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Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

It's not the data, it's the media narrative. No one cares if there are detailed breakouts of key economic indicators available somewhere obscure [1] if most people get their opinions from the media, and the media are in the propaganda and marketing business, not the truth-to-power business.

[1] Not media-quoted or foregrounded for the public.

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That's a goal-post shift. GP were complaining that accurate, fulsome statistics aren't there, when they are.

The media narrative is out of the control of the various statistics bodies, and it is up to the informed reader to seek out better sources if the article they are reading has scanty info. For the record though, FRED is frequently cited as a source in reputable mainstream media (I see it in the NYT all the time). Read The Economist some time, that's an international news source that will deeply report on these stats. Can't be helped if people prefer Fox or other garbage as their news diet.

You are complaining about media literacy and bad journalism, which is an entirely separate issue from the fact that the data both exists, and is extremely easy to access.

It feels like both things can be true at once: the raw data is often accessible and methodologically sound (shoutout to FRED, BEA, BLS, etc), and the interpretation or prioritization of metrics by politicians and media can completely skew public understanding.

The frustration isn’t about access it is about trust.

People want metrics that reflect lived reality and can’t be spun or redefined every election cycle.

Except that mainstream media do use FRED data ... so.

It is also possible to try to paint journalists as worst then they are ... that is good for actual quacks that to not like the good data.

I never said journalists don’t use FRED. The issue is which metrics get foregrounded and how they’re framed. The data’s out there, but the signal-to-noise ratio in most news cycles is terrible.

The irony is that is is a more fundamental problem that both of us are engaged in right now.

Why are we wasting our time having this discussion and not just debating the finer points of Wittgenstein?

Once basic needs are met humans mostly do things for fun and entertainment. Truth seeking is mostly an after the fact justification for what was fun and entertaining in the moment.

Sich meinen, einer regel zu folgen, ist nicht, einer regel folgen.

You are supposed to be an adult and ignore all that biased rhetoric.

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