The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free • Hacker News Board

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#341

Post by hinkley » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

I wonder sometimes if all of those people who sat around dreaming about what the Web would do for the world ever get together and ask what the hell happened.

What's worst is that a lot of these conversations happened when memory of Eternal September were still relatively fresh. For my own part, I was maybe 22, new to the industry, and had not yet begun to appreciate Carlin's, "Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist." Boy howdy.

The infrastructure that grants us the Enlightenment or Democracy also, when taken ad absurbum, brings us to Idiocracy.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Turns out Reason extracts the same bargain.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#342

Post by jaccarmac » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

andrewtbham wrote: post #173

> it is not that the facts it reports tend to be inaccurate yes it is. I really lost faith in nyt when they ran article about running out of running out of charge in a Tesla. When they were caught red handed lying they still wouldn't admit to it. Their response was: "Problems With Precision and Judgment, but Not Integrity, in Tesla Test" They just don't get it. People are sick of their BS and they need to just comp t…

"But it’s important to understand the problem with the Times: it is not that the facts it reports tend to be inaccurate—though sometimes they are—but that the facts are presented in a way that misleads."

Shall we make sure that the quote at the top of the thread includes at least one full sentence as context?

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#343

Post by slg » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #334

slg wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one can be an expert on everything. That is true for journalists too. Unless a reporter has a very narrow beat, they are going to be forced to report on topics in which they are not fully knowledgeable. This often results in misunderstandings or downright falsities, but on large they generally get it right. We should certainly hold journalistic organizations and reporters to a high standard of accuracy, but let's…

I consider the statement of the parent to be more about not blindly believing everything the media reports, because it’s most likely a simplification and the truth is more nuanced. I personally don’t consider it the journalists’ fault at all, otherwise we would just end up with an academic journal. It is important, however, to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism when reading the news.

I agree, but that is not in line with the comment that kicked off this thread with this:

>They just don't get it. People are sick of their BS and they need to just comp to it and change. The days of BSing people are over.

There is a clear difference between reserved skepticism you are talking about and the "FAKE NEWS!" type rhetoric that has grown over the last half decade.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#344

Post by KSteffensen » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #314

bena wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can. And there's an easy way to smell test a source: What's their response to verification? People who are lying are going to say either you can't or don't want to check up on them. At some point, they're going to say "trust me". Never trust someone who asks for your trust. Someone trustworthy isn't concerned whether or not you trust them. They will just say, "Fine, here's what I used. Show me what I missed."

So (effectively) if they don't share their data, they're lying?

Probably, yes.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#345

Post by dqpb » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

Lies are not just free to consume, they are also free to generate.

It is "expensive" to generate true high information content, because, from an information theoretic point of view, "high information" means "surprising" which means "improbable". The improbability of high information events/messages throttles the rate of their occurrence.

Lies on the other hand can be made to sound surprising and high information, with no natural probabilistic throttle. They can be generated at will, at arbitrary frequency.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#346

Post by busterarm » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #232

busterarm wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Maddow is the vanguard of mainstream liberalism, why are her ratings so terrible?

You can only get a plurality in most cases with mainstream media, because like it or not it does tend to be progressive/liberal in most outlets (in the American sense, not European).

That doesn't explain why FOX is twice as watched as MSNBC.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#347

Post by aforty » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#348

Post by hinkley » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

listenallyall wrote: post #83

rawfan wrote: post #22

I just want Netflix for journalism. I don't want a super expensive sub to a dozen papers. I want one subscription, they all should be included (maybe offer different tiers if you are an arse) and it shouldn't be more than $20/month. Go.

The absolute worst posts on HN start with "I just want..." and then selfishly lowball the cost of whatever it is they want. Anyway, you've described a cable bundle model, not Netflix's model.

   The worst questions to ask an engineer start with, "why can't we just..."

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#349

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

benrbray wrote: post #253

shadowgovt wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the facts are not accurate, that's relevant. On average, are the facts accurate? Also, 1.65 isn't double. I'm not quite sure what you're saying here.

1.65 is not the average ratio, it's the smallest ratio among the group of countries under consideration. So, it's intentionally misleading. Regardless, even if the average WERE 1.65, that's still a damning enough number that the meter shouldn't be all the way to the "False" side.

Since the statement they're fact checking is "twice as much... than any other nation," averages don't apply; the smallest ratio is the strongest counterexample. Politicians can avoid being fact checked like this by using less absolute statements in their rhetoric.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#350

Post by Retric » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

mateus1 wrote: post #270

andrewtbham wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never pay for the nyt... I would much rather give my money to a patreon where someone actually knows something about the topics I am intersted in. Journalists reporting on topics they don't understand doesn't make sense... https://www.patreon.com/hyperchange https://www.patreon.com/EverydayAstronaut furthermore, nyt are mostly shills for their advertisers. That is why nyt trashed tesla because GM and Ford adve…

You can't compare niche edutainment channels to the major news outlets. NYT is in the business of credible news, these small content makers aren't credible sources of news.

A basic litmus test is how a news source reports stock movements. It’s at X up/down Y points from yesterday is news. It’s down / up due to (some specific event) is almost always false and only injected to make things seem interesting or feed people’s biases. Another way of saying that is doing so is quite simply a lie.

NYT is no more in the business of credible news than the Wall Street Journal or Fox News. That’s simply not their business model. They all take unbiased Reuters coverage and add spin to appeal to their audience and distort the truth in the process.

Which is not to say they don’t happen to report things that actually happened, but the weather channel is a prime example where keeping people entertained is vastly more important than keeping them informed.