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I'm saying that "don't trust the media" is a good statement in general. Because the media is institutionally incapable of effecting change and also institutionally incapable of providing the kind of comprehensive and effective worldview they would like to sell you. Don't put your faith in the press and don't respond to attacks on the press by supporting them as an institution. Not least because, assuming you're on the left, they will never reciprocate the favour. That is another thing they are institutionally incapable of doing. The only people who benefit from the media in their current position are the people who run them and the people who they favour. So, in the US, that would be the lovely democrats and the republicans. In the UK it's the right to the far right. And both of these are institutional problems with the press as a concept. It's not something you can fix. You can at best hamstring them but you can't use their power to better ends, any more than you can free market your way out of the accumulatory problems of capitalism, for example. It's intrinsic to the form. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Dec 23, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2018 19:10
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Silver2195 posted:I don't see much of an alternative to a professional informer class, though. Most people don't have the time, expertise, or even inclination do find out what's going on in the world for themselves. Obviously newspapers get things wrong all the time, but the informal grapevine seen, e.g., on Twitter gets things wrong a lot more often. Me too. It is upon the professional informer class to do this in a reliable and professional fashion. We have to live with people who are too stupid, lazy or busy to think beyond their own tribe. It should be the mission of the free press to surprise these people. With facts.
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Dec 24, 2018 01:11
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tbh i think it's uselessly paranoid to assume that media people are usually lying they're people trying to do a job, mostly they're fairly honest. slanted, obviously, but there's no reason to believe that your average guardian hack is actively fabricating stuff watching the watchmen is obviously an Issue, but it's not that big a deal
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Dec 24, 2018 01:16
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OwlFancier posted:I'm saying that "don't trust the media" is a good statement in general. Because the media is institutionally incapable of effecting change and also institutionally incapable of providing the kind of comprehensive and effective worldview they would like to sell you. Don't put your faith in the press and don't respond to attacks on the press by supporting them as an institution. Not least because, assuming you're on the left, they will never reciprocate the favour. That is another thing they are institutionally incapable of doing. I have to disagree with your first statement. The media IS capable of effecting change or at least propagating the change. What we have learned though in our German scandal is that "the media" is comprised of exactly the same people as in any other company.
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Dec 24, 2018 01:24
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V. Illych L. posted:tbh i think it's uselessly paranoid to assume that media people are usually lying I totally agree
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Dec 24, 2018 01:26
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And also I don't want to make this about Germany at all, but we are the most recent western democratic people who had the opportunity to enjoy listening to state run propaganda. This is why Germany has a state funded media, not run, state funded.
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Dec 24, 2018 01:42
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demonicon posted:I have to disagree with your first statement. The media IS capable of effecting change or at least propagating the change. I can't say I agree. Sure they might publish scandalous things but they can't agitate for meaningful, beneficial change in society. Because as you say, they're just companies. They can advocate for the policies that their wealthy owners like, or that their government sponsors like, but they cannot advocate for anything else any more than Wal-Mart would advocate for a better society rather than more money for them and gently caress you. A press cannot be state funded and not state run, because there is always the threat that they will have their funding revoked if they aren't publishing things that the state will tolerate. demonicon posted:Me too. It is upon the professional informer class to do this in a reliable and professional fashion. And this also supposes that there is money and readership to be gained from "surprising" people with facts. If tribalism is inherent then why would there be? The press instead, I think, serves overwhelmingly to define those tribes rather than break them. Because that's how you get a secure revenue/readership. You publish on a consistent theme and people buy your paper because they already like your theme. Do you know many people who buy different papers to be surprised? I don't. But almost everyone I know picks their journalistic outlet based on their existing preferences. Which is exactly the opposite. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Dec 24, 2018 |
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Dec 24, 2018 05:04
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Why should everything have to agitate for beneficial (as defined by you), meaningful change? Why is an informed citizenry not itself a worthy goal?
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Dec 24, 2018 05:11
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awesmoe posted:Why should everything have to agitate for beneficial (as defined by you), meaningful change? Why is an informed citizenry not itself a worthy goal? Because there's no such thing as just "informed" people. There is not just a pile of information in the world and the more of it you stuff into people's heads the better. Or if there is that then you accomplish that at a university, not with a paper. A paper or news outlet is invariably about putting specific information into people's heads in order to present the vision of the world which aligns with the editor/owner's preferences. Which is what I was getting at with the initial criticism of the entire structure of the press as an institution. And what I'm pointing out above with the idea that this is how you build a reader base. This is part of the entire concept of a "reader base" which is that you have people you can rely on to repeatedly come to your outlet for information because you provide information that they like. So if you dislike the tribal nature of the world and politics then it is very strange to think the press is a good thing and that it does not massively contribute to that. And if you don't dislike the tribal nature of the world but still recognize that there are a lot of problems stemming from the specific tribal views which predominate, you still should have beef with the press because it is institutitionally incapable of expanding what views it promotes further than it already has. You already have the full spectrum of views which can be promoted by presses owned by private enterprises or government bodies. I do not think, on the whole, that it is doing the world much good as we see climatological collapse approaching with speed, forever wars being prosecuted by powerful western nations, and disgusting levels of wealth inequality leading to far right radicalization across the globe. All of which is propped up by a media cohort telling us how reasonable it all is. Even if you want to write them off as just the "bad press" or whatever, which I don't think you can given what a large proportion of the press it is. You have to acknowledge that the press does not, as a whole, or even the bits of it you like, provide an effective opposition to the damage that it does. And that promoting faith in the idea of the press is going to be very difficult to do while saying "oh but not that bit of course they're bad" Again and critically, you can't just increase someone's information level and that makes them better people like it's some kind of video game. All information leads people towards positions, and all press outlets come with a position that they would like you to agree with and which in so doing, would make you a consistent consumer of their output. Its extremely strange to look at the media as not being vehicles for encouraging tribalism in the world. There is no neutral "informing" people. Demonicon correctly identified this earlier in the thread when they pointed out that you can't remove bias from reporting. But further than that there is no news outlet that wants to remove bias from reporting, they all want to carve out their niche and get a reliable reader base out of it. And to suggest that this will lead to neutrally more informed people presupposes that there is a desire for this, that humans are aloof and unaffected by what they know, rather than people who are changed by the information they receive and will seek out more information to confirm their own biases. I didn't really address the first part of what you said but I would suggest that unless a: you like the world exactly as it is or b: you personally get money from the press in some way. You probably should also not like the press because they are, institutionally, hostile to your politics and interests. Now one of those might be true for you, but I think that's also an important criticism in the event that they aren't. I think we all live in countries which are strongly defined by the various media outlets and thus information we are exposed to, so if you are unhappy with the way your country or the way the world is, you should be pointing your finger at your national or the international media. Because they have a lot to do with it. And the kind of press you are exposed to and which defines your country is massively defined by your idea of press freedom. So if there is something wrong, in your estimation, with the result. There is perhaps, something wrong with that idea too. So coming from the UK obviously I have an intense dislike for privately owned media and also state owned media because both are extremely bad in the UK and it's for systemic reasons. Oh and to briefly address this: V. Illych L. posted:tbh i think it's uselessly paranoid to assume that media people are usually lying While I do of course think people lie a lot in the press I also am not making it a point of this argument because it's difficult to prove. I am limiting the argument to specifically the idea that the media presents selective truth rather than actual fabrications because that's probably a stronger argument. I am prepared to be very charitable and assume the press is generally truthful for the purposes of this argument. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Dec 24, 2018 |
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Dec 24, 2018 05:15
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I've been hovering over this thread since it was created. Back in undergrad, media studies was my jam; the subject of study that I actually liked, as opposed to the other stuff I braced through to get an "employable" degree. (Joke's on that; the job market in my country is nonexistent anyway.) That said, even though it interests me immensely, I almost feel as if there's not much unique to say about it. I've been through various positions on the subject, from once being a paranoid believer in applying Chomsky's propaganda model to literally everything as if it was some magical formula which would reveal all secrets, to eventually understanding the flaws in that system and trying to take a more holistic approach to mass media study, to now I don't know what the heck everything's a giant mess. Any attempted take I could offer would just be a massive summary of the history of mass media from start to never-finish, which Helsing has already done for us anyway. (Splendid OP, by the by!) There is something I can kind of latch onto, though... OwlFancier posted:So if you dislike the tribal nature of the world and politics then it is very strange to think the press is a good thing and that it does not massively contribute to that. And if you don't dislike the tribal nature of the world but still recognize that there are a lot of problems stemming from the specific tribal views which predominate, you still should have beef with the press because it is institutitionally incapable of expanding what views it promotes further than it already has. You already have the full spectrum of views which can be promoted by presses owned by private enterprises or government bodies. I do not think, on the whole, that it is doing the world much good as we see climatological collapse approaching with speed, forever wars being prosecuted by powerful western nations, and disgusting levels of wealth inequality leading to far right radicalization across the globe. All of which is propped up by a media cohort telling us how reasonable it all is. This is something that's been bothering me a lot lately. Not just at a practical level, but also a more theoretical one too. For the longest time, I always hated advertising, seeing it as the dominating and corrupting influence that seeks to do us harm. Part of the reason why I latched on to Chomsky and Herman so religiously was because they were the first to really illustrate to me how advertising (and other factors) have a means to systematically influence other content and information. ... but there was another compounding factor in that logic, and one I didn't have entire control over at the time: it was the basis of my education. My undergrad was specifically about mass media, which meant things that were not mass-media were things not meant to be in the purview of my guided study. This meant there was an arbitrary line drawn in the sand around the invention of radio as a proverbial year-zero, and that made advertising seem like the original sin in this newfound creation myth. ... but for a while, I didn't really know what came before that point. I knew that the school systems in most countries were still embryonic at the time, which meant that national literacy rates were still low compared to modern standards, and what percentages existed were usually concentrated to those that had the resources for it. That was the excuse "mass"-media studies gave for not turning too much attention to this primeval time, as literary media like newspapers would've still been a niche product targeted only at the bourgeois and what little middle class was nascent. While the reasonings for it may have been logical, that doesn't make it any less of an excuse; so I've been trying to do what I can to patch up my knowledge about this era of media history. It's slow going, and I'm by no means done with it, but even what little I've discovered thus far makes me feel uneasy for some reason. So it turns out "The Marketplace of Ideas" is not simply a empty slogan used by monopolistic media conglomerates today to gloss over their own anti-competitive practices; rather it is, or was, a thing that once existed in history. It's gone now, but something like it was once there. However, we tend to apply a misnomer to it after the fact. When we hear the phrase "marketplace of ideas", we tend to carry the phrase to its logical conclusion before anything actually happens. What we actually mean by this more modern sense of the term is "the market forces of ideas" -- a process whereby ideas battle it out in some debate-like venue, and eventually the best ideas become dominant and the worse ones die out, as if it was some almost-scientific bloodsport. But... this is not quite right to the original term, because it is insufficiently a marketplace; a store or collection stores that people go to look at or purchase an array of products that they previously decided they want. The "Marketplace" of Ideas was just that; a place (metaphorical or not) where people went to buy media that already supported and agreed with the preconceptions that they already had. And by all accounts I've read thus far, the marketplace of ideas was not a very nice place. Even the most happenstance description of it would be "viciously partisan" with some newspapers being aligned to political factions. (Which, in itself, seems like the only logical result such a system can produce.) It was, after all, within this crucible that the American conception of "freedom of speech" ('speech' being the oral form by which political actors used to sustain their ideas) and "freedom of the press" ('press' being the machine which mass-printed those speeches) were first invented; the political parties who ran the early government needed to give at least themselves the appropriate room for their own physical movement. However, this is also the same system which also gave the Americans their civil war, which, uh, doesn't really imply that the marketplace of ideas is really a stabilizing force. Long story short, mass media advertising is the beast which slew the marketplace of ideas, one carnivorous predator to another. What advertising changed was the underlying economics which allowed media to operate. Before that, the primary financiers of any publication were its readers, but money from advertisers turned out to be much more lucrative. This had other effects too; because there were fewer overall advertisers than there were regular readers, the number of different publications began to shrink from "a whole lot" to "much less", and eventually advertisers had enough clout to begin collapsing the newspapers of different political factions into single papers. And from this we have the invention of "objective truth" -- because advertisers wanted mass markets, and thus wanted conditions where they could sell the same products to different tribes and factions of the population, without being forced to take sides in their conflicts. Before this, where was no singular truth, and newspaper editors would've balked at the suggestion. There were multiple truths for multiple peoples, so you sold one to one and another to another. Maybe you even believed one of them for yourself. That is simply how the game was played. People weren't going to pay for poo poo they didn't want to hear. But now because of the Internet, advertising is falling apart. It can no longer act as the arbiter of "objective truth" anymore, which is sad because objective truth can be practically useful. Yes, I am all too aware of how it is constrictive and only allows for what Chomsky labelled as "the range of acceptable debate", which can be all the more problematic when something comes along where it is eventually revealed that the correct position to have was one that was kept systematically out of broadcast. (See literally anytime the neoconservatives start beating the drum for another invented war.) However, there are still practical uses to objective truth; it lends itself pretty well to scientific progress and is quite the help in maintaining a united polity. My fear is that we might be regressing back into the old tribal models of mediated division, but it won't quite be the same. We still have the taste of the united, objective truths in our mouths, and replacing it with ideological correctness is going to leave a whole lot of people restless and wanting. We all want, and demand, the press be this reliable and ethical institution. It's not capable, and likely never was, yet for whatever reason we still demand it anyway. Possibly because to accept otherwise is to realize some unseemly realities that many people are not quite willing to accept, that "the media" is not a place of peace and shared values as the liberal project of enlightenment values might have wished it to be and that semi-nonpolitical forces like advertising might have temporarily made the likeness of... but instead some sort of hellish war field with no hope of respite. There are a lot of people, regardless of their own partisan leanings, that are just not ready for that.
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Dec 25, 2018 23:05
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This guy is a joke and TYT is a joke for associating themselves with him.
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Dec 26, 2018 20:43
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A debate was brought up in US NEWS we had one time in the thunderdome, about the way RT etc. is perceived as inherently illegitimate propaganda versus the way people will grant the assumption of good faith or at least benefit of the doubt to an outlet like Bloomberg, and I think it’s a discussion worth having here.
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Jan 3, 2019 15:29
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Lightning Knight posted:A debate was brought up in US NEWS we had one time in the thunderdome, about the way RT etc. is perceived as inherently illegitimate propaganda versus the way people will grant the assumption of good faith or at least benefit of the doubt to an outlet like Bloomberg, and I think it’s a discussion worth having here. I wasn't bringing it up in the sense of it being something that there should be a discussion about, I think it's pretty straightforward that letting people post propaganda in the news thread is a bad idea on a whole bunch of levels and I'm confused and concerned how you can equate that with actual media sources that do meaningfully give a poo poo about journalistic standards (even if only because they want to win pulitzers). No one is claiming that the New Yorker, Reuters, AP, NYT, WaPo, Atlantic etc. are without any bias, but they are fundamentally different on almost every significant level from the foreign equivalents of Voice of America. Like this isn't some vaccuum where all 'journalists' are equal. There are a ton of journalism departments in the country that give out prestigious awards for exceptional reporting and you can look at who is winning awards and for what and get a very real feel for whether or not a publication is doing actual investigative reporting. It seems like you think anything related to a corporation is inherently evil, but a ton of vitally important, extremely hard hitting reporting goes on with the full backing and investment and encouragement of corporations. If you think that all jouranlism is intrinsically corrupted by the mere association with anyone who isn't perfectly objective, go look up what journalism is getting awards and read the pieces that are getting recognized.
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Jan 3, 2019 16:39
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Herstory Begins Now posted:If you think that all jouranlism is intrinsically corrupted by the mere association with anyone who isn't perfectly objective, go look up what journalism is getting awards and read the pieces that are getting recognized. Industry back-patting parties are not a good judge of anything.
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Jan 3, 2019 16:47
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Herstory Begins Now posted:I wasn't bringing it up in the sense of it being something that there should be a discussion about, I think it's pretty straightforward that letting people post propaganda in the news thread is a bad idea on a whole bunch of levels and I'm confused and concerned how you can equate that with actual media sources that do meaningfully give a poo poo about journalistic standards (even if only because they want to win pulitzers). No one is claiming that the New Yorker, Reuters, AP, NYT, WaPo, Atlantic etc. are without any bias, but they are fundamentally different on almost every significant level from the foreign equivalents of Voice of America. The point is that the "fundamental difference" between these outlets that you perceive doesn't actually exist. US media also participates in propaganda (to the same - or realistically significantly greater - harmful results) and ignores or downplays inconvenient things, which is something an organization like, say, RT also does. Some of those things it downplays are given a platform by RT, even if the motives are cynical. Ultimately, if a particular piece of journalism is false (or unsupported), it should be possible to directly show or explain why that's the case. That standard should be applied to both US media and media like RT, and there is certainly no lack of terrible media coming out of mainstream US sources like the ones you mentioned. The point isn't that US media should be universally disregarded; it's that other propaganda media shouldn't, because sometimes the cynical interests of other countries involve revealing things that the cynical interests of US media aren't interested in revealing. There is also no conflict between an organization winning awards for good reporting that doesn't threaten the interests of its stakeholders and that same organization acting as propaganda for issues that do.
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Jan 3, 2019 18:14
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If you want a good example of that you can try the BBC 
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Jan 3, 2019 19:54
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This trend of "story-ing" articles is really starting to annoy me. I usually skip the first paragraph of most long form pieces because it has become as cliche as "It was a dark and stormy night," even down to the banal descriptions of the weather e.g.: "It was a [temperature description] day in [month] when [article subject] took me out to see the [noun] in a [adjective] [location] just outside of [major city]."
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Jan 3, 2019 23:44
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This "national security" reporter William Arkin resigned from MSNBC/NBC due to the network - and much of the media in general - ostensibly being propaganda for the CIA/NSA/FBI/MIC etc. He even went on to say the culture at these media companies has become so fully ingrained with "National Security State" ideology he termed them state media. Criticism of the "National Security State" has become ruthlessly prohibited: https://twitter.com/theintercept/status/1080853750280056832 The article is Greenwald's take on it, which is pretty good, but just read William Arkin's resignation letter. It's loving unnerving with how accurate it is: quote:My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus. … Full letter: https://medium.com/@ggreenwald/full-email-from-william-arkin-leaving-nbc-and-msnbc-1fb0d1dc692b He's right how so many supposed liberals and leftists like documented criminals and proven frauds like John Brennan and Bill Kristol now. It's disturbing.
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Jan 4, 2019 05:36
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Slutitution posted:This "national security" reporter William Arkin resigned from MSNBC/NBC due to the network - and much of the media in general - ostensibly being propaganda for the CIA/NSA/FBI/MIC etc. He even went on to say the culture at these media companies has become so fully ingrained with "National Security State" ideology he termed them state media. Criticism of the "National Security State" has become ruthlessly prohibited: Yeah this is pretty good
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Jan 4, 2019 07:05
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Ytlaya posted:The point is that the "fundamental difference" between these outlets that you perceive doesn't actually exist. US media also participates in propaganda (to the same - or realistically significantly greater - harmful results) and ignores or downplays inconvenient things, which is something an organization like, say, RT also does. Some of those things it downplays are given a platform by RT, even if the motives are cynical. Russia has elections too, just like the US. Makes ya think. Lets be honest, this has nothing to do with journalistic quality and integrity. Russian press releases are just a key purveyor of anti-American thought and you don't want to lose the ally. There are actually two key differences you're doing a lot of work ignoring. The first is that when it comes to an instance like the Kunduz bombing, even FOX didn't try to absolve the US of blame, and they quoted MSF, the UN, and doctors at the scene, giving a full picture of what had happened. Contrast that with Sputnik and RT when it came to the assault of a UN convoy in Syria. Sputnik implied the attack was committed by a US predator drone, and RT cited anyone who had something to say that seeded doubt or absolved the Russian and Syrian government of any responsibility. In the end, the UN determined that the convoy had been deliberately targeted by the Syrian Air Force. Russian media given its ties to the Russian state, would have been fully aware of that fact, but it flat out lied instead of acknowledging that. But this isn't the only, or even the most egregious example. That would have to go to the coverage of MH17, where a loving mack truck full of evidence, including a social media post from the head of the Russian backed militias in Ukraine taking responsibility for shooting down a Ukrainian military transport that was swiftly deleted, and video evidence of the first rebels on the scene excitedly rushing to the crash site to see the wreckage of said Ukrainian military transport, only to realize what they had done. Despite this, RT even now, all these years later, refuses to acknowledge Russian culpability. That's a pretty big loving difference. The second is that the media environments in the two countries are completely different. Whether it be Grayzone or any number of ~alternative media~ sources that make their living pandering to an audience desperate for any source of anti-American sentiment, many of them are based in the US. You can find American media that will give you what you want. That's allowed. In Russia however, what happens to journalists who challenge the Russian narrative with facts and objective realities? Why don't you try asking Anna Politkovskaya? This environment completely devoid of any journalistic freedom results in Russian journalism almost entirely being little more than outlets for state press releases. It's like comparing Trump tweets to NBC when it comes to their journalistic use. I would also point out that when it comes to these instances like the ones I mentioned before, like MH17, the UN convoy bombing, the chemical weapons attacks in Syria, and on and on, most lefties who espouse viewpoints similar to yours erred on the side of the Russian press releases, despite the clear conflicts of interests in Russian reporting on those subjects, so the idea that you are all so smart that you can sort through Russian lies and pick out the truth, is as stupid as it is arrogant. The fact is that you just want to be able to look into a bucket of lies and pick out the ones that support your ideological position, and reserve the right to hold those ones up as truth. I'm sorry, but there's no defending that on its face, especially given how blatantly hypocritical it is, because I've never seen any of you arguing that it's a good idea to go sorting through articles in the Jerusalem Post for little nuggets of truth about the Palestinians, or through al-Arabiya for what the Saudi's have uncovered about the Khashoggi murder or its political prisoners, because those don't benefit your cause, and it's transparently stupid to do so when it comes to those situations. You argue that believing state press releases about Syria from one of the primary aggressors in Syria, over a war in which more people will be killed, or already have been killed, than in Iraq, and that has been at the center of creating the worst refugee crisis in the world since WW2, is a victimless crime. Fair enough. But I will say it's sad that the vanguard of the ideals of free healthcare, free college education, and equality irrespective of race or ethnicity, feel an obligation to prove themselves as such mouthbreathing loving idiots on a daily basis, reducing themselves to political children on the fringe. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Jan 4, 2019 |
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Jan 4, 2019 19:04
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Proud "Anti-American leftist' here.
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Jan 4, 2019 19:56
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 I know the RT News expanded universe has decided that 'not a real journalist' is a good attack line (see also their hit pieces on Brown Moses) but it's still funny to see it coming from a guy whose sole journalistic credential is being the disappointing son of a Clintonworld apparatchik.
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Jan 4, 2019 22:23
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It's not even accurate https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/1081260685626085376
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Jan 4, 2019 22:31
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i'm not going to make a huge post about all of the details, but western sources make up things wholesale just like russian media does. here is one example, the case of a north korean general who was executed for graft in feb. 2016. the telegraph even reported that he was burnt to death by flamethrower! there is just the minor problem that he is still alive, and has received promotions since his alleged execution. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/world/asia/north-korea-ri-yong-gil-reportedly-executed.html there was another even more widely circulated story about another general who was reportedly executed by an anti-aircraft gun. he may still be alive (but demoted) http://www.newser.com/story/206826/2-things-give-pause-about-the-north-korea-execution.html
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Jan 5, 2019 00:25
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The Mail Online is particularly bad for making up stories on paper thin sourcing. For example, the story Harrowing footage released by Yazidi group shows terrified families scream as ISIS gunmen surround them and drag away their wives and daughters to become sex slaves is based on one source, a video uploaded to Facebook by Yazidi activists. Problem is, the video isn't from a Yazidi sex slave market, but was a recreation filmed during the production of a documentary about ISIS. In fact, if you listen carefully you can even hear "action" shouted just before everyone starts moving. Of course, it's not like ISIS is going to sue the Mail Online, and they got 13k shares and some nice ad revenue for their fake story.
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Jan 5, 2019 00:33
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GoluboiOgon posted:i'm not going to make a huge post about all of the details, but western sources make up things wholesale just like russian media does. Your link posted:A top general in North Korea was executed this month on corruption charges, around the time the nation’s leader, Kim Jong-un, warned the party and military elites against abuse of power and other misdeeds, a South Korean official said Wednesday. Also from the New York Times a couple of months later, North Korean General, Thought to Be Executed, Resurfaces. quote:there was another even more widely circulated story about another general who was reportedly executed by an anti-aircraft gun. he may still be alive (but demoted) Your link posted:Public execution by anti-aircraft gun was the price of perceived disloyalty for North Korea's defense chief—or was it? The report of Hyon Yong Chol's alleged April 30 execution in front of hundreds came from the mouth of South Korea's National Intelligence Service. Today, the New York Times and Yonhap highlight two things giving some pause about that report. the gently caress Volkerball fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jan 5, 2019 |
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Jan 5, 2019 00:43
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GoluboiOgon posted:i'm not going to make a huge post about all of the details, but western sources make up things wholesale just like russian media does. I don't think anyone denies that tabloids (of which The Telegraph is one) make things up wholesale. The New York Times article doesn't state as fact the general's execution (it only cites an anonymous "South Korean official" as claiming that it happened, while noting that "South Korea’s National Intelligence Service did not confirm it"), although the manner of reporting the story can certainly be faulted for giving it more credence than it deserves.
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Jan 5, 2019 00:47
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I think that if your defense of RT is "well, it's comparable to the The Daily Mail!", then you've already conceded the argument. 
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Jan 5, 2019 01:09
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I again suggest that the BBC is also an apt comparison such as the time they recently hired an actor and internet crystal healer to pretend to be a C of E cleric and advocate for leaving the EU, then clarified that while she is an actor, was paid, and is an internet crystal healer, none of these things are related and she was in fact a legitimate representative of the opinion of a significant portion of the population. Or that time when it turned out the question time audience caster was recruiting from literal fascist organizations in the UK. I'm sure they do functional reporting about things but they're absolutely a propaganda mill for the british government and so you can't trust them, what you can, at best do is use their work if it suits your end. But you can not simply trust that what they publish will be good because they published it. And this is true of all media. A press is a tool for disseminating the information desired by its owners. Occasionally their interests and yours will align. Nothing more and nothing less. The primary difference I would suggest is that RT is an asset directed outwards while the BBC is one directed inwards. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jan 5, 2019 |
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Jan 5, 2019 01:54
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Silver2195 posted:I don't think anyone denies that tabloids (of which The Telegraph is one) make things up wholesale. The New York Times article doesn't state as fact the general's execution (it only cites an anonymous "South Korean official" as claiming that it happened, while noting that "South Korea’s National Intelligence Service did not confirm it"), although the manner of reporting the story can certainly be faulted for giving it more credence than it deserves.
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Jan 5, 2019 03:23
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twodot posted:Do you see light between "faulted for lying professionally" and "faulted for being unreasonably credulous professionally"? I definitely consider it an important difference, especially given the wording of the accusation ("make up things wholesale just like russian media does").
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Jan 5, 2019 03:35
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Totalizing cynicism about all sources of information is one of the desired endstates that the Russian foreign-facing propaganda program specifically attempts to encourage. It makes the message viewer easier to manipulate, rather than less, because they begin selecting passively and ideologically.
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Jan 5, 2019 03:44
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Silver2195 posted:I definitely consider it an important difference, especially given the wording of the accusation ("make up things wholesale just like russian media does").
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Jan 5, 2019 03:45
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twodot posted:For what reason? Is there a difference in outcome between a professional lie teller, and a professional I-can't-bothered-to-figure-out-if-I'm-spreading-lies teller? The latter might actually improve, and if they retract when they find or are confronted with countervailing evidence, can be trusted in the long run. The former never retract anything bad and double down when confronted, so lending them any credibility means you're progressively more and more misinformed.
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Jan 5, 2019 03:46
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twodot posted:For what reason? Is there a difference in outcome between a professional lie teller, and a professional I-can't-bothered-to-figure-out-if-I'm-spreading-lies teller? Yyyyes? one of those issues corrections and can be responsive to criticism, while the other reaches out to undermine, delegitimize and eliminate other sources of information.
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Jan 5, 2019 03:47
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Absurd Alhazred posted:The latter might actually improve, and if they retract when they find or are confronted with countervailing evidence, can be trusted in the long run. The former never retract anything bad and double down when confronted, so lending them any credibility means you're progressively more and more misinformed. Discendo Vox posted:Yyyyes? one of those issues corrections and can be responsive to criticism, while the other reaches out to undermine, delegitimize and eliminate other sources of information. edit: And don't say "Because your audience wants accuracy", that can't be the case based on your mission statement.
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Jan 5, 2019 03:51
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twodot posted:This seems totally made up. Why would you expect liars to never improve, and people who don't care if they are spreading lies to improve? Then you've presented your argument as a tautology, in part by shifting the scope of the latter group you identified.
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Jan 5, 2019 03:53
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twodot posted:This seems totally made up. Why would you expect liars to never improve, and people who don't care if they are spreading lies to improve? "If your straw man is so weak, how can he ever defeat me? Check and mate, lieberal!  "
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Jan 5, 2019 03:53
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Discendo Vox posted:Then you've presented your argument as a tautology, in part by shifting the scope of the latter group you identified. edit: Because my claim is a moral claim about how to do journalism, and not an actual reality claim about news businesses react to people calling them liars
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Jan 5, 2019 03:58
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twodot posted:I entered this conversation with "lying on purpose is basically identical to be willing to spread lies without investigation", if you want to make a statistical argument about how news that merely spreads lies do retractions more often than news that actively lies, I'll listen, but nakedly asserting that's the case is no real argument. Really, because you entered the conversation by responding to people talking about actual journalistic outlets, and began by comparing between twodot posted:"faulted for lying professionally" and "faulted for being unreasonably credulous professionally" Which doesn't seem to map to the frictionless, amoral void that you've just now indicated you're talking about. In reality, as in law, as in ethics, intent matters, in part because intent effects ongoing and responsive behavior. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Jan 5, 2019 |
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Jan 5, 2019 04:03
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