4 ms·

The reality is the NYT and all mainstream "news" outlets are beholden to their advertisers. Notice how Mylan is always in the news getting negative press but yo

The reality is the NYT and all mainstream "news" outlets are beholden to their advertisers. Notice how Mylan is always in the news getting negative press but you rarely hear about the Billions in fines/settlements paid by Merck and GlaxoSmithKline arising from product liability (the result of junk science, but that's a different topic). Merck and GSK account for 70% of ad revenues for news outlets. Contrary to common beliefs, reporters are no longer journalists but spokespeople.

jancsika 9y ago
Failure to cover certain news topics and journalistic conflicts of interest are orthogonal to my point. Even if you assume all news outlets are literally employing spokespeople for advertisers-- NYT, WaPo, Der Spiegel, etc.-- those spokespeople still have to do actual hard, daily work of producing actual news content within professional constraints. That work includes an adherence to journalistic standards of evidence (i.e., multiple sources), building and maintaining source contacts, being subject to an ombudsman, gaining notoriety through a track record, etc. They can't just spout gross inaccuracies all day or they'd be fired. Thus you can check multiple independent news articles against each other and use context clues to get some better sense of the truth. Having a weak and mostly commercial press makes that more of a burden than it ought to be, but it's possible. Facebook-style "fake news" is literally stuff like "the word covfefe is an Antidiluvian term for 'in the end we win'". You can peruse 1,000s of such gems like that on Facebook all day, from different fake news publishers. And you would have learned absolutely nothing of substance after you are done. If a critical mass of Americans believe mainstream news outlets are as substance-free as that, then we've got a very expense national civics lesson in store for us. edit: typo and clarification
- qb45 9y ago
  Well, I just posted in another thread an article about Russian propaganda which contains a big exaggeration that is trivially disproved by damn Wikipedia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 I have no idea what their sources were but they clearly trusted them a little bit too easily. I immediately went to fact-check this because it just didn't even seem possible to me to simply fabricate a historic province or move it to a "different geographic space" like that. Too many textbooks to amend, too many people who remember. The first article I linked in that post also is fishy, though in this case at least they had their multiple sources: apparently these were a pair of elderly people and a bureaucrat, analyzing alleged hacking attempt. I don't really believe this story either.
  - jancsika 9y ago
    I fail to see the relevance to my post, which is essentially: Read news by different journalists, and judge their veracity over time. You can't use that process with fake news. If a critical mass of people don't understand that distinction, it's bad news. A gross inaccuracy from 2014 and shoddy reasoning in WaPo's "PowerPost" by the author of a book on progressive rock music in 2017 doesn't change that truth. Edit: change "pundit" to "author"
    - qb45 9y ago
      I just reacted to your claim about standards of evidence, both of the examples I quoted are things I would really be ashamed to publish myself regardless of any political leanings. It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. But sure, Facebook fake news farms are worse.
      - jancsika 9y ago
        > It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. Perhaps it seems that way to you, but that theory isn't fleshed out by the two pieces of evidence you provided (or any evidence I'm aware of). I can't use your theory to explain or predict the veracity of stories on, say, the front page, op-ed page, and back page of a widely read newspaper. I can explain and predict that with a theory like Chomsky and Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" (even if I don't agree with every single case study and argument in their book). However, I can explain and predict the veracity of Facebook fake news links by pointing out they aren't news because don't adhere to journalistic standards.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  Yeah, right up until their editor shuts down their interview or tells them to rewrite.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    The idea that the entire news world is a cabal set out to disinform you is narcissism wrapped in a tech narrative. There are a plurality of actors, each with their own motivations and biases, and it's your responsibility to be aware of that and sort through them. Parent's point is that "advertising companies being preferentially treated" and "a demonstrably false article" are not even in the same ballpark. Assertions to the contrary lead down the path of "well, we should just ignore all news", which is suspicious in its own right (and one of the first steps in deconstructing a fact-based civil society).
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      Actually, they are one and the same. Paid shills doing the bidding of their customers, either way. And no, this fact does not only lead to the path you prescribe. You can't find the truth by averaging lies, half truths and omissions together. You have to actually think for yourself, be aware of your own assumptions (and always be willing to challenge them) and source information from outside of any news source. You and I may believe the world is round, but until we get into orbit and observe it for ourselves, we are relying on something we have been told by others, and choosing, typically at a sub-conscious level, to accept that as the truth.
      - ethbro 9y ago
        No, they are not one and the same. They're orders of magnitude different. And to equate the two is to completely devalue the portion of truth that is contained in biased but fact-based journalism (as opposed to pure fabrication). It's an information problem, and something that contains 25% information isn't the same as something that contains 0% information. It's possible to reliably extract signal out of the former, while no amount of transformations and averaging make that possible with the later. And furthermore, as I said before, one of the primary theories on the effective use of the later is to use it to discredit the former, which is exactly what you're suggesting. > You and I may believe the world is round, but... Speak for yourself. I've flown to Tokyo and can calculate an approximate curvature of the Earth by the flight characteristics.

jancsika 9y ago

Failure to cover certain news topics and journalistic conflicts of interest are orthogonal to my point. Even if you assume all news outlets are literally employing spokespeople for advertisers-- NYT, WaPo, Der Spiegel, etc.-- those spokespeople still have to do actual hard, daily work of producing actual news content within professional constraints. That work includes an adherence to journalistic standards of evidence (i.e., multiple sources), building and maintaining source contacts, being subject to an ombudsman, gaining notoriety through a track record, etc. They can't just spout gross inaccuracies all day or they'd be fired. Thus you can check multiple independent news articles against each other and use context clues to get some better sense of the truth. Having a weak and mostly commercial press makes that more of a burden than it ought to be, but it's possible. Facebook-style "fake news" is literally stuff like "the word covfefe is an Antidiluvian term for 'in the end we win'". You can peruse 1,000s of such gems like that on Facebook all day, from different fake news publishers. And you would have learned absolutely nothing of substance after you are done. If a critical mass of Americans believe mainstream news outlets are as substance-free as that, then we've got a very expense national civics lesson in store for us. edit: typo and clarification

qb45 9y ago
Well, I just posted in another thread an article about Russian propaganda which contains a big exaggeration that is trivially disproved by damn Wikipedia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 I have no idea what their sources were but they clearly trusted them a little bit too easily. I immediately went to fact-check this because it just didn't even seem possible to me to simply fabricate a historic province or move it to a "different geographic space" like that. Too many textbooks to amend, too many people who remember. The first article I linked in that post also is fishy, though in this case at least they had their multiple sources: apparently these were a pair of elderly people and a bureaucrat, analyzing alleged hacking attempt. I don't really believe this story either.
- jancsika 9y ago
  I fail to see the relevance to my post, which is essentially: Read news by different journalists, and judge their veracity over time. You can't use that process with fake news. If a critical mass of people don't understand that distinction, it's bad news. A gross inaccuracy from 2014 and shoddy reasoning in WaPo's "PowerPost" by the author of a book on progressive rock music in 2017 doesn't change that truth. Edit: change "pundit" to "author"
  - qb45 9y ago
    I just reacted to your claim about standards of evidence, both of the examples I quoted are things I would really be ashamed to publish myself regardless of any political leanings. It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. But sure, Facebook fake news farms are worse.
    - jancsika 9y ago
      > It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. Perhaps it seems that way to you, but that theory isn't fleshed out by the two pieces of evidence you provided (or any evidence I'm aware of). I can't use your theory to explain or predict the veracity of stories on, say, the front page, op-ed page, and back page of a widely read newspaper. I can explain and predict that with a theory like Chomsky and Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" (even if I don't agree with every single case study and argument in their book). However, I can explain and predict the veracity of Facebook fake news links by pointing out they aren't news because don't adhere to journalistic standards.
CodeWriter23 9y ago
Yeah, right up until their editor shuts down their interview or tells them to rewrite.
- ethbro 9y ago
  The idea that the entire news world is a cabal set out to disinform you is narcissism wrapped in a tech narrative. There are a plurality of actors, each with their own motivations and biases, and it's your responsibility to be aware of that and sort through them. Parent's point is that "advertising companies being preferentially treated" and "a demonstrably false article" are not even in the same ballpark. Assertions to the contrary lead down the path of "well, we should just ignore all news", which is suspicious in its own right (and one of the first steps in deconstructing a fact-based civil society).
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    Actually, they are one and the same. Paid shills doing the bidding of their customers, either way. And no, this fact does not only lead to the path you prescribe. You can't find the truth by averaging lies, half truths and omissions together. You have to actually think for yourself, be aware of your own assumptions (and always be willing to challenge them) and source information from outside of any news source. You and I may believe the world is round, but until we get into orbit and observe it for ourselves, we are relying on something we have been told by others, and choosing, typically at a sub-conscious level, to accept that as the truth.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      No, they are not one and the same. They're orders of magnitude different. And to equate the two is to completely devalue the portion of truth that is contained in biased but fact-based journalism (as opposed to pure fabrication). It's an information problem, and something that contains 25% information isn't the same as something that contains 0% information. It's possible to reliably extract signal out of the former, while no amount of transformations and averaging make that possible with the later. And furthermore, as I said before, one of the primary theories on the effective use of the later is to use it to discredit the former, which is exactly what you're suggesting. > You and I may believe the world is round, but... Speak for yourself. I've flown to Tokyo and can calculate an approximate curvature of the Earth by the flight characteristics.