5 ms·

> For science, for example, you can go directly to the journals and hardcode scientific outlets. For most regular news you can go directly to the wire services,

> For science, for example, you can go directly to the journals and hardcode scientific outlets. For most regular news you can go directly to the wire services, read accounts from people on the ground, and read deeper outlets with more analysis than mass market newspapers like the NYT. If you have the time, sure. Journalists do this work for you and are trained to do it, but of course there is nothing wrong with going closer to the source. Only few people can afford this luxury, though. I sometimes do this for topics I'm really interested in, but certainly not for every daily news. For the ones who don't have the time, resorting to reputable newspapers is by far the best choice. Edit: In your reply you were shifting the goalpost. I was talking about news, not "what journalists do". Writing an editorial or opinion piece or broad analysis is not reporting news. Just wanted to make this clear.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I disagree that the parent comment “shifted the goal posts.” The type of news article or segment that involves retelling facts like in the original comment is also where editorial choices of what facts to tell, how to present them, how to stylize a guest commentator, etc., all take place. There is no isolated part of the news about foreign affairs, say, that is commonly just a complete summary of discrete facts. Every choice about presenting it for consumption is part of an editorial and marketing process. In this sense, I think the parent comment adequately captures a useful counterpoint to your original comment, and is not “shifting the goalposts” or anything by talking about one (journalists) of the many factors that make reporting even on fact summaries still often full of politically convenient ommissions or focused on politically convenient estimates rather than full disclosure of all estimates, etc. etc.
- jonathanstrange 8y ago
  Fair enough. I still think he shifted the goalpost a little bit but didn't want to make the impression of not accepting the criticism. It's a fair criticism from the perspective of the OP. Maybe you and the OP have different conceptions of what news are, though, because I have definitely no problem discerning factual statements from opinions or framing and in my book only the former constitute news. That every news source is biased and in fact every person on earth is biased, that is journalism 101 and has been known and accepted since the first newspaper was published. Likewise, you can learn at every photography course that every picture also tells a story about what's not on it. I really don't get why people make such a big fuzz about these truisms nowadays and suspect that many of the critics have a hidden political agenda themselves. (Not meant as a statements towards you specifically, just as a general remark, as the description of a tendency.)
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    The issue usually is not whether you or I are skeptical enough of news presentation, but rather what will the pragmatic societal outcome be when you add up the cumulative effect across a big chunk of society, consisting of people with large variations in intellect, critical thinking, etc., but who can influence elections with equal weight or convict people in the court of public opinion.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      Or a court of law.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > I have definitely no problem discerning factual statements from opinions or framing and in my book only the former constitute news. What if the facts you are discerning have been somewhat modified, or some of the facts relevant to a specific story have been excluded from the article entirely?
    - jonathanstrange 8y ago
      Then I'm still better informed than anyone who thinks he has "eaten the wisdom with a spoon", to use an old German proverb. I said that I see no viable alternative (unless you have unlimited spare time and unlimited travel funds to interview witnesses and take photos yourself), not that traditional newspapers are perfect. Besides, the problem of most people nowadays is that they are overinformed, leading to an overly negative world view. That problem worries me personally much more.
      - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        An obvious viable alternative is to avoid consuming the news in cases when you detect that the information has a high likelihood of being manipulative or not containing accurate information. If you happen to be an expert in a certain topic, you’ll reliably detect this for news items of that topic. The OP is meant to talk about extending that experience into a general prior belief that such mistakes also occur in areas of the news about which you are not an expert. Even if you only have one potential modality for consuming news information (i.e. consumer media), you still have the option to try to mentally model the uncertainty within that modality, and either adjust your general skepticism of all news upward, or adjust your consumption of news downward. Either of which could be policies that cause you to become more informed by consuming / believing the news less, depending on your personal parameters for the optimization policy.
maxlybbert 8y ago
Editorial decisions include more than just opinion pieces and editorials. It’s common for “hard news pieces” to try to add context or to put news in perspective. But the extra context or perspective is an editorial decision. This wouldn’t bother me if journalists were experts on their domains, but there is plenty of reason to think that’s not the case. There was once a time I considered becoming a journalist. I bought a copy of the then-latest AP Style Guide, which had a chapter on how to handle unfulfilling assignments such as business news. The fact that a media company covers news for a particular topic doesn’t mean they actually have any experts on that topic. I remember a computer journalist who bought a Linux CD, couldn’t get it to install on PowerPC, and claimed that was proof Linux wasn’t actually portable, and didn’t understand why people asked what architecture the CD was for. I remember when a buffer overflow was reported for Apache, and before Apache had a fix, somebody released a build that doubled the size of that buffer. Several media outlets thought this was an impressive fix for the original problem, and failed to ask what would happen if an attacker doubled the size of the input. With that kind of track record, I’m very cautious about where I get my computer news, and I fact check every story I can. But what about topics I’m not an expert in? I’ve seen incredibly dumb legal stories even though it would be easy for a news station to find a competent lawyer to review things before they’re published. When I read anything about the military or foreign affairs, I assume that the assigned journalists aren’t any better at their jobs than the people covering technology, lawsuits, local politics, etc.
rayiner 8y ago
> Journalists do this work for you and are trained to do it, but of course there is nothing wrong with going closer to the source. Journalists are trained in journalism, not particular problem domains. Someone writing an article on an event in the middle east may have no education in Middle Eastern history. Without domain specific knowledge, it's impossible to write a coherent article on complex topics like these. The very premise of general-purpose journalism is obsolete for numerous subjects. For foreign affairs, for example, the underlying facts all come from the same AP wires or press briefings. There is no value-add to having a non-expert massage those into an article. Likewise for politics. Most technology news comes from press releases, etc.
- tptacek 8y ago
  That's not true in the general case, or even really close to true. For downmarket outlets, and for stories in places the Times, Post, and WSJ don't cover, sure. But the major papers have bureaus all over the world, and those offices break major stories that aren't received from wire services. (And, obviously: what are the wire service reporters if not themselves journalists?)
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >For downmarket outlets, and for stories in places the Times, Post, and WSJ don't cover, sure. But the major papers have bureaus all over the world Increasingly less (regional offices close all the time), and where they still do, increasingly more cheaply (in both personnel costs and quality). E.g: The Washington Post has 16 foreign “bureaus,” and 12 of them consist of just a single reporter, according to the newspaper’s website. The four remaining bureaus all consist of two journalists. Is the Post using the word bureau a bit loosely? One Post reporter, Sudarsan Raghavan in Nairobi, is listed as the paper’s “bureau chief in Africa.” Raghavan is the chief of a bureau of one in Kenya. For the continent of Africa. https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/loneliness_at_the_foreign_bureau.php https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/loneliness_at_the_f...
    - tptacek 8y ago
stcredzero 8y ago
If you have the time, sure. Journalists do this work for you and are trained to do it There is an unfortunate trend arising from the coincidence of two motivations: 1) Increasing click-bait factor of news in response to economic pressures and 2) The pushing of group agendas by a 4th estate communicating ever more intensely via social media and electronic means.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I disagree that the parent comment “shifted the goal posts.” The type of news article or segment that involves retelling facts like in the original comment is also where editorial choices of what facts to tell, how to present them, how to stylize a guest commentator, etc., all take place. There is no isolated part of the news about foreign affairs, say, that is commonly just a complete summary of discrete facts. Every choice about presenting it for consumption is part of an editorial and marketing process. In this sense, I think the parent comment adequately captures a useful counterpoint to your original comment, and is not “shifting the goalposts” or anything by talking about one (journalists) of the many factors that make reporting even on fact summaries still often full of politically convenient ommissions or focused on politically convenient estimates rather than full disclosure of all estimates, etc. etc.

jonathanstrange 8y ago
Fair enough. I still think he shifted the goalpost a little bit but didn't want to make the impression of not accepting the criticism. It's a fair criticism from the perspective of the OP. Maybe you and the OP have different conceptions of what news are, though, because I have definitely no problem discerning factual statements from opinions or framing and in my book only the former constitute news. That every news source is biased and in fact every person on earth is biased, that is journalism 101 and has been known and accepted since the first newspaper was published. Likewise, you can learn at every photography course that every picture also tells a story about what's not on it. I really don't get why people make such a big fuzz about these truisms nowadays and suspect that many of the critics have a hidden political agenda themselves. (Not meant as a statements towards you specifically, just as a general remark, as the description of a tendency.)
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  The issue usually is not whether you or I are skeptical enough of news presentation, but rather what will the pragmatic societal outcome be when you add up the cumulative effect across a big chunk of society, consisting of people with large variations in intellect, critical thinking, etc., but who can influence elections with equal weight or convict people in the court of public opinion.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    Or a court of law.
- mistermann 8y ago
  > I have definitely no problem discerning factual statements from opinions or framing and in my book only the former constitute news. What if the facts you are discerning have been somewhat modified, or some of the facts relevant to a specific story have been excluded from the article entirely?
  - jonathanstrange 8y ago
    Then I'm still better informed than anyone who thinks he has "eaten the wisdom with a spoon", to use an old German proverb. I said that I see no viable alternative (unless you have unlimited spare time and unlimited travel funds to interview witnesses and take photos yourself), not that traditional newspapers are perfect. Besides, the problem of most people nowadays is that they are overinformed, leading to an overly negative world view. That problem worries me personally much more.
    - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
      An obvious viable alternative is to avoid consuming the news in cases when you detect that the information has a high likelihood of being manipulative or not containing accurate information. If you happen to be an expert in a certain topic, you’ll reliably detect this for news items of that topic. The OP is meant to talk about extending that experience into a general prior belief that such mistakes also occur in areas of the news about which you are not an expert. Even if you only have one potential modality for consuming news information (i.e. consumer media), you still have the option to try to mentally model the uncertainty within that modality, and either adjust your general skepticism of all news upward, or adjust your consumption of news downward. Either of which could be policies that cause you to become more informed by consuming / believing the news less, depending on your personal parameters for the optimization policy.

maxlybbert 8y ago

Editorial decisions include more than just opinion pieces and editorials. It’s common for “hard news pieces” to try to add context or to put news in perspective. But the extra context or perspective is an editorial decision. This wouldn’t bother me if journalists were experts on their domains, but there is plenty of reason to think that’s not the case. There was once a time I considered becoming a journalist. I bought a copy of the then-latest AP Style Guide, which had a chapter on how to handle unfulfilling assignments such as business news. The fact that a media company covers news for a particular topic doesn’t mean they actually have any experts on that topic. I remember a computer journalist who bought a Linux CD, couldn’t get it to install on PowerPC, and claimed that was proof Linux wasn’t actually portable, and didn’t understand why people asked what architecture the CD was for. I remember when a buffer overflow was reported for Apache, and before Apache had a fix, somebody released a build that doubled the size of that buffer. Several media outlets thought this was an impressive fix for the original problem, and failed to ask what would happen if an attacker doubled the size of the input. With that kind of track record, I’m very cautious about where I get my computer news, and I fact check every story I can. But what about topics I’m not an expert in? I’ve seen incredibly dumb legal stories even though it would be easy for a news station to find a competent lawyer to review things before they’re published. When I read anything about the military or foreign affairs, I assume that the assigned journalists aren’t any better at their jobs than the people covering technology, lawsuits, local politics, etc.

rayiner 8y ago

> Journalists do this work for you and are trained to do it, but of course there is nothing wrong with going closer to the source. Journalists are trained in journalism, not particular problem domains. Someone writing an article on an event in the middle east may have no education in Middle Eastern history. Without domain specific knowledge, it's impossible to write a coherent article on complex topics like these. The very premise of general-purpose journalism is obsolete for numerous subjects. For foreign affairs, for example, the underlying facts all come from the same AP wires or press briefings. There is no value-add to having a non-expert massage those into an article. Likewise for politics. Most technology news comes from press releases, etc.

tptacek 8y ago
That's not true in the general case, or even really close to true. For downmarket outlets, and for stories in places the Times, Post, and WSJ don't cover, sure. But the major papers have bureaus all over the world, and those offices break major stories that aren't received from wire services. (And, obviously: what are the wire service reporters if not themselves journalists?)
- coldtea 8y ago
  >For downmarket outlets, and for stories in places the Times, Post, and WSJ don't cover, sure. But the major papers have bureaus all over the world Increasingly less (regional offices close all the time), and where they still do, increasingly more cheaply (in both personnel costs and quality). E.g: The Washington Post has 16 foreign “bureaus,” and 12 of them consist of just a single reporter, according to the newspaper’s website. The four remaining bureaus all consist of two journalists. Is the Post using the word bureau a bit loosely? One Post reporter, Sudarsan Raghavan in Nairobi, is listed as the paper’s “bureau chief in Africa.” Raghavan is the chief of a bureau of one in Kenya. For the continent of Africa. https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/loneliness_at_the_foreign_bureau.php https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/loneliness_at_the_f...
  - tptacek 8y ago

stcredzero 8y ago

If you have the time, sure. Journalists do this work for you and are trained to do it There is an unfortunate trend arising from the coincidence of two motivations: 1) Increasing click-bait factor of news in response to economic pressures and 2) The pushing of group agendas by a 4th estate communicating ever more intensely via social media and electronic means.