4 ms·

Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably and usually in total—without specifyi

by ttfkam 5y ago

Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably and usually in total—without specifying what other institutions or processes can be trusted instead for reliable information besides a known orange-tinted salesman with an affection for Mein Kampf. GANs and other deep fakes are going to be weaponized and absolutely obliterate the foundations of this country if that trust in legitimate journalism cannot be adequately restored in time. All journalism is biased, but we're not talking about bias; we're talking about up is down. Very soon literally anyone can be shown saying anything… to anyone else… anywhere… wearing anything (or nothing)… with resources akin to a typical gaming computer. As a nation, we are woefully unprepared for that day, and we will pay dearly for that lack of preparation.

pdonis 5y ago
> Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably No, often justifiably. If the media didn't lie so often and so consistently, they wouldn't have a problem rebutting accusations of lying. > without specifying what other institutions or processes can be trusted instead for reliable information That's the problem: there aren't any. Our society has no institutions that can be trusted for reliable information.
- ttfkam 5y ago
  Okay, you've made the claim they all lie. It's up to you to provide the evidence since I can't prove a negative. I can't point to a news story that lacks lies and claim they're all true. It's up to you to put up specific examples and demonstrate a pattern of deception. PBS News Hour Frontline Reuters BBC News NPR's morning and evening news Associated Press Then papers of record (excluding editorial column or op-ed): Washington Post Chicago Tribune Miami Herald etc. Please provide specific examples of their lies. I'll even take honest errors that never received a retraction. Move on to more opinion-based outlets like: The Hill The Atlantic Pro Publica Mother Jones In these, provide examples where what's written goes beyond bias or persuasion into "lie" territory. While we're here, show where dedicated fact checkers like FactCheck.org have lied or omitted their sources so as to prevent outside verification. Even Fox News rarely if ever lies. Biased as all hell, but no outright lies at the main news desk. Their opinion shows on the channel on the other hand, it's hard to find an honest hour among them. And local NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliates? Yeah, I'm gonna need some specific examples where they regularly lie to the American public beyond, "They were mean to Trump."
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > It's up to you to provide the evidence since I can't prove a negative. If you honestly can't come up with a mountain of evidence on your own, then either you have not been paying attention at all, or we live on different planets. Or you have simply not bothered to independently check anything they say. (More on what "independently" means below.) And if you honestly believe that the sources you cite (and yes, I'm talking about what is billed as straight "news", not opinion) are reliable, then good luck with that. I hope for your sake that it doesn't catch up with you at some point, but I won't be holding my breath. And btw, my claim is not that everything they say is lies. Much of what they say is true. The problem is that you can't trust them not to lie; given any statement they make, you have to consult independent information (more on that below) to decide whether you can trust it or not. And the more politically charged the topic--in other words, the more that is at stake in terms of power--the less you can trust them not to lie. Whenever the chips are down, they have shown that they will put ideology and spin, to protect their own power and the power of those in government whom they agree with, above truth. As far as independently checking what they say is concerned, that's the problem I referred to in the GP: there are no "independent" reliable sources you can use. You have to do it entirely on your own, cobbling together what information you can from as close to primary sources as you can get it. (For example, whenever I see, say, a report issued by a government agency, or a scientific paper, mentioned in the media, I don't even bother reading the media article; I go looking for the actual report or paper itself and read that. The report or paper might still be telling me things that are questionable, but at least I'm reading the primary source.) And of course most people don't have the time or the wherewithal to do that, which is why this terrible state of affairs persists. But that doesn't make it any less terrible. At least now, with the Internet, with so many ways for people to post first-hand information about things, we have some ability to collect our own data instead of having to live with whatever the media gives us. We used to have none at all, except for the rare cases where either we ourselves were first-hand witnesses to some event (and btw, pretty much anyone who has had first-hand knowledge of something that got covered in the media will tell you that the media account was nothing at all like what they saw first-hand), or we knew personally someone who was and could evaluate what they told us based on our knowledge of their past track record of reliability.

by ttfkam 5y ago

pdonis 5y ago

> Which is why the blanket "lying media" and "fake news" rhetoric is so dangerous. It removes that trust—often unjustifiably No, often justifiably. If the media didn't lie so often and so consistently, they wouldn't have a problem rebutting accusations of lying. > without specifying what other institutions or processes can be trusted instead for reliable information That's the problem: there aren't any. Our society has no institutions that can be trusted for reliable information.

ttfkam 5y ago
Okay, you've made the claim they all lie. It's up to you to provide the evidence since I can't prove a negative. I can't point to a news story that lacks lies and claim they're all true. It's up to you to put up specific examples and demonstrate a pattern of deception. PBS News Hour Frontline Reuters BBC News NPR's morning and evening news Associated Press Then papers of record (excluding editorial column or op-ed): Washington Post Chicago Tribune Miami Herald etc. Please provide specific examples of their lies. I'll even take honest errors that never received a retraction. Move on to more opinion-based outlets like: The Hill The Atlantic Pro Publica Mother Jones In these, provide examples where what's written goes beyond bias or persuasion into "lie" territory. While we're here, show where dedicated fact checkers like FactCheck.org have lied or omitted their sources so as to prevent outside verification. Even Fox News rarely if ever lies. Biased as all hell, but no outright lies at the main news desk. Their opinion shows on the channel on the other hand, it's hard to find an honest hour among them. And local NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliates? Yeah, I'm gonna need some specific examples where they regularly lie to the American public beyond, "They were mean to Trump."
- pdonis 5y ago
  > It's up to you to provide the evidence since I can't prove a negative. If you honestly can't come up with a mountain of evidence on your own, then either you have not been paying attention at all, or we live on different planets. Or you have simply not bothered to independently check anything they say. (More on what "independently" means below.) And if you honestly believe that the sources you cite (and yes, I'm talking about what is billed as straight "news", not opinion) are reliable, then good luck with that. I hope for your sake that it doesn't catch up with you at some point, but I won't be holding my breath. And btw, my claim is not that everything they say is lies. Much of what they say is true. The problem is that you can't trust them not to lie; given any statement they make, you have to consult independent information (more on that below) to decide whether you can trust it or not. And the more politically charged the topic--in other words, the more that is at stake in terms of power--the less you can trust them not to lie. Whenever the chips are down, they have shown that they will put ideology and spin, to protect their own power and the power of those in government whom they agree with, above truth. As far as independently checking what they say is concerned, that's the problem I referred to in the GP: there are no "independent" reliable sources you can use. You have to do it entirely on your own, cobbling together what information you can from as close to primary sources as you can get it. (For example, whenever I see, say, a report issued by a government agency, or a scientific paper, mentioned in the media, I don't even bother reading the media article; I go looking for the actual report or paper itself and read that. The report or paper might still be telling me things that are questionable, but at least I'm reading the primary source.) And of course most people don't have the time or the wherewithal to do that, which is why this terrible state of affairs persists. But that doesn't make it any less terrible. At least now, with the Internet, with so many ways for people to post first-hand information about things, we have some ability to collect our own data instead of having to live with whatever the media gives us. We used to have none at all, except for the rare cases where either we ourselves were first-hand witnesses to some event (and btw, pretty much anyone who has had first-hand knowledge of something that got covered in the media will tell you that the media account was nothing at all like what they saw first-hand), or we knew personally someone who was and could evaluate what they told us based on our knowledge of their past track record of reliability.