8 ms·

This is such a black and white spin. First: I don't know which sociological studies you refer to, but most of it is politically colored arm chair philosophy. T

• giantg2 4y ago
  It seems spot on to me. "they believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting." This is the core of the survey. I didn't see them or your parent mention lying. Although I have seen such blatant miscommunication of the facts that the resulting news is counter-factual.
  • WillPostForFood 4y ago
    Are not "intend to mislead" and lying synonyms? Misleading without intent may not be, but if you mislead with intent you are lying.
    • anonym29 4y ago
      Lying? Of course not! It's just paid marketing for a sponsor's ideological position! /s
    • ptero 4y ago
      I am not a native English speaker, so my cultural priors might be way off, but I think those two things are quite different. Lying is making statements that the speaker knows are false. An attempt to mislead is stressing some parts of the actual information and omitting or obfuscating other parts to promote a specific viewpoint. But not actually making false statements. This is literally what most of the layers do much of the time in court. To me, this is a much lesser evil, as a rational person can detect the spin and probe for missing parts, which is what the judge and opposing lawyers work on. Lying is a much bigger deal because it is harder to expose through rational exploration. Possible, but requires more external facts. In a court, a spin is a normal part of the defense, but being caught in a lie is likely to doom the case. My 2c.
      • denton-scratch 4y ago
        > those two things are quite different. Your grasp of English seems fine, to me. I think your "quite different" distinction is incorrect. The distinction between lying and attempting to mislead isn't a clear one. There's a gradation from plain lying your face off, through mixing in a few truths with your lies, through lying by omission, through presenting true facts in such a way as to make the reader believe falsehoods. The tactic most-used by newspapers is lying by omission. Newspapers routinely "spike" stories that aren't aligned with the paper's political agenda. You can search the paper's output, and you won't find a direct lie; but a parallel search for truth will also fail. Truth is to be found in the gaps.
        • giantg2 4y ago
          "The distinction between lying and attempting to mislead isn't a clear one." There is if you look up definitions. Lying involves falsehoods. You can mislead someone using selective truths without using falsehoods. That's why the article etc was about misleading, persuading, etc and not mentioning lying (aside from the commentor I originally responded to).
          • autoexec 4y ago
            Yep. Lies are not the same thing as being dishonest. You can use lies to be misleading, or manipulative, or dishonest but you don't need to, and it's usually more effective if you don't (or at least don't entirely). If someone can't see how a person could be misleading without lying they're going to fall for a lot of bullshit.
    • giantg2 4y ago
      Then what distinction was being made? Knowingly providing an incomplete picture, focusing on one side, or selective editing are intended to misled. They are not "outright lies" nor "counter-factual".
    • 1659447091 4y ago
      The way I classify them is lying is "outright lies". "intend to mislead" is manipulation. The nuance between manipulation and lies is that manipulation usually distorts a collection of facts through rearrangement, omission or massaging those things to create a view that is not factual, which I think may also relate it as implicit lies. Lying is stating explicitly counter-factual things. I prefer the distinction of using manipulation over implicit lies as I think it communicates the narrower focused maliciousness of it, where lies don't always have that same level of "premeditation", for lack of a better term.
    • fortuna86 4y ago
      No, there are several contractions here: > intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public persuasion is not misinforming is not misleading.
      • giantg2 4y ago
        Hence why they're called out separately.
      • autoexec 4y ago
        misleading and misinforming are often used to persuade, but it doesn't always require it.
  • sophacles 4y ago
    > intend to mislead This is literally the definition of lying.
    • giantg2 4y ago
      Source? The definitions I saw do not match. You can intentionally mislead someone through the selective use of truths without using any "counter-factual" or untrue statements.
      • sophacles 4y ago
        Google define lie: * used with reference to a situation involving deception or founded on a mistaken impression. "all their married life she had been living a lie" Google "define lying". It says this: tell a lie or lies. and this (of a thing) present a false impression; be deceptive. --- Intentionally misleading is deceptive, even if it states only facts.
        • giantg2 4y ago
          Here's one from an actual dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lying https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lying
          • sophacles 4y ago
            Google pulls from the OED. Anyway, have fun with ridiculous semantic nonsense - I'm going to go find people who bother to interact in good faith.
            • giantg2 4y ago
              I am interacting in good faith. A lie requires a falsehood. There is a difference between a lie and deception - they aren't perfect synonymous. The example from your cited definition is really a poor one since it relies on a saying more than a factual use of the word, and the example itself does imply an actual falsehood in that someone lied during the marriage vows or during the marriage. But wait, let's look at the instant replay. You claim that lying and deception at the same. So why would you get involved in this conversation to say that? According to you, their use is interchangeable and makes no difference. If you have something to add to the actual conversation and not about definitions, then please do.
  • tgv 4y ago
    The parent comment said: > it took a few years ... to be come publicized knowledge that the media lied about every war ...
    • giantg2 4y ago
      Hmm I do seee that now.
• Julesman 4y ago
  This comment is well intended, I'm sure. I always respect anyone trying to 'stick to the facts.' Unfortunately, it's just not history. Easy to google history. You are simply not familiar with how this all works.
  • drpyser22 4y ago
    How does it all work?
• Retric 4y ago
  The most valuable asset of a new organization is trust, and thus they are often bought as propaganda platforms. But propaganda is tricky, you need people to keep paying attention which means the most overt spin is to be avoided. Done well you shift the narrative over decades not just swap positions on day one. Fox News is the most well known US example, but you don’t want to just preach to people who already believe your message. Thus you want to control the widest possible selection of media.
  • Spooky23 4y ago
    The Fox horizontal integration is brilliant. They pull in people with sports and other complimentary content and cross-sell the profitable propaganda. The New York Post is a great example. It was the sports and bookie newspaper - they’d publish Vegas odds and have tabloid news. They slowly transformed into a giant editorial paper and funnel into the broader Fox ecosystem. They have an effective, free product. I need to pay to read The NY Times, but Fox is free and the sponsors are all low quality high margin stuff. Radio is prostate pills, TV is old people drugs and gold, etc.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • rbanffy 4y ago
      The most amazing part of it is that even Fox doesn't call itself a news outlet but entertainment. They sell rage and self-validation.
      • autoexec 4y ago
        Fox calls itself "Fox News". Only when they're pressed and presented with evidence that they're liars will they hide behind "That's okay, this is all just entertainment!" excuses. Their viewers don't think they're watching made up stories for entertainment. They're convinced that Fox/OAN are the only news agencies that tell the truth.
        • 4y ago
• pasabagi 4y ago
  I think there are two interlocking arguments: first, a historical argument: news organizations substanitally misleading the public is basically normal, in most countries and time periods. Second, the structural argument: why exactly should we think that a news organization should be capable of providing the basic facts? If you consider the decades of scolarship it takes to clarify extremely well doccumented events, like the outbreak of the first world war, it's clear that even with a mountain of evidence, and all the time in the world, the 'basic facts' can be stubornly elusive even with the best of intentions. The idea that an accurate picture should be able to emerge before 9-o'clock, in a newsroom, in a haze of conflicting reports, seems pretty incredible to me: and historically, that's not what has happened. So 'accurate news' is neither something we should expect, nor something we have a great deal of evidence of.
• 2devnull 4y ago
  Do you watch professional wrestling by any chance? They are in essence the same business model. Most people know both are largely fake, but some people actually believe. It’s the entertainment industry. Capital influences everything.
  • fortuna86 4y ago
    Seems like a cynical take by someone that knows what they watch is largely fake, and they want to apply the same rules to the other side so they feel better about their exclusivity to confirmation bias enabling programming.
    • 2devnull 4y ago
      No, the underlying business model, get people to watch your product in order to maximize ad sales, is basically the same. The incentives are therefore essentially the same. Money talks. Personally, I don’t watch anything. I read across a broad array of print sources and prefer to trust specific journalists rather than entire organizations. I try to get most information from primary sources, or to triangulate information from multiple outlets which are preferably maximally uncorrelated. This is much easier than it may sound. And think tanks and academics are often better information sources than entertainment news outlets.
      • fortuna86 4y ago
        > The incentives are therefore essentially the same. Money talks. Are you implying the NYT never publishing anything that upsets their readership? Every week #CancelNYT trends because they "platformed" something their left wing audience didn't like. Even Fox News lost viewers because they dared declare the 2020 election free and fair, and in favor of Biden.
  • runnerup 4y ago
    Most western audiences of professional wrestling know its scripted/practiced/"fake". Most western audiences of Fox News think it's all real. Interesting, I worked in Saudi Arabia for awhile...most of the Africans and Southeast Asian laborers were all 100% convinced that professional wrestling was real. Pro wrestling is HUGE in developing nations.
• no-dr-onboard 4y ago
  Saying this is a "spin" seems like an attempt to undermine the comment. > Saying they're all lying and always have is a (probably politically motivated) spin against normal news organizations. Perhaps the most wooden way to interpret what they're is saying. I think that most people would read this as "by in large, most are lying". Pointing this out is useful because it shows the irony in the whole matter. This kind of wooden interpretation of words and lazy disqualification is what leads someone to the "black and white" spin you're accusing the GP of. This falls in line with the type of _gotcha_ logic that insists: "Well you said x, and x means X regardless of rhetorical device usage." and "OP has expressed sentiment in Y, which leads me to believe he's actually Y and therefore not $CREDIBLE". The point is, engaging like this deprives the dialogue of nuance, rhetorical freedom and grace. If we continue with this way of interpreting one another we'll likely fall into the same polarization that we're complaining about (again, a grand irony).
  • slg 4y ago
    >I think that most people would read this as "by in large, most are lying". This is still too extreme. "Lying" requires intentionality and implies maliciousness. It suggests that people who work in media are mostly evil people with the primary goal of misleading you. It both ignores and shows ignorance of how the media industry actually works. It also removes any hope of actually fixing the media industry because the only solution according to this mindset is getting rid of all the lying journalists. It doesn't leave any room to understand or address the incentives that actually got us to our current situation.
    • xupybd 4y ago
      One form of obvious lying is the modern headline. Now that clicks drive revenue many story's don't even come close to what the headline suggests. I do think this is maliciousness, they're telling a lie to draw you in to make money off of you.
      • slg 4y ago
        This is an example of what I'm talking about. Journalist by and large are not in favor of editors slapping misleading headlines on their work. You are ascribing this practice to maliciousness when it is actually a reluctant response to incentives.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• DFHippie 4y ago
  Yep. This is a cynical counsel of despair. "Don't try filtering truth from lies. Everyone does it. Just lie back and think of England." There is a difference between withholding information, selective emphasis, and outright lies. They are all bad, but they are equally bad. If you want to make things better you attempt to differentiate better from worse actors. TLDR; all media, and all people, are biased, but they are not all equally biased. This bias can produce false beliefs. If you think false beliefs are a bad thing you promote the better actors and condemn the worse.
  • fortuna86 4y ago
    Also some news media actually reports on events that hurts the cause of their collective political leanings, some just don't. This isn't apples to apples.
• AYBABTME 4y ago
  They're lying though, that's the problem. Not 100% lying, but ignoring facts that contradict the narrative they have ongoing with their readership (so they don't look like they were wrong), and picking out those that contribute to their fantasy. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I've just seen first hand (1) the real information on the battlefield (2) the public affair office's briefing to medias, which is factual although omits sensitive things and (3) the media's subsequent reporting which largely ignores what the PAO said and goes on with their made up interpretation. It's frankly sickening. They're writing fantasy.
  • EricE 4y ago
    Here's an example from this week: https://doomberg.substack.com/p/railroaded https://doomberg.substack.com/p/railroaded "Even though this, and all information quoted in this piece, is readily available to any reporter with access to Google, countless references to the dangers presented by phosgene are giving the public anxiety over the decision to execute the controlled burn. To pick one example from many dozens, a Newsweek story, titled Did Control Burn of Toxic Chemicals Make Ohio Train Derailment Worse?, includes the following sentence: “Phosgene is a deadly gas that was used in chemical warfare during World War I.” The report goes on to quote – and we kid you not – a TikTok video from an “entrepreneur” for more insight. Sigh."
    • rayiner 4y ago
      > For clarity, 40 ppm (parts per million) is equivalent to 0.004% of the composition. Lots of things are dangerous even at concentrations measured in PPM. For example, the level of Phosgene that’s “immediately dangerous to life” is 2 ppm: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/75445.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/75445.html. Maybe the point is that this 20 ppm quickly turns into less based on further dilution. But there’s a lot of analysis required to support the post’s assertions that the author just skips over.
      • aliswe 4y ago
        Anything quickly turns into less based on further dilution, no matter the concentration
• braingenious 4y ago
  > but most of it is politically colored arm chair philosophy. Isn’t… isn’t that a pretty black and white spin on the idea of sociology? Do you have any studies to share that indicate “politically colored armchair philosophy”?
• Vaslo 4y ago
  A curated set of facts or as you call it “incomplete, but not counter-factual” is not the truth. All facts are the truth and that’s what non opinion news should be reporting.
• raxxorraxor 4y ago
  > there's a difference not providing a full picture of a war or a new economic policy, and outright lying. No, not for propaganda. If you want people to have a certain perception and position on a topic, selective reporting of topics and the presentation of them is far more relevant. This certainly does qualify as misleading. Lies are even more ineffective since they often can be directly disproved, which biases people to believe the opposite. You want to present your spin in a certain blur. Many prominent sociologist pretty much explain the mechanisms media and advertisers employ in detail. To say this is a fringe position is misleading too.
• TomSwirly 4y ago
  I was living in the US but spending considerable time in Europe in the run-up to the Iraq War. Almost every US newspaper printed the blatant and unconvincing lies of the Bush Administration as if they were fact, and reported the results of the weapons inspectors as if they were gullible idiots. Meanwhile, outside the UK even conservative news outlets in Europe were deeply skeptical of the whole story. At the time, I thought the government and the news media knew something I didn't, because it just seemed ridiculous that they could overthrow an entire government in a few weeks for a few tens of billions of dollars. It turned out that no, it was just one great big lie from top to bottom. (Only the SF Gate showed any skepticism at all, bless their hearts.) > Second: there's a difference not providing a full picture of a war or a new economic policy, and outright lying. It should be obvious to ethical or moral people, but I guess I need to explain that your statement is very often not correct. Deliberately covering up the truth is often a form of lying. For example, if the American people had known that the weapons of mass destruction claim came from a single person nicknamed Curveball who had made false claims in the past and whom the CIA suspected might be crazy (thus the nickname!), I suspect the Iraq War might never have happened.