3 ms·

> Does anyone write articles that aren't just to serve a pre-existing bias anymore? There never were articles that were free from bias. It's just that the bia

> Does anyone write articles that aren't just to serve a pre-existing bias anymore? There never were articles that were free from bias. It's just that the bias is now overt to you.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
Those are slightly different questions. One of the stories about Theranos is that a journalist was detailed once to go talk to some happy customers and write a story about how great Theranos was. So she arrived, and she saw people waiting in line, and she said what she was there to do, and everyone waited around for a while, and then someone pulled the fire alarm and everybody left. No story. I saw a conversation about this on HN back when Theranos was a current scandal, in which one person asked "well, isn't it suspicious that you arrive to do your puff piece, and everyone eyes each other nervously, and then there's an unscheduled fire alarm? Couldn't that have supported more investigation?" and the answer was "no, 'suspicious doings at shady company' is a different type of story from 'heroic company brings medicine to happy patients', and if you're assigned to write one of those stories you can't write the other one instead." I don't know to what degree that last claim is true, and it seems like it'd be different at different outlets. But it's a good illustration of the difference between "article was written with a bias" and "purpose of writing the article was to serve a bias".
- verisimi 3y ago
  Everyone is biased. We are all products of our culture, with deeply held assumptions about how the world works. Sometimes there is overt manipulation of the presentation too, like you mention. Eg writing a puff piece. This goes through the gears through to outright lying (eg "weapons of mass destruction"). Pretty much all journalism is manipulation. It doesn't even matter if they state they are impartial, eg the bbc. What they want us peoples trust, the reality (ie true impartiality, awareness of one's biases) is secondary.

> Does anyone write articles that aren't just to serve a pre-existing bias anymore? There never were articles that were free from bias. It's just that the bias is now overt to you.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

Those are slightly different questions. One of the stories about Theranos is that a journalist was detailed once to go talk to some happy customers and write a story about how great Theranos was. So she arrived, and she saw people waiting in line, and she said what she was there to do, and everyone waited around for a while, and then someone pulled the fire alarm and everybody left. No story. I saw a conversation about this on HN back when Theranos was a current scandal, in which one person asked "well, isn't it suspicious that you arrive to do your puff piece, and everyone eyes each other nervously, and then there's an unscheduled fire alarm? Couldn't that have supported more investigation?" and the answer was "no, 'suspicious doings at shady company' is a different type of story from 'heroic company brings medicine to happy patients', and if you're assigned to write one of those stories you can't write the other one instead." I don't know to what degree that last claim is true, and it seems like it'd be different at different outlets. But it's a good illustration of the difference between "article was written with a bias" and "purpose of writing the article was to serve a bias".

verisimi 3y ago
Everyone is biased. We are all products of our culture, with deeply held assumptions about how the world works. Sometimes there is overt manipulation of the presentation too, like you mention. Eg writing a puff piece. This goes through the gears through to outright lying (eg "weapons of mass destruction"). Pretty much all journalism is manipulation. It doesn't even matter if they state they are impartial, eg the bbc. What they want us peoples trust, the reality (ie true impartiality, awareness of one's biases) is secondary.