4 ms·

The news is horrible because journalists are almost never experts on whatever they're writing about, so whenever they write about something that might actually

The news is horrible because journalists are almost never experts on whatever they're writing about, so whenever they write about something that might actually still have meaning in three weeks, they fuck it up.

ape4 8y ago
They aren't experts at tech but are the best a local news, politics, crime, etc
- CM30 8y ago
  Not sure I'd agree with that. I'm no fan of crime documentaries or political coverage, but it seems almost guaranteed that there are better sources for those things online, at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert. It's just easier for people here to tell they're not experts at tech because people here are more knowledgeable about tech than they are politics or crime. (There's also a rule/phrase for that, but I can't remember the name).
  - dctoedt 8y ago
    > I'm no fan of crime documentaries or political coverage, but it seems almost guaranteed that there are better sources for those things online [1], at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert [2]. [1] Not sure about that — those "better sources online" tend to be the very journalists whom we're discussing, working for local media outlets. [2] Assumes facts not in evidence — vetting of someone else's expertise is a non-trivial challenge, one that most of us neither want to do nor have the time to spend doing it.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      [1] - better sources on-line are usually first-hand reports and the opinions of the "protagonists" of a new story. [2] - well, a lot of people don't want to spend time vetting their sources, but this should prompt them to assign very low confidence to the things they read; of course, they frequently don't, which is why they need to be reminded that when they repeat what they read, they're most likely repeating bullshit.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    So basically you don't need newspapers if you have all the qualifications to be your own journalist?
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > there are better sources for those things online, at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert What if someone did that for you, as a full-time professional job, and did it both online and offline? What if they actually spoke directly to the participants, from senators to the bus driver in the crash to the head of safety at the regulatory agency; and what if they interviewed leading experts and engineers; and read the court filings, etc. What if they made it their life's work to become expert in that kind of research? That might be worth a few bucks a day. And it would be far more valuable than idle commentary from bloggers and commenters.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Might be, but then again, it's a rare thing. And the "idle commentary from bloggers and commenters" has the benefits that for any topic, you can find bloggers/commenters who are both subject matter experts, and have no incentive to misrepresent the story.
      - jiggunjer 8y ago
        because blogs never contain affiliate links. /s
      - forapurpose 8y ago
        > bloggers/commenters who ... have no incentive to misrepresent the story Isn't that a exceptionally idealistic given what we know about misinformation on the Internet? While we can debate the motivations, the Internet is a cesspool of misrepresentation. Just look at HN comments; they are among the highest quality available, but still it abounds. > bloggers/commenters who are ... subject matter experts And orders of magnitude more who claim to be.
        TeMPOraL 8y ago
        > Isn't that a exceptionally idealistic given what we know about misinformation on the Internet? While we can debate the motivations, the Internet is a cesspool of misrepresentation. I suppose the idea I'm trying to communicate can be also expressed as navigating towards localized pockets of lower misrepresentations levels in the cesspool of Internet. I'm arguing that regular news outlets have high concentration of misrepresentation, and quite frequently are the source of it. Or: I'm not saying that if you pop on to a random subreddit you'll immediately find gold-standard, unbiased people. But I am saying that for any given domain, if you find a niche community and browse it for a bit, you'll get, on average, much better information than you'll get from reading news articles on the same topics. Another extra feature of niche communities like various specialized subreddits, or HN, is that the experts, the pretend-experts and the wannabe-experts will engage in a discussion. This does not only help filter out obvious bullshit, but also provides extra information and can tell you when a problem is so complex it can't be accurately summarized in a headline or a short article.
- Izkata 8y ago
  Although I don't know your full background, that you're on this site implies you have tech experience and so can spot reporting failures in tech. This makes me think you're just experiencing the Gell-Mann amnesia effect [0], and trust the reporting of other topics solely because you have less experience with those topics. If you can expect reporting to be wrong on one topic, why do you trust them to be right on other topics? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
  - jiggunjer 8y ago
    because describing quantum physics is harder than describing political activism.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

ape4 8y ago

They aren't experts at tech but are the best a local news, politics, crime, etc

CM30 8y ago
Not sure I'd agree with that. I'm no fan of crime documentaries or political coverage, but it seems almost guaranteed that there are better sources for those things online, at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert. It's just easier for people here to tell they're not experts at tech because people here are more knowledgeable about tech than they are politics or crime. (There's also a rule/phrase for that, but I can't remember the name).
- dctoedt 8y ago
  > I'm no fan of crime documentaries or political coverage, but it seems almost guaranteed that there are better sources for those things online [1], at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert [2]. [1] Not sure about that — those "better sources online" tend to be the very journalists whom we're discussing, working for local media outlets. [2] Assumes facts not in evidence — vetting of someone else's expertise is a non-trivial challenge, one that most of us neither want to do nor have the time to spend doing it.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    [1] - better sources on-line are usually first-hand reports and the opinions of the "protagonists" of a new story. [2] - well, a lot of people don't want to spend time vetting their sources, but this should prompt them to assign very low confidence to the things they read; of course, they frequently don't, which is why they need to be reminded that when they repeat what they read, they're most likely repeating bullshit.
- majewsky 8y ago
  So basically you don't need newspapers if you have all the qualifications to be your own journalist?
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > there are better sources for those things online, at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert What if someone did that for you, as a full-time professional job, and did it both online and offline? What if they actually spoke directly to the participants, from senators to the bus driver in the crash to the head of safety at the regulatory agency; and what if they interviewed leading experts and engineers; and read the court filings, etc. What if they made it their life's work to become expert in that kind of research? That might be worth a few bucks a day. And it would be far more valuable than idle commentary from bloggers and commenters.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Might be, but then again, it's a rare thing. And the "idle commentary from bloggers and commenters" has the benefits that for any topic, you can find bloggers/commenters who are both subject matter experts, and have no incentive to misrepresent the story.
    - jiggunjer 8y ago
      because blogs never contain affiliate links. /s
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > bloggers/commenters who ... have no incentive to misrepresent the story Isn't that a exceptionally idealistic given what we know about misinformation on the Internet? While we can debate the motivations, the Internet is a cesspool of misrepresentation. Just look at HN comments; they are among the highest quality available, but still it abounds. > bloggers/commenters who are ... subject matter experts And orders of magnitude more who claim to be.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        > Isn't that a exceptionally idealistic given what we know about misinformation on the Internet? While we can debate the motivations, the Internet is a cesspool of misrepresentation. I suppose the idea I'm trying to communicate can be also expressed as navigating towards localized pockets of lower misrepresentations levels in the cesspool of Internet. I'm arguing that regular news outlets have high concentration of misrepresentation, and quite frequently are the source of it. Or: I'm not saying that if you pop on to a random subreddit you'll immediately find gold-standard, unbiased people. But I am saying that for any given domain, if you find a niche community and browse it for a bit, you'll get, on average, much better information than you'll get from reading news articles on the same topics. Another extra feature of niche communities like various specialized subreddits, or HN, is that the experts, the pretend-experts and the wannabe-experts will engage in a discussion. This does not only help filter out obvious bullshit, but also provides extra information and can tell you when a problem is so complex it can't be accurately summarized in a headline or a short article.
Izkata 8y ago
Although I don't know your full background, that you're on this site implies you have tech experience and so can spot reporting failures in tech. This makes me think you're just experiencing the Gell-Mann amnesia effect [0], and trust the reporting of other topics solely because you have less experience with those topics. If you can expect reporting to be wrong on one topic, why do you trust them to be right on other topics? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
- jiggunjer 8y ago
  because describing quantum physics is harder than describing political activism.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]