7 ms·

Naturally, on any occasion when it is actually possible to check a journalistic report against reality, the journalist will turn out to be lying. This is not a

• jseliger 14y ago
  >Naturally, on any occasion when it is actually possible to check a journalistic report against reality, the journalist will turn out to be lying I don't think this is true "on any occasion"; that journalistic lying is news indicates that it rarely happens or rarely is caught. I think it's possible to see this as an example of a problem with this individual journalist, or with the culture of journalism, without assuming "the journalist will turn out to be lying" in all circumstances.
  • btilly 14y ago
    You miss three important factors. The first is that few are in a position to prove journalistic lies. The second is that journalists do not like pushing reporting on other journalists lying because they are outing people they know, and they may get the same treatment some day. The third (and in some ways most important) is that since the rise of the "blogosphere" in recent years, facts have become much less important. (Why? Because if you report something wrong you get clicks, then you publish a retraction and get clicks, then you can do a puff piece about "how could this happen" and get more clicks. Bingo, you earned ad dollars 3x when fact checking would have earned you nothing. What incentive, then, is there to fact check?) Therefore there is an erosion of standards which means that we should expect lying to go up over time. My sister was famous back in "the good old days" of the 80s, back when media actually cared about its reputation. Even then it was a good idea to assume journalists were lying slime. Today I firmly believe that it is much worse. If you are a blogger and disagree, then tell me this. How much of a fact check did your last 5 stories get beyond, "Can I find someone else saying this?"
    • AJ007 14y ago
      Intellectual dishonesty, fact checking laziness, and exaggeration might be more descriptive terms to use than lying, though yes they are lying.
      • btilly 14y ago
        Anything for a good story.
    • beambot 14y ago
      Professional blogger or hobbyist? My last 5 blog posts (robotics on Hizook.com) were exceedingly fact checked. But then again, I'm a subject matter expert: I have a PhD in robotics. Terrance Tao... also exceedingly fact checked (Fields medal winner blogging about math). Richard Lipton... same (famous computer researcher blogs about P vs. NP). I know that's not your point... but not all bloggers are equally sketch. Some of us know what we're talking about.
      • btilly 14y ago
        Professional, of course. I also blog occasionally, and fact check my stuff. But if you're going to make money by the ad impression, you have a very specific set of incentives. Care and integrity are not high on the list.
    • Eliezer 14y ago
      Amateur-run blogs are far more honest than reporting, in my experience. The sympathetic phrasing would be that bloggers haven't had all but the last shreds of their integrity worn away by an editor demanding 6 column inches by deadline, over and over again. The unsympathetic phrasing would be that bloggers are not professional liars and might naively fear getting caught. Either way, I trust non-professional blogs over Wired News any day. Blog coverage is often honest and accurate. Reporting, when I or anyone I know or any subject I know about in detail is being reported on, almost never is.
      • btilly 14y ago
  • Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    "that journalistic lying is news indicates that it rarely happens or rarely is caught." Of all the times that I've been interviewed, I've been misquoted more often than not. Many others have noticed the same thing. Scott Adams: "I've been interviewed several hundred times in my career. When I see my quotes taken out of context it is often horrifying. Your jaw would drop if you saw how often quotes are literally manufactured by writers to make a point. " http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/quote_approval/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/quote_approval/ Marco Arment: "I’ve learned the hard way, over and over again, that it’s most wise to talk to journalists the way you’d talk to the police: ideally, don’t. You have everything to lose and almost nothing to gain." http://www.marco.org/2012/09/19/quote-approval http://www.marco.org/2012/09/19/quote-approval
    • skc 14y ago
      I wonder why tech savvy people don't make use of the perfectly good recording device they carry with them at all times (their smartphones) to avoid being "misquoted". Let the reporter do as he pleases, but inform him that you have a record of the interview too. That would keep them honest.
      • Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        It doesn't help one bit. Journalists don't usually let you verify quotes, and once the newspaper is printed, there's little you can do. Even if you manage to get a rectification, no one reads it.
  • ImprovedSilence 14y ago
    >>I don't think this is true "on any occasion" Woah woah here... I wasn't about to fully support the grandparent here, but I would hazzard a guess that more often than not, persons end up misquoted, out of context, or sentences are strung together "just so" to make you "think" in a certain manner, that may not be factual. It happens everywhere. My own anecdotal evidence: I was in boy scouts, we camped near a farm field, trampled rows of corn to make a boundary for a capture the flag game, got busted, and had to go back and pick up all the corn by hand and make amends with farmer. The newspaper wrote up a fantastic article about how local boy scouts helped the community by helping a farmer reap damaged crops. there were no lies or factual inaccuracies in the article, sans lies of omission. From this, and what others respond to you, I'd believe this happens more often that not. But certainly not at 100% either.
• danso 14y ago
  > tl;dr of course they're lying, it's easier to make stuff up then investigate so why wouldn't a reporter always just lie? 1. Lawsuits 2. Loss of credibility 3. Often the truth is more interesting than fiction
  • Eliezer 14y ago
    1. Almost never happens 2. Almost never happens 3. The truth is harder to write and the editor wants 700 words in the next hour.
    • danso 14y ago
      If you don't mind sharing, what did you experience? And what was the process of correcting-the-record like?
      • barry-cotter 14y ago
        There is no process of correcting the record, unless they are freakishly honest or you bring in lawyers.
• untog 14y ago
  This is not absolutely universally true, but it is impossible to appreciate just how often it is true until you have been reported-on in a case where you know the facts yourself. No, in that case you have a single data point that doesn't prove a larger point. Don't get me wrong, I have no data to prove either side's argument, but suggesting that almost every single article written is a lie seems like a high level of paranoia.
  • gnaffle 14y ago
    I've had and heard about about enough encounters with journalists to say that while they may not outright lie, they will twist or omit facts to fit whatever angle they have in mind for the story. Often it's just somewhat annoying to those who know the whole story, other times it paints a completely wrong picture. But as a reader it's difficult to spot this because you usually don't have the entire background story.
    • Eliezer 14y ago
      They outright lie.
  • ericd 14y ago
    I don't think it's paranoid to think that almost every article about a non-trivial subject contains over-generalizations, misquotes, or outright falsehoods. It's been startlingly consistent in the cases where I had a thorough understanding of the subject.
• deleted 14y ago
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• doktrin 14y ago
  > "on any occasion"..."not universally true" It sounds like you are basing a sweeping assertion on your personal experience. I certainly empathize, but you simply can't paint the entire profession with that brush Even with the "not universally" half-caveat, you are still implying journalists lie and fabricate more often than not.
  • CamperBob2 14y ago
    Even with the "not universally" half-caveat, you are still implying journalists lie and fabricate more often than not. It would be an extraordinary claim to suggest that's not the case. Journalists are basically people who would rather be writing fiction, but who haven't figured out a way to get paid for it. It's a terrible-sounding generalization to make, but I will stand by it.
    • untog 14y ago
      Where on earth do you get that generalization from? You think that the journalists following the 2012 election didn't care about the subject at hand at all, and were just looking for a new source of writing inspiration? Have you met a journalist?
      • CamperBob2 14y ago
        Have you met a journalist? Yes, many times. Where on earth do you get that generalization from? See above. Election reporting isn't comparable to the scenario in this story, because there are literally more reporters than there are subjects being reported upon. In my experience journalists play fast and loose with the facts when there is a low likelihood that someone will call them on it. That's why the previous NYT scandals have involved remote correspondents (Blair) and/or cases where the journalists are serving as lapdogs for powerful political interests (Miller). If this NYT reporter indeed misrepresented the facts of his test drive, then he's just an idiot, plain and simple. He either knew or should have suspected that the car was logging his every move, and that an adverse review would be challenged strongly by the company.
• gfodor 14y ago
  There really needs to be a phrase for this. I've noticed it myself. Whenever the news reports on something I happen to know a little bit more than average about, they almost universally get material facts (not just nitty gritty details) completely wrong. Taken inductively this is pretty damn scary.
  • danielweber 14y ago
    It's called the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I don't necessarily endorse it, but here you go: 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.” — Michael Crichton
    • snowwrestler 14y ago
      Ironically, Crichton was himself known to play fast and loose with facts. Mathematicians laughed at his portrayal of chaos theory and its implications in Jurassic Park, and the scientific community cried foul over his portrayal of climate science in State of Fear. It's of course ok to bend facts when it's in the service of a fictional story, but Crichton too frequently was portrayed (often by himself) as a true subject matter expert.
      • oconnore 14y ago
        A novelist is allowed (and encouraged!) to bend facts to make their books more exciting to the reader. Crichton may or may not have been an expert on certain subjects, but the contents of his fictional novels are not relevant to that discussion.
• jstalin 14y ago
  This needs to be the top comment. In a former life I was a local politician and currently I do some public policy work. I can say without a doubt that journalists do not print the truth. They print the story they want to convey. I've been quoted and misquoted so many times that I realized that the media just can't be believed. Now I do work on some government financial issues and media always gets it wrong, even when I show them government documents obtained by FOIA to show them they are wrong. The real kicker is that there's essentially no effective way to call media out on false reporting.