3 ms·

Eric Weinstein posits that the purpose of news organizations isnt to relay raw information to the public, but rather, it has the sole purpose of telling you how

Eric Weinstein posits that the purpose of news organizations isnt to relay raw information to the public, but rather, it has the sole purpose of telling you how to feel about the information. They provide you with narrative. Exposing a person to a dataset without a narrative puts the burden on the person to have to parse through and construct their own narrative. This may be just too much for the average person and hence why they prefer their data to come bundled with a narrative - it is a time saving and bias confirming heuristic. I am not saying that this is true, but it certainly is an interesting idea to consider and think about. Eric´s take on this is worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu_-qV-9hMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu_-qV-9hMo Wiki link to the phenomenon in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation

majewsky 6y ago
> This may be just too much for the average person Having to construct your own narrative all the time is most certainly too much for any single person. If I had to come up with my own interpretation of everything, I'd be sitting here crunching data all day long until I go crazy. One always has to choose their fights, and for everything else you have to find someone else to trust.
- wesammikhail 6y ago
  That is indeed the point he makes. That rejecting the institutions isnt a viable strategy. Fixing the institutions however, in order for them not to hijack your emotional state, is probably the right way to go.
- ghaff 6y ago
  To take something especially apropos to the WSJ... In earnings releases, companies will generally try to spin their earnings in the best possible light by focusing on the positives. Maybe claim extenuating circumstances outside of their control like foreign exchange headwinds. The casual reader probably doesn't have any way to tell whether it's mostly BS or not without doing a bunch of their own research.
  - jsight 6y ago
    To be fair, it often feels like the interpreted narrative by the financial press is made up on the fly with little regard to whether it actually makes sense in context.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Yes most financial news commentary is totally made up by clueless journalists and "experts" just filling up space. Like the classic "stocks fell today due to profit taking". The reality is they don't know why market indexes changed and are rationalizing after the fact.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
  The news cycle actually doesn't go that fast for it to be hard to keep up with the two main competing narratives & the primary sources. Mainly because the mainstream media cherry picks what it wants to cover then runs it into the ground. I keep the news on all day on a monitor as I work and unless it's a day like yesterday you'll hear the same headline repeated over and over all day with the same facts. Now if you want to be an expert XYZ in any of the fields that touch those subjects that's another story, but not being an expert in something never stopped people from posting as one before.
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    ==Mainly because the mainstream media cherry picks what it wants to cover then runs it into the ground.== The media (not sure what work the word "mainstream" is doing in this context) cherry picks what will give them clicks and views then runs it until it stops getting clicks and views.
    - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
      To clarify mainstream media in this case is cable news and major newspaper outlets.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  I feel the opposite. Having to sift through the bullshit and separate feeling from opinion from guess from estimate from fact, when they're all presented the same way (often through a lens of indignation and outrage) is much harder than coming up with my own interpretations and narratives from impassive "boring" presentations. Take scientific reporting. How often is the long many paragraph article written by e.g. bbc ridiculously wrong compared to the few sentence abstract of the paper itself? Sure, I'm not going to understand it all, but the misleading mainstream article that does the work of doing interpretation and narrative for me is more likely to make it worse than better.
RivieraKid 6y ago
I mostly disagree. The purpose of news organizations is to collect data from different sources and provide objective, interesting and useful information that can be derived from the data. For example: there's a new academic paper describing some discovery. I want an easy to understand and accurate summary from the media. What I don't want is them telling me how should I fee.
- wesammikhail 6y ago
  you´re missing the point.
  - RivieraKid 6y ago
    No I'm not.

majewsky 6y ago

> This may be just too much for the average person Having to construct your own narrative all the time is most certainly too much for any single person. If I had to come up with my own interpretation of everything, I'd be sitting here crunching data all day long until I go crazy. One always has to choose their fights, and for everything else you have to find someone else to trust.

wesammikhail 6y ago
That is indeed the point he makes. That rejecting the institutions isnt a viable strategy. Fixing the institutions however, in order for them not to hijack your emotional state, is probably the right way to go.
ghaff 6y ago
To take something especially apropos to the WSJ... In earnings releases, companies will generally try to spin their earnings in the best possible light by focusing on the positives. Maybe claim extenuating circumstances outside of their control like foreign exchange headwinds. The casual reader probably doesn't have any way to tell whether it's mostly BS or not without doing a bunch of their own research.
- jsight 6y ago
  To be fair, it often feels like the interpreted narrative by the financial press is made up on the fly with little regard to whether it actually makes sense in context.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Yes most financial news commentary is totally made up by clueless journalists and "experts" just filling up space. Like the classic "stocks fell today due to profit taking". The reality is they don't know why market indexes changed and are rationalizing after the fact.
s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
The news cycle actually doesn't go that fast for it to be hard to keep up with the two main competing narratives & the primary sources. Mainly because the mainstream media cherry picks what it wants to cover then runs it into the ground. I keep the news on all day on a monitor as I work and unless it's a day like yesterday you'll hear the same headline repeated over and over all day with the same facts. Now if you want to be an expert XYZ in any of the fields that touch those subjects that's another story, but not being an expert in something never stopped people from posting as one before.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  ==Mainly because the mainstream media cherry picks what it wants to cover then runs it into the ground.== The media (not sure what work the word "mainstream" is doing in this context) cherry picks what will give them clicks and views then runs it until it stops getting clicks and views.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
    To clarify mainstream media in this case is cable news and major newspaper outlets.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
I feel the opposite. Having to sift through the bullshit and separate feeling from opinion from guess from estimate from fact, when they're all presented the same way (often through a lens of indignation and outrage) is much harder than coming up with my own interpretations and narratives from impassive "boring" presentations. Take scientific reporting. How often is the long many paragraph article written by e.g. bbc ridiculously wrong compared to the few sentence abstract of the paper itself? Sure, I'm not going to understand it all, but the misleading mainstream article that does the work of doing interpretation and narrative for me is more likely to make it worse than better.

RivieraKid 6y ago

I mostly disagree. The purpose of news organizations is to collect data from different sources and provide objective, interesting and useful information that can be derived from the data. For example: there's a new academic paper describing some discovery. I want an easy to understand and accurate summary from the media. What I don't want is them telling me how should I fee.

wesammikhail 6y ago
you´re missing the point.
- RivieraKid 6y ago
  No I'm not.