6 ms·

Yes, there are biases in e.g. the NYT and Washington Post. However, in terms of objectivity, they are miles ahead of the "unfiltered news" on social media. The

by pg314 10y ago

Yes, there are biases in e.g. the NYT and Washington Post. However, in terms of objectivity, they are miles ahead of the "unfiltered news" on social media. The written press try to check their sources, and hedge their statements if they are not certain. I admit that they do sometimes filter some stories that go against their beliefs/interests. However, they have things like op-eds that often contain different perspectives. If you look at the "unfiltered news" on social media, most of it starts from a tidbit of information and then twists it to fit whatever narrative they are trying to promote. On top of that, in the social media bubble, you literally never get exposed to contrasting opinions. As an example, a week ago Wikileaks leaked a mail about 'spirit cooking', and tweeted a misleading message. That got picked up by 'news' stories on social media and turned into some satanic ritual. It even got mentions on Fox News. If you were trying to figure out what 'spirit cooking' really was, in the first days the first few pages of google were only links to dubious websites reinforcing that it was some satanic ritual (with authoritative sounding names like usapoliticstoday.com). Only later did you get links to sites debunking the story. I very much doubt that the average reader of these stories ever even went to Google to check the background story. You say people aren't fools. I would say people are easily fooled. Add to this active disinformation campaigns (alt-right 'news' websites, twitter bots, troll farms), a constant drip of easily twisted Wikileak emails and an FBI director putting his whole weight on the scale during the last week of the election, and you get this disastrous election result.

msravi 10y ago
I'll repeat what I said in response to another comment: I think you're underestimating the intelligence of people. We like to think that we're much better than the average Joe at separating the wheat from the chaff, but the truth is that the average Joe just isn't so bad at it either - or at least, isn't much worse than an editor sitting in his echo chamber. If I look at my twitter feed now, for example, I have a bunch of tweets criticizing a new decision of the government to withdraw high-denomination currencies (I'm from India), and for every such tweet there are others that are calling out the fallacies of the argument put forth. And vice versa. Gives me all the viewpoints I need to form an opinion.
- JamisonM 10y ago
  [My Twitter feed gives] me all the viewpoints I need to form an opinion. Given that hubris seems to be the theme of this topic I have to say this is particularly appropriate.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    One advantage if Twitter is that a lot of the primary sources(the politicians, Project Veritas, Wikileaks, etc.) all communicate using it. Another one is that you only have 140 characters, so people are more likely to link directly to a primary source. I've seen too many "news articles" that spin very weak data into a big article, with too much interpretation by the editor. A third one is that you can choose who to follow, so it's possible to have items from the other side show up in your feed. You can also choose to only follow sources that you consider high-quality. I didn't use Twitter much before, but I did start using it this election just because it was a good way to get information.
    - pg314 10y ago
      I hope you're not considering Project Veritas a high-quality source. Mr. O'Keefe has a track record of selectively and deceptively editing his video recordings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe It is telling that he is often not releasing the full, unedited video, which I would consider the primary source. Once the video has been edited, the meaning could have been altered (and in the case of Project Veritas, it often is).
    - JamisonM 10y ago
      If you regard the Twitter feed of Wikileaks a credible source of information I can't help you. https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/794450623404113920 https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7944506234041139...
      - MichaelBurge 10y ago
        Even if you believe the information is unreliable, surely you agree that suggesting the idea and then pointing to a particularly bad example is a dangerous confirmation bias trap? If somebody told me, "CNN is doing a segment on how Trump's rise eerily parallels Hitler's rise", it would be confirmation bias to start off assuming it's false because I like Trump, watch the segment, record all the errors in the presentation, and then use those errors to support my initial conclusion. I agree that the Spirit Cooking was better entertainment than it was credible information.
jerf 10y ago
"However, in terms of objectivity, they are miles ahead of the "unfiltered news" on social media." There isn't actually a contradiction between the news media being miles ahead of "unfiltered news", and the fact that unfiltered news can show the biases of the media. In a social media age, if the filtered news can have its errors exposed easily, then trust will still decrease in it even if it is, hypothetically, 90% accurate. Which is probably a great deal more accurate than it actually is, because the "filtered media" has been operating in a space where "nobody" (to a first approximation anyhow) could independently check it for decades and has gotten very used to its ability to filter things unopposed. We don't even have to hypothesize anything about hubris necessarily; it has simply been used to this being the reality in the same way that, say, the Federal government has become used to being the dominant governmental authority. It isn't necessarily "wrong", it just is. This position has left the media unable to deal with any sort of challenge to its authority... even the very confused, chaotic, challenge offered by current social media. They have never needed to develop an "immune system" to that sort of thing, though that's not a perfect metaphor. It's hard to even judge how right the old media was, because you're measuring a yardstick against itself. How do you know the old media back in the 1990s was that good in the first place? Where are you getting the information you'd use to check that claim? How do you know that the filtered media didn't have things "start[] from a tidbit of information and then twists it to fit whatever narrative they are trying to promote"? It's not exactly hard to find instances of things that look like that in the past; to come up with a non-political example, "moral panics" are not a new phenomenon. D&D had a pretty good one off of a pretty small "tidbit". A new media ecosystem will arise eventually. Probably some of the old media will manage to up their game enough to compete again. But it's never going to be monolithic again until social media is somehow entirely destroyed. And the social media is going to get better. Diversity is coming to the news industry whether it likes it or not.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > In a social media age, if the filtered news can have its errors exposed easily, then trust will still decrease in it even if it is, hypothetically, 90% accurate. Especially if the inaccuracies (or mere biases) all slant the same direction.

by pg314 10y ago

msravi 10y ago

I'll repeat what I said in response to another comment: I think you're underestimating the intelligence of people. We like to think that we're much better than the average Joe at separating the wheat from the chaff, but the truth is that the average Joe just isn't so bad at it either - or at least, isn't much worse than an editor sitting in his echo chamber. If I look at my twitter feed now, for example, I have a bunch of tweets criticizing a new decision of the government to withdraw high-denomination currencies (I'm from India), and for every such tweet there are others that are calling out the fallacies of the argument put forth. And vice versa. Gives me all the viewpoints I need to form an opinion.

JamisonM 10y ago
[My Twitter feed gives] me all the viewpoints I need to form an opinion. Given that hubris seems to be the theme of this topic I have to say this is particularly appropriate.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  One advantage if Twitter is that a lot of the primary sources(the politicians, Project Veritas, Wikileaks, etc.) all communicate using it. Another one is that you only have 140 characters, so people are more likely to link directly to a primary source. I've seen too many "news articles" that spin very weak data into a big article, with too much interpretation by the editor. A third one is that you can choose who to follow, so it's possible to have items from the other side show up in your feed. You can also choose to only follow sources that you consider high-quality. I didn't use Twitter much before, but I did start using it this election just because it was a good way to get information.
  - pg314 10y ago
    I hope you're not considering Project Veritas a high-quality source. Mr. O'Keefe has a track record of selectively and deceptively editing his video recordings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe It is telling that he is often not releasing the full, unedited video, which I would consider the primary source. Once the video has been edited, the meaning could have been altered (and in the case of Project Veritas, it often is).
  - JamisonM 10y ago
    If you regard the Twitter feed of Wikileaks a credible source of information I can't help you. https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/794450623404113920 https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7944506234041139...
    - MichaelBurge 10y ago
      Even if you believe the information is unreliable, surely you agree that suggesting the idea and then pointing to a particularly bad example is a dangerous confirmation bias trap? If somebody told me, "CNN is doing a segment on how Trump's rise eerily parallels Hitler's rise", it would be confirmation bias to start off assuming it's false because I like Trump, watch the segment, record all the errors in the presentation, and then use those errors to support my initial conclusion. I agree that the Spirit Cooking was better entertainment than it was credible information.

jerf 10y ago

"However, in terms of objectivity, they are miles ahead of the "unfiltered news" on social media." There isn't actually a contradiction between the news media being miles ahead of "unfiltered news", and the fact that unfiltered news can show the biases of the media. In a social media age, if the filtered news can have its errors exposed easily, then trust will still decrease in it even if it is, hypothetically, 90% accurate. Which is probably a great deal more accurate than it actually is, because the "filtered media" has been operating in a space where "nobody" (to a first approximation anyhow) could independently check it for decades and has gotten very used to its ability to filter things unopposed. We don't even have to hypothesize anything about hubris necessarily; it has simply been used to this being the reality in the same way that, say, the Federal government has become used to being the dominant governmental authority. It isn't necessarily "wrong", it just is. This position has left the media unable to deal with any sort of challenge to its authority... even the very confused, chaotic, challenge offered by current social media. They have never needed to develop an "immune system" to that sort of thing, though that's not a perfect metaphor. It's hard to even judge how right the old media was, because you're measuring a yardstick against itself. How do you know the old media back in the 1990s was that good in the first place? Where are you getting the information you'd use to check that claim? How do you know that the filtered media didn't have things "start[] from a tidbit of information and then twists it to fit whatever narrative they are trying to promote"? It's not exactly hard to find instances of things that look like that in the past; to come up with a non-political example, "moral panics" are not a new phenomenon. D&D had a pretty good one off of a pretty small "tidbit". A new media ecosystem will arise eventually. Probably some of the old media will manage to up their game enough to compete again. But it's never going to be monolithic again until social media is somehow entirely destroyed. And the social media is going to get better. Diversity is coming to the news industry whether it likes it or not.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> In a social media age, if the filtered news can have its errors exposed easily, then trust will still decrease in it even if it is, hypothetically, 90% accurate. Especially if the inaccuracies (or mere biases) all slant the same direction.