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Comment by Pils | Hacker News Reader

Looking at the actual press release this listicle was based off of, the countries with highest media trust are, in order: Indonesia (73%), China (70%) and India (69%)[0]. These countries are ranked #119, #177 and #142 on the Press Freedom Index[1].

I think "trust CEOs" is significantly less supported by Edelman's data than "reduce press freedom, emulate China," but I'm just a random internet commentator, not a high quality journalist like Felix Salmon.

I'd also note that the 3% drop also appears to be barely outside the survey's margin of error (survey population size: n=1,150).

[0] Media trust chart is on page 49 https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2021-0...

[1] https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2020

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Could this article be propaganda?

More likely just run-of-the-mill journalistic statistics ignorance, which seems commonplace in US media these days, combined with deadline and story quota pressures.

I love how you’re accusing a journalist of lying, as a defense of journalists being accused of lying. ‘Oh well, that’s just run-of-the-mill journalistic statistics ignorance’

I don’t think it’s necessarily secret that since Craigslist traditional newsrooms have hemorrhaged money and staff.

Sometimes things are malicious, sometimes things are ignorant, and sometimes it’s a mix. Is trying to be more specific about causes a “defence”?

In a way. The thing to remember about polls is that they tell you about publicly expressed opinion - in a freer nation, this can be a good gauge. When your very well-being relies on you responding in 'the right ways' to public inquiry, however...

Preference falsification, self-selection bias and sampling bias.

Three sources of bias in polling.

No problem in politically uncontroversial polls, but cryptonite otherwise.

> press freedom index

In other words, an organization with dubious motivations headquartered in Europe rates non-Western countries as low in their subjective measurement.

How surprising to see that all of the Anglosphere got glowing rankings!

I just looked at the rankings and they seem ok at a glance. Can you give a concrete example of how and why they are wrong? Or tell us more specifically why we shouldn’t trust the organization running it? I’m not familiar with them.

Just look - are there any countries there with high rankings that aren't on good terms with Western nations? I don't see any.

The only way you could still think it's an objective ranking is if you REALLY think we're going to all these wars to free people.

Can you simply name a few countries on the list that you think should have a significantly different ranking? If not, then what's the issue?

No, the onus is on you to demonstrate why there is a statistical significative difference between the countries. It seems you are an expert, could you tell me why Costa Rica is number 7 and T&T number 37? Why does Uruguay do that Chile doesnt which justifies all that difference? What Argentina must learn from Burkina Faso to rise up to that level?

You have 0 idea, guess what? me neither, that's why you know the ranking is bullshit.

I have lived in 4 of the countries mentioned above, they have wildly significant difference in rankings. My subjective take on the freedom of the press in those places?, it is very much the same.

They seemed OK like this chart? https://www.ghsindex.org/

No offense but you are exhibiting the classic case of western arrogance and ignorance. You are in no position to actually assess from 4 random picked countries in the world (Say, Bulgaria, Chile, Israel and Malaysia) who has more "freedom of the press" and by how much). Your unique rule of thumb is that you expect rich,white,western countries on top.

You are reading too much into my comment. I don't actually have that strong of an opinion about the list. I just wanted more substance from a critique, so I could actually take something from it. A shallow dismissal is not very useful.

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