5 ms·

Because it's a lousy product. -Because opinion pieces increasing masquerade as news articles. -Because journalists have no comprehension of basic math and sta

Because it's a lousy product. -Because opinion pieces increasing masquerade as news articles. -Because journalists have no comprehension of basic math and statistics, so stats like "a woman earns $0.72 for each $1 earned by a man" are taken at face value or parroted endlessly. Most news articles show a lack of critical thinking. -Context is deliberately avoided to paint nuanced topics as black and white. -Graphs are intentionally created in a way to provoke outrage instead of understanding. -Clickbait titles. Sadly, all of this is true even for paid news such as NYT, WSJ etc.

dredmorbius 2y ago
Why do you think that is, and how might you suggest improving the situation?
- dotnet00 2y ago
  I think there are several parts to the cause, there's the issue that 'professional' journalists often act like their job is sacred and their credentials make them superior to 'indie' journalists and other 'commoner' scum despite the current standards being even lower than what it'd take for someone without a CS degree to write code. We see this alot in relation to the discourse around misinformation or reporting on violent events on sanitized platforms like YouTube. This makes people question why they should bother paying for the opinion of someone who looks down on them. Then there's the other issue that we see even scientists frequently make mistakes interpreting data despite having a far more rigorous education and far more experience interpreting data and risking significant professional consequences if caught. But journalists have none of that, they don't have to actually understand what they're trying to report on, they don't have to interpret the data in good faith and they don't really face any consequences for being wrong. A scientist might end up having to retract a paper if it's wrong, a journalist doesn't even necessarily have to add a correction. This also leads into an additional issue about journalists who specialize in certain things. Like, say, games journalists, tech journalists, aerospace journalists, medical journalists etc. Often they don't have any expertise in the field they're reporting on, it's so common for: - tech journalists to report obviously incorrect interpretations of basic technical matters - game journalists to be completely out of touch with gaming - aerospace journalists to report information that makes it obvious they don't know/care about the accuracy of what they're saying (there's an example from just a few days ago, of a journalist latching onto one typo of a number reported correctly in several other parts of the report for a hit piece, refusing to issue a proper correction despite being publicly called out by the company they targeted) - medical journalists to report research results without understanding the caveats or confidence levels of the study (eg the jumping back and forth on how coffee can provide X health benefit) - tv/movie journalists to have opinions that are more often than not completely opposite to those of the public, complete with looking down on the public disdainfully for the disagreement rather than updating their reporting style to at least also fairly cover public sentiment These are topics people tend to be passionate about and thus are more likely to spot issues, which reduces trust in journalism as a whole. After all, if the reporting on a topic they follow in depth is so bad, how bad might the reporting on topics they don't know as much about be? To me, the solution would be to make professional journalism actually require skills and that they also need to have some humility. Like, a tech journalist should be someone who has had decent experience in the tech field, such that they understand the technology they're covering.
  - vsuperpower2021 2y ago
    I'll add onto this a complaint I have that I don't see mentioned often. News articles always cover the first half of a story when it's hot and never follow up. It's obnoxious if you have an attention span longer than whatever is happening at the exact moment.
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      This again is where Wikipedia is often invaluable, so long as the story is in fact covered there. And is why I wish news organisations would adopt a Wikipedia-like approach to complex stories.
      - vsuperpower2021 2y ago
        The vast majority of stories don't make it to wikipedia, and wikipedia just regurgitates shit it gets from the news. If I could find an answer online I wouldn't need the news to actually do their job.
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        The majority of stories aren't that complex. The overwhelming majority of stories I've found it useful for me to look up on Wikipedia ... tend to be there. Most of these tend toward natural disasters, industrial / infrastructure incidents, business/political news, possibly something in technology or the sciences. Not so much "human interest", celebrities/gossip, entertainment, etc., though I suspect some of those might also find their way to Wikpedia, modulo BLP considerations (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...>). Wikipedia does not merely regurgitate news, but processes, synthesizes, and very often balances multiple viewpoints.
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        And, just to give a current example, the sinking of Bayesian doesn't merit its own article (yet?), but there is a section on the page covering that yacht: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_(yacht)#Sinking_and_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_(yacht)#Sinking_and_a...> Though it's worth noting that that page itself was created two days ago, presumably on account of the notable persons involved in its sinking: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bayesian_(yacht)&oldid=1241141280 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bayesian_(yacht)&...> (first version of the page dated 19 August 2024)

dredmorbius 2y ago

Why do you think that is, and how might you suggest improving the situation?

dotnet00 2y ago
I think there are several parts to the cause, there's the issue that 'professional' journalists often act like their job is sacred and their credentials make them superior to 'indie' journalists and other 'commoner' scum despite the current standards being even lower than what it'd take for someone without a CS degree to write code. We see this alot in relation to the discourse around misinformation or reporting on violent events on sanitized platforms like YouTube. This makes people question why they should bother paying for the opinion of someone who looks down on them. Then there's the other issue that we see even scientists frequently make mistakes interpreting data despite having a far more rigorous education and far more experience interpreting data and risking significant professional consequences if caught. But journalists have none of that, they don't have to actually understand what they're trying to report on, they don't have to interpret the data in good faith and they don't really face any consequences for being wrong. A scientist might end up having to retract a paper if it's wrong, a journalist doesn't even necessarily have to add a correction. This also leads into an additional issue about journalists who specialize in certain things. Like, say, games journalists, tech journalists, aerospace journalists, medical journalists etc. Often they don't have any expertise in the field they're reporting on, it's so common for: - tech journalists to report obviously incorrect interpretations of basic technical matters - game journalists to be completely out of touch with gaming - aerospace journalists to report information that makes it obvious they don't know/care about the accuracy of what they're saying (there's an example from just a few days ago, of a journalist latching onto one typo of a number reported correctly in several other parts of the report for a hit piece, refusing to issue a proper correction despite being publicly called out by the company they targeted) - medical journalists to report research results without understanding the caveats or confidence levels of the study (eg the jumping back and forth on how coffee can provide X health benefit) - tv/movie journalists to have opinions that are more often than not completely opposite to those of the public, complete with looking down on the public disdainfully for the disagreement rather than updating their reporting style to at least also fairly cover public sentiment These are topics people tend to be passionate about and thus are more likely to spot issues, which reduces trust in journalism as a whole. After all, if the reporting on a topic they follow in depth is so bad, how bad might the reporting on topics they don't know as much about be? To me, the solution would be to make professional journalism actually require skills and that they also need to have some humility. Like, a tech journalist should be someone who has had decent experience in the tech field, such that they understand the technology they're covering.
- vsuperpower2021 2y ago
  I'll add onto this a complaint I have that I don't see mentioned often. News articles always cover the first half of a story when it's hot and never follow up. It's obnoxious if you have an attention span longer than whatever is happening at the exact moment.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    This again is where Wikipedia is often invaluable, so long as the story is in fact covered there. And is why I wish news organisations would adopt a Wikipedia-like approach to complex stories.
    - vsuperpower2021 2y ago
      The vast majority of stories don't make it to wikipedia, and wikipedia just regurgitates shit it gets from the news. If I could find an answer online I wouldn't need the news to actually do their job.
      - dredmorbius 2y ago
        The majority of stories aren't that complex. The overwhelming majority of stories I've found it useful for me to look up on Wikipedia ... tend to be there. Most of these tend toward natural disasters, industrial / infrastructure incidents, business/political news, possibly something in technology or the sciences. Not so much "human interest", celebrities/gossip, entertainment, etc., though I suspect some of those might also find their way to Wikpedia, modulo BLP considerations (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...>). Wikipedia does not merely regurgitate news, but processes, synthesizes, and very often balances multiple viewpoints.
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        And, just to give a current example, the sinking of Bayesian doesn't merit its own article (yet?), but there is a section on the page covering that yacht: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_(yacht)#Sinking_and_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_(yacht)#Sinking_and_a...> Though it's worth noting that that page itself was created two days ago, presumably on account of the notable persons involved in its sinking: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bayesian_(yacht)&oldid=1241141280 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bayesian_(yacht)&...> (first version of the page dated 19 August 2024)