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Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

press-pubs.uchicago.edu

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Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#21

Post by 082349872349872 »

Credibility of seventeenth century publications: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23859546

===

Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon have the day off from Hell, so they go up to check out the Washington DC military parade.

"Look at those M1s," says Alexander, "if only I'd had them I wouldn't have had to prematurely declare victory in southern asia!"

"Look at those F-35s," says Caesar, "if only I'd had them I would've captured all of persia!"

"Look at this cable station," says Napoleon, peering into the window of the Union Trust Bar, "if only I'd had it no one would ever have heard of Waterloo!"

Bonus track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVbH1BVXywY

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#22

Post by alpha_squared »

intotheabyss wrote: post #14
mrfusion wrote: post #8

As an exercise, go read the front page of cnn.com right now. Do you still believe all of it?

I get the impression that cnn.com looks like an entertainment site, not a news site.

I think this sort of holds true for any modern news org in the west (and possibly world-wide). Look at the profit incentives and it makes sense which way reporting trends will go. The more outrageous/unbelievable the story, the more eyeballs; the more eyeballs, the more ad revenue. Some news orgs definitely take more liberty than others in bending the facts of a story just enough to carve out a demographic niche that they can depend on to keep coming back.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#23

Post by waihtis »

onorton wrote: post #13
dimitrios1 wrote: post #2

> The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day Well ain't this the cold, hard truth, eh HN? How many times have we seen science and technology just completely butchered, twisted, manipulated, or sometimes, all three, by the "truth-seeking journalists" over there at the establishment media companies? Yet we…

There's a name for this cognitive bias but I always forget what it's called. Something to do with the reader's expertise in one field being able to pick out flaws but not in other fields from the same source.

Gell-Mann Amnesia: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#24

Post by InfiniteRand »

The fact that no information sources can be trusted completely should be a call to humility both in individual decisions and public decision making.

On a side note, I wonder if Thomas Jefferson had so low an opinion of the press pre-1800 (before he was elected and when he was defending the right of the press to be critical of the Adams administration)

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#25

Post by dalbasal »

When I was 15, there was a bus bombing near my school.

A kid in my class was the grandson of a well known politician. A newspaper ran with a completely made up story about how it was his bus line, and how the grandfather had panicked. A few days later a fact checker called his mom. Not sure if they ran a retraction. It seemed incredibly disrespectful to those who were on the bus. Two died.

About a year after that, some kids that I knew were arrested for cannabis use. The story made the news. Some of it was true, but some was made up. The made up parts were embellishments, they made the story better. Age gaps were exaggerated, romantic narratives inserted...

I think most people who are in the vicinity of a news story irl have such experiences. Often the lies are minor, but just like with ordinary people who tell lies... the little lies make you disbelieve everything they say.

We kind of expect this from book authors and documentarians. Their job is to get a good narrative going. No one thinks "Tiger King" is an honest telling.

IMO the problem is expectations. "Restraining it (a newspaper) to true facts & sound principles only" is not just boring... it's unimportant. It's the narrative that makes it salient.

TJ should have understood this. He was a pamphleteer after all. The rights of man is pure fiction, to quote Yuval Noah Harari. If you dissect a person, you will find no rights inside.

Calling out intellectual dishonesty is a road to hypocrisy, usually. It's very common to have someone call it out and practice it simultaneously.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#26

Post by 082349872349872 »

mrfusion wrote: post #9
altcognito wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More dangerous are the people who would implore you to ignore all sources from what they perceive are enemies and pay attention only to their (or your own) bubble and prejudices. Posts with catch phrases like "establishment media companies" are usually a red flag. This submissions feels more like launching point for arguing, little value to community.

Best to look at raw data and original sources whenever possible. The media is an unreliable middleman.

on finding primary sources and analysing secondary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23897577

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#27

Post by busterarm »

umvi wrote: post #20
mrfusion wrote: post #8

As an exercise, go read the front page of cnn.com right now. Do you still believe all of it?

How CNN currently works: if (makesTrumpLookBad() || makesBidenLookGood()) pushToFrontPage(); else if (recentDeadPerson.skinColor != 'white' && recentDeadPerson.causeOfDeath == 'police') pushToFrontPage(); else pushToFrontPage(numNewCovidCases(getRandomState())) Apply DeMorgan's Law to see how Fox News works.

you forgot the =~ s/violence/peaceful protests/

And yes DeMorgan's law here too.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#28

Post by robomartin »

Here's the full text of the letter between Jefferson and Norvell. Very interesting.

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letter...

I've often wondered if the protections afforded to the press in the first amendment of the US Constitution could have benefited from greater clarity. What I mean by this is that I sincerely doubt the authors intended to protect lies, deceit and libel. It would make no sense whatsoever to create a law that effectively says "You can lie cheat and steal all you want and this shall be protected by the highest law in the land".

Here's the text from the first amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Some might say: Well, libel is addressable through other legislation.

Well, yes and no. It just so happens I was involved in a libel case many decades ago. In this case a newsletter (this was before internet days) had given a competitor a monthly column to author. This competitor decided to dedicate one column to attack our company and print a bunch of outright lies about our products. Things like "they don't test", "they ship their customers untested products", etc. I mean, this guy knew nothing about us and yet he focused an entire page to defaming me and my company.

A meeting with my attorney resulted in letters to the publication's entire board as well as the author/competitor. The only way I can characterize the reaction from the other side was "they shit in their pants". I came to learn a libel lawsuit is a very serious and potentially financially crippling event for someone without the means. Large companies can manage them but individuals can lose their home, savings, job, etc.

I wasn't interested in destroying lives or taking their home and savings. They agreed to print a solid retraction, fire the competitor/author and hire someone without skin in the game to pen that column.

Here's the problem: Retractions don't work. We saw an immediate and lasting hit to product sales. It took about a year to recover from the hit piece. Reputation is something that is hard to regain, particularly when people enter a fearful mental state. In retrospect I should have been smarter and should have gone for a financial settlement of sorts to compensate for the damage they caused. Our competitor actually gained sales and status in the industry as a result of this hit piece.

My point is that lies are like climbing to the top of a hill with a feather pillow, ripping it open and letting the winds take the feathers in all directions. Fixing the damage caused by lies requires finding every single feather, which is impossible.

Sometimes I think we need to rethink this one aspect of the first amendment and either modify it or bolster it externally (through separate legislation) in order to prevent the kinds of lies and manipulation that have been a part of the press since, well, according to Jefferson, the very founding of this nation.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#29

Post by smolder »

This of course has echoes in the present. I think the public may not be better informed/closer to the truth than 20 years ago, but not much worse either. A lot of things probably just weren't widely reported or could stay under the radar before the internet and social media took over. Now when "undesirable news" inevitably gets out, it has to be countered with contradictory narratives and misinformation. It's gotten to the point that aligning yourself politically one way or the other implies you must adopt a volume of their favored fiction in addition to a shared interpretation of the real facts.

Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)

#30

Post by nickthemagicman »

dalbasal wrote: post #25

When I was 15, there was a bus bombing near my school. A kid in my class was the grandson of a well known politician. A newspaper ran with a completely made up story about how it was his bus line, and how the grandfather had panicked. A few days later a fact checker called his mom. Not sure if they ran a retraction. It seemed incredibly disrespectful to those who were on the bus. Two died. About a year after that, so…

I don't quite follow how the narrative makes it more important than the facts.

I guess we have define what ideas we expect the news to deliver.

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