11 ms·

Anytime I read a story by big publications about a topic I’m an expert in, I recalibrate my expectations around accuracy and effectiveness in coverage of big pu

Anytime I read a story by big publications about a topic I’m an expert in, I recalibrate my expectations around accuracy and effectiveness in coverage of big publications. It’s astonishing how much nuance is lost in translation - both from the subject matter to the journalist, and again from the journalist’s reporting to the public. This is not a bald criticism or renunciation of journalism from big publications - I simply mean to provide some understanding and clarity around how journalism so often misses the mark. Even though it misses the mark, journalistic coverage is incredibly valuable and a far better approach than darkness. (People might think of journalism as turning the lights on - more accurately journalism is like shining a flashlight into a dark place.) In this case, it is very odd that much of the coverage has not been centered on fraud. I genuinely don’t understand why.

richbell 4y ago
> Anytime I read a story by big publications about a topic I’m an expert in, I recalibrate my expectations around accuracy and effectiveness in coverage of big publications. Reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
scarecrowbob 4y ago
The way you stated this feeling remids me of Gell Mann Amnesia. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” – Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
- DalekBaldwin 4y ago
  A corollary: Think about all the places you've ever worked, all the organizations you've been part of, where you know how the sausage is actually made, and how that differs from the way the organization portrays itself. Now think about all the other organizations in the world, whose internal workings you're not privy to.
mrtksn 4y ago
Can’t agree more. I generally forgive journalists who simply reporting on a story and get it very wrong because they usually report all kind of stories and it’s unreasonable to expect good grip on all the topics. On the other hand, when a journalist follows a story, they must have good high level understanding. Shockingly, youtubers have much better grip on the situation. The traditional media seems to be losing the plot in this FTX and presenting SBF in strangely positive light, almost as if it is a human interest story. The talk with him today was very strange.
- kodah 4y ago
  > I generally forgive journalists who simply reporting on a story and get it very wrong because they usually report all kind of stories and it’s unreasonable to expect good grip on all the topics. I generally don't. A journalists job is to report the news, if they don't feel confident in a given domain then they can sit the story out. To give you an analog, I work on infrastructure, but I don't work on things like AWS policies every day. It generally takes me longer to craft up the right way to restrict a given resource due to that. If I left an S3 bucket open to the public "on accident" I'd expect ramifications from my employer. That's to say, the onus is on the doer of the work. Now, if news outlets are just telling journalists to give it the old college try on domains they don't know, that's another subject.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    The problem is that bad, irresponsible, and / or wrong journalism still makes money. Newspapers rarely face consequences for their shoddy publications.
    - richbell 4y ago
      This has a name: Yellow Journalism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
    - AdamN 4y ago
      That's not totally true. For instance I blocked USA Today on my Apple News stream because of the low quality of journalism and clickbait titles. The problem is that this has minimal impact but more importantly, USA Today probably doesn't even get a report letting them know that end users are doing this and probably get paid anyway so they are blissfully unaware.
soheil 4y ago
While your criticism is valid it's pretty generic and is focused not on this particular issue, but the media as a whole. I don't think that's the correct thing to be talking about right now. It may even distract from the actual conversation about FTX. The media coverage about FTX is extremely odd.
iJohnDoe 4y ago
I think we naturally give reporters and publications more credit than they deserve. We like to think they are experts or want to expose the the truth. In reality, they might be idiots who landed a job. Or they are just getting paid to do something like most corporate employees and do the bare minimum and don’t really give a crap about what they are doing. If we don’t hold them to a higher standard, then what they produce makes perfect sense. There are some amazing journalists out there and I’m sure they are just as disappointed in the mediocre content their peers produce.
- SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
  I think you misunderstand what journalists do. Journalists are not supposed to be experts in the subjects they cover. They are not telling you the story based on their personal knowledge or beliefs — those are opinion pieces. Journalists are expected to source information from experts and from people who are in positions to know, and to attribute the information they publish to their sources. I am not saying that every journalist or publication does a good job of seeking the truth. Only that the job of a reporter does not require being an expert at anything other than - hopefully - information gathering and reporting.
  - paulsutter 4y ago
    This is how the news gets fooled again and again. They believe an “expert” who came to them with an agenda. It’s often willful as long as the narrative fits their own
    - Fnoord 4y ago
      That is why the old adagium one source is no source is valid. Look up how Rian van Rijbroek fooled a popular news show in The Netherlands. If they had invited one more random expert in the field, that person would've grilled her.
  - zztop44 4y ago
    To be fair, journalists are meant to also use their own knowledge and judgement to assess the relative validity of sources and frame the story in a way that communicates the truth as they see it (as opposed to just uncritically reflecting whatever their sources told them)
CTDOCodebases 4y ago
> In this case, it is very odd that much of the coverage has not been centred on fraud. I genuinely don’t understand why. Its because news is for entertainment purpose not knowledge acquisition from the journalists perspective and secondly because powerful players are involved. This guy donated 40 million dollars to the ruling political party and has parents with connections. Why would you write a truthful article outlining the grand fraud that took place when you only have something to loose by doing so?
- jquery 4y ago
  The guy donated heavily to both parties, he was just quiet about his donations to Republicans.
  - CTDOCodebases 4y ago
    Says who?
    - DebtDeflation 4y ago
      Says SBF himself in the interview he gave on Tuesday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DezodR9hNI&t=774s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DezodR9hNI&t=774s
      - CTDOCodebases 4y ago
        Not that it matters to the point that I was making but I wouldn't consider SBF a reliable source of the truth. Remember this was the guy who said "FTX is fine. Assets are fine" and "We don't invest client assets (even in treasuries)". I don't doubt that he did donate some money to the non ruling party but to quote what he is saying as truth or try and attribute a donation by an associated party to him is disingenuous.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      SBF, but if "dark money" isn't concrete enough for you then the other co-CEO, Ryan Salame, donated about $22M openly to Republicans, and in the senate race SBF donated $66.7k to Republicans vs $49.2k to Democrats. https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-among-top-political-donors-before-bankruptcy-11668949205 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-amon...
MrPatan 4y ago
This isn't about "getting it wrong". This is about the use of a certain kind of language like "The company fell". No, "SBF and his chums lost and stole a lot of money". It's exactly like the "Crowd hit by a van" type of language instead of "Terrorist kills 10".
- hoffs 4y ago
  So facts bad?
- alwayseasy 4y ago
  It's about libel lawsuits. They stay factual rather than share the interpretation of knowledgeable insiders. That's why it's "alleged terrorist" even if it's obvious to everyone. BTW be careful with expecting the media to spoon feed the narratives you want rather than laying out facts and editorializing them to let you decide. That's how you avoid some bias.
  - MrPatan 4y ago
    The point is that, in some cases where the writer or org may or may not have an interest in protecting, we don't even get "alleged terrorist" or "alleged fraud". It's all passive-voice companies that go bust and things that happen. Now go look at some other examples where the writer or org has an interest in attacking and you will find, not only no shortage of "alleged"s but also a good dose of extra eyebrow-wriggling, winking and nudging there to suggest whatever number of other crimes can possibly be invented.
    - alwayseasy 4y ago
      While I get your frustration not to see media organizations not reporting exactly like you want, it just won't change. Its still journalists who keep breaking all the stories on SBF. When we see all of Twitter & Youtube use NYT revealed facts to get a better understanding of the fraud I'm not convinced its a huge problem the tone isn't perfect. Same thing happens early in crises, from the Russian massacres of civilians in Ukraine to Trump's Mar-a-Lago files we get some forms of facts but its the readers who have to draw some to all of the conclusion.
torginus 4y ago
If you have a pipe break in your home, I assume you don't hire an everything guy to sort of fix it(I promise he's really good and enthusiastic and he's doing the best he can). You hire a fcking plumber. Why can't top publications be held to this standard?
- hgsgm 4y ago

richbell 4y ago

> Anytime I read a story by big publications about a topic I’m an expert in, I recalibrate my expectations around accuracy and effectiveness in coverage of big publications. Reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

scarecrowbob 4y ago

The way you stated this feeling remids me of Gell Mann Amnesia. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” – Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

DalekBaldwin 4y ago
A corollary: Think about all the places you've ever worked, all the organizations you've been part of, where you know how the sausage is actually made, and how that differs from the way the organization portrays itself. Now think about all the other organizations in the world, whose internal workings you're not privy to.

mrtksn 4y ago

Can’t agree more. I generally forgive journalists who simply reporting on a story and get it very wrong because they usually report all kind of stories and it’s unreasonable to expect good grip on all the topics. On the other hand, when a journalist follows a story, they must have good high level understanding. Shockingly, youtubers have much better grip on the situation. The traditional media seems to be losing the plot in this FTX and presenting SBF in strangely positive light, almost as if it is a human interest story. The talk with him today was very strange.

kodah 4y ago
> I generally forgive journalists who simply reporting on a story and get it very wrong because they usually report all kind of stories and it’s unreasonable to expect good grip on all the topics. I generally don't. A journalists job is to report the news, if they don't feel confident in a given domain then they can sit the story out. To give you an analog, I work on infrastructure, but I don't work on things like AWS policies every day. It generally takes me longer to craft up the right way to restrict a given resource due to that. If I left an S3 bucket open to the public "on accident" I'd expect ramifications from my employer. That's to say, the onus is on the doer of the work. Now, if news outlets are just telling journalists to give it the old college try on domains they don't know, that's another subject.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  The problem is that bad, irresponsible, and / or wrong journalism still makes money. Newspapers rarely face consequences for their shoddy publications.
  - richbell 4y ago
    This has a name: Yellow Journalism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
  - AdamN 4y ago
    That's not totally true. For instance I blocked USA Today on my Apple News stream because of the low quality of journalism and clickbait titles. The problem is that this has minimal impact but more importantly, USA Today probably doesn't even get a report letting them know that end users are doing this and probably get paid anyway so they are blissfully unaware.

soheil 4y ago

While your criticism is valid it's pretty generic and is focused not on this particular issue, but the media as a whole. I don't think that's the correct thing to be talking about right now. It may even distract from the actual conversation about FTX. The media coverage about FTX is extremely odd.

iJohnDoe 4y ago

I think we naturally give reporters and publications more credit than they deserve. We like to think they are experts or want to expose the the truth. In reality, they might be idiots who landed a job. Or they are just getting paid to do something like most corporate employees and do the bare minimum and don’t really give a crap about what they are doing. If we don’t hold them to a higher standard, then what they produce makes perfect sense. There are some amazing journalists out there and I’m sure they are just as disappointed in the mediocre content their peers produce.

SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
I think you misunderstand what journalists do. Journalists are not supposed to be experts in the subjects they cover. They are not telling you the story based on their personal knowledge or beliefs — those are opinion pieces. Journalists are expected to source information from experts and from people who are in positions to know, and to attribute the information they publish to their sources. I am not saying that every journalist or publication does a good job of seeking the truth. Only that the job of a reporter does not require being an expert at anything other than - hopefully - information gathering and reporting.
- paulsutter 4y ago
  This is how the news gets fooled again and again. They believe an “expert” who came to them with an agenda. It’s often willful as long as the narrative fits their own
  - Fnoord 4y ago
    That is why the old adagium one source is no source is valid. Look up how Rian van Rijbroek fooled a popular news show in The Netherlands. If they had invited one more random expert in the field, that person would've grilled her.
- zztop44 4y ago
  To be fair, journalists are meant to also use their own knowledge and judgement to assess the relative validity of sources and frame the story in a way that communicates the truth as they see it (as opposed to just uncritically reflecting whatever their sources told them)

CTDOCodebases 4y ago

> In this case, it is very odd that much of the coverage has not been centred on fraud. I genuinely don’t understand why. Its because news is for entertainment purpose not knowledge acquisition from the journalists perspective and secondly because powerful players are involved. This guy donated 40 million dollars to the ruling political party and has parents with connections. Why would you write a truthful article outlining the grand fraud that took place when you only have something to loose by doing so?

jquery 4y ago
The guy donated heavily to both parties, he was just quiet about his donations to Republicans.
- CTDOCodebases 4y ago
  Says who?
  - DebtDeflation 4y ago
    Says SBF himself in the interview he gave on Tuesday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DezodR9hNI&t=774s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DezodR9hNI&t=774s
    - CTDOCodebases 4y ago
      Not that it matters to the point that I was making but I wouldn't consider SBF a reliable source of the truth. Remember this was the guy who said "FTX is fine. Assets are fine" and "We don't invest client assets (even in treasuries)". I don't doubt that he did donate some money to the non ruling party but to quote what he is saying as truth or try and attribute a donation by an associated party to him is disingenuous.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    SBF, but if "dark money" isn't concrete enough for you then the other co-CEO, Ryan Salame, donated about $22M openly to Republicans, and in the senate race SBF donated $66.7k to Republicans vs $49.2k to Democrats. https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-among-top-political-donors-before-bankruptcy-11668949205 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-amon...

MrPatan 4y ago

This isn't about "getting it wrong". This is about the use of a certain kind of language like "The company fell". No, "SBF and his chums lost and stole a lot of money". It's exactly like the "Crowd hit by a van" type of language instead of "Terrorist kills 10".

hoffs 4y ago
So facts bad?
alwayseasy 4y ago
It's about libel lawsuits. They stay factual rather than share the interpretation of knowledgeable insiders. That's why it's "alleged terrorist" even if it's obvious to everyone. BTW be careful with expecting the media to spoon feed the narratives you want rather than laying out facts and editorializing them to let you decide. That's how you avoid some bias.
- MrPatan 4y ago
  The point is that, in some cases where the writer or org may or may not have an interest in protecting, we don't even get "alleged terrorist" or "alleged fraud". It's all passive-voice companies that go bust and things that happen. Now go look at some other examples where the writer or org has an interest in attacking and you will find, not only no shortage of "alleged"s but also a good dose of extra eyebrow-wriggling, winking and nudging there to suggest whatever number of other crimes can possibly be invented.
  - alwayseasy 4y ago
    While I get your frustration not to see media organizations not reporting exactly like you want, it just won't change. Its still journalists who keep breaking all the stories on SBF. When we see all of Twitter & Youtube use NYT revealed facts to get a better understanding of the fraud I'm not convinced its a huge problem the tone isn't perfect. Same thing happens early in crises, from the Russian massacres of civilians in Ukraine to Trump's Mar-a-Lago files we get some forms of facts but its the readers who have to draw some to all of the conclusion.

torginus 4y ago

If you have a pipe break in your home, I assume you don't hire an everything guy to sort of fix it(I promise he's really good and enthusiastic and he's doing the best he can). You hire a fcking plumber. Why can't top publications be held to this standard?

hgsgm 4y ago