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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

by 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.

by avaer 9y ago

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.