4 ms·

Your attitude is a deep part of the problem. Reporting should be objective and even handed. The media immolated their credibility by constant editorialising and

by Tycho 6y ago

Your attitude is a deep part of the problem. Reporting should be objective and even handed. The media immolated their credibility by constant editorialising and selective reporting, and now (absurdly) try to blame the resulting crisis of confidence on peripheral nonsense like QAnon .

croon 6y ago
> Your attitude is a deep part of the problem. Reporting should be objective... My attitude is exactly that. > ... and even handed. That is explicitly not objective if the opposing sides are truth vs non-truth.
- Tycho 6y ago
  We don’t need reporters to adjudicate truth for us. Saying “___ claimed ___” is objective, and can be easily followed up with “this appears to conflict with ____” or “____ (an expert, authority or opponent) denies this.” When reporters start writing things like “___ falsely claims”, they are venturing into subjective territory, and when they don’t present information that both sides may be relying on, they lose the trust of the readers who are looking for a comprehensive report that will help them understand the story.
  - croon 6y ago
    I agree with you on the phrasing, which is usually the case with all media I consume, but if it's "conflicts with experts, law scholars, appointed officials, ..." there's extremely rarely a need for "both sides", and can instead be detrimental to discourse, as proven by recent events. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/11/12/voters-think-fraud-occurred-during-elec https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... 81% of Trump supporters believe in a clear lie. That's the result of false equivalence of opposing sides instead of focusing on facts. News media catering to a groups feelings doesn't make for objective reporting, but quite the opposite.
    - Tycho 6y ago
      A clear lie? For a start, the poll question is extremely broad, I doubt anyone believes there was “zero” fraud. Secondly, this is a complex issue, with many possible definitions and magnitudes of fraud, you can’t neatly square it away as “a clear lie.” Thirdly, as I said, the election was notably unusual and sketchy, so expecting that everyone should agree as if it’s a simple, clear-as-day matter is ridiculous. “If the media is not more one sided, we will continue to see differences of opinion on these very complex and unusual issues!”
      - croon 6y ago
        > A clear lie? For a start, the poll question is extremely broad, I doubt anyone believes there was “zero” fraud. Secondly, this is a complex issue, with many possible definitions and magnitudes of fraud, you can’t neatly square it away as “a clear lie.” The answer selected by 81% was "Enough to influence the outcome". That is not broad, and the answer avoided was "Not enough to influence the outcome", which would encompass potentially thousands of cases of fraud. It's entirely within the scope of "clear lie". > Thirdly, as I said, the election was notably unusual and sketchy, so expecting that everyone should agree as if it’s a simple, clear-as-day matter is ridiculous. And as I said, it wasn't, and the onus is on you to provide any support for your assertion. I'm not expecting everyone to agree, I'm saying media should not care if everyone agrees and report the facts regardless of hurt feelings and stop catering to audiences.
        Tycho 6y ago
        I misread the link you posted. Still, “affect the outcome” is very broad - the White House winner? some EC votes? a House seat? So is “voter fraud” - presence of fake ballots? demoralisation/suppression caused by the likelihood of fraud? The election was highly unusual in that it was conducted with a much higher fraction of postal voting (obviously a less secure method, and accompanied by rule changes), and highly sketchy in the way that vote counting took so long to complete and even paused unexpectedly in the key swing states at a point where it looked like the outcome would be different. These things alone ensure that outcome would be hotly disputed. Telling both sides of the story is the mechanism by which court rooms reach a verdict. Failing to do so is counterproductive, it simply breeds distrust of journalism and makes the selectively reported side appear weaker.
nobody9999 6y ago
No. The crisis of confidence is because certain folks claimed for months before the election (without any evidence) that it would be rigged. And then when those same folks didn't get the result they wanted, they screamed "See! I told you it was rigged!" for another two months, again without presenting any evidence at all. They those very same folks turn around and say "people are concerned that the election was rigged? How could that be unless there are questions that need to be answered!" Widespread fraud in US elections is damn near impossible. Each county runs their own elections, all 3,143 of them. And each of those 3,143 counties have their own election boards, election commissioners (of both major parties), poll workers, polling/canvassing observers (for each candidate from every party on each of 3,143 different ballots). There are tens of thousands of people involved with interested observers from all sides watching the voting and the counting. As such, some sort of widespread conspiracy makes no sense. As Ben Franklin is purported to have said, "three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." Thousands? I think not. What's more, more than 60 lawsuits (heard by judges of all political stripes, many of whom were appointed by Trump himself) in seven states showed no evidence of voting irregularities that could have affected the outcome. Note that I said "irregularities" and not "fraud" or "cheating." Because except for those whack jobs Powell and Lin, who were laughed out of court for, not lack of evidence, but no evidence at all, none of the other lawsuits even alleged, let alone provided any evidence of fraud. It was a prime example of The Big Lie[0]. And it worked. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
- Tycho 6y ago
  There may be thousands of counties but you’d only need corrupt activity in a few of them to flip some swing states and change the election outcome.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by Tycho 6y ago

croon 6y ago

> Your attitude is a deep part of the problem. Reporting should be objective... My attitude is exactly that. > ... and even handed. That is explicitly not objective if the opposing sides are truth vs non-truth.

Tycho 6y ago
We don’t need reporters to adjudicate truth for us. Saying “___ claimed ___” is objective, and can be easily followed up with “this appears to conflict with ____” or “____ (an expert, authority or opponent) denies this.” When reporters start writing things like “___ falsely claims”, they are venturing into subjective territory, and when they don’t present information that both sides may be relying on, they lose the trust of the readers who are looking for a comprehensive report that will help them understand the story.
- croon 6y ago
  I agree with you on the phrasing, which is usually the case with all media I consume, but if it's "conflicts with experts, law scholars, appointed officials, ..." there's extremely rarely a need for "both sides", and can instead be detrimental to discourse, as proven by recent events. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/11/12/voters-think-fraud-occurred-during-elec https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... 81% of Trump supporters believe in a clear lie. That's the result of false equivalence of opposing sides instead of focusing on facts. News media catering to a groups feelings doesn't make for objective reporting, but quite the opposite.
  - Tycho 6y ago
    A clear lie? For a start, the poll question is extremely broad, I doubt anyone believes there was “zero” fraud. Secondly, this is a complex issue, with many possible definitions and magnitudes of fraud, you can’t neatly square it away as “a clear lie.” Thirdly, as I said, the election was notably unusual and sketchy, so expecting that everyone should agree as if it’s a simple, clear-as-day matter is ridiculous. “If the media is not more one sided, we will continue to see differences of opinion on these very complex and unusual issues!”
    - croon 6y ago
      > A clear lie? For a start, the poll question is extremely broad, I doubt anyone believes there was “zero” fraud. Secondly, this is a complex issue, with many possible definitions and magnitudes of fraud, you can’t neatly square it away as “a clear lie.” The answer selected by 81% was "Enough to influence the outcome". That is not broad, and the answer avoided was "Not enough to influence the outcome", which would encompass potentially thousands of cases of fraud. It's entirely within the scope of "clear lie". > Thirdly, as I said, the election was notably unusual and sketchy, so expecting that everyone should agree as if it’s a simple, clear-as-day matter is ridiculous. And as I said, it wasn't, and the onus is on you to provide any support for your assertion. I'm not expecting everyone to agree, I'm saying media should not care if everyone agrees and report the facts regardless of hurt feelings and stop catering to audiences.
      - Tycho 6y ago
        I misread the link you posted. Still, “affect the outcome” is very broad - the White House winner? some EC votes? a House seat? So is “voter fraud” - presence of fake ballots? demoralisation/suppression caused by the likelihood of fraud? The election was highly unusual in that it was conducted with a much higher fraction of postal voting (obviously a less secure method, and accompanied by rule changes), and highly sketchy in the way that vote counting took so long to complete and even paused unexpectedly in the key swing states at a point where it looked like the outcome would be different. These things alone ensure that outcome would be hotly disputed. Telling both sides of the story is the mechanism by which court rooms reach a verdict. Failing to do so is counterproductive, it simply breeds distrust of journalism and makes the selectively reported side appear weaker.

nobody9999 6y ago

No. The crisis of confidence is because certain folks claimed for months before the election (without any evidence) that it would be rigged. And then when those same folks didn't get the result they wanted, they screamed "See! I told you it was rigged!" for another two months, again without presenting any evidence at all. They those very same folks turn around and say "people are concerned that the election was rigged? How could that be unless there are questions that need to be answered!" Widespread fraud in US elections is damn near impossible. Each county runs their own elections, all 3,143 of them. And each of those 3,143 counties have their own election boards, election commissioners (of both major parties), poll workers, polling/canvassing observers (for each candidate from every party on each of 3,143 different ballots). There are tens of thousands of people involved with interested observers from all sides watching the voting and the counting. As such, some sort of widespread conspiracy makes no sense. As Ben Franklin is purported to have said, "three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." Thousands? I think not. What's more, more than 60 lawsuits (heard by judges of all political stripes, many of whom were appointed by Trump himself) in seven states showed no evidence of voting irregularities that could have affected the outcome. Note that I said "irregularities" and not "fraud" or "cheating." Because except for those whack jobs Powell and Lin, who were laughed out of court for, not lack of evidence, but no evidence at all, none of the other lawsuits even alleged, let alone provided any evidence of fraud. It was a prime example of The Big Lie[0]. And it worked. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

Tycho 6y ago
There may be thousands of counties but you’d only need corrupt activity in a few of them to flip some swing states and change the election outcome.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]