7 ms·

I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican part

I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. I've been a cord cutter for over a decade. This year I graduated to pitying people who repeat the latest front page story as naive fear-junkies. Everything is suspect. Why burn processing cycles reading stories that on their face are actually stupid with conclusions that are unsupported by verifiable facts? (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cyber-strike-against-russia-n666636 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cy...) Between the Sponsored Content, Native Ads and all of the investigative journalists who (according to DNC emails) are labeled as "friends," I have no choice but to say "I quit." They are pretty lies that don't nourish!

skylan_q 10y ago
I've been there for a while. I only trust a few people who thanklessly go through materials and study issues in detail. If I want to verify further I can only then trust primary sources and direct evidence. For a long time now, all forms of traditional media have had a bent. It's just gotten very monied and politicized as of late.
- novalis78 10y ago
  One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate: Read foreign media, read political opponents views on the same topic as the mainstream media, read (if available) conflicting mainstream media stories. Take it all in, and triangulate. Very often the BS from one side cancels out the BS from the other side and you are not closer to reality. But very often it's the scrutiny from either side on an opposing paradigm, that gets you closer to what actually happened. Finally, draw your own conclusions based on history/education/philosophy.
  - cmurf 10y ago
    Yes, this was something explicitly taught in political science. It's important to understand the paper and writer bias, by reading multiple sources it's possible to unwind the ideology to a fairly good degree - and triangulate.
  - shoehornhands 10y ago
    > One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate That's what's really depressing about this: it is absurdly easy to get to the bottom of whether a fricking blender is worth buying, but important events happening in the world? Get your researchin' shoes on. By the way, thank you very much for your input - your experience in that arena is unique and very valuable to the discussion.
javajosh 10y ago
It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position, I think it's useful to state what would undermine the credibility of an institution of journalism. It's actually really simple: if it persistently reports incidents for which there is no proof, or if it reports incidents in such a way that obscures the facts themselves (spin). Any institution that regularly confuses editorializing for journalism losses its credibility. By these rules there are many institutions that are not trustworthy (e.g. Fox) but there are many institutions that are (the NYT).
- grandalf 10y ago
  How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.
  - snowwrestler 10y ago
    That is because the recent email leaks just validated what everyone already knew about Hillary Clinton and her campaign. The fact that the emails were LEAKED OMG is not the newsworthy part. It is what is in them. And largely speaking, there's not much news in them. IMO a major problem in the U.S. today is that not many people understand how political campaigns or the federal government actually work. So a lot of people can be led to believe that boringly standard practices like revising talking points over email, and getting updates on court hearings, are actually proof of corruption. But they're not.
    - angry-hacker 10y ago
      And what don't we already know about Trump? Even if true, if this is serious journalism, why they keep printing she said he said? Wouldn't it be excellent time to print the stories of the alleged rape victims of Bill Clinton too? Since they publicly admit he and Hillary is a team? If you think media is not one sides, even if sided slightly more sane side, you're out of your mind.
NumberCruncher 10y ago
The funny thing is that news are mostly lies or half truths about events they would still be irrelevant to your life even if the news were 100% true: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
dingbat 10y ago
re: the example you give about VP Biden announcing secret cyber attacks against Russia during an NBC News interview, it isnt necessarily a waste to "burn processing cycles" keeping up with such news, when you consider that observing propaganda in action can itself provide information about "what" exactly the "powers that be" want people to believe, leading to further examination of "why". it is similar to reading financial news or watching CNBC with the mindset of reading between the lines, wondering who and why is interested in propagating such stories.
gotchange 10y ago
Do you consider this piece of journalism as propaganda too? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince-shatters-decades-of-royal-tradition.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince... I could be as much skeptic as you and I can draw my own conclusions for why this particular story might have been published now and not before, and for what purpose, but this doesn't stop me from enjoying reading it and absorbing its juicy details and knowledge. I'm still thankful for NYT for dedicating time and effort to expose this person as a fraud and hypocrite and I'm looking forward to reading more of these in the future for other despicable figures.
- droopybuns 10y ago
  I read this and my first instinct was "what PR team pitched this story?" Maybe none. But one way the times could re establish credibility with me is to be transparent about how much the writer engaged with pr reps or communications teams in each story. It doesn't have to be exhaustive. By the way- Part of my journey to this level of skepticism was "Trust me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285 https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato...
  - gotchange 10y ago
    A PR/fluff piece that he bought a $500 mln yacht on a whim while calling for austerity in his own country cutting govt employees salaries and benefits? That would be the worst PR piece you could ask for, unless you mean that you suspect that his political foes were the ones behind this story which is not unlikely but again not a deal-breaker and what's only important to me is the question, were the details listed in the piece factual or not? Nothing more.
lsh123 10y ago
I grew up in USSR in the 80s and there were two major newspapers distributed across the whole country: "The Truth" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda) and "The News" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia). So the joke about these newspapers was: There is no truth in "The Truth" and there are no news in "The News". Update: Added links to wikipedia
shoehornhands 10y ago
> The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. To borrow a phrase that usually makes me think of a milennial with a punchable face, "This^100." I always held those news organizations skeptically in the back of my mind as Every Educated Person Ought To, but this is just...unbelievable.
anonbanker 10y ago
I know it's a rather sad state of affairs when I'm now reading /pol/ on 4chan to get my news nowadays. Once you filter out the noise, there's some intensive research and unbiased news there. Is anyone else doing this?
- alva 10y ago
  Yup. Significant signals amongst the noise. Lots of references to primary sources.
khattam 10y ago
>The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. Why would you trust them? You think they would go through all that shit to give you information and work for you for a few pennies or for free? When they could be working for the rich and powerful to become one of them... all while getting your pennies?

skylan_q 10y ago

I've been there for a while. I only trust a few people who thanklessly go through materials and study issues in detail. If I want to verify further I can only then trust primary sources and direct evidence. For a long time now, all forms of traditional media have had a bent. It's just gotten very monied and politicized as of late.

novalis78 10y ago
One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate: Read foreign media, read political opponents views on the same topic as the mainstream media, read (if available) conflicting mainstream media stories. Take it all in, and triangulate. Very often the BS from one side cancels out the BS from the other side and you are not closer to reality. But very often it's the scrutiny from either side on an opposing paradigm, that gets you closer to what actually happened. Finally, draw your own conclusions based on history/education/philosophy.
- cmurf 10y ago
  Yes, this was something explicitly taught in political science. It's important to understand the paper and writer bias, by reading multiple sources it's possible to unwind the ideology to a fairly good degree - and triangulate.
- shoehornhands 10y ago
  > One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate That's what's really depressing about this: it is absurdly easy to get to the bottom of whether a fricking blender is worth buying, but important events happening in the world? Get your researchin' shoes on. By the way, thank you very much for your input - your experience in that arena is unique and very valuable to the discussion.

javajosh 10y ago

It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position, I think it's useful to state what would undermine the credibility of an institution of journalism. It's actually really simple: if it persistently reports incidents for which there is no proof, or if it reports incidents in such a way that obscures the facts themselves (spin). Any institution that regularly confuses editorializing for journalism losses its credibility. By these rules there are many institutions that are not trustworthy (e.g. Fox) but there are many institutions that are (the NYT).

grandalf 10y ago
How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  That is because the recent email leaks just validated what everyone already knew about Hillary Clinton and her campaign. The fact that the emails were LEAKED OMG is not the newsworthy part. It is what is in them. And largely speaking, there's not much news in them. IMO a major problem in the U.S. today is that not many people understand how political campaigns or the federal government actually work. So a lot of people can be led to believe that boringly standard practices like revising talking points over email, and getting updates on court hearings, are actually proof of corruption. But they're not.
  - angry-hacker 10y ago
    And what don't we already know about Trump? Even if true, if this is serious journalism, why they keep printing she said he said? Wouldn't it be excellent time to print the stories of the alleged rape victims of Bill Clinton too? Since they publicly admit he and Hillary is a team? If you think media is not one sides, even if sided slightly more sane side, you're out of your mind.

NumberCruncher 10y ago

The funny thing is that news are mostly lies or half truths about events they would still be irrelevant to your life even if the news were 100% true: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

dingbat 10y ago

re: the example you give about VP Biden announcing secret cyber attacks against Russia during an NBC News interview, it isnt necessarily a waste to "burn processing cycles" keeping up with such news, when you consider that observing propaganda in action can itself provide information about "what" exactly the "powers that be" want people to believe, leading to further examination of "why". it is similar to reading financial news or watching CNBC with the mindset of reading between the lines, wondering who and why is interested in propagating such stories.

gotchange 10y ago

Do you consider this piece of journalism as propaganda too? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince-shatters-decades-of-royal-tradition.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince... I could be as much skeptic as you and I can draw my own conclusions for why this particular story might have been published now and not before, and for what purpose, but this doesn't stop me from enjoying reading it and absorbing its juicy details and knowledge. I'm still thankful for NYT for dedicating time and effort to expose this person as a fraud and hypocrite and I'm looking forward to reading more of these in the future for other despicable figures.

droopybuns 10y ago
I read this and my first instinct was "what PR team pitched this story?" Maybe none. But one way the times could re establish credibility with me is to be transparent about how much the writer engaged with pr reps or communications teams in each story. It doesn't have to be exhaustive. By the way- Part of my journey to this level of skepticism was "Trust me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285 https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato...
- gotchange 10y ago
  A PR/fluff piece that he bought a $500 mln yacht on a whim while calling for austerity in his own country cutting govt employees salaries and benefits? That would be the worst PR piece you could ask for, unless you mean that you suspect that his political foes were the ones behind this story which is not unlikely but again not a deal-breaker and what's only important to me is the question, were the details listed in the piece factual or not? Nothing more.

lsh123 10y ago

I grew up in USSR in the 80s and there were two major newspapers distributed across the whole country: "The Truth" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda) and "The News" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia). So the joke about these newspapers was: There is no truth in "The Truth" and there are no news in "The News". Update: Added links to wikipedia

shoehornhands 10y ago

> The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. To borrow a phrase that usually makes me think of a milennial with a punchable face, "This^100." I always held those news organizations skeptically in the back of my mind as Every Educated Person Ought To, but this is just...unbelievable.

anonbanker 10y ago

I know it's a rather sad state of affairs when I'm now reading /pol/ on 4chan to get my news nowadays. Once you filter out the noise, there's some intensive research and unbiased news there. Is anyone else doing this?

alva 10y ago
Yup. Significant signals amongst the noise. Lots of references to primary sources.

khattam 10y ago

>The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. Why would you trust them? You think they would go through all that shit to give you information and work for you for a few pennies or for free? When they could be working for the rich and powerful to become one of them... all while getting your pennies?