3 ms·

> IMO the problem is expectations. "Restraining it (a newspaper) to true facts & sound principles only" is not just boring... it's unimportant. It's the narrati

> IMO the problem is expectations. "Restraining it (a newspaper) to true facts & sound principles only" is not just boring... it's unimportant. It's the narrative that makes it salient. > Calling out intellectual dishonesty is a road to hypocrisy, usually. It's very common to have someone call it out and practice it simultaneously. You have a right to your opinion, of course, but frankly I find this revolting. There's a huge difference between recognizing that imperfect intellectual integrity and flawed critics are common, and dismissing the aspiration towards intellectual integrity as boring, unimportant, and hypocritical. You don't have to deceive people to be interesting and successful. You just don't. And I think plenty of people manage to not live their lives that way.

zarkov99 6y ago
I agree, its despicable. I would also suggest there is an enormous opportunity to make money for an organization that pursues and documents the truth, with integrity and to the the best of their ability. Society cannot possibly work if its members inhabit vastly incoherent bullshit bubbles and deep down inside we all know it.
dalbasal 6y ago
I think you might be misunderstanding me. ">* dismissing the aspiration towards intellectual integrity*" is far from true. Intellectual integrity is crucial. I a deep sense, it's the main thing that matters. I mean that a newspaper is a newspaper. A pamphlet is a pamphlet. An Encyclopedia is... etc. Moralizing about it doesn't help much. As TJ says in his speech. Anyway, I mean this "for one's own sake." Our own Intellectual honesty is something most of us think we just have. In practice, it's a skill. Call outs like this aren't a good way of practicing it, IMO.
- civilized 6y ago
  If you're just saying "this is how the world works" - yeah, maybe, but not everyone is the same. I'm sure there are some individual reporters and maybe, occasionally, even whole news orgs, that are trying to be better then this.
  - ptaipale 6y ago
    Not everyone is the same, but too many are. I have similar experiences of newpaper articles: whenever I happen to know the case in deeper detail, I find the newspaper reporting sloppy at best, and drama-seeking and distorting at worst.
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    I'm not saying everyone is the same, nor being cynical. I'm saying that the standard TJ sets in the speech, and that most people instinctively judge newspapers by is an unreasonable one for a newspaper. He basically says this himself in the speech. Newspapers are not purely factual, by nature. If you want simple facts, you can read the wire services that newspapers often report based on. Meanwhile, we wouldn't judge other things by this standard. The pertinent example (considering who is making this statement) is a political pamphlet. Honesty, intellectual and otherwise, is important here too. Some pamphleteers are more or less honest than others. But, we don't expect a purely factual and politically neutral pamphlet. When Jefferson wrote his own stuff, pamphlets, autobiography, etc.... he was working within that medium and the nature of the medium dictates a lot. This position sometimes reduces to "newspaper are just illegitimate." I mean, if you want statistics on the epidemic... those are available. Read wikipedia^. No narrative. No hype. There are plenty who also tabulate and summarize these for you, including google. They just aren't newspapers. It's (IMO) either intellectually dishonest or naive to want or expect a newspaper to do exactly what wikipedia does and no more. That isn't what a newspaper is. In practice, this type of argument (I don't think this applies to TJ's speech) is usually made when someone dislikes a narrative. Either that or they're just sick of bad journalism. But, "just print the facts" isn't a newspaper. Newspaper write narratively. That's what they are. You can get "just facts" if you want. You just need to read something that isn't a newspaper. ^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data/Republic_of_Ireland_medical_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_dat...

zarkov99 6y ago

I agree, its despicable. I would also suggest there is an enormous opportunity to make money for an organization that pursues and documents the truth, with integrity and to the the best of their ability. Society cannot possibly work if its members inhabit vastly incoherent bullshit bubbles and deep down inside we all know it.

dalbasal 6y ago

I think you might be misunderstanding me. ">* dismissing the aspiration towards intellectual integrity*" is far from true. Intellectual integrity is crucial. I a deep sense, it's the main thing that matters. I mean that a newspaper is a newspaper. A pamphlet is a pamphlet. An Encyclopedia is... etc. Moralizing about it doesn't help much. As TJ says in his speech. Anyway, I mean this "for one's own sake." Our own Intellectual honesty is something most of us think we just have. In practice, it's a skill. Call outs like this aren't a good way of practicing it, IMO.

civilized 6y ago
If you're just saying "this is how the world works" - yeah, maybe, but not everyone is the same. I'm sure there are some individual reporters and maybe, occasionally, even whole news orgs, that are trying to be better then this.
- ptaipale 6y ago
  Not everyone is the same, but too many are. I have similar experiences of newpaper articles: whenever I happen to know the case in deeper detail, I find the newspaper reporting sloppy at best, and drama-seeking and distorting at worst.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  I'm not saying everyone is the same, nor being cynical. I'm saying that the standard TJ sets in the speech, and that most people instinctively judge newspapers by is an unreasonable one for a newspaper. He basically says this himself in the speech. Newspapers are not purely factual, by nature. If you want simple facts, you can read the wire services that newspapers often report based on. Meanwhile, we wouldn't judge other things by this standard. The pertinent example (considering who is making this statement) is a political pamphlet. Honesty, intellectual and otherwise, is important here too. Some pamphleteers are more or less honest than others. But, we don't expect a purely factual and politically neutral pamphlet. When Jefferson wrote his own stuff, pamphlets, autobiography, etc.... he was working within that medium and the nature of the medium dictates a lot. This position sometimes reduces to "newspaper are just illegitimate." I mean, if you want statistics on the epidemic... those are available. Read wikipedia^. No narrative. No hype. There are plenty who also tabulate and summarize these for you, including google. They just aren't newspapers. It's (IMO) either intellectually dishonest or naive to want or expect a newspaper to do exactly what wikipedia does and no more. That isn't what a newspaper is. In practice, this type of argument (I don't think this applies to TJ's speech) is usually made when someone dislikes a narrative. Either that or they're just sick of bad journalism. But, "just print the facts" isn't a newspaper. Newspaper write narratively. That's what they are. You can get "just facts" if you want. You just need to read something that isn't a newspaper. ^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data/Republic_of_Ireland_medical_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_dat...