This post and The Bottom Line previously, are extremely useful for cases where someone is trying to convince you of something you know very little about. Advertising seems like the most common example, although media coverage on obscure topics may fall into this category if you don’t bother to look at the other side of the issue. This only applies in instances where two elements are present: (1) the media is motivated to bias their account (perhaps because people prefer news sources that confirm what they already believe, or because people prefer sensationalized stories over watching grass grow) AND (2) the subject must be obscure enough that you only encounter information about it from a single source, or from additional sources with identical biases.
If either of these elements is missing, however, you can’t discard all that evidence as part of a selection bias. It may still be subject to some media bias, but you’d have to supply a counterargument to justifiably claim media bias, rather than being able to hypothesize that there exists a large body of data opposing the arguments viewpoint.
Another way of reading this might be to always check at least 2 sources with substantially different viewpoints if you want to be reasonably sure of a fact. Anything those sources have in common might also bias your information, although it may just add random noise in some cases, rather than true selection bias.
This post and The Bottom Line previously, are extremely useful for cases where someone is trying to convince you of something you know very little about. Advertising seems like the most common example, although media coverage on obscure topics may fall into this category if you don’t bother to look at the other side of the issue. This only applies in instances where two elements are present: (1) the media is motivated to bias their account (perhaps because people prefer news sources that confirm what they already believe, or because people prefer sensationalized stories over watching grass grow) AND (2) the subject must be obscure enough that you only encounter information about it from a single source, or from additional sources with identical biases.
If either of these elements is missing, however, you can’t discard all that evidence as part of a selection bias. It may still be subject to some media bias, but you’d have to supply a counterargument to justifiably claim media bias, rather than being able to hypothesize that there exists a large body of data opposing the arguments viewpoint.
Another way of reading this might be to always check at least 2 sources with substantially different viewpoints if you want to be reasonably sure of a fact. Anything those sources have in common might also bias your information, although it may just add random noise in some cases, rather than true selection bias.