10 ms·

That's a very fine line to walk -- few of these talking points are strictly true or false and almost everything on either side of the issue is deliberately misl

by swanson 10y ago

That's a very fine line to walk -- few of these talking points are strictly true or false and almost everything on either side of the issue is deliberately misleading (or "persuasive" if you prefer). Who is deciding what truths are getting air time? Humans are notoriously terrible at seeing our own biases, why are reporters/journalism students any different?

wpietri 10y ago
The difference is that journalists are supposed to be professionals who discern the reality of a situation and report it to those of us who can't be there or don't have time to sift through all of the details. The reason we don't get that as much in the US is that a lot of journalism is modeled on the wire service piece, which is meant as generic copy that almost any newspaper can reprint. It's what journalism prof Jay Rosen calls "The View From Nowhere". One important distinction, also mostly lost on American journalism, is that viewpoint is different than bias. It's easier to see in the foreign press, though. The Economist, for example, has a very clear viewpoint, but they visibly work hard not to be biased.
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  I'm not sure how you can describe The Economist as both having a clear viewpoint yet also not biased. It's more that TE is very open and honest about being biased, it doesn't try to hide that fact, so that helps it come across as a more mature publication. But nobody rational would read TE and think they're getting an unbiased view of the world on any topic that the editor feels strongly about (immigration, the EU, Russia, etc). For tech stuff, the politics of Malaysia and the myriad other topics TE covers that they don't have any strong opinion on, sure, it's great for that. For politics what you're reading are opinion pieces intended to persuade you.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    Can you not think of a topic where you have a clear point of view but can write in an unbiased way? For example, I can give novice programmers a reasonably unbiased overview of the strengths and weaknesses of various programming languages, even ones I don't favor myself. I can also talk happily about the flaws in the languages I personally prefer. I see people do this pretty often with things like cities they've lived in, restaurants, books, and movies. Anybody who works at it a bit can do it. You just have to be able to distance yourself a bit from your preferences, to learn how to make an intellectual case that cuts against your biases. So yeah, I've read The Economist for something like 30 years, and I think they do a good job of having a strong viewpoint without skewing their coverage much because of it. In particular, I think they keep their opinion-y activities well contained in the leaders and regular columns. The news still has a fair bit of viewpoint (e.g., numerical, humanistic, skeptical, and, well, economics-focused), but rarely do I find them shading the facts or juggling the numbers to force an outcome, which is what I mean by bias.
    - oldmanjay 10y ago
      One thing that is certain is that the pool of people who opine they can be unbiased in areas where they have favorites is not the same as the set of people who can actually do it.
      - inimino 10y ago
        Equally clear is that a lot of people aren't even trying. An honest effort to be as unbiased as you can goes a long way.
        wpietri 10y ago
        Absolutely. I don't think anybody can fully succeed at that. But there's a world of difference for me between people who try and people who don't bother.
    - zigzigzag 10y ago
      The big source of bias is the selection of what stories to include. Do you think TE will write an article focused on crazy things said by leaders of the EU? Never in a million years. They will happily devote large amounts of coverage to statements by politicians they disagree with, however.
      - wpietri 10y ago
        What stories to include is also a matter of viewpoint. Note how complicated the line between "good story for HN" and "not right for HN" is. Sometimes I'd call that a matter of bias, but the great majority of the time it's just viewpoint. I also think "crazy things said by leaders of the EU" is an odd thing to ask for, as it is basically asking them to import your bias as to what's "crazy". I certainly see them printing things from EU leaders that I'd call crazy, if that helps. I also wouldn't call them deferential toward anybody; they're on average quite skeptical of politicians' claims. I note that you didn't answer my question. Maybe you could? And let me ask another: you only respond here on a relatively small set of stories. Is that because you are biased? Or just because you have a viewpoint?
- dilemma 10y ago
  Journalism in all societies have the same problem: It is influenced by the power structure it is part of, and meant to objectively cover. It's just human.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    This is true, but I believe current American journalism has additional problems beyond the generic ones. For those interested, I strongly recommend Jay Rosen's blog: http://pressthink.org/ http://pressthink.org/ For example, his latest piece discusses areas where political coverage should not be neutral: http://pressthink.org/2016/10/campaign-press-not-neutral-toward/ http://pressthink.org/2016/10/campaign-press-not-neutral-tow... Saying, e.g., that they should be for deliberation and voter participation, while being against opacity and demagoguery. And I strongly recommend his critiques of the View from Nowhere. E.g.: http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/ http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-question...
    - jeffdavis 10y ago
      Voter participation is certainly not a clear-cut issue. Are the extra voters brought into the process as informed as the voters that sought out participation with no outside push?
      - wpietri 10y ago
        If you want to argue the point, I'd suggest you talk to Rosen, not me. But my take is that yes, it's still clear cut. Becoming informed doesn't happen in a vacuum. I wasn't particularly informed when I started voting at 18. But being a regular voter and wanting to do it well has forced a lot of my activity around getting and staying informed. Democracies are dynamic processes. We're always absorbing new, underinformed voters and turning them into better ones. If some potential voters are underinformed, the solution isn't to discourage them from voting; it's to educate them. And journalists are in the business of informing, so I think Rosen reasonably leaves out here that journalists are already openly in favor of informing voters.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The Economist explicitly states its bias in its own prospectus. Most particularly for free-trade policies.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    That is what I'm calling viewpoint, not bias. Bias would be if they shaded their reporting to support their viewpoint. As an example, they could just not talk about the people harmed by free trade. But quite often they do. Consequently, their editorial pieces regularly recommend taxing those who win on trade deals to help retrain those who lose their jobs. They don't always succeed at being biased, but I think they do a better job precisely because they're explicit about their viewpoint. I prefer this to American "view from nowhere" journalism, where the effort to subtract viewpoint makes it harder to discern and excise bias.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      The Economist is, in general, pretty good. But it has a viewpoint. It's open about it, and compensates to an extent by also, mostly, believing in a full, frank, and largely accurate reporting of what's happening in the world. It still manifestly fails in this on repeated occasions (virtually anything associated with limits, though that may be changing). I'd read the magazine for some decades before running across the prospectus itself, here, by the way: http://www.economist.com/node/1873493 http://www.economist.com/node/1873493 Which lays out that a paper called The Economist to be published "which will contain": _First.—ORIGINAL LEADING ARTICLES, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day—political events—and parliamentary discussions; and particularly to all such as relate immediately to revenue, commerce, and agriculture; or otherwise affect the material interests of the country._ Long before this I'd noted that the slant of the leaders was often directly contradicted by the companion full stories further back in the magazine, most especially from foreign correspondents in developing countries -- India, China, and the various African states particularly. Again: there are some grounds on which to consider The Economist fairly good, and its companion The Financial Times as well. Simply on a criterion of mentioning substantial figures, both rate quite highly amongst mainstream periodicals, see: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/tracking_the_conversation_fp_global_100_thinkers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by swanson 10y ago

wpietri 10y ago

The difference is that journalists are supposed to be professionals who discern the reality of a situation and report it to those of us who can't be there or don't have time to sift through all of the details. The reason we don't get that as much in the US is that a lot of journalism is modeled on the wire service piece, which is meant as generic copy that almost any newspaper can reprint. It's what journalism prof Jay Rosen calls "The View From Nowhere". One important distinction, also mostly lost on American journalism, is that viewpoint is different than bias. It's easier to see in the foreign press, though. The Economist, for example, has a very clear viewpoint, but they visibly work hard not to be biased.

zigzigzag 10y ago
I'm not sure how you can describe The Economist as both having a clear viewpoint yet also not biased. It's more that TE is very open and honest about being biased, it doesn't try to hide that fact, so that helps it come across as a more mature publication. But nobody rational would read TE and think they're getting an unbiased view of the world on any topic that the editor feels strongly about (immigration, the EU, Russia, etc). For tech stuff, the politics of Malaysia and the myriad other topics TE covers that they don't have any strong opinion on, sure, it's great for that. For politics what you're reading are opinion pieces intended to persuade you.
- wpietri 10y ago
  Can you not think of a topic where you have a clear point of view but can write in an unbiased way? For example, I can give novice programmers a reasonably unbiased overview of the strengths and weaknesses of various programming languages, even ones I don't favor myself. I can also talk happily about the flaws in the languages I personally prefer. I see people do this pretty often with things like cities they've lived in, restaurants, books, and movies. Anybody who works at it a bit can do it. You just have to be able to distance yourself a bit from your preferences, to learn how to make an intellectual case that cuts against your biases. So yeah, I've read The Economist for something like 30 years, and I think they do a good job of having a strong viewpoint without skewing their coverage much because of it. In particular, I think they keep their opinion-y activities well contained in the leaders and regular columns. The news still has a fair bit of viewpoint (e.g., numerical, humanistic, skeptical, and, well, economics-focused), but rarely do I find them shading the facts or juggling the numbers to force an outcome, which is what I mean by bias.
  - oldmanjay 10y ago
    One thing that is certain is that the pool of people who opine they can be unbiased in areas where they have favorites is not the same as the set of people who can actually do it.
    - inimino 10y ago
      Equally clear is that a lot of people aren't even trying. An honest effort to be as unbiased as you can goes a long way.
      - wpietri 10y ago
        Absolutely. I don't think anybody can fully succeed at that. But there's a world of difference for me between people who try and people who don't bother.
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    The big source of bias is the selection of what stories to include. Do you think TE will write an article focused on crazy things said by leaders of the EU? Never in a million years. They will happily devote large amounts of coverage to statements by politicians they disagree with, however.
    - wpietri 10y ago
      What stories to include is also a matter of viewpoint. Note how complicated the line between "good story for HN" and "not right for HN" is. Sometimes I'd call that a matter of bias, but the great majority of the time it's just viewpoint. I also think "crazy things said by leaders of the EU" is an odd thing to ask for, as it is basically asking them to import your bias as to what's "crazy". I certainly see them printing things from EU leaders that I'd call crazy, if that helps. I also wouldn't call them deferential toward anybody; they're on average quite skeptical of politicians' claims. I note that you didn't answer my question. Maybe you could? And let me ask another: you only respond here on a relatively small set of stories. Is that because you are biased? Or just because you have a viewpoint?
dilemma 10y ago
Journalism in all societies have the same problem: It is influenced by the power structure it is part of, and meant to objectively cover. It's just human.
- wpietri 10y ago
  This is true, but I believe current American journalism has additional problems beyond the generic ones. For those interested, I strongly recommend Jay Rosen's blog: http://pressthink.org/ http://pressthink.org/ For example, his latest piece discusses areas where political coverage should not be neutral: http://pressthink.org/2016/10/campaign-press-not-neutral-toward/ http://pressthink.org/2016/10/campaign-press-not-neutral-tow... Saying, e.g., that they should be for deliberation and voter participation, while being against opacity and demagoguery. And I strongly recommend his critiques of the View from Nowhere. E.g.: http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/ http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-question...
  - jeffdavis 10y ago
    Voter participation is certainly not a clear-cut issue. Are the extra voters brought into the process as informed as the voters that sought out participation with no outside push?
    - wpietri 10y ago
      If you want to argue the point, I'd suggest you talk to Rosen, not me. But my take is that yes, it's still clear cut. Becoming informed doesn't happen in a vacuum. I wasn't particularly informed when I started voting at 18. But being a regular voter and wanting to do it well has forced a lot of my activity around getting and staying informed. Democracies are dynamic processes. We're always absorbing new, underinformed voters and turning them into better ones. If some potential voters are underinformed, the solution isn't to discourage them from voting; it's to educate them. And journalists are in the business of informing, so I think Rosen reasonably leaves out here that journalists are already openly in favor of informing voters.
dredmorbius 10y ago
The Economist explicitly states its bias in its own prospectus. Most particularly for free-trade policies.
- wpietri 10y ago
  That is what I'm calling viewpoint, not bias. Bias would be if they shaded their reporting to support their viewpoint. As an example, they could just not talk about the people harmed by free trade. But quite often they do. Consequently, their editorial pieces regularly recommend taxing those who win on trade deals to help retrain those who lose their jobs. They don't always succeed at being biased, but I think they do a better job precisely because they're explicit about their viewpoint. I prefer this to American "view from nowhere" journalism, where the effort to subtract viewpoint makes it harder to discern and excise bias.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    The Economist is, in general, pretty good. But it has a viewpoint. It's open about it, and compensates to an extent by also, mostly, believing in a full, frank, and largely accurate reporting of what's happening in the world. It still manifestly fails in this on repeated occasions (virtually anything associated with limits, though that may be changing). I'd read the magazine for some decades before running across the prospectus itself, here, by the way: http://www.economist.com/node/1873493 http://www.economist.com/node/1873493 Which lays out that a paper called The Economist to be published "which will contain": _First.—ORIGINAL LEADING ARTICLES, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day—political events—and parliamentary discussions; and particularly to all such as relate immediately to revenue, commerce, and agriculture; or otherwise affect the material interests of the country._ Long before this I'd noted that the slant of the leaders was often directly contradicted by the companion full stories further back in the magazine, most especially from foreign correspondents in developing countries -- India, China, and the various African states particularly. Again: there are some grounds on which to consider The Economist fairly good, and its companion The Financial Times as well. Simply on a criterion of mentioning substantial figures, both rate quite highly amongst mainstream periodicals, see: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/tracking_the_conversation_fp_global_100_thinkers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]