Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

press-pubs.uchicago.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 359 posts

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

#61

Post by coffeefirst »

busterarm wrote: post #39
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've been in the vicinity of news/magazine press or knew the subjects personally about a dozen times. In every single instance the facts were grossly misrepresented and in the three cases at Vice/Motherboard told the complete opposite story of the actual truth. Vice's article about "Sugar Weasel, the One and Only Clown Escort" is a complete fabrication (well, other than his own self-delusions) and any basic fact chec…

Vice has that reputation.

This is the problem. There's plenty of newsrooms doing solid work. You can't do this any more than you can talk about restaurants while describing fast food burgers and a fancy tapas bar in the same sentence.

There's more interesting problems here. Outlets with actual scientists on staff do better science coverage, local institutions can cover a crisis with a better grasp on the context than a global organization that's sending reporters there for the first time. But before we can have that conversation we need to paint with a narrower brush.

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

#62

Post by Viliam1234 »

busterarm wrote: post #39
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've been in the vicinity of news/magazine press or knew the subjects personally about a dozen times. In every single instance the facts were grossly misrepresented and in the three cases at Vice/Motherboard told the complete opposite story of the actual truth. Vice's article about "Sugar Weasel, the One and Only Clown Escort" is a complete fabrication (well, other than his own self-delusions) and any basic fact chec…

I was interviewed by journalists twice, both times they published a text that contained some of my words but edited to make it say the opposite of what I actually said.

I wonder whether in ten years television will regularly use deepfakes when "interviewing" people, and we will feel equally hopeless about it.

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

#63

Post by dublin »

liability wrote: post #38
intotheabyss wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This version of their site has less visual clutter and flashy graphics: http://lite.cnn.com/en Spoilers, it's still shit. The biggest problem with CNN is the shitty writing. CNN articles seem to be written for an audience of borderline illiterate idiots. Do yourself a favor and read the NYTimes instead. The biases there are basically the same, you're getting the mainstream American centrist take on things, with the d…

I call BS: The NY Times is in no way a "mainstream American centrist take on things", and they now freely admit their Socialist biases. I will agree the writing there is better than most other sources, but that's a low bar these days.

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

#64

Post by elliekelly »

darepublic wrote: post #34
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…

Reminds me of the opening text of Fargo. > The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred. So solemn, so respectful and complete bs :D

Is there a word for that sort of cinematic (or in some cases literary) device? Opening with "disclaimer" style text to make the movie feel more real. It seems mockumentary adjacent - fiction presented as fact. Pseudo non-fiction?

I've seen it used in other films, too but the only example I can really think of is maybe the Blair Witch Project.

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

#65

Post by liability »

dublin wrote: post #63
liability wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This version of their site has less visual clutter and flashy graphics: http://lite.cnn.com/en Spoilers, it's still shit. The biggest problem with CNN is the shitty writing. CNN articles seem to be written for an audience of borderline illiterate idiots. Do yourself a favor and read the NYTimes instead. The biases there are basically the same, you're getting the mainstream American centrist take on things, with the d…

I call BS: The NY Times is in no way a "mainstream American centrist take on things", and they now freely admit their Socialist biases. I will agree the writing there is better than most other sources, but that's a low bar these days.

American conservatives think the NYTimes are socialists, and American socialists think the NYTimes are conservative. I think this sort of split reputation is characteristic of American media with a centrist bias.

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

#66

Post by busterarm »

coffeefirst wrote: post #61
busterarm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in the vicinity of news/magazine press or knew the subjects personally about a dozen times. In every single instance the facts were grossly misrepresented and in the three cases at Vice/Motherboard told the complete opposite story of the actual truth. Vice's article about "Sugar Weasel, the One and Only Clown Escort" is a complete fabrication (well, other than his own self-delusions) and any basic fact chec…

Vice has that reputation. This is the problem. There's plenty of newsrooms doing solid work. You can't do this any more than you can talk about restaurants while describing fast food burgers and a fancy tapas bar in the same sentence. There's more interesting problems here. Outlets with actual scientists on staff do better science coverage, local institutions can cover a crisis with a better grasp on the context than…

Definitely. I've certainly found my own sources for the kinds of news that I'm interested in. A lot of it is independent journalists/*loggers.

Often enough I can check their sources and check multiple points of view on the same topic. The problem is that's a lot of work. Other people I might want to educate about the facts haven't put in that work -- they've just watched CNN/MSNBC/FOX or read the NYT/etc.

And most of those get it wrong.

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

#67

Post by liability »

clairity wrote: post #54
liability wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This version of their site has less visual clutter and flashy graphics: http://lite.cnn.com/en Spoilers, it's still shit. The biggest problem with CNN is the shitty writing. CNN articles seem to be written for an audience of borderline illiterate idiots. Do yourself a favor and read the NYTimes instead. The biases there are basically the same, you're getting the mainstream American centrist take on things, with the d…

no, the nytimes is no better overall. they still have some good longer-form investigative pieces, but that's probably <1% of their volume. the rest is the same slanted, stimulant filler (corona all the time!) as other outlets.

As I said, I think they have approximately the same content and biases as CNN. I think they come out better than CNN because they have better writers and editors.

CNN articles seem like they were written by highschoolers and rubber stamped by editors who can't be bothered to read anything.

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

#68

Post by ardy42 »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #35
anchpop wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on cnn.com, these are the biggest headlines > Trump suggests voters should commit fraud > Bill Barr's indefensible defense of 2020 voter fraud > Officers covered a Black man's head before he stopped breathing, video shows > Dr. Fauci says it's conceivable but not likely a vaccine will be ready in October The only one I think is questionable is the second, but even that one doesn't seem like it contains factual inaccu…

Ugh... Even CNN admits that the following headline is a lie... Let's follow the rabbit trail: > Trump suggests voters should commit fraud The source that article links is another one of CNN's own articles: > Trump appears to encourage North Carolinians to vote twice to test the system The first paragraph of that article then gets closer to the truth: > President Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared to encourage people…

> Moreover... "Appeared." If the author believes Trump was saying that, then say Trump said it. However, the author knows that's not true, so the author said he "appeared" / his words could be twisted. Utter cowardice.

Trump is so confused and unclear sometimes that it's hard to tell exactly what he's trying to say, hence the "appeared.". What he says is newsworthy, and some of the most likely interpretations are shocking, so it can't just be ignored. It wouldn't surprise me if he advised his supporters to do something that clearly amounted to voter fraud without actually understanding that it was fraud.

> Where Trump clearly explains that people should go to their polling places so that the poll workers can check the voter rolls and confirm whether their ballots have been received. If so, then voters will be turned away. If no, they'll already be at the polling place and will be able to cast a ballot. You, I, WECT, and CNN all know that Trump isn't saying to lie about whether you mailed a ballot. To say otherwise is to lie.

I don't know how it is in North Carolina, but where I live they never ask if you've already mailed in a ballot at the polling place. They just ask for your name, look it up in the voter roll, and cross it off, and give you a ballot.

North Carolina accepts absentee ballots postmarked on election day (https://www.ncsbe.gov/voting/vote-mail/five-steps-vote-mail-...), so following Trump's advice could potentially bypass the poll worker check if the poll workers are like those in my state. I believe North Carolina has other checks to prevent double absentee/in-person votes from being counted, but fraud is still fraud if the deception doesn't work.

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

#70

Post by clint »

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…

This is largely due to the wholesale destruction of the news industry by embarrassed capitalists and politicians over the last 30-40 years. Another reasons is that the same people have removed any ensemble of education which teach children to think even halfway critical about any topic.

We have journalists entering the workforce who have a good chance of having never consumed or witnessed any real journalism in their entire life.

So many of publications we used to know and love employed a sufficient amount of _professional_ copywriters, fact checkers, editors and so forth.

Editors were happy to let journalists take their time on stories that might not pay off for several years knowing it would pay to get things right.

Now-a-days, unless you work at the NYT, Guardian, or other company with mega-bucks and a robust subscription program you will probably never see a fact-checker, photographer, copywriter, and your editor will be not much more than an assembly line manager who may or may not care about the quality of the journalism you produce. If they do care, the likely have no leverage over the moneyed-interests who own the company.

A lot of people these days are not willing to pay for good journalism because they've been tricked into thinking they get "just as good" for free, which they most obviously do not.

And when they "discover" that their free news is run by rank amateurs who don't actually care about journalism and produce the kinds of things the OP rails against, it often seems to fester into a complete denunciation of the entire enterprise.

In fact, it is my belief that this is actually the goal of many unscrupulous practitioners of crappy journalism.

They know they can bankroll and support a crappy "news site" with the left hand and with the right hand use that to slowly tear down the firms putting out rigorous journalism, giving actual facts to citizens which show their ideology and politicians are nothing more than kleptocratic idiots.

Post reply on HN