4 ms·

There are a ton of professional news outlets with expressed commitment to political neutrality. Expressing a commitment to political neutrality is a good move

There are a ton of professional news outlets with expressed commitment to political neutrality. Expressing a commitment to political neutrality is a good move for a news source, because it costs no money and most people want their news sources to be neutral.

toasterlovin 9y ago
Disagree. I think people want to be able to believe that their news sources are neutral. But I don't think they actually want their news sources to be neutral. That's the genius of what news has become: entertainment that justifies itself by allowing you to feel like you are doing your duty as a citizen by keeping up with current events.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  I think we agree that news sources aren't neutral simply because they express a commitment to neutrality. I think that we also agree that people believe news sources are neutral when those news sources aren't neutral. However, I don't think there's a meaningful distinction between "wanting your news sources to be neutral" and "wanting to be able to believe that your news sources are neutral". It's both pedantic and not borne out by any evidence. You're assuming motivations which simply aren't apparent.
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    What I'm getting at is this: people don't want to base their positions on objective facts. They want to base their positions on how they feel. In order to facilitate this, it is useful to have a news source that claims to be objective, but is actually slanted toward confirming the righteousness of the positions you hold. Thus, people want to believe that their favorite news source is objective (so they can justify their position with righteous conviction), but they don't actually want it to be objective (so they can avoid the terrifying work of modifying their worldview). Something apropos: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1698090 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1698090
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      I get what you're saying, and I'm saying that what you're saying is both pedantic and not borne out by evidence. The paper you linked concludes that reasoning (when done correctly) works as intended regardless of the motives for reasoning. Given that reasoning (when done correctly) works regardless of the motives for reasoning, when people incorrectly reason that a news source is neutral, it indicates that reasoning was not done correctly, and that their motivations for reasoning aren't a constructive explanation for why they didn't reason correctly (i.e. your point is pedantic). Further, the article you linked doesn't go so far as to disagree with my point--it doesn't make the mistake you're making, which is to assume that people can't want more than one thing. People can want to base their news source to be neutral AND people can want to feel good (i.e. not feel cognitive dissonance). Even if you were to somehow prove your not-evident point, it doesn't give you a basis to disagree with what I said, unless you can prove that people want to feel good to the exclusion of all other things they want from their news source. The article doesn't say that (i.e. your point is not borne out by evidence, even the evidence that you presented).
      - toasterlovin 9y ago
        I think we're arguing past each other and I think that is my fault. In evolutionary psychology, there is a distinction between proximate and ultimate causes. So, the proximate cause for pursuing sex is that orgasms are intensely pleasurable. But the ultimate cause is that pursuing sex leads to better reproductive outcomes, so we evolved the ability to orgasm and, thus, a motivation to pursue sex. I think you are arguing in terms of proximate causes. Somebody desires a neutral news source so that they feel like they are accurately informed about what is going on in the world. I don't disagree with this. Most people genuinely want a neutral news source. But the weird thing is that they do not actually consume a neutral news source, even though it is trivially easy to figure out that your news source isn't neutral. All you have to do is read the other side's preferred news source. To explain this seeming paradox, I am arguing in terms of ultimate causes. I think that this failure to reason accurately about the neutrality of news sources comes about, ultimately, because news consumption is not only about informing yourself, but also to a large extent about reaffirming the righteousness of your in-group. And I think that the appearance of neutrality is critical to enabling this self-deception to occur (because a person is much more convincing when they actually believe the position they're arguing for). Thus my insistence on what you referred as pedantic: people don't actually want to consume a neutral news source, they want to believe that they consume a neutral news source. And not 'want' in the proximate sense that they know that they are deceiving themselves, but 'want' as a shorthand way to describe the ultimate cause for the prevalence of this self-deception.

toasterlovin 9y ago

Disagree. I think people want to be able to believe that their news sources are neutral. But I don't think they actually want their news sources to be neutral. That's the genius of what news has become: entertainment that justifies itself by allowing you to feel like you are doing your duty as a citizen by keeping up with current events.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kerkeslager 9y ago
I think we agree that news sources aren't neutral simply because they express a commitment to neutrality. I think that we also agree that people believe news sources are neutral when those news sources aren't neutral. However, I don't think there's a meaningful distinction between "wanting your news sources to be neutral" and "wanting to be able to believe that your news sources are neutral". It's both pedantic and not borne out by any evidence. You're assuming motivations which simply aren't apparent.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  What I'm getting at is this: people don't want to base their positions on objective facts. They want to base their positions on how they feel. In order to facilitate this, it is useful to have a news source that claims to be objective, but is actually slanted toward confirming the righteousness of the positions you hold. Thus, people want to believe that their favorite news source is objective (so they can justify their position with righteous conviction), but they don't actually want it to be objective (so they can avoid the terrifying work of modifying their worldview). Something apropos: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1698090 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1698090
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    I get what you're saying, and I'm saying that what you're saying is both pedantic and not borne out by evidence. The paper you linked concludes that reasoning (when done correctly) works as intended regardless of the motives for reasoning. Given that reasoning (when done correctly) works regardless of the motives for reasoning, when people incorrectly reason that a news source is neutral, it indicates that reasoning was not done correctly, and that their motivations for reasoning aren't a constructive explanation for why they didn't reason correctly (i.e. your point is pedantic). Further, the article you linked doesn't go so far as to disagree with my point--it doesn't make the mistake you're making, which is to assume that people can't want more than one thing. People can want to base their news source to be neutral AND people can want to feel good (i.e. not feel cognitive dissonance). Even if you were to somehow prove your not-evident point, it doesn't give you a basis to disagree with what I said, unless you can prove that people want to feel good to the exclusion of all other things they want from their news source. The article doesn't say that (i.e. your point is not borne out by evidence, even the evidence that you presented).
    - toasterlovin 9y ago
      I think we're arguing past each other and I think that is my fault. In evolutionary psychology, there is a distinction between proximate and ultimate causes. So, the proximate cause for pursuing sex is that orgasms are intensely pleasurable. But the ultimate cause is that pursuing sex leads to better reproductive outcomes, so we evolved the ability to orgasm and, thus, a motivation to pursue sex. I think you are arguing in terms of proximate causes. Somebody desires a neutral news source so that they feel like they are accurately informed about what is going on in the world. I don't disagree with this. Most people genuinely want a neutral news source. But the weird thing is that they do not actually consume a neutral news source, even though it is trivially easy to figure out that your news source isn't neutral. All you have to do is read the other side's preferred news source. To explain this seeming paradox, I am arguing in terms of ultimate causes. I think that this failure to reason accurately about the neutrality of news sources comes about, ultimately, because news consumption is not only about informing yourself, but also to a large extent about reaffirming the righteousness of your in-group. And I think that the appearance of neutrality is critical to enabling this self-deception to occur (because a person is much more convincing when they actually believe the position they're arguing for). Thus my insistence on what you referred as pedantic: people don't actually want to consume a neutral news source, they want to believe that they consume a neutral news source. And not 'want' in the proximate sense that they know that they are deceiving themselves, but 'want' as a shorthand way to describe the ultimate cause for the prevalence of this self-deception.