4 ms·

I see your point, but two objections. - Nuanced opinions and good information is rarely free, be it in monetary terms, be it in the invested time, relationship

I see your point, but two objections. - Nuanced opinions and good information is rarely free, be it in monetary terms, be it in the invested time, relationships, etc. Thus, if you're not planning to give up most of your time for any topic, you better find good proxies. And currently the press provides more noise than signal. This is problematic. - If you know anything about Spain is that it's basically Game of Thrones made a country. There's so much internal conflict that it even gets translated INSIDE of the newspapers and TV. You can't take any editorial line for granted, because it's more tied to a group of people seeking power than any background ideology or anything similar. So your balance different views style it's not really that practical in Spain. In fact I can tell you about an Issue where I'm invested that it's awful across the board: Housing policy.

danbolt 5y ago
> You can't take any editorial line for granted, because it's more tied to a group of people seeking power than any background ideology or anything similar. I don't mean to misrepresent the parent's argument, but I think they would demand the same solution of editorial transparency towards the groups of people seeking power you mention. That said, I might be coming from a place of ignorance here.
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  I'm not really sure I understand what you mean, sorry. Who would demand what? What's "editorial transparency"?
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    In France we mean by that that all newspaper have a public well accepted stance on the political spectrum, with candidates they push without hiding and ideologies they maintain. As long as their leaders and famous journalists are clear they're a perspective and not "the truth", I m fine with the communists fighting the nationalists in their respective newspapers even if I disagree with what I read. At least I know what and why they think these things and I can sometimes accept an argument if only to build an iterative counter argument myself. The difference I saw with facebook even in France, is that it's all blurred. I cant cross the Figaro with the Monde to figure two of the sides of an issue, now I receive some neutral looking information with a vague source. It struck me when a colleague started repeating an horrendous story and we investigated together to realize she was sourcing it from a facebook post by our "the onion" equivalent !!! She couldnt see the source because it's too blurry in between her grandma rants and some cnn-style generic information. It doesnt change that in the US I see with worry that even when lines are clear, the debate is heated. Also because there's no spectrum but just two solutions to any issue: democrat and republican. What was hailed as a miracle in democracy (just 2 fuzzy groups of dispationate interest) is starting to look like a weakness (to the death identity conflicts pushed by their respective extremes) while with 13 parties in elections in France, you can express nuances.
    - peterashford 5y ago
      I think the biggest issue issue is FPTP. You need mixed representation to allow expression of a broader range of ideas imo
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > we investigated together to realize she was sourcing it from a facebook post by our "the onion" equivalent !!! The chained duck? (I prefer mine au confit, not enchainé.)
- xondono 5y ago
  That would be a hard thing to achieve, given that we are talking about unnamed, unidentifiable groups. What GP meant about Spain being similar to GoT, is that there’s a lot of shifting alliances and moving pieces in the background. You might think channel A has ties to party B, and thus you can asume that they are softening the blow if they’re reporting bad news about B, but Spain has more than two parties (for now), and maybe channel A is actually exaggerating because it would put party C in a good position to sway votes from the opposition while not taking votes from yourself. As an US equivalent if a third political party had a 10-15% of the votes, you’d see Fox reporting in a way that tried to sway democrats to the third party. Since in Spain the way seats in congress are allocated benefits parties with bigger percentages, this strategy is possible.
  - spaniard89277 5y ago
    It's even worse than that. Groups inside the National Police do conspire against each other (I think there may be at least three of them) + Center of National Intelligence. The same happens in the IRS Equivalent, and other institutions, like autonomous comminites (~ US States). I mean, I'm talking about real plots here, like managing media influence, trying to put people in jail, and all the ingredients for a Netflix series. It's basically impossible to keep track of it, even for a politics nerd like me.
xwolfi 5y ago
I agree in principle but you're missing a small point: journalists are not proxies to the truth, they are proxies to a perspective. You should NEVER read an article to learn about an absolute reality, but to understand the arguments on a complex issue by a small group of stakeholders, by no mean guardians of reality interpretation. If you accept that sad fact of life, that we cant know who's right on anything not spawned directly from physical reality (and even then...), then you can embrace journalistic diversity and read several. I can give you an example close to me in China: there is a debate to have on Tiananmen: the reaction by the communist was certainly aggressive, but there are nuances. The movement failed to accept several compromises because it grew so big nobody could be delegated to represent it officially and they got stuck on successive waves of negociation that could have ended with progress. The army itself struggled and had to recall a first wave who fraternized with the movement to then lie to a second wave who thought they were crushing a rebellion they misunderstood, which probably made the massacre more violent than it could have been. I think the communists were trapped just as much as the movement into an impasse that led to a massacre they didnt enjoy having to commit. They're not evil per se in that regard: they could not see at the time any alternative. That's my perspective, it's probably hard to read, but I built this complex opinion by reading beyond my comfort zone. I could be wrong and must continue to listen, but you see how this probably cant appear if you just read one side ? And where China is wrong imo is they refuse to discuss it openly in those terms. If a French immigrant raised in the fear of communism can accept to tolerate their side, what are they so scared of ? Throw perspectives at people and they ll figure someth out.

danbolt 5y ago

> You can't take any editorial line for granted, because it's more tied to a group of people seeking power than any background ideology or anything similar. I don't mean to misrepresent the parent's argument, but I think they would demand the same solution of editorial transparency towards the groups of people seeking power you mention. That said, I might be coming from a place of ignorance here.

spaniard89277 5y ago
I'm not really sure I understand what you mean, sorry. Who would demand what? What's "editorial transparency"?
- xwolfi 5y ago
  In France we mean by that that all newspaper have a public well accepted stance on the political spectrum, with candidates they push without hiding and ideologies they maintain. As long as their leaders and famous journalists are clear they're a perspective and not "the truth", I m fine with the communists fighting the nationalists in their respective newspapers even if I disagree with what I read. At least I know what and why they think these things and I can sometimes accept an argument if only to build an iterative counter argument myself. The difference I saw with facebook even in France, is that it's all blurred. I cant cross the Figaro with the Monde to figure two of the sides of an issue, now I receive some neutral looking information with a vague source. It struck me when a colleague started repeating an horrendous story and we investigated together to realize she was sourcing it from a facebook post by our "the onion" equivalent !!! She couldnt see the source because it's too blurry in between her grandma rants and some cnn-style generic information. It doesnt change that in the US I see with worry that even when lines are clear, the debate is heated. Also because there's no spectrum but just two solutions to any issue: democrat and republican. What was hailed as a miracle in democracy (just 2 fuzzy groups of dispationate interest) is starting to look like a weakness (to the death identity conflicts pushed by their respective extremes) while with 13 parties in elections in France, you can express nuances.
  - peterashford 5y ago
    I think the biggest issue issue is FPTP. You need mixed representation to allow expression of a broader range of ideas imo
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > we investigated together to realize she was sourcing it from a facebook post by our "the onion" equivalent !!! The chained duck? (I prefer mine au confit, not enchainé.)
xondono 5y ago
That would be a hard thing to achieve, given that we are talking about unnamed, unidentifiable groups. What GP meant about Spain being similar to GoT, is that there’s a lot of shifting alliances and moving pieces in the background. You might think channel A has ties to party B, and thus you can asume that they are softening the blow if they’re reporting bad news about B, but Spain has more than two parties (for now), and maybe channel A is actually exaggerating because it would put party C in a good position to sway votes from the opposition while not taking votes from yourself. As an US equivalent if a third political party had a 10-15% of the votes, you’d see Fox reporting in a way that tried to sway democrats to the third party. Since in Spain the way seats in congress are allocated benefits parties with bigger percentages, this strategy is possible.
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  It's even worse than that. Groups inside the National Police do conspire against each other (I think there may be at least three of them) + Center of National Intelligence. The same happens in the IRS Equivalent, and other institutions, like autonomous comminites (~ US States). I mean, I'm talking about real plots here, like managing media influence, trying to put people in jail, and all the ingredients for a Netflix series. It's basically impossible to keep track of it, even for a politics nerd like me.

xwolfi 5y ago

I agree in principle but you're missing a small point: journalists are not proxies to the truth, they are proxies to a perspective. You should NEVER read an article to learn about an absolute reality, but to understand the arguments on a complex issue by a small group of stakeholders, by no mean guardians of reality interpretation. If you accept that sad fact of life, that we cant know who's right on anything not spawned directly from physical reality (and even then...), then you can embrace journalistic diversity and read several. I can give you an example close to me in China: there is a debate to have on Tiananmen: the reaction by the communist was certainly aggressive, but there are nuances. The movement failed to accept several compromises because it grew so big nobody could be delegated to represent it officially and they got stuck on successive waves of negociation that could have ended with progress. The army itself struggled and had to recall a first wave who fraternized with the movement to then lie to a second wave who thought they were crushing a rebellion they misunderstood, which probably made the massacre more violent than it could have been. I think the communists were trapped just as much as the movement into an impasse that led to a massacre they didnt enjoy having to commit. They're not evil per se in that regard: they could not see at the time any alternative. That's my perspective, it's probably hard to read, but I built this complex opinion by reading beyond my comfort zone. I could be wrong and must continue to listen, but you see how this probably cant appear if you just read one side ? And where China is wrong imo is they refuse to discuss it openly in those terms. If a French immigrant raised in the fear of communism can accept to tolerate their side, what are they so scared of ? Throw perspectives at people and they ll figure someth out.