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

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

#121

Post by tsimionescu »

quacked wrote: post #55

A primary concern with "the news" is that it has no incentive to be correct, especially when it is reporting on predictions. Consider a situation where a respected economist releases a report that predicts a high likelihood of economic recession. "The news" will circulate something like "HIGH PROBABILITY OF RECESSION, SAYS FAMED ECONOMIST". The impending recession will be the talk of the people for the next several w…

A related aspect is that a nice, solid, impartial fact-based news organization will often report on what various public figures have said. Since they are impartial, objective, and just reporting the facts, they will of course refrain from commenting on the truth of said declarations - that would be the reporter's biases showing!

"X says Y" is objective news. "Y is actually not true" is journalists showing their biases!

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

#122

Post by busterarm »

loughnane wrote: post #58

This dovetails with something I've been thinking much about recently: providing a classical education, or at least a dose of it, to my kids. Jefferson was a big proponent of this as well [0] My reasoning is that there are few other venues that young people, in their formative years, encounter such examples of deep critical thinking. I used to think it snobbery to reference Socrates/Plato/Aristotle, etc. But reading t…

Unschooling/Home-schooling + https://www.sjc.edu/ (if they want to) IMO

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

#123

Post by air7 »

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 think most people who are in the vicinity of a news story irl have such experiences

What's funny though is that although this is true, we still tend to believe all other news stories as though they are 100% true.

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

#124

Post by minimuffins »

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.

They could be funded unconditionally by the state.

The BBC has, at times, been pretty good.

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

#125

Post by pessimizer »

blhack wrote: post #78

It's just so sad. The biggest one lately for me has been watching the riots which are happening all over the US. The really crazy thing is that all of these things are livestreamed usually by 10s of people in every city, who are standing a few feet from the people burning buildings and attacking people. You can virtually attend all of these things from your office. To watch buildings burning, people chanting that the…

Don't think that just because you're your own editor you can't be deceived by editing. You're feeding yourself with the material that you're seeking out.

edit: just spend a day only looking up the millions peacefully marching, rather than the 10s of right-wing livestreams. (Also, give me some information about the people you've seen attacking and burning private residences, because I don't know of a single example of this.)

After the day you can go back to watching what you normally watch, but if you can't find all of these boring people walking through the streets with signs, I don't know what to tell you. If the millions protesting actually had the aim of burning middle-class people out of their homes, middle-class people would have been burned out of their homes.

If there's any problem imo, it's that the protests are generally unfocused street wandering. If there were a specific focus or target, they would be effective at accomplishing that target. But when the target becomes anything other than generalized racism, the ad-hoc coalitions fall apart.

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

#126

Post by minimuffins »

minimuffins wrote: post #81
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #46

News organizations have to compete for people's attention so they present the news in a way that impacts people's emotions most strongly. Fear is a favorite subject. Most news is framed in a way that highlights how it MAY negatively effect the reader. FEAR is a very effective way to get and keep people's attention. Also, the news has to compete with entertainment so it's entertaining. It's the first "Reality TV." You…

This post is unfairly downvoted. Downvoting is for content that violates community norms. This post doesn't do that. If you don't agree, just say why. Don't downvote.

This post is unfairly downvoted. Downvoting is for content that violates community norms. This post doesn't do that.

If you don't agree, just say why. Don't downvote.

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

#127

Post by screye »

minimuffins wrote: post #117

The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. I spend probably an hour a day reading headlines from major outlets with a bunch of different political alignments, and to be honest, I don't really know why I even do it. By the end of it, all I really have is a vague silhouette of a picture of what might have happened, according to a handful of corporations…

> Mostly he relied on people he knew personally in various parts of the world who have firsthand experience and write him about it. Must be nice

It is not that difficult.

In the world of internet, there are many prolific writers who have lived very public lives. There are quite a few specific opinion/news writers who I've read long enough to know their biases or the lack there of, depending on what they are reporting. These individual actors being the feet-on-the-ground lends a large amount of credibility to them as well.

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

#128

Post by shanecleveland »

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.

This is true for most "news" organizations at the moment. CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc., are entertainment. Much of what they produce would fall under the Op. Ed. section of a newspaper. And the speed of the news cycle does not allow for rigorous fact checking and adequate opposing viewpoints to be included. "We have reached out for comment" is a common claim when there is a failure to include opposing viewpoints.

The problem is compounded by social feeds (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that are engineered to only show you information you already agree with being the primary method of consumption. And then the comments within the article or accompanied in the social platform further drive home the biases.

Traditional print journalism, while never perfect or completely accurate, at least presented a consistent and uniform experience for all readers. The news cycle was extended to provide more time for fact checking and information/quote gathering. And the structure of the paper was clear: news, opinion, entertainment, etc. These never mixed. And corrections were clear and available in the same place in future issues.

That doesn't mean biases never existed, but the expectations were much clearer and there was less of an ability to focus on a segment of a market and ignore the views of others.

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

#129

Post by altcognito »

disown wrote: post #88
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.

> 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. Okay. > Posts with catch phrases like "establishment media companies" are usually a red flag. Wait. Aren't you doing what you say is the "more dangerous"? > This submissions feels more like launching point for arguing, little value to comm…

I'm labeling specific content based on reason, not using weakly defined identity as a flag for concern.

So, similar concerns, different approaches that yield very different results.

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

#130

Post by krapp »

minimuffins wrote: post #126
minimuffins wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is unfairly downvoted. Downvoting is for content that violates community norms. This post doesn't do that. If you don't agree, just say why. Don't downvote.

This post is unfairly downvoted. Downvoting is for content that violates community norms. This post doesn't do that. If you don't agree, just say why. Don't downvote.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

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