3 ms·

> people are going to have to do what they should have been doing in the first place, namely choosing their news sources carefully and paying more attention to

> people are going to have to do what they should have been doing in the first place, namely choosing their news sources carefully and paying more attention to subtle and not-so-subtle bias. It's a huge mistake to rely on media credentials as a proxy for likelihood of telling the truth, yet that is the entire concept of journalism as a career path. Media credentials are a way to aggregate that trust on the long run and invest decades into building a reputation of integrity. With the expectation that it will be profitable in the future, people will come to rely on you because they know how costly any damage to that reputation is to you. In the model where every internet page is a source that has to vetted individually, the journalists are indeed obsolete but not because they weren't useful; now every citizen must do their own full journalistic investigations before trusting anything written. Most people lack the skills and education to do that work and society is, on the whole, worse off. People will not be doing what "they should be doing in the first place", we will get the misinformation soup that served us with Trump, Brexit, antivaxx and the score of post-truth social ills.

someguydave 8y ago
>People will not be doing what "they should be doing in the first place", we will get the misinformation soup that served us with Trump, Brexit, antivaxx and the score of post-truth social ills. This is why Trump won.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Yes, people like to believe the lies of Trump, Brexit, and antivaxxers, and that led to Trump winning. So how do we convince them not to choose comforting lies?
anon1385 8y ago
The MMR scare, which is the origin of a lot of the modern antivax movement, was something that was largely created by (UK) newspapers[1]. This was back in the 90s before the subsequent decline in revenue from advertising and competition from online news; it wasn't something that happened due to lack of resources to do fact checking- papers took an active decision to 'campaign' in support of Wakefield and dedicated huge amounts of resources and column inches to the topic. It wan't just a tabloid thing either, most of the media gorged themselves on a festival of misinformation and emotive scare stories for years after the original article had been retracted by most of the authors. You really couldn't have picked a worse example. Brexit is a more complicated topic, but it's worth pointing out that it occurs after a decades long smear campaign by much of the UK media against the EU. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#Media_role https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#Media_...
- someguydave 8y ago
  Also, people actually had reasons for voting for Trump that were not related to the content of fake Facebook posts.
- repolfx 8y ago
  This sort of thing is why newspapers are going to die and good riddance. Yes the MMR scare was bad reporting of bad science. But this: Brexit is a more complicated topic, but it's worth pointing out that it occurs after a decades long smear campaign by much of the UK media against the EU. ... is just laughable. What you mean is that the UK media, rather unusually for Europe, actually digs up dirt and reports negative stories about the EU. You know, holding government to account, one of the primary functions of journalism. I've noticed lots of people in the rest of Europe like to describe the UK media this way. I find it rather pathetic. Even the head of the EU Parliament after the Brexit vote explained it by saying the people had been "brainwashed" by the media. The only reason it feels to them like the UK press runs a smear campaign against the EU, is that supine and useless European newspapers are all ideologically in bed with it and refuse to publish negative stories at all. I read the German press sometimes and any article that at first may appear to be criticising the EU invariably is actually criticising national governments, often with an explicit or implied appeal to the EU to bring the elected governments into line. EU supporters have got used to dog-like loyalty from the press and act shocked when they read genuine, hard hitting criticism in British newspapers.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    No, the UK press is disastrously bad about reporting the EU, to the extent that the EU has its own huge rebuttals index: https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ The rightwing UK press is extremely selective about what negative news it reports about whom. It could and should be savaging the UK government for its lack of Brexit planning but instead it's running articles labelling judges as "TRAITORS".
    - repolfx 8y ago
pnutjam 8y ago
Hey, being an expert on and doing everything yourself is good enough for healthcare, retirement, charitable giving, etc. This is just the American way. Why conquer together when I can do it myself! (poorly) It's a great way to weed out the economically disadvantaged who can't afford to do educate themselves.

someguydave 8y ago

>People will not be doing what "they should be doing in the first place", we will get the misinformation soup that served us with Trump, Brexit, antivaxx and the score of post-truth social ills. This is why Trump won.

pjc50 8y ago
Yes, people like to believe the lies of Trump, Brexit, and antivaxxers, and that led to Trump winning. So how do we convince them not to choose comforting lies?

anon1385 8y ago

The MMR scare, which is the origin of a lot of the modern antivax movement, was something that was largely created by (UK) newspapers[1]. This was back in the 90s before the subsequent decline in revenue from advertising and competition from online news; it wasn't something that happened due to lack of resources to do fact checking- papers took an active decision to 'campaign' in support of Wakefield and dedicated huge amounts of resources and column inches to the topic. It wan't just a tabloid thing either, most of the media gorged themselves on a festival of misinformation and emotive scare stories for years after the original article had been retracted by most of the authors. You really couldn't have picked a worse example. Brexit is a more complicated topic, but it's worth pointing out that it occurs after a decades long smear campaign by much of the UK media against the EU. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#Media_role https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#Media_...

someguydave 8y ago
Also, people actually had reasons for voting for Trump that were not related to the content of fake Facebook posts.
repolfx 8y ago
This sort of thing is why newspapers are going to die and good riddance. Yes the MMR scare was bad reporting of bad science. But this: Brexit is a more complicated topic, but it's worth pointing out that it occurs after a decades long smear campaign by much of the UK media against the EU. ... is just laughable. What you mean is that the UK media, rather unusually for Europe, actually digs up dirt and reports negative stories about the EU. You know, holding government to account, one of the primary functions of journalism. I've noticed lots of people in the rest of Europe like to describe the UK media this way. I find it rather pathetic. Even the head of the EU Parliament after the Brexit vote explained it by saying the people had been "brainwashed" by the media. The only reason it feels to them like the UK press runs a smear campaign against the EU, is that supine and useless European newspapers are all ideologically in bed with it and refuse to publish negative stories at all. I read the German press sometimes and any article that at first may appear to be criticising the EU invariably is actually criticising national governments, often with an explicit or implied appeal to the EU to bring the elected governments into line. EU supporters have got used to dog-like loyalty from the press and act shocked when they read genuine, hard hitting criticism in British newspapers.
- pjc50 8y ago
  No, the UK press is disastrously bad about reporting the EU, to the extent that the EU has its own huge rebuttals index: https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ The rightwing UK press is extremely selective about what negative news it reports about whom. It could and should be savaging the UK government for its lack of Brexit planning but instead it's running articles labelling judges as "TRAITORS".
  - repolfx 8y ago

pnutjam 8y ago

Hey, being an expert on and doing everything yourself is good enough for healthcare, retirement, charitable giving, etc. This is just the American way. Why conquer together when I can do it myself! (poorly) It's a great way to weed out the economically disadvantaged who can't afford to do educate themselves.