Fake News and Democracy
jesp.org
jesp.org
News reporting is integrally and inextricably laden with bias, motive, and perspective.
The 20th century corporate media monopoly which purported to be the ministry of truth is dead, and lamenting over its grave won't bring it back to life.
I think it comes back to the fact that some views are absolutely wrong in all cultures at all times. However those are often not what is being discussed.
Many popular topics are actually collections of trade offs vilified by the opposing parties.
But there's a world of difference between, say, a random article on the BBC and Alex Jones saying the kids in Sandy Hook were crisis actors.
I think we can agree that there is a material difference there.
This seems like a lazy defense of bad reporters who turned out to become propagandists instead.
A tiny fraction of people follow Alex Jones and the vast majority disagree (or have no idea who he is). I have yet to see someone who actually believes the kids in Sandy Hook were crisis actors.
The reality is that the US corporate media (literally billion dollar media companies like NY Times or WaPo) are angry about losing their monopoly on what the "truth" is.
Now, they have to compete with independent journalists publishing on Substack/YouTube (read how critical the NY Times is of Substack. It's absurd.). They're trying to get YouTube/Facebook/Twitter to censor anyone who's not "an expert", where they get to decide who counts as an expert.
So, the media is trying to push a narrative that Alex Jones is a bigger threat than he really is. They're also trying to paint all independent media as Alex Jones-type so they can maintain their monopoly on the truth.
Meanwhile, they continue to run million dollar marketing campaigns where they're trying convince everyone that they're the truth ("Democracy Dies in Darkness").
Frankly, the media did the exact same thing with Trump in 2016 (and continue to do so). Trump was a fringe character during the beginning of the RNC for the 2016 election and Jeb Bush was the frontrunner.
The media (left especially) proceeded to talk about Trump 24/7 and give him unlimited free air time (and they got a ratings bump in return). They took someone who was a fringe character and made him seem like the mainstream. The Streisand Effect kicked in and Trump immediately shot up in the polls.
Then, when Trump ended up winning, the media pretended they had 0 culpability and spun up a false narrative that the Russian interference gave Trump the victory (The Russians interfered, but their interference wasn't what swung the election, it was a laughable attempt if you read their strategies. The media talking about Trump 24/7 was what gave him the victory).
Listen to the testimony given by some of the Sandy Hook families during the Alex Jones trial. It's heartbreaking.
Censoring independent media and giving the US corporate press a monopoly on truth as a response to this incident (or other fringe incidents like this) would be a massive mistake.
Nobody here is suggesting US corporate press has a monopoly on truth.
I do not blame just the old media though. They just responded to the reality the best way they could. There is a reason most articles are now a litany of clickbaity titles. I blame us.
your post is chock full of simply ridiculous claims and this one is the crowning piece. please supply *any* actual documentation for any of these made up ideas. Trump shot up in popularity because he ran in primaries, he had plenty of money to do so as well as a lot of backers (both domestic and foreign, we were to learn) all around the country and conservative voters liked his ideas (mostly the anti-immigrant rhetoric, which is the oldest song in the conservative catalog, as well as a deep well of hatred for HRC that had been developed by conservative interests for literally decades) the best, plain and simple. FOX news would have built him up ahead of time as they are a right wing propaganda outlet that most certainly did want to create a Trump candidacy, sure. however "Left wing media" or even "mainstream" media outside of FOX did not "pre-choose" Trump ahead of his popularity by any means. As he continued beating everyone in polling and later in actual primaries by crazy numbers, the (non-FOX) media appropriately noticed and reported on it, and he became the center of attention as is actually appropriate. There is absolutely nothing new about that in conservative politics (except for the novel opportunity to run against a female candidate who had been built up as a focal point of anger for 25 years).
The bigger problem with this notion that Trump was "fringe outside the mainstream" is this attempt to distance US conservatism from the deeply nativist, anti-immigrant stance of the Trump presidency. But that is exactly a core value of the conservative base, which I have personally observed for my whole life amongst the many conservatives in my large extended family as well as in the communities I live in. He is exactly what "regular" conservatives want. Trying to pin it on a "the media made us do it!" is a dangerous lie in that regard.
State exactly which claims are ridiculous and why they're ridiculous.
> please supply any actual documentation for any of these made up ideas
Here's a study by the Shorenstein Center on Media/Politics/Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
"The report shows that during the year 2015, major news outlets covered Donald Trump in a way that was unusual given his low initial polling numbers—a high volume of media coverage preceded Trump’s rise in the polls."
"Neither of these indicators, however, explains Trump’s coverage. When his news coverage began to shoot up, he was not high in the trial-heat polls and had raised almost no money. Upon entering the race, he stood much taller in the news than he stood in the polls.[8] By the end of the invisible primary, he was high enough in the polls to get the coverage expected of a frontrunner. But he was lifted to that height by an unprecedented amount of free media."
"The Democratic race in 2015 received less than half the coverage of the Republican race. Bernie Sanders’ campaign was largely ignored in the early months but, as it began to get coverage, it was overwhelmingly positive in tone."
"The Shorenstein Center study is based on an analysis of thousands of news statements by CBS, Fox, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. The study’s data were provided by Media Tenor, a firm that specializes in the content analysis of news coverage."
https://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016...
Of course, you provide 0 "documentation" for any of your own claims and are just dismissing whatever I said as "made up".
> As he continued beating everyone by crazy numbers, the media appropriately noticed and reported on it, and he became the center of attention as is actually appropriate
Completely false. You provide 0 evidence whatsoever. I gave you a study conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School that shows the exact opposite.
The media gave Trump disproportionate airtime at the start of the primary when he was polling far behind other republican candidates.
the media did not give Trump free air time as a nobody, fringe candidate. Especially left leaning media. Trump ran for president many times before and he was always treated as the joke he is. What changed in 2016 was he had HRC to run against as well as a potent backlash in conservative politics that was brewing after the Obama presidency.
> "The report shows that during the year 2015, major news outlets covered Donald Trump in a way that was unusual given his low initial polling numbers—a high volume of media coverage preceded Trump’s rise in the polls."
your statement is: "The media (left especially) proceeded to talk about Trump 24/7". The above report does not break down anything about "left leaning media" vs. centrist media vs. FOX news. I'm a consumer of left leaning media. In that world, Trump was a total nobody until he began winning.
> Of course, you provide 0 "documentation" for any of your own claims and are just dismissing whatever I said as "made up".
the burden of proof is on you to show "left leaning media" reporting on Trump "24/7" *before* his polling dominance and electoral wins occurred.
> The above report does not break down anything about "left leaning media" vs. centrist media vs. FOX news
It literally does. Read the study...
"When critics have accused journalists of fueling the Trump bandwagon, members of the media have offered two denials. One is that they were in watchdog mode, that Trump’s coverage was largely negative, that the “bad news” outpaced the “good news.” The second rebuttal is that the media’s role in Trump’s ascent was the work of the cable networks—that cable was “all Trump, all the time” whereas the traditional press held back."
"Neither of these claims is supported by the evidence. Figure 2 shows the news balance in Trump’s coverage during the invisible primary. As can be seen, Trump’s coverage was favorable in all of the news outlets we studied. There were differences from one outlet to the next but the range was relatively small, from a low of 63 percent positive or neutral in The New York Times to a high of 74 percent positive or neutral in USA Today. Across all the outlets, Trump’s coverage was roughly two-to-one favorable."
"By our estimate, Trump’s coverage in the eight news outlets in our study was worth roughly $55 million. Trump reaped $16 million in ad-equivalent space in The New York Times alone, which was more than he spent on actual ad buys in all media during all of 2015. In our eight outlets, the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s coverage was more than one-and-a-half times the ad-equivalent value of Bush, Rubio, and Cruz’s coverage, more than twice that of Carson’s, and more than three times that of Kasich’s. Moreover, our analysis greatly underestimates the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s exposure in that it’s based on only eight media outlets, whereas the whole of the media world was highlighting his candidacy. Senator Cruz might well be correct in claiming that Trump’s media coverage was worth the equivalent of $2 billion in ad buys."
They only included positive/neutral coverage when analyzing ad-equivalent purchases.
Trump ran for president many times before. Why didn't "the media" create his candidacy all those other times? It's because there were many factors working in favor for him this time, that both matched the message he was giving, as well as that he had himself honed his message with the help of foreign agents like Paul Manafort. Of course "the media" was essential to his win, as they would be to any candidate running at a national level, but they didn't just pick him out of thin air and decide to create a candidacy on a whim.
I'm not necessarily saying that they set out to help him win, but they sure did help him win.
NYT is "left" as far as an every day citizen is concerned; how left the NYT is I think is a non-sequitur. There's a pattern on the left of unclaiming anything anyone raises about "the left" that's negative. You unclaimed the NYT but I've also heard this done rhetorically with Antifa. People will say they don't exist because there's no one leading it or that "they're not left" in a no-true-Scotsman fashion. I don't think these are helpful or truthful positions to hold.
There are pretty thoughtful takes on what motivated Trump supporters. I'll leave a few for both of you.
- https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/08/06/what-motivates-... (During and post-presidency)
- https://electionsetc.com/2016/11/12/why-was-trump-elected/ (Election)
tldr: The areas Trump won in were rural areas, those were key to capturing the presidency in a tight race. I lived in one of these areas at the time; not a single Democrat showed up. There were no ads, there was nobody shaking hands, at that point I doubted people would even know what a Democrat or a left-leaning Libertarian were. QAnon and Neo-Nazis certainly did vote for him, but that doesn't make up the huge swing needed for him to win in a race as close as that one.
There's a rather easy fix for this: Send the fucking Democrats. Show up in the primaries in rural areas. Make policy and plans for improving rural areas. Speak directly to these people without telling them that you aim to take their jobs. Show them a trajectory to a better life and I'll bet they'll follow. People forget that many of these areas are historically Democrat or swing states.
The argument is if enough people suffer Sandy Hooks and get harassed by Alex Jones type sycophants, they lose trust in freedom of speech narrowly, democracy broadly, and become more inclined to support a change of pace.
We’re seeing rising support for authoritarianism in part because our system isn’t working for some people. I’m still unsure if the solution is less democracy (to temper swinging majoritarianism) or more, but that unsureness is sort of symptomatic of the argument around not being able to trust institutions. (There are also zero authoritarian regimes in history that tolerated broad freedom of speech.)
Free speech != allowing fraud in the legal system. (or any other consequence from speech).
So strictly speaking, yes, you are ALLOWED to say whatever you want, but be prepared for a lot of shit if you lie to people or are wrong. Or be prepared to go to jail if you incite violence or yell fire in a crowded space. (and btw, Alex Jones is bankrupt because of Sandy Hook, to the other posters above).
This free speech = speech without consequences is a silly lie invented by people who want to control speech.
The term "fake news" was originally used to refer to small advertisements that would get people to click on them by showing a text saying something like "The pope has been assassinated! Latest pictures!". Anyone who clicked on the small advertisement would be shown a big advertisement for porn or gambling or whatever; there was no serious attempt to make people believe that the pope had been assassinated. "Fake news" was a good description for that practice. But then journalists decided that "fake news" should be a pointless synonym for propaganda.
These are probably the same journalists who decided that a "hacker" is a criminal, a "troll" is someone who spreads propaganda or harrasses an individual, and a "selfy" is any photograph showing someone's face. (That last one didn't really catch on but for a while the BBC was repeatedly using the word "selfy" in that sense.)
> News reporting is integrally and inextricably laden with bias, motive, and perspective.
This is not the same as fake facts.
I looked at Russia.
They have different biases, motives, and perspectives than you do. They understand events through a different prism than you do.
Journalism isn't a hard science. All kinds of seemingly obvious stuff isn't actually obvious.
Go watch 12 Angry Men.
The issue seems the belief that attempting to run an objectively true and reasonably balanced news service is itself ideologically biased, in that it interferes with the desire to conduct ‘the politics of narrow interests’ - something that often requires one group to discount the interests of the others using dishonest speech.
Russia claims it targets only military buildings, fortifications and troops.
Ukraine counted that Russia attacked civilian objects 20 times more than military.
Is it just a different "perspective" to you? What kind of "prism" is that, can you describe?
Humans are not all scientists. Heck, even scientists who specialize in the hard sciences very often find a way to inject their biases, motives, and perspectives into their work.
Isn't there an editor?
That's easy to say. If all of your sources are poisoned with narratives and misrepresentation (in one way or another), you basically don't have any anchor to make proper judgment.
Fox is a single entity, and let's be fair in terms of conservative/Republican vs liberal/Democrat, the split between media outlets is like 80/20 in favor of the latter. So when people focus on Fox they're ignoring 80% of the lies and half-truths that are put out there. Because that's done by outlets like MSNBC and CNN and your local outlets.
The second issue is that, unlike many liberal outlets, Fox at least brings on actual liberals to push back or give differing opinions. On the other hand you have companies like the BBC who are literally banning opposing views on topics like the environment and coronavirus.
Anyone who trusts Big Tech, social media, or Late Night talk shows to give them factual information deserves to have their voting status revoked.
I'm joking, but I'm kinda not.
Right? That's the usual line.
Why does the Emperor brag about his birthday suit? To demonstrate and exercise power, to remind those who dare not say the truth why they won't call out his bare ass; and bait those who will into a conflict on his terms.
"Major democratic institutions have correctly identified fake news as a threat to their values and processes. However, the danger posed by these online falsehoods does not primarily lie in their power to convince readers of the veracity of their factually incorrect content. Rather, the primary danger fake news poses to democratic values and institutions lies in the corrosive effect it has on trust among citizens and thus on citizens’ trust in their democracy."
"online fake news threatens democratic values and processes by playing a crucial role in reducing the perceived legitimacy of democratic institutions. This decrease in perceived legitimacy is the outcome of the primary effect that fake news has on citizens: even if its content is not believed, fake news can be a major cause of a loss of citizens’ epistemic trust in each other’s political views and judgment. Such a loss of trust in each other is problematic for democratic institutions since these rely for their acceptance and functioning on citizens seeing them as morally justified. Critiques of fake news often focus on citizens’ loss of trust in their mainstream media. While this is indeed part of the problem, I will argue that the main threat of fake news pertains to the loss of epistemic trust citizens have in each other. Fake news is thus a moral problem insofar as we think of democracies as a morally special, or at least a particularly valuable, form of government. This paper is significant because unlike most discussions of fake news that assume that citizens are likely to accept these falsehoods as true it takes seriously the empirical studies that assert that most people do not believe the content of fake news and explains why we should nonetheless consider fake news a morally significant problem."
"Fake news" cannot be fixed until the funding model for news is fixed.
And this is why few people use them to change their minds and either serve to reinforce what they believe or reinforce their belief to not believe their conclusions.
Everyone knows "fake news" means fake political news. An imitation of a format we all recognize.
Pretending you cant tell the difference is "fake commenting". You are pretending to discuss coherence and truth and objectivity. But really you dont care. You aren't defending fake news on the merits. You are saying, "there isn't any such thing as news, so how can this other stuff be fake." Its crap and not a real comment. It isn't even an original thought.
Some ugly people are described as beautiful by some other people. Does that mean beauty doesn't exist?
Yes some news is like gossip, why does that matter?
"“Fake news” has become a term that is used to denote very different things: it is employed to discredit political opponents or the respectability of particular news outlets, and it is used colloquially to simply refer to untruths in any given context. However, the phenomenon that public institutions like the European Commission and the British Parliament are concerned about most plausibly entails at least three features:
1. Fake news contains false information.
2. Fake news is created with deceptive intent.
3. Fake news is presented as resembling traditional news items (even though it is not produced in accordance with editorial standards)."
and they list three examples of 'fake news' which are stories that are demonstrably false and created intentionally with the sole purpose to mislead.
To get rid of a democracy, you habe to kill the truth first.
Timothy Snyder
Today is not that day.
Do you think it might be useful to post one of these threads a month later with the intent being for people to engage in a meta analysis of the discussion here, the intent of the delay being to establish a state of "cooler heads"? Something like forced/intentional mindfulness/abstraction?
This is not the first time that "fake news" has been brought up here. And yet, every time, the same voices can be counted on to make the exact same points despite all evidence saying they are wrong.
There are topics that probably should just be not allowed on HN due to how they bring down the overall level of discourse. But you know that would be the bogeyman of mean ol censorship. But you know, the comment threshold, flagging, shadow-banning, etc are somehow not. If you're going to moderate, moderate.
> And yet, every time, the same voices can be counted on to make the exact same points despite all evidence saying they are wrong.
Indeed, and many of them are surprisingly silly considering the intelligence on this site. Certain topics can throw very powerful minds into disarray and delusion, and this phenomenon plausibly can cause great harm, why not study it!!?? Do we really care about the wellbeing of humanity, or are we just here to concern troll?
> There are topics that probably should just be not allowed on HN due to how they bring down the overall level of discourse. But you know that would be the bogeyman of mean ol censorship. But you know, the comment threshold, flagging, shadow-banning, etc are somehow not. If you're going to moderate, moderate.
Alternatively, this community (and its leadership) could be a little daring and see if it can walk its impressive talk.
From prior conversations I'm pretty confident leadership "wouldn't be interested" in this sort of thing, but it would be fun to see a grassroots effort at it, and even more fun if it got shut down for "reasons".
I've always liked Slashdot's attempt at moderation. Moderators chosen at random with a limited set of options/votes to give to posts.
There's very little you can do to game that system.
It's a bizarre phenomenon eh?
Have you experimented with psychedelics at all? To me, there's no better vantage point on the theatrical production we're all unwittingly involved in than that. Scaling it up into something particularly useful seems like it might be a bit problematic though.