7 ms·

Good thing that democracy has been so well-served in the past by an honest and reliable traditional media!

by dilap 10y ago

dilap 10y ago
To expand on this a little more, I think traditional media is also quite often deceptive or wrong. The example that really opened my eyes was the reporting in the NYT running up to the Iraq war, during which they falsely reported Saddam Hussain had large stockpiles of WMDs.
- untog 10y ago
  Right, which is the story everyone cites when it comes to mainstream media failure. I think it's telling that this example is over a decade old now. I'm not saying that mainstream media outlets report incorrectly at times - they do - but they are dragged over the coals for it, repeatedly. This new generation of Facebook-only news pages are so numerous that they are never called out loudly and clearly.
  - Natsu 10y ago
    It's just the biggest story, not the most recent. The most recent would be everyone getting the polls wrong by assuming Obama turnouts and ignoring the enthusiasm gap at the rallies. To his credit, Nate Silver realized we were just 'one normal polling error away from electing Trump' only to get attacked for not showing 98-99% odds of Clinton as you can read here: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/nate-silver-huffington-post-polls-twitter-230815 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/nate-silver-huffington... There's a reasonable range of disagreement. But a model showing Clinton at 98% or 99% is not defensible based on the empirical evidence. — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 5, 2016
    - untog 10y ago
      But again, it's not as if this isn't being called out. Including, as you're saying, by the media itself. And these aren't cases of deliberate deception - they're faulty reporting. Surely that is inevitable every now and then. The posts seem on the Facebook pages many people forward are knowingly incorrect. And they're not getting called out. It's a whole new ball game.
      - Natsu 10y ago
        It's politics. How can you assume that they know they're incorrect? And sure, it's being called out now, but that's only because of the election results. Anything you do to suppress information will trigger the Streisand Effect. Any censorship of it will be routed around because this is the internet. The cure for bad speech has always been more speech.
  - dilap 10y ago
    That's because it's a really critical media failure -- we're still grappling today with the consequences of invading Iraq. A more recent media failure would be the Rolling Stone campus-rape article. You're right – and it's a good point – that there are a lot of trash "news" sites being passed around on facebook that are obviously completely bogus, and no one ever bothers to debunk them. But I don't see it as much more of threat to democracy than the sometimes-right, sometimes-pushing-an-agenda mainstream media we've had since forever. When people rail against facebook (essentially a communication tool) "allowing" these fake news articles to proliferate, what they're essentially saying is people should only be allowed to share with their friends official "truth", as decided by some arbitrary third party. That, to me, seems much scarier and like more of a threat to democracy.

Good thing that democracy has been so well-served in the past by an honest and reliable traditional media!

by dilap 10y ago

Good thing that democracy has been so well-served in the past by an honest and reliable traditional media!

dilap 10y ago

To expand on this a little more, I think traditional media is also quite often deceptive or wrong. The example that really opened my eyes was the reporting in the NYT running up to the Iraq war, during which they falsely reported Saddam Hussain had large stockpiles of WMDs.

untog 10y ago
Right, which is the story everyone cites when it comes to mainstream media failure. I think it's telling that this example is over a decade old now. I'm not saying that mainstream media outlets report incorrectly at times - they do - but they are dragged over the coals for it, repeatedly. This new generation of Facebook-only news pages are so numerous that they are never called out loudly and clearly.
- Natsu 10y ago
  It's just the biggest story, not the most recent. The most recent would be everyone getting the polls wrong by assuming Obama turnouts and ignoring the enthusiasm gap at the rallies. To his credit, Nate Silver realized we were just 'one normal polling error away from electing Trump' only to get attacked for not showing 98-99% odds of Clinton as you can read here: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/nate-silver-huffington-post-polls-twitter-230815 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/nate-silver-huffington... There's a reasonable range of disagreement. But a model showing Clinton at 98% or 99% is not defensible based on the empirical evidence. — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 5, 2016
  - untog 10y ago
    But again, it's not as if this isn't being called out. Including, as you're saying, by the media itself. And these aren't cases of deliberate deception - they're faulty reporting. Surely that is inevitable every now and then. The posts seem on the Facebook pages many people forward are knowingly incorrect. And they're not getting called out. It's a whole new ball game.
    - Natsu 10y ago
      It's politics. How can you assume that they know they're incorrect? And sure, it's being called out now, but that's only because of the election results. Anything you do to suppress information will trigger the Streisand Effect. Any censorship of it will be routed around because this is the internet. The cure for bad speech has always been more speech.
- dilap 10y ago
  That's because it's a really critical media failure -- we're still grappling today with the consequences of invading Iraq. A more recent media failure would be the Rolling Stone campus-rape article. You're right – and it's a good point – that there are a lot of trash "news" sites being passed around on facebook that are obviously completely bogus, and no one ever bothers to debunk them. But I don't see it as much more of threat to democracy than the sometimes-right, sometimes-pushing-an-agenda mainstream media we've had since forever. When people rail against facebook (essentially a communication tool) "allowing" these fake news articles to proliferate, what they're essentially saying is people should only be allowed to share with their friends official "truth", as decided by some arbitrary third party. That, to me, seems much scarier and like more of a threat to democracy.