Yes...presenting your world view or bias is somewhat the point of compiling a magazine. Every magazine does it to some extent. But IMO the Spiegel is enough of a professional news magazine to realize their bias and counter it to some extent, by bringing stories that are not in line with it. The last story I can remember was one I recently translated for FreeRepublic, an interview about Quaeda influence and structures in Bosnia that implicated that the former SPD/Green government had chosen the wrong side in that war.
2. Near all articles in "Der Spiegel" have a strong pro left and yes, like it or not, anti-American spin. Example: [...] Bush
Pro-left: yes, 'anti-American': no. I'll give it to you that they hate Bush and tend to report negative about his government. On the other hand, they tend to publish many articles of Henryk M. Broder, for example. Broder is a decidedly pro-conservative Jew, whose last book on the mindstate of the German war on terror bore the name: "Horray, we're surrendering!".
Der Spiegel is within this left oriented media landscape on the more far left edge.
I'll make it short and give you a through pass: Not in the German media landscape. It is the biggest news paper with a bias to the left, but by far not an extremely left paper (those, like for example the "Junge Welt", are really completely unreadable).
A NO NAME company, a NO NAME computer game, not carried in any store, hardly known to anyone gets a major story devoted to it on line. Why?
Because it's news. Anyway, that "Left Behind" series was quite a success up to now, wasn't it? And I am still waiting for you to tell me how this game needs any spin to make a negative impression. Anyway, the topic stayed on the online edition front page for about a day and was then exchanged.
It is actually quite easy to write something that is “objective” and “neutral”. However, Der Spiegel does NOT fit this description.
The most popular newspaper, at least some time ago in the US, was USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com One of the main reasons for this was that they used color. What sells a paper or magazine is not quality of reporting, it’s conflict, sensationalizing, color, pictures, etc. That’s the market Der Speigel is in. Der Spiegel is to weekly magazines what Bild is to a daily paper, trash. The fact that Der Spiegel is a popular magazine is no testament to its accuracy, neutrality, or anything else. It’s rather a statement of their ability to “sell” news.
When issues are controversial, is it a hard concept to grasp that fair reporting means both sides get equal coverage? That both sides are represented by people of equal rank and authority on the position? That the moderator is there to keep the discussion on topic, and not throw rocks to the side he does not support and throw snowball questions at those he likes. The media has come to a point where it is acceptable to literally have three liberals and a moderator discuss a topic and claim this was an objective view.
It’s easy to measure bias!
Content bias can be determined in many ways. This is one example-
We can look at the use of Syntax (Key words), referential (example drawing connections to Vietnam in Iraq), propositional, or thematic (Your story on this PC game) as measures of bias. Copy articles into a Word doc and then do searches and you’ll see trends. Coincidence? No.
***Der Spiegel “FAILS” in every aspect*** Bias in reporting is blatant.
Because the US is a religious country, thinks nationally, is economically conservative, has an English heritage, Der Spiegel generally will have a negative reporting slant in what they write about the US since the US in those aspects is everything Der Spiegel opposes in it’s editorial slant. That’s why they pick up on such nonsense articles such as this computer game. The goal of such a nonsense story is to associate guilt. I could state that in Germany there are some NAZI’s and continually run stories on these two NAZI’s, what image would that create? Is Germany really at risk of falling under control of the NAZI? No. In Germany you recently had another school shooting. If the same would have happened in the US, what would Spiegel have written, who would they have “spun” it reference gun laws in the US? Trying to associate the American Christian right with a no name computer game which no one watches is like trying to say all Germans are NAZI’s because someone somewhere in Germany wrote a NAZI statement. It’s BS news, and when a media outlet “consistently” engages in such behavior, as Der Spiegel does, it’s a testament to their agenda and lack of professionalism as a media outlet.
It's not news, it's creating news, news that fits into their agenda.