3 ms·

The key distinction which makes the act a lie is the knowing and malicious manipulation of information in order to defraud the recipient of choice. That is, it

The key distinction which makes the act a lie is the knowing and malicious manipulation of information in order to defraud the recipient of choice. That is, it is the deciet itself, and not merely the act of not conveying all known information, which is the anathema.

Simon_says 8y ago
In practice, the people doing the reporting don't know how biased they are.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  This. If three 18yos get shot committing a home invasion the SF headline will say "man shoots teenagers on front porch, police say charges will not be filed" and the BFE Arkansas headline will say "three men attempt home invasion, shot by homeowner". The same exact story will be spun totally differently (without lying or making absurd omissions) based on the author's personal beliefs. The authors don't even mean to spin the story and you won't ever get a group of people to agree what "impartial" is because personal beliefs will seep in.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    the example BFE Arkansas headline you provided is just an impassionate reporting of the facts. I'd think a more right-wing biased headline would be something a bit more rah-rah and lauding 2A/castle doctrine.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >the example BFE Arkansas headline you provided is just an impassionate reporting of the facts. My point is that even if you are trying to write something that's impartial the tilt is still gonna depend on the author and society's (in that locale) attitude toward defending yourself with deadly force. The fact that you think that's impartial is your cultural bias creeping in. There's definitely people out there who will claim that particular headline is highly biased. In the US we're generally much more accepting of defending your home with deadly force than people in (for example) some parts of Europe are. Those people would see a headline with what we consider unnecessary tilt (e.g. calling an 18yo a "boy" to imply a younger age) and consider it impartial. One man's critical detail is irrelevant to another.
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        I completely disagree with your suggestion that reporting the facts has implicit bias. Leaving out specific details can be biased (such as if the attackers were also armed, or if the home owner owned the gun illegally) but reporting the facts while using language that is as objective as possible is in my eyes an important element of journalistic integrity. Investigative journalists do this all the time. Also for the record I am British, in case you were assuming I was American. Saying that someone shot 3 people during an attempted home invasion does not provide any cues as to the author's opinion on the morality of the incident, which is key. The idea that journalists have to inject their personal feelings into their reporting is partisan nonsense.
        beobab 8y ago
        I totally agree with you that reporting facts in as an objective way as possible is the end goal. Not "have to inject their personal feelings" but "inadvertently inject bias". The trouble with cognitive bias is that you can't see you have it. I have it, you have it, we all have it. If your brain refuses to let you know something (because of some shortcut that your brain takes to process information), you physically can't report it. If you think that something is very self-evident from the facts that are reported, you might not mention it, but you might be wrong not to. But once again: I think we agree that facts matter, and the main purpose of journalism is to present the facts in an understandable way.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        yes there is absolutely an issue of unconscious bias and I don't doubt it's a universal affliction. But this is why we need journalists to be non-partisan - at the moment we only have left- and right- news sources, meaning it's on the reader to piece together the real story by reading both sides, discounting leaps of faith that each side is all too keen to make, then combining whatever remains. Most readers won't do that, which I believe is a huge contributor to polarisation - people who only read left sources become further left and people who only read right sources become further right, and nothing ever seems to be getting better. I would pay a decent subscription fee to a news source that employed people with many differing perspectives to both pick apart the fact-reporting of an article, and to provide a separate opinion piece with explicit demarcations of the writer's political affiliation.

Simon_says 8y ago

In practice, the people doing the reporting don't know how biased they are.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
This. If three 18yos get shot committing a home invasion the SF headline will say "man shoots teenagers on front porch, police say charges will not be filed" and the BFE Arkansas headline will say "three men attempt home invasion, shot by homeowner". The same exact story will be spun totally differently (without lying or making absurd omissions) based on the author's personal beliefs. The authors don't even mean to spin the story and you won't ever get a group of people to agree what "impartial" is because personal beliefs will seep in.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  the example BFE Arkansas headline you provided is just an impassionate reporting of the facts. I'd think a more right-wing biased headline would be something a bit more rah-rah and lauding 2A/castle doctrine.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >the example BFE Arkansas headline you provided is just an impassionate reporting of the facts. My point is that even if you are trying to write something that's impartial the tilt is still gonna depend on the author and society's (in that locale) attitude toward defending yourself with deadly force. The fact that you think that's impartial is your cultural bias creeping in. There's definitely people out there who will claim that particular headline is highly biased. In the US we're generally much more accepting of defending your home with deadly force than people in (for example) some parts of Europe are. Those people would see a headline with what we consider unnecessary tilt (e.g. calling an 18yo a "boy" to imply a younger age) and consider it impartial. One man's critical detail is irrelevant to another.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      I completely disagree with your suggestion that reporting the facts has implicit bias. Leaving out specific details can be biased (such as if the attackers were also armed, or if the home owner owned the gun illegally) but reporting the facts while using language that is as objective as possible is in my eyes an important element of journalistic integrity. Investigative journalists do this all the time. Also for the record I am British, in case you were assuming I was American. Saying that someone shot 3 people during an attempted home invasion does not provide any cues as to the author's opinion on the morality of the incident, which is key. The idea that journalists have to inject their personal feelings into their reporting is partisan nonsense.
      - beobab 8y ago
        I totally agree with you that reporting facts in as an objective way as possible is the end goal. Not "have to inject their personal feelings" but "inadvertently inject bias". The trouble with cognitive bias is that you can't see you have it. I have it, you have it, we all have it. If your brain refuses to let you know something (because of some shortcut that your brain takes to process information), you physically can't report it. If you think that something is very self-evident from the facts that are reported, you might not mention it, but you might be wrong not to. But once again: I think we agree that facts matter, and the main purpose of journalism is to present the facts in an understandable way.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        yes there is absolutely an issue of unconscious bias and I don't doubt it's a universal affliction. But this is why we need journalists to be non-partisan - at the moment we only have left- and right- news sources, meaning it's on the reader to piece together the real story by reading both sides, discounting leaps of faith that each side is all too keen to make, then combining whatever remains. Most readers won't do that, which I believe is a huge contributor to polarisation - people who only read left sources become further left and people who only read right sources become further right, and nothing ever seems to be getting better. I would pay a decent subscription fee to a news source that employed people with many differing perspectives to both pick apart the fact-reporting of an article, and to provide a separate opinion piece with explicit demarcations of the writer's political affiliation.