5 ms·

The real fools are the journalists who uncritically parrot these bogus valuations. Every so often someone will write a good analysis like this one, but next we

The real fools are the journalists who uncritically parrot these bogus valuations. Every so often someone will write a good analysis like this one, but next week the headlines and buzz will be some other bullshit valuation. Come to think of it, is there anything of significant nuance that journalists do get right?

AznHisoka 9y ago
I think it's mostly the journalists who are getting fooled.. which is ironic because they're the ones telling us not to get fooled...
- allMmappedout 9y ago
  The journalists are the ones that are trying to get us fooled sometimes
  - briandear 9y ago
    Why? What is their motivation? I don’t know what’s in it for them unless they are invested in the company about which they are reporting, which would be unethical unless they disclosed it.
    - albertgoeswoof 9y ago
      they get information and interviews with senior members of the management if they are positive about the company, which makes their article more unique and gets them more clicks
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - urethrafranklin 9y ago
      Advertisers don't want unconvincing journos.
AndrewOMartin 9y ago
The Paul Foot award is given annually to journalists who get right things of significant nuance. Just getting on the shortlist for a year is a significant achievement. http://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award/all http://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award/all
cal5k 9y ago
I think the reality of most tech journalism is that the journalist is being paid per-article, and not particularly well at that. The time required to adequately fact-check and get the details right would mean lower output and, thus, lower income.
avaer 9y ago
The measuring stick for journalists being right is whether their content brings eyeballs to ads. That journalists are paid to be accurate is just another aspect to the fiction this article talks about.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  I wish everyone treated all news so skeptically. Software people know that the tech news is laughably bad. Finance people know that financial news is garbage. And so forth. But most people then fail to extend that same skepticism of the media to areas outside of their expertise. Michael Crichton put it well: “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    This is my all-time favorite insight about journalism. When I think about the gross incompetence of the average piece on e.g. encryption, it's good to remember that I shouldn't assume anything else is better unless I have a specific reason to think so. It's also motivated me to start checking primary sources really aggressively. I may not know enough to do detailed analysis on court rulings, sociology papers, and the like, but I can at least cross-check basic statements of fact with the source. And shockingly often, they're just not true. The coverage of e.g. Trump's travel ban was often totally detached from reality - not even in politicized ways, but via simple "never even read the source" foolishness. It's depressing to realize how much journalism isn't at all value-added over a zero-commentary list of facts or quotations.
abhi3 9y ago
We need a yelp for journalists.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  I think journalists should submit themselves to the same kind of public scrutiny as politicians. People like Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, Sean Hannity, Wolf Blitzer, and Tucker Carlson should be getting grilled by other journalists and defending their decisions in press conferences, just like they expect politicians to. They're actually more politically powerful than most elected officials.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    Those 4 people you mentioned are political commentators not journalists- in a sense you are correct that they are sort of like politicians but they represent only their viewers/haters and don't vote on policy.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - marcoperaza 9y ago
      You're right. But they're the public face of whoever actually makes decisions about what is covered, how much it's covered, and how it's framed. Look at the front page of Fox or CNN: there is no real distinction between "opinion" and "news". The "news" coverage inevitably has the same framing that the commentators then run with and make explicit. Someone should be held accountable in the court of public discourse, as we have come to expect of politicians. It seems like the commentators are the ones who, at least in the presentation of the papers and networks, most "own" the coverage, and who can be the subject of public backlash.
  - rfreytag 9y ago
    Here is a transcript of Tucker Carlson being questioned by Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2017/07/26/intercepted-podcast/ https://theintercept.com/2017/07/26/intercepted-podcast/ This discussion is a case-study on how to respectfully disagree. (search for where Tucker Carlson says "Thanks, Glenn." in the transcript. Probably better to listen so it is clearer which text is actually exerpts from Carlson's show and which text is the actual interview)
ep103 9y ago
I've been using longform.org Its a manually curated list by a group that cares about the art of journalism, and highlights the best pieces of longform journalism in the press on a feed. I've found the accuracy of the pieces to be far higher than most other sources. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the fact that in order for a journalist to write a 20 page report on a topic, they have to research it a whole lot better than writing another 2 paragraph summary for some online editorial. That, and only the better publishers tend to be able to afford such research, and they tend to have higher standards.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  The worst of tech journalism is almost always content which is novel only to a total outsider. It's like journalists say "ok, a short investigative piece should take me 5 hours of research", and then apply that 5 hours to both deep dives on topics they know well, and basic reading on topics they don't know at all. Longform.org is a favorite of mine because it sidesteps that problem. I basically never encounter a piece that makes me think "I knew all of that already, and more accurately". Journalism that could be created by reading Wikipedia and synthesizing is often wretched, and the sheer need to fill pages prevents that.
thedonkeycometh 9y ago
Not all journalists, or specifically news publications but i do feel there does need a bit of caveat emptor
rayiner 9y ago
Legal journalism is surprisingly good. "Waymo filed a brief saying...; Uber denied..." I think it's because there is no pretense of reaching an objective conclusion. In other kinds of journalism, reporters typically will take peoples' one sided accounts and present them as facts, obfuscating that state of affairs in the name of protecting sources. But in an article about a lawsuit, everyone acknowledges that the filings are each party's one-sided account.
- ep103 9y ago
  Noam Chomsky used to talk about how there are markets for good journalism. Economic journalism for people on wall street. Academic journalism for academics. These journalists are usually high quality, because they have to be, their audience understands the topic material and will make economic and career bets based on the text. By contrast, many types of mass reporting (economic reporting for the masses) has no such constraint, and hence becomes subject to whoever the highest bidder's spin/story is.
currymj 9y ago
for science reporting, pretty much everything by Quanta Magazine is good. the financial times has a reputation for not being awful because you can't trade on bullshit, but who knows? I can't actually evaluate.

AznHisoka 9y ago

I think it's mostly the journalists who are getting fooled.. which is ironic because they're the ones telling us not to get fooled...

allMmappedout 9y ago
The journalists are the ones that are trying to get us fooled sometimes
- briandear 9y ago
  Why? What is their motivation? I don’t know what’s in it for them unless they are invested in the company about which they are reporting, which would be unethical unless they disclosed it.
  - albertgoeswoof 9y ago
    they get information and interviews with senior members of the management if they are positive about the company, which makes their article more unique and gets them more clicks
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - urethrafranklin 9y ago
    Advertisers don't want unconvincing journos.

AndrewOMartin 9y ago

The Paul Foot award is given annually to journalists who get right things of significant nuance. Just getting on the shortlist for a year is a significant achievement. http://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award/all http://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award/all

cal5k 9y ago

I think the reality of most tech journalism is that the journalist is being paid per-article, and not particularly well at that. The time required to adequately fact-check and get the details right would mean lower output and, thus, lower income.

avaer 9y ago

The measuring stick for journalists being right is whether their content brings eyeballs to ads. That journalists are paid to be accurate is just another aspect to the fiction this article talks about.

marcoperaza 9y ago
I wish everyone treated all news so skeptically. Software people know that the tech news is laughably bad. Finance people know that financial news is garbage. And so forth. But most people then fail to extend that same skepticism of the media to areas outside of their expertise. Michael Crichton put it well: “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  This is my all-time favorite insight about journalism. When I think about the gross incompetence of the average piece on e.g. encryption, it's good to remember that I shouldn't assume anything else is better unless I have a specific reason to think so. It's also motivated me to start checking primary sources really aggressively. I may not know enough to do detailed analysis on court rulings, sociology papers, and the like, but I can at least cross-check basic statements of fact with the source. And shockingly often, they're just not true. The coverage of e.g. Trump's travel ban was often totally detached from reality - not even in politicized ways, but via simple "never even read the source" foolishness. It's depressing to realize how much journalism isn't at all value-added over a zero-commentary list of facts or quotations.

abhi3 9y ago

We need a yelp for journalists.

marcoperaza 9y ago
I think journalists should submit themselves to the same kind of public scrutiny as politicians. People like Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, Sean Hannity, Wolf Blitzer, and Tucker Carlson should be getting grilled by other journalists and defending their decisions in press conferences, just like they expect politicians to. They're actually more politically powerful than most elected officials.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  Those 4 people you mentioned are political commentators not journalists- in a sense you are correct that they are sort of like politicians but they represent only their viewers/haters and don't vote on policy.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    You're right. But they're the public face of whoever actually makes decisions about what is covered, how much it's covered, and how it's framed. Look at the front page of Fox or CNN: there is no real distinction between "opinion" and "news". The "news" coverage inevitably has the same framing that the commentators then run with and make explicit. Someone should be held accountable in the court of public discourse, as we have come to expect of politicians. It seems like the commentators are the ones who, at least in the presentation of the papers and networks, most "own" the coverage, and who can be the subject of public backlash.
- rfreytag 9y ago
  Here is a transcript of Tucker Carlson being questioned by Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2017/07/26/intercepted-podcast/ https://theintercept.com/2017/07/26/intercepted-podcast/ This discussion is a case-study on how to respectfully disagree. (search for where Tucker Carlson says "Thanks, Glenn." in the transcript. Probably better to listen so it is clearer which text is actually exerpts from Carlson's show and which text is the actual interview)

ep103 9y ago

I've been using longform.org Its a manually curated list by a group that cares about the art of journalism, and highlights the best pieces of longform journalism in the press on a feed. I've found the accuracy of the pieces to be far higher than most other sources. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the fact that in order for a journalist to write a 20 page report on a topic, they have to research it a whole lot better than writing another 2 paragraph summary for some online editorial. That, and only the better publishers tend to be able to afford such research, and they tend to have higher standards.

Bartweiss 9y ago
The worst of tech journalism is almost always content which is novel only to a total outsider. It's like journalists say "ok, a short investigative piece should take me 5 hours of research", and then apply that 5 hours to both deep dives on topics they know well, and basic reading on topics they don't know at all. Longform.org is a favorite of mine because it sidesteps that problem. I basically never encounter a piece that makes me think "I knew all of that already, and more accurately". Journalism that could be created by reading Wikipedia and synthesizing is often wretched, and the sheer need to fill pages prevents that.

thedonkeycometh 9y ago

Not all journalists, or specifically news publications but i do feel there does need a bit of caveat emptor

rayiner 9y ago

Legal journalism is surprisingly good. "Waymo filed a brief saying...; Uber denied..." I think it's because there is no pretense of reaching an objective conclusion. In other kinds of journalism, reporters typically will take peoples' one sided accounts and present them as facts, obfuscating that state of affairs in the name of protecting sources. But in an article about a lawsuit, everyone acknowledges that the filings are each party's one-sided account.

ep103 9y ago
Noam Chomsky used to talk about how there are markets for good journalism. Economic journalism for people on wall street. Academic journalism for academics. These journalists are usually high quality, because they have to be, their audience understands the topic material and will make economic and career bets based on the text. By contrast, many types of mass reporting (economic reporting for the masses) has no such constraint, and hence becomes subject to whoever the highest bidder's spin/story is.

currymj 9y ago

for science reporting, pretty much everything by Quanta Magazine is good. the financial times has a reputation for not being awful because you can't trade on bullshit, but who knows? I can't actually evaluate.