tl;dr of course they're lying, it's easier to make stuff up then investigate so why wouldn't a reporter always just lie?
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” — Michael Crichton
It's of course ok to bend facts when it's in the service of a fictional story, but Crichton too frequently was portrayed (often by himself) as a true subject matter expert.
1. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html
2. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/glo...
http://www.crichton-official.com/features-spoonbending.html
Really? A medical doctor that believes in spoon bending and fortune telling? Sigh... Of course Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in Fairies
The idea that the author of The Andromeda Strain could be taken in by spoon-bending was also more than a bit frightening.
One could argue that news must be devoid of any such slants, angles, or specific POVs but then we get caught in a debate about boring news that won't sell vs. sensationalized news that is meant solely to increase sales. Just like for programmers it is a constant balance between quality, deadlines, and cost, for journalists it is between truth, importance, and sales. '12 more people dead in blast in Tel Aviv' is truth and important but not sensational enough to sell. 'No-name D-list celeb gets caught speeding' is truth and sensational but not important.
In articles like this, they're trying to make it sound important and sensational while skirting around the limits of truth. In personal articles we've been involved in, they play the angles to show importance and make it sensational while not caring much about the factual accuracies.
I don't really like to write. I am only doing it because of a desire to express an idea or concept. Maybe journalism could improve with that spearhead.
No, in that case you have a single data point that doesn't prove a larger point.
Don't get me wrong, I have no data to prove either side's argument, but suggesting that almost every single article written is a lie seems like a high level of paranoia.
I don't think this is true "on any occasion"; that journalistic lying is news indicates that it rarely happens or rarely is caught.
I think it's possible to see this as an example of a problem with this individual journalist, or with the culture of journalism, without assuming "the journalist will turn out to be lying" in all circumstances.
The first is that few are in a position to prove journalistic lies.
The second is that journalists do not like pushing reporting on other journalists lying because they are outing people they know, and they may get the same treatment some day.
The third (and in some ways most important) is that since the rise of the "blogosphere" in recent years, facts have become much less important. (Why? Because if you report something wrong you get clicks, then you publish a retraction and get clicks, then you can do a puff piece about "how could this happen" and get more clicks. Bingo, you earned ad dollars 3x when fact checking would have earned you nothing. What incentive, then, is there to fact check?) Therefore there is an erosion of standards which means that we should expect lying to go up over time.
My sister was famous back in "the good old days" of the 80s, back when media actually cared about its reputation. Even then it was a good idea to assume journalists were lying slime. Today I firmly believe that it is much worse.
If you are a blogger and disagree, then tell me this. How much of a fact check did your last 5 stories get beyond, "Can I find someone else saying this?"
My last 5 blog posts (robotics on Hizook.com) were exceedingly fact checked. But then again, I'm a subject matter expert: I have a PhD in robotics. Terrance Tao... also exceedingly fact checked (Fields medal winner blogging about math). Richard Lipton... same (famous computer researcher blogs about P vs. NP).
I know that's not your point... but not all bloggers are equally sketch. Some of us know what we're talking about.
I also blog occasionally, and fact check my stuff. But if you're going to make money by the ad impression, you have a very specific set of incentives. Care and integrity are not high on the list.
But there are a ton of subject matter experts (like John Baez) out there blogging on objective stuff, and their average quality is often amazing.
Of all the times that I've been interviewed, I've been misquoted more often than not. Many others have noticed the same thing.
Scott Adams: "I've been interviewed several hundred times in my career. When I see my quotes taken out of context it is often horrifying. Your jaw would drop if you saw how often quotes are literally manufactured by writers to make a point. " http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/quote_approval/
Marco Arment: "I’ve learned the hard way, over and over again, that it’s most wise to talk to journalists the way you’d talk to the police: ideally, don’t. You have everything to lose and almost nothing to gain." http://www.marco.org/2012/09/19/quote-approval
Let the reporter do as he pleases, but inform him that you have a record of the interview too. That would keep them honest.
Woah woah here... I wasn't about to fully support the grandparent here, but I would hazzard a guess that more often than not, persons end up misquoted, out of context, or sentences are strung together "just so" to make you "think" in a certain manner, that may not be factual. It happens everywhere. My own anecdotal evidence: I was in boy scouts, we camped near a farm field, trampled rows of corn to make a boundary for a capture the flag game, got busted, and had to go back and pick up all the corn by hand and make amends with farmer. The newspaper wrote up a fantastic article about how local boy scouts helped the community by helping a farmer reap damaged crops. there were no lies or factual inaccuracies in the article, sans lies of omission. From this, and what others respond to you, I'd believe this happens more often that not. But certainly not at 100% either.
It sounds like you are basing a sweeping assertion on your personal experience. I certainly empathize, but you simply can't paint the entire profession with that brush Even with the "not universally" half-caveat, you are still implying journalists lie and fabricate more often than not.
It would be an extraordinary claim to suggest that's not the case. Journalists are basically people who would rather be writing fiction, but who haven't figured out a way to get paid for it.
It's a terrible-sounding generalization to make, but I will stand by it.
Have you met a journalist?
Yes, many times.
Where on earth do you get that generalization from?
See above.
Election reporting isn't comparable to the scenario in this story, because there are literally more reporters than there are subjects being reported upon. In my experience journalists play fast and loose with the facts when there is a low likelihood that someone will call them on it. That's why the previous NYT scandals have involved remote correspondents (Blair) and/or cases where the journalists are serving as lapdogs for powerful political interests (Miller).
If this NYT reporter indeed misrepresented the facts of his test drive, then he's just an idiot, plain and simple. He either knew or should have suspected that the car was logging his every move, and that an adverse review would be challenged strongly by the company.
So I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to respond. You can't make a broad statement like "Journalists are basically people who would rather be writing fiction" then immediately rebase to "the scenario in this story".
Actually, the extraordinary claim is yours, since it is an outlier.
> Journalists are basically people who would rather be writing fiction
Do you have any non-anecdotal evidence to support this claim?
1. Lawsuits 2. Loss of credibility 3. Often the truth is more interesting than fiction
2. Almost never happens
3. The truth is harder to write and the editor wants 700 words in the next hour.