Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807) • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by insidepgsmind » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

I love this part: “I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.“

When I read the headlines or scan articles here on HN I’m under the impression that I know things and understand things, but it’s really just surface level.

I like the idea of ignoring news and instead read quarterly long form magazines or books. The really important stuff will bubble to the surface and be examined more intelligently.

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

#102

Post by jancsika » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #45

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…

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge... “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 bac…

"He explains the irony of the term saying it came about 'because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have,'"

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

#103

Post by alpha_squared » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

rs999gti wrote: post #100

glial wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business models based on advertising revenue are ruining the world.

> Business models based on advertising revenue are ruining the world. What else do news agencies have to make money? The could sell stories and news for a subscription. But the news can be had for free in other places. They can't really sell classifieds anymore since Craigslist, Facebook, and forums have taken those posting monies away.

Personally, I've actually gravitated more towards long-form stories that aren't exactly news as-it-happens and more about events unfolding. Because of that personal preference, I've subscribed to The Atlantic (and considering others). I remember reading a post on here about a month ago that seemed to indicate I wasn't alone in that trend.

I posit that people are willing to pay for quality journalism that talks about a larger problem, but not for as-it-happens news. The latter has become a race to the bottom and first-out-the-door incentives drive it even lower (social media has certainly contributed immensely to this).

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

#104

Post by BlueDingo » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

metalliqaz wrote: post #32

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 was in the vicinity of a news story once and I interacted with the press. A reporter from a local news station. She asked me what I saw and took notes. There were two follow up questions: "did you notice anything else?", and that's it. The report didn't really include any of the extra details that I provided, just what you could see from the street. It included a clip from a different witness who was much more chat…

I agree but I think it's both. Reporters will know if a witness/interviewee is too straightforward for their purposes and will move out until they find a juicy enough narrative. That way their ass is covered.

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

#105

Post by pwned1 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

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…

Same experience here. I was a elected to a local board and was mentioned in several local newspaper stories. Every story that included events that I had personal knowledge of was incorrect, sometimes in very substantial ways.

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

#106

Post by Joeri » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #45

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…

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge... “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 bac…

This is why I am subscribed to two news papers from independent owners.

It doesn't help that much though, because the overlap between the two is a lot smaller than you would think, and a significant part of that overlap is content provided by a press service (which is often wrong itself).

Sometimes I wonder whether it even makes sense to try to follow the news. News by definition cannot be objective in how it describes the world, even when factually accurate, because the most important things in the world aren't the things that are novel and interesting, they're the things that are commonplace and boring. Maybe following the news makes us less informed because it biases us to pay attention to the wrong things.

On the other hand, how else do you get informed about going affairs? Most long-form books on a subject are themselves heavily biased to the author's viewpoint.

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

#107

Post by ardy42 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #90

ardy42 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sho…

> Trump is so confused and unclear sometimes that it's hard to tell exactly what he's trying to say, hence the "appeared.". It's irrelevant what he's "trying to say". If he writes "covfefe", the accurate reporting is "he wrote covfefe", not "he appeared to have written covfefe". Qualifying something with "he appeared to say" is just a way to write anything. Turns out it's not at all what he said? "Well, it appeared t…

> It's irrelevant what he's "trying to say". If he writes "covfefe", the accurate reporting is "he wrote covfefe", not "he appeared to have written covfefe".

You're asking for a raw transcript, but that's not what the news is. For instance, when the OJ trial was in the news, do you think the papers should have just printed the court reporters transcripts verbatim? The news make judgements about what's important, then summarizes what happened and adds context necessary to understand it, which requires figuring out what he was "trying to say."

> If he writes "covfefe", the accurate reporting is "he wrote covfefe", not "he appeared to have written covfefe".

Actually, if you want to be really nitpicky, "he appeared to have written covfefe" is the most accurate. No one saw him type that word. It could have been some social media aide instead.

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

#108

Post by BeetleB » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

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…

A friend of mine was once arrested and it made national news - multiple times (arrest, randomly later on, then trial, etc). What I observed:

1. They often got a lot of details wrong - details very relevant to how the public would perceive him. Easily verifiable details, BTW. A lot of it was just someone on the law enforcement/justice side making statements that they did not bother to verify.

1a. Some of these false facts are now part of his Wikipedia page, with several references to these news outlets. Be wary of facts on Wikipedia if the source is journalism.

2. The national news have a hive mind mentality. Between the arrest and the trial, he would suddenly become headline news, and often with no event triggering it. As if they all suddenly decided (on the same day) to just write a story about him. The reality is more likely laziness - one outlet decided to make it big news and others didn't want to be left behind.

2a. As an aside, another well known freelance journalist said this is common. He once had the scoop on a big story and was trying to sell it to the top news outlets. The most common question was "Is anyone else running this?" followed by "We don't want to be the only ones to run this." The concern was about being wrong in the end, but the facts were easily verifiable and the news outlet didn't want to go through the trouble.

2b. The random big news about my friend with no trigger? A number of times the same news outlet had reported the very same thing at the time of arrest months prior. It was basically recycled news, but presented as if it was breaking news.

3. The local newspapers were the best. They didn't report false facts - they verified them. They had the most detail (continual coverage over months rather than random sensational headlines).

That was 20 years ago. Something similar happened to another friend of mine recently. Half of the latest news reports about him have ridiculously wrong facts (year of arrest, time spent in prison, etc). Stuff that is trivially verifiable. His case was not as high profile. Lesson learned: News stories that are not as big are a lot more likely to have wrong information.

This experience (particularly the false facts) is why I'm adamant about suspending judgment prior to the trial. My sources (news) are unreliable.

(BTW, that first person was easily acquitted - the defense called only one witness, because the prosecution's case was so flawed).

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

#109

Post by Joker_vD » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #27

umvi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting" was such an incredible thing to see.

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

#110

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

rs999gti wrote: post #100

glial wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business models based on advertising revenue are ruining the world.

> Business models based on advertising revenue are ruining the world. What else do news agencies have to make money? The could sell stories and news for a subscription. But the news can be had for free in other places. They can't really sell classifieds anymore since Craigslist, Facebook, and forums have taken those posting monies away.

> What else do news agencies have to make money?

Patronage model, which (often also with subscription tiers on top of free content) is what bigger non-advertising media outlets seem to use; this works better if you qualify as a nonprofit with tax-advantaged donations, so may not be as useful for for-profit firms, but it's certainly a way that news organizations can exist and pay their staff and bills without advertising.