predisposition usually can't be found in any one article. They're too careful for that. But inevitably, bias (I should really say "predisposition") seeps in. It would be foolish to assume that any product of one's own brain could possibly be void of one's own predispositions and prejudices. Whenever some select board members (they know who they are; we all know who they are) and NSToday higher-ups have the highest and most minute control, bias just becomes blatantly apparent. Have we yet to entertain that the Power20's bias could result from the panel that one (or maybe multiple) player(s) select? One panelist privately voiced suspicion to me that panelists won't criticize the methodology of the list for fear of being kicked off on the next edition (it's more convenient when panelists just go with the flow). Or we could look to the podcasts / Up Close & Personals, the most patently-biased section of NSToday, where the same select players would go so far as to invite two radical meritocracy advocates to argue on democracy vs meritocracy, among other examples.
There's an obvious player who fits this description. He's the genial face of all that's bad (and all that's good-- the podcasts are far more educational than anything else they have) with NSToday. He actively attempts to guarantee his oligarchical power, and uses it to spread his own opinions in the aforementioned mediums. I don't know whether he's even aware it's happening, so this is nothing personal.
So when Aynia consistently asks "what should we do", I'm at a bit of a loss. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to say that there is no solution, and your newspaper is just helpless? Do you want me to follow NSToday's bureaucracy obsession and suggest some clever policy? There's no objective, clearcut way to suppress bias unless you just want to get rid of the aforementioned players or their powerbases. It just comes down to encouraging your administration to be more responsible. In other words, I'm doing the job of someone in NST (potentially Aynia) by pointing out examples of bias.
Stop obsessing over the same few players from the same social circle. That's your solution, Aynia. None of this is a matter of indignance because you don't care about TNP or TRR or 10KI. You truly cannot produce good content if you keep espousing the same opinions from the same type of players. So just stop finding NSGPers -- the same NSGPers -- for your podcasts and Power20 and committees (Xoriet, who I'm sure can provide intelligent thoughts, hasn't expressed any interest on being on this committee, so why is she on it?). As I told Omega, I don't care if they're from TWP or Osiris (finding players from the aforementioned "underrepresented" regions is just an easy way to find new voices), just so long as they aren't circlejerking the same opinions. Only then can your newspaper look less like a propagandist's megaphone.
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