The problem isn’t just one of propaganda whereby certain interests get pushed. It’s also one of general lack of deep insight of the reporter in the subject they are reporting on and their necessity to simplify matters.
The argument is that many people make the experience that if they encounter a newspaper article about a subject where they have domain knowledge they discover that the article is full of mistakes. If you then generalize that observation over the whole newspaper it leads to the conclusion that the paper isn’t better then sawdust.
The excercise for the reader would be to go to the average science section of a prestigious newspaper from ten years ago, look at the study based on which the article is based, on what happened in the topic afterwards and then judge how informative the article was. Then the next step is to ask yourself what it would mean if that quality level would generalize over the whole newspaper.
Or when you attended a gathering/event then read about it and think that that was an entirely different event.
“newspaper from ten years ago, … what happened in the topic afterwards and then judge how informative the article was”
As a German you will know the saying: “Nichts ist so alt wie die Zeitung von gestern.” → “Nothing is as old as yesterdays paper.”
N.N. Taleb calls it noise.
At fist it is either wrong or without consequence or propaganda, then it is outdated. A historian will find 99% of all “news” to be little more as an “interesting time piece” at best representative for the thinking and style of the era.
The problem isn’t just one of propaganda whereby certain interests get pushed. It’s also one of general lack of deep insight of the reporter in the subject they are reporting on and their necessity to simplify matters.
The argument is that many people make the experience that if they encounter a newspaper article about a subject where they have domain knowledge they discover that the article is full of mistakes. If you then generalize that observation over the whole newspaper it leads to the conclusion that the paper isn’t better then sawdust.
The excercise for the reader would be to go to the average science section of a prestigious newspaper from ten years ago, look at the study based on which the article is based, on what happened in the topic afterwards and then judge how informative the article was. Then the next step is to ask yourself what it would mean if that quality level would generalize over the whole newspaper.
Or when you attended a gathering/event then read about it and think that that was an entirely different event.
“newspaper from ten years ago, … what happened in the topic afterwards and then judge how informative the article was”
As a German you will know the saying: “Nichts ist so alt wie die Zeitung von gestern.” → “Nothing is as old as yesterdays paper.”
N.N. Taleb calls it noise.
At fist it is either wrong or without consequence or propaganda, then it is outdated. A historian will find 99% of all “news” to be little more as an “interesting time piece” at best representative for the thinking and style of the era.