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Here is why the integrity of journalism is so important: In my experience, most people form opinions by effectively shopping among the various narratives offer

Here is why the integrity of journalism is so important: In my experience, most people form opinions by effectively shopping among the various narratives offered by the many forms of media, including those described in the article, and picking the one they like most -- as if they were shopping for a sweater to wear. Then they base their opinion on the chosen narrative, but of course once the questions are framed and facts established, their 'opinion' is preordained. That is no accident. The narratives often are created by interests whose goal is to manipulate public opinion, and their stories are repeated widely, wittingly by their agents and unwittingly by everyone else. This isn't conspiracy theory; you can read plenty of legitimate research where this process is openly described; even the vocabulary you probably use to discuss public issues often is carefully constructed by someone. Public opinion can be manipulated to vary widely from the facts (consider climate change, Saddam Hussein's connection to 9/11, etc. etc.) and also it is an extremely valuable asset. Manipulating it can change history, and create and destroy political and personal fortunes -- and nations, as well as start/end wars, kill/save hundreds of millions of people, and make/lose trillions of dollars ('regulation is choking the experts on Wall Street'). So of course there are many, many people who will manipulate it. There is a game being played and most people don't know it is happening, much less that they are its objects. How does this happen? I think many people are swayed by the big lies -- they can't believe so much is so deceitful. Also, in my experience the best educated, smartest people I know are often the most easily led; perhaps they are hamstrung by their intellectual confidence, because I often hear them repeating one side or another's talking points and underlying propaganda. Finally, it's hard to educate anyone on this issue; there is no nice way to say, 'you've been fooled' and 'most of what you say is someone else's propaganda'. But how does it happen? It's not true that society can rely on citizens to sort truth from falsehood; the reality is that people are easily led. It is up to the elites in our society, including journalists, to ensure they are getting something closer to the truth. I doubt there is a solution for corrupt elites.

narrator 12y ago
If you come up with a different understanding from the mainstream it will take an hour of your time to explain it to the average person, if and only if they are extremely open minded, and then they will forget it. The mainstream media gets to talk to hundreds of millions for a couple of hours every week. At least it's a bit better now that there's the internet.
- VLM 12y ago
  "The mainstream media gets to talk to hundreds of millions for a couple of hours every week." Its known that the numbers are single digit millions, for individual shows. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/category/ratings/top-news/evening-news/ http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/category/ratings/top-news/e... Probably double digit millions if you add it all together. There is likely a lot of overlap. "News junkies" watching ten newscasts equals ten views, but doesn't equal ten different viewers. Maybe triple digits if you add the entire world together across all languages and cultures. But that might be pushing it. The primary use of the news is signalling positions to the other side. Nobody is supposed to learn anything from it, just signal to other groups.
eevilspock 12y ago
> It is up to the elites in our society, including journalists, to ensure they are getting something closer to the truth. I up-voted you before I got to your last paragraph. I wish I could undo my vote. Think about what your statement says about democracy. It's a fair position to take on a question that has been debated for centuries. But did you realize you were taking such a position?
- hackuser 12y ago
  >> It is up to the elites in our society, including journalists, to ensure they are getting something closer to the truth. > Think about what your statement says about democracy. It's a fair position to take on a question that has been debated for centuries. But did you realize you were taking such a position? I can imagine a few things you might be implying, but I'm not sure which one. I'd be very interested in learning what you mean.
carrotleads 12y ago
That is one of best deconstruction of current media spin I have read. The hypocrisy of many knowledgable people is astounding and when you dig deeper, you realise they are unaware of it. That is the depths to which we have sunk. To rebut many of the common arguments it would take hrs given the layers of spin that needs to be peeled.
616c 12y ago
I worked for a strategic communications firm and this is, generally speaking, a good summary that lines up with one of the biggest guys in the industry (at least when he spoke to me with a tiny group of interns).[1] He further speculated people are socializing themselves into camps in the US, with majority political parties backing dominant media outlets and viewpoints. Getting people to detach from the Fox News viewpoint (and its supporting outlets) or the other side, is very difficult. This is even trying to discuss relative truth, as something as simple as Iraqi freedom fighter/enemy combatants/terrorist (notice I do not specify, you think what you want) death counts in a bombing or air strike. Iraqi outlets changed the number, wire services, and later news outlets expounded on minimal wire details never recorded in official records quoting unnamed sources (and I am sorry, I simply do not believe any US news outlet has the language or culture skills or the free money for bribery to reach out to even willing Iraqi gov officials to chat all day about everything they ordain in their products. This is pure bullshit and never revealing a source is intentional, as there is none). To summarize, the fundamental problem, whether you like it or not, is also breaching the "other side" with truth or opinion or whatever. This media Balkanization is dangerous, and what you point out is that it is greasing the wheels of this operation. So stop judging, read Aljazeera, RT, Iranian news feeds, and Chinese, Fox. I have read it all. You need to average out the facts and also see what opinions are being sold in the extremes, as that is the only way out of being mind-fucked in this system. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rendon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rendon
jl6 12y ago
Are you saying there is an elite group that is publishing something close to truth? Who do you mean? Everywhere I look it's just another battlefront in the information war.
- hackuser 12y ago
  > Are you saying there is an elite group that is publishing something close to truth? Who do you mean? I mean people with the power to shape public opinion, from political and business leaders to other public figures to some people in the media industry. Many are described in that FT article. It's not rigidly defined and there is no membership card, but clearly a NY Times reporter is among the elite and the vast majority of people have no such power. As a side note, notice that left-wing public interest groups seem to have faded; from Greenpeace to union leaders, they rarely seem to be in the public debate any more.
arghnoname 12y ago
I have noticed that more educated people do seem to be more apt to take a party line. I wonder if part of the reason for this is actually because they consume more propaganda than less educated people. If you are being educated and responsible in the run up to the war and you read the New York Times and watch Meet the Press and so on, the only effect would have been to be more inculcated with lies and BS. The "uneducated" who are less exposed are less apt to have their brains so washed away. I think it takes significant exposure to a lot of different media and narratives over a sustained period of time to develop an awareness of how untrue our news really is and how to read between the lines not to find out what's true, but what probably isn't. The average "educated" person might read a few news articles a day and watch the evening news. That doesn't cut it.
- crpatino 12y ago
  I think a factor is that critical thinking is a skill that has been eroding in society across all levels for quite some time on. Even if more technically savvy, the "educated" are not better prepared to resist propaganda than the "uneducated". What the first group is, is more comfortable in processing and manipulating abstract ideas. This factor makes you more vulnerable to propaganda because of the natural tendency to dismiss data that does not confirm your working hypothesis as "noise". I am pretty sure highly focused propaganda will exploit specific cognitive biases of the "educated" too. The second group thinks in a more concrete fashion, so it is harder to dismiss conflicting evidence for them. So, they will get a gut feeling that there is something wrong with the hypothesis/propaganda, though they not necessarily can pinpoint what that might be. Attempts to make sense of these strange Rorscharch patterns provide the raw material for plenty conspiracy theories, too.

narrator 12y ago

If you come up with a different understanding from the mainstream it will take an hour of your time to explain it to the average person, if and only if they are extremely open minded, and then they will forget it. The mainstream media gets to talk to hundreds of millions for a couple of hours every week. At least it's a bit better now that there's the internet.

VLM 12y ago
"The mainstream media gets to talk to hundreds of millions for a couple of hours every week." Its known that the numbers are single digit millions, for individual shows. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/category/ratings/top-news/evening-news/ http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/category/ratings/top-news/e... Probably double digit millions if you add it all together. There is likely a lot of overlap. "News junkies" watching ten newscasts equals ten views, but doesn't equal ten different viewers. Maybe triple digits if you add the entire world together across all languages and cultures. But that might be pushing it. The primary use of the news is signalling positions to the other side. Nobody is supposed to learn anything from it, just signal to other groups.

eevilspock 12y ago

> It is up to the elites in our society, including journalists, to ensure they are getting something closer to the truth. I up-voted you before I got to your last paragraph. I wish I could undo my vote. Think about what your statement says about democracy. It's a fair position to take on a question that has been debated for centuries. But did you realize you were taking such a position?

hackuser 12y ago
>> It is up to the elites in our society, including journalists, to ensure they are getting something closer to the truth. > Think about what your statement says about democracy. It's a fair position to take on a question that has been debated for centuries. But did you realize you were taking such a position? I can imagine a few things you might be implying, but I'm not sure which one. I'd be very interested in learning what you mean.

carrotleads 12y ago

That is one of best deconstruction of current media spin I have read. The hypocrisy of many knowledgable people is astounding and when you dig deeper, you realise they are unaware of it. That is the depths to which we have sunk. To rebut many of the common arguments it would take hrs given the layers of spin that needs to be peeled.

616c 12y ago

I worked for a strategic communications firm and this is, generally speaking, a good summary that lines up with one of the biggest guys in the industry (at least when he spoke to me with a tiny group of interns).[1] He further speculated people are socializing themselves into camps in the US, with majority political parties backing dominant media outlets and viewpoints. Getting people to detach from the Fox News viewpoint (and its supporting outlets) or the other side, is very difficult. This is even trying to discuss relative truth, as something as simple as Iraqi freedom fighter/enemy combatants/terrorist (notice I do not specify, you think what you want) death counts in a bombing or air strike. Iraqi outlets changed the number, wire services, and later news outlets expounded on minimal wire details never recorded in official records quoting unnamed sources (and I am sorry, I simply do not believe any US news outlet has the language or culture skills or the free money for bribery to reach out to even willing Iraqi gov officials to chat all day about everything they ordain in their products. This is pure bullshit and never revealing a source is intentional, as there is none). To summarize, the fundamental problem, whether you like it or not, is also breaching the "other side" with truth or opinion or whatever. This media Balkanization is dangerous, and what you point out is that it is greasing the wheels of this operation. So stop judging, read Aljazeera, RT, Iranian news feeds, and Chinese, Fox. I have read it all. You need to average out the facts and also see what opinions are being sold in the extremes, as that is the only way out of being mind-fucked in this system. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rendon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rendon

jl6 12y ago

Are you saying there is an elite group that is publishing something close to truth? Who do you mean? Everywhere I look it's just another battlefront in the information war.

hackuser 12y ago
> Are you saying there is an elite group that is publishing something close to truth? Who do you mean? I mean people with the power to shape public opinion, from political and business leaders to other public figures to some people in the media industry. Many are described in that FT article. It's not rigidly defined and there is no membership card, but clearly a NY Times reporter is among the elite and the vast majority of people have no such power. As a side note, notice that left-wing public interest groups seem to have faded; from Greenpeace to union leaders, they rarely seem to be in the public debate any more.

arghnoname 12y ago

I have noticed that more educated people do seem to be more apt to take a party line. I wonder if part of the reason for this is actually because they consume more propaganda than less educated people. If you are being educated and responsible in the run up to the war and you read the New York Times and watch Meet the Press and so on, the only effect would have been to be more inculcated with lies and BS. The "uneducated" who are less exposed are less apt to have their brains so washed away. I think it takes significant exposure to a lot of different media and narratives over a sustained period of time to develop an awareness of how untrue our news really is and how to read between the lines not to find out what's true, but what probably isn't. The average "educated" person might read a few news articles a day and watch the evening news. That doesn't cut it.

crpatino 12y ago
I think a factor is that critical thinking is a skill that has been eroding in society across all levels for quite some time on. Even if more technically savvy, the "educated" are not better prepared to resist propaganda than the "uneducated". What the first group is, is more comfortable in processing and manipulating abstract ideas. This factor makes you more vulnerable to propaganda because of the natural tendency to dismiss data that does not confirm your working hypothesis as "noise". I am pretty sure highly focused propaganda will exploit specific cognitive biases of the "educated" too. The second group thinks in a more concrete fashion, so it is harder to dismiss conflicting evidence for them. So, they will get a gut feeling that there is something wrong with the hypothesis/propaganda, though they not necessarily can pinpoint what that might be. Attempts to make sense of these strange Rorscharch patterns provide the raw material for plenty conspiracy theories, too.