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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

One of the things that bother me about the news, say, npr, is that they often cite studies to bolster their positions, but they never mention the confidence in the studies nor alternate theories which may explain some of the undesired state. No, it's always in terms of things which will whet their middle brow supporters and pander to their pet agendas. Be it water rationing, gentrification, organics, immigration issues, taxation, etc.

I mention npr because I listen to them but I'm assured by others it's the same case with news on the right and abortion, religion, guns and the like.

Is there a way to escape the echo chambers?

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I reached the conclusion several years ago that journalism in all forms is nothing more than a specialized branch of entertainment and should be given about the same amount of weight. I think the damage that the news media does is the result of the general population not understanding this. There is an implication that journalists are somehow experts and intellectually a step above the rest of the population similar to doctors and lawyers. This is a mistake. If there were no distinction made between Fox News, NPR, and the latest Reese Witherspoon film, we'd all be better off.

Sadly, you're right about treating them all as different types of entertainment rather than one of them as a rigorous source of news.

If you find a way then let me know...

I find the best I can do is listen to/read multiple sources (even ones that I strongly disagree with most of the time) and try to separate bias from facts. This is by no means a guaranteed way to get the real story as I'm sure even while trying my personal biases push me to believe some things as "facts" that others would not. It reminds me of a character in the book "The Foundation" who says he reads various historians accounts of things and from that tries to decide what really happened and when pushed on this and asked why he doesn't visit the places himself to see which is right he is taken aback and responds with something along the lines of "how crude" while he clings to the notion that what he does is the "scientific method".

Great things can be done by building on those who come before you (I do it daily when I write code while I couldn't begin to write ASM nor do I have a good mental model of the lower level stuff up to where I work) but there is a danger in that as well. I worry about the "echo chamber" quite a bit (as I used to hold wildly different views when I was growing up and living in the echo chamber that was my household/parents) and I worry that the same thing could be happening again.

Sometimes I wonder if Aaron Swartz had it right by ignoring the news [0] altogether... Voting is where I disagree with him as while a "voting guide" would be nice, finding a completely unbiased one is probably impossible. The closest I think you can get is a quiz/survey on stances you personally take and then matching you up with politicians that vote the same way (consistently, which is a whole other issue) like ISideWith [1].

[0] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

[1] https://www.isidewith.com/

The multiple sources theory seems flawed to me. If you add a contaminant to a mixture, its still contaminated. Averaging out historical accounts does not really tell an accurate description story. Nor does cherry picking facts based on your own personal bias or judgement.

> I find the best I can do is listen to/read multiple sources (even ones that I strongly disagree with most of the time) and try to separate bias from facts.

Journalism is an area where past performance is relevant. Verify some of the reported facts yourself, and you'll have a nicely selected set of sources that you can trust to some degree.

This is why we need effective media watchdogs that record past performance in a consumable fashion. I don't know (m?)any websites that do it well, though.

Why would you listen to something you seem to despise as middlebrow?

I subscribed to and tried to keep up with The Weekly Standard for a year to try to see if there was some "secret sauce" I was missing because of my personal political leanings. It was a maddening experience. As it turns out, spending time hanging out in the other side's echo chamber doesn't make you more well-informed or empathetic, just angrier. Do you listen to NPR for similar reasons?

Oh and I guess by way of offering an alternative for getting out of the echo chamber... check out The Economist. They certainly have their institutional preferences too (e.g. U.K. Conservatives vs Labour, central bank monetary policy) but even when dealing with their pet subjects I find them more levelheaded than most mainstream U.S. outlets.

I picked one up in a coffee shop. Instantly noticed it has zero bylines. Not on any article; not even an editors' list in the front. Is that a Brit thing? Just publish stuff, don't say who said it, and expect folks to believe it?

Since I have a policy of never reading anything without attribution, I could read only the letters to the editor (ok they had bylines on those) so I only know about the article quality indirectly.

It's an Economist thing.

All of their letters to the editor used to be addressed simply to "SIR" as well, a practice they've only done away with just this year. Aside from a couple of pseudonymous regular features in each issue (Bagehot, Schumpeter) there are no bylines.

In 2013 they talked a bit about why they choose to operate this way:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/ec...

That's an Economist thing. They feel that "what is written is more important than who writes it"[0].

[0]: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/ec...

How can they pretend to write with authority on a subject? They don't even publish their editorial board. Its little better than a random guy on the internet quoting made-up facts without SOME idea where they came from. And don't say "The Economist" because they don't say who that is!

Maybe the editorial staff assumes the responsibility for all the correctness issues? That would actually makes sense, since they have the final say in what gets published and should do some additional verification. Just a theory. I don't read The Economist very often and never offline.

Except I don't know who that is - they don't publish them either.

"don't say "The Economist" because they don't say who that is!"

It is The Economist. That's the whole point. There is a (good) reputation attached to it. If they fail to live up to their own standards, then that reputation will crumble and people will stop reading and quoting it. It's a brand.

We used to have brands for products, like RCA, Westinghouse, Philips, etc. But these have become just nametags that are bought and sold, and no longer mean much, or anything. But there are a few brands left that still mean something.

I listen to them because they seem to be the least bad option, but far from good. So bad, but not as bad as others. On the other hand they like to think themselves as source of truth, to some extent. In other words that their politics are good politics.

Another thing about npr is that they handicap issues. So, there might be a small issue but it affects one of their agenda, it gets handicapped and given more exposure than something like that would warrant, under even treatment.

>Is there a way to escape the echo chambers?

So far I haven't found a reliable way out. Social media and personal blogs definitely aren't it. In fact, they're feeding the badness.

Interestingly, I feel that paper editions of newspapers and magazines have less broken articles than their websites.

For me, the scary thing isn't that there are biases. It's that pretty much all major media outlets occasionally participate in Culture Wars™. That is, they take an extreme position on some polarizing issue -- whichever appeals to most of their core audience -- and then use every method available to reinforce their "side" and either ignore or try to discredit the "opposition".

But even that isn't the worst of it. The core problem is that both "sides" of such issues are often objectively wrong. Is it even sensible to try extract The Truth™ from two equally full buckets of bullshit?

I feel like this has become much worse recently. Maybe it's just me changing. Then again, there were no Twitter outrage campaigns before Twitter. There were normal outrage campaigns, but they were mostly wars by proxy fought mostly in the media. People observed them and maybe agreed. Right now, almost everyone is an active participant. Which generates news in its own right and skews coverage even more.

"Is it even sensible to try extract The Truth™ from two equally full buckets of bullshit"

That brought to mind the upcoming election cycle.

Do you have infinite time and omniscence? If not there isn't. If Morning Edition is an echo chamber, all media is.

My feeling I that it's a middle brow feelgood machine. It says the things and supports the things which make middle brow listeners like myself happy. Oh, good, they will take care of my guilt for me simultaneously supporting their/our pet causes, so now I don't have to.

Npr is not self critical beyond the surface. It's a given their causes are the right causes. Let's say the housing crisis in major metros. There is never a comprehensive look. What's good, what's bad. It's gentrification is driving out the poor wheelchair bound immigrant who teaches math at the local school, of the market, therefore we know it's bad by definition. I want to know What is done in china, India, Britain, Germany, Nigeria when they face "gentrification" which they do too. Nope, it's a given their take is the right take. Make me happy, make me feel good, feel guilty for me.

Do you ever listen to On The Media[0]? It's also an NPR show, so perhaps it runs into similar issues, but I think they tend to be fairly skeptical and ask questions about these kind of issues (media bias, etc.).

Warning: it can be extremely depressing to listen to specific examples of how poor a job the media does of actually covering "The News".

[0]: http://www.onthemedia.org/

Thanks for the link, I listened to the Ramos bit. To me, it was noticeable the narrator already took a point of view. It also advocated taking points of view and saw taking a point of view on certain issues necessary (in this case advocating for undocumented immigrants).

Immigrations is a tough issue. There is the human factor. When confronted with the individual cases, it's hard to make a case against open borders. But if we took it to the extreme, we know neither the US nor Europe can accommodate the rest of the world without becoming like the world those people are trying to avoid. (Most of the people are economic immigrants).

In addition, suppose we could sustain a European or North American lifestyle. What would resource demand look like if either sustained 100 million or 500 million immigrants?

Also, what is the responsibility of the bad governments for their poor stewardship of their own people? And what about the questions of a North American or European working freely in anyone of those countries? I think it's a two way street. If we open our borders, so should they. And it should be reciprocal. We open it up to Cuba, Cuba opens it up to us. We open it up to the Netherlands, they open it up to us, etc.

There certainly is: don't pay attention to the "news". Easier said than done I admit.

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