3 ms·
Relevant: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stat
by jrogers65 14y ago
Relevant: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...
> 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.
Journalists are people who know little of anything writing about everything.
- thisishugo 14y agoDepends on the journalist and publication. I at least like to think I understood the topics I wrote about when I was writing stories a couple of years ago. But I wrote for a niche publication, not a general news site, so I wasn't required to write about "everything," just the subset I was familiar with.
- eru 14y agoAlso The Economist is frequently not totally clueless about computer technology.
- randomsearch 14y agoCompletely agree. There are many great journalists out there. How easy it is to cherry pick or dismiss journalism based on examples of how bad it can be. fwiw, I couldn't agree less with this article. In fact, it scares me that an educated person could think this way. RS