6 ms·
Timeless quote: > If Jimmy Allred says it’s raining, and W. Lee O’Daniel says it isn’t raining, Texas newspapermen quote them both, and don’t look out the wind
by JoshTriplett 1y ago
Timeless quote:
> If Jimmy Allred says it’s raining, and W. Lee O’Daniel says it isn’t raining, Texas newspapermen quote them both, and don’t look out the window to see which is lying, and to tell the readers what the truth is at the moment.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/11/14/rain-look/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/11/14/rain-look/
If an AI tool, or for that matter a meddling editor, says a headline is "framing the action as unprecedented in a way that might subtly critique the administration", the correct response is "yes, that was the idea".
- sandwichsphinx 1y agoreminds me of the essay "Politics and the English Language" George Orwell wrote in 1946, it's a good read
- zaphar 1y agoI don't think most reporting bias takes the form of incorrect facts. It takes the form of picking which facts to share driven by the facts that matter the most to the particular reporter sharing them. This results in slanted coverage even if technically it's "factual".
- JoshTriplett 1y agoTake a look at the headline flagged in the article, which the tool flagged as "framing the action as unprecedented in a way that might subtly critique the administration". The headline is factually accurate, and the facts are not cherry-picked. Yes, some reporting is biased. But some reporting is simply accurately reporting damaging information, and "biased" is a way of attacking that without addressing the substance of the problem.
- zaphar 1y agoI agree that article's headline is pretty factual nor are the facts cherry-picked. But "some reporting is biased" is heavily understating the problem. And I hypothesize that the reason there is a leap to "This is biased" today on reporting is because the news media organizations have participated in the cherry-picked facts case to enough of a degree that trust has eroded. Which is perhaps why organizations are searching for ways to not appear biased and begin to restore that trust. I think the reason the LLM approach is likely to fail is because it is unable to detect the "missing facts" case and can only really advise about sentiment and phrasing. Which is not I think the actual problem that needs fixing.
- JoshTriplett 1y agoI agree that an AI is unlikely to help. But also, I doubt that the primary reason is "restoring trust". I think the primary reason for many of them is that some of their readers react strongly to things they don't want to hear, and they're afraid of losing customers, so they're watering down their reporting to avoid being inconveniently right. Or, even less charitably, management and employees have different politics, and management are the ones who find the articles inconvenient. To be clear, there are absolutely biased news sources out there. For many of them, the bias is the point, and they have no particular desire to "restore trust" because they're already trusted by people who only want to read things supportive of their party. But a politician who finds the truth inconvenient will decry everything accurate as biased.
- tempodox 1y agoHow could an LLM even decide whether facts are presented in a balanced way? Someone at Law360 seems to believe in a magical oracle.
- sneak 1y agoThe factual accuracy of a statement does not have any bearing on the bias or agenda of the person making the statement. I have seen many documentaries that contain only facts and real events, but nevertheless are pushing a heavily biased agenda. Which facts we report and which we highlight and how we frame them tells a story.
- mike_hearn 1y agoMost of the examples are correct decisions by the model. The headline is the most arguable, the rest are pretty clearly improvements, at least to people who actually want unbiased journalism. And as the article is itself highly biased, written in an antagonistic tone that takes the side of the journalists, we must assume they picked the worst examples they could find. So nearly all of them being clearly correct implies the model is doing a great job overall. Given the evidence presented here, it's not surprising that Law360 is mandating journalists accept the edits. For example: "the bias indicator flagged a line that said the suit spotlighted challenges with ableism and sexism in the healthcare industry. This copy was flagged because it “frames the lawsuit as a representative example of systemic issues.” Instead, the bias indicator said the story should “state the facts of the lawsuit without suggesting its broader implications.” The model made the right decision. That's the kind of language that makes people distrust journalists: a passive voice assertion of a radical belief, which adds nothing to the story and isn't supported by any evidence. It doesn't belong in a professionally written report. And yet we read, "that edit is at odds with any attempt to deliver legal analysis. In most cases, reporters chose not to accept these edits, but they were still required to go through the motions." Claiming the healthcare system is challenged by "ableism" isn't legal analysis, that's pure politics. But more importantly it's also just absurd. Of course people who work in healthcare want people to be "able". Why would you become a surgeon if you thought disability and sickness was fine? No surprise their bosses are placing the LLM's judgement over that of their own employees, when the journalists have gone so far off the rails. The union should be careful of picking a fight over this because frankly the next step is to just automate away the journalists entirely.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y agoThat as well as the words and tone that are used to describe things and the context surrounding those things. A headline that is neither negative nor positive is not strictly unbiased because it implies that the thing being reported is not very unusual. If it is unusual, then the neutral tone is communicating a bias that this unusual thing should not be regarded as such.
- o11c 1y agoThat's why "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" is so important. Yet we don't even enforce the limited perjury laws we have. The common "must present both sides" approach can fail the "nothing but the truth" criterion. But even with its many errors, it's better than not trying anything at all.
- egberts1 1y ago"slanted", isn't that a form of biasness? #headduck
- xp84 1y agoIf “the administration” is The Good Party, the action is “groundbreaking” and “landmark.” If the administration is The Bad Man, the action is “unprecedented.” This is how you frame things to maximize the propaganda effect and scare/please the audience, while maintaining plausible deniability that you’re definitely not pushing an agenda. (If my comment offends you, I assure you, don’t worry, your party is definitely the Good Party in this scenario.)
- JoshTriplett 1y agoI'm well aware of how spin works. However, that doesn't mean that such characterizarions are always wrong. One of the severe problems in current politics is that reporting that looks bad for a particular party will always be characterized as biased, whether the reporting is accurate or not.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago(off-topic) > characterizarions Sigh, mobile keyboard. *characterizations
- rrr_oh_man 1y ago"It says here in this history book that, luckily, the good guys have won every single time"
- IshKebab 1y agoYeah the BBC suffers badly from this problem, because they are required by Ofcom to have fair and "balanced" reporting, and they interpret that as meaning they always have to get one view from each side of a story. Doesn't matter how batshit or fringe a side is, they'll present them equally.
- ars 1y agoIs that why they come across as so antisemitic? Obviously there are biased antisemitic news organizations, but of the high-profile ostensibly neutral ones BBC stands head and shoulders above the rest in the level of antisemitism. (You don't have to take my word for it - a quick Google will find huge numbers of examples. Usually they'll get criticized and then post a correction, so in some sense they themselves acknowledge the problem - yet it keeps happening.)
- bigyabai 1y agoWhich definition of "semite" are we using, today? It tends to get thrown around to mean a lot of different things on HN.
- mhb 1y agoYou're happy to redefine genocide in a ludicrously expansive fashion but pretend to need clarification about what antisemitic means in this context? I know, you're just asking questions.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lazyeye 1y agoThis really is not it. Outright lies are very ineffective in manipulating public opinion because they can be easily disproven. It's much more about pretending its only a little rain when its raining alot. Ignoring the rain when it doesnt support your narrative. Pretending the rain is really important when its not important at all. Pretending it only rains where you are and much less everywhere else etc etc etc.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago> Outright lies are very ineffective in manipulating public opinion because they can be easily disproven. I sincerely wish this were true. "A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on."
- lazyeye 1y agoConvenient half-truths, distortions, mis-characterizations (to support a desired narrative) go alot farther, faster.
- thrance 1y agoHave you looked at American politics recently? The current administration creates huge lies daily, and most of the media relays them uncritically. It's a level of shamelessness previously reserved for countries like Russia.