Mad about the Media: The Media and Media Criticism Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Mad about the Media: The Media and Media Criticism Megathread

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Helsing posted:

Last time I heard anything about David Icke the general consensus was that he earnestly believes in lizard people and they're not any kind of code word for Jews. Did he reinvent himself as an alt-right grifter or is this just your usual routine?

You really need to ask yourself where you are when you're starting to defend anyone associating themselves with David "Lizard People" Icke. Don't cancel out the hard work you put into the OP of this thread by engaging in skirmishes like this.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2018 14:13

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:35

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

axeil posted:

Good thread idea. Due to Tucker Carlson's whole...being Tucker Carlson thing I ended up re-watching Jon Stewert's takedown of him on Crossfire from back in 2004.

The crazy thing is, Jon doesn't go far enough in his criticism. He's right that it's all theater and that it's killing America but he should've gone much further. Still, I remember at the time being amazed that he was the only one pointing out that the CNNs of the world had no clothes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

Sadly, it's probably the last time there was honest, legitimate criticism of the media that got through to people and wasn't intended as a trojan horse for something else.

edit: and it's appalling the lesson CNN learned from this was "give the Glenn Becks of the world a show because debate is pointless theater" instead of "honestly report on things and don't make bad faith arguments and encourage things like THE SPIN ZONE"

It's also still hilarious how angry Carlson gets that Stewert won't be his funny man. Begala at least seems to try and engage honestly-ish with Stewert's criticism (even though he doesn't really understand Stewert's point) while Carlson just acts and expects a comedian to be asking hard-hitting questions and follow-ups.

Speaking of Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald is really digging into his support of him, and dragging the Intercept with him:

https://twitter.com/nberlat/status/1075845025466966018

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 02:40

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

I cannot stress how loving stupid this angle is by someone supporting and defending BDS. It's intellectual malpractice to own the libs.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 03:12

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Solkanar512 posted:

It�s just too bad that Stewart couldn�t get Jim Cramer�s show cancelled as well.

CNBC doesn't even have the modicum of shame that CNN does.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 05:52

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

demonicon posted:

For the relotius story you can read the link from my post (page 3). It's quite an interesting albeit very long read.

Der Spiegel also tries to explain in the article why fact checking didn't always work because of the style relotius used in his writing. His style of reporting was that of a "grand story" where he would mix hard facts with personal observations and characterizations.

This lead to large parts of his texts being un checkable as he would make sure he was the only one who had met his (completely invented) characters.

A quote from the article:

This is a huge scandal in Germany, being used by right wing parties to discredit the main stream media further, but has also sparked some (I believe) healthy discussions whether the style of reporting itself is to blame for this.

As for the gynaecologists case I agree, this could have been checked. However, keep in mind that relotius was well aware of this and tried to get around that by various means. He would not release the actual names of his protagonists (claiming they wanted to stay anonymous) or ask for articles not to be released in English or even digitally. Even going so far as falsifying emails or creating fake Facebook profiles.

I'm glad German media is finally confronting some of the fundamental issues with New Journalism. I wonder whether the (former?) intense fact-checking regime in American magazines was a reaction to that.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2018 17:09

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

OwlFancier posted:

I would suggest that that lack of time, expertise, and inclination does not occur in a vacuum however. It is perhaps heavily encouraged by the presence of the press as a "viable" alternative.

Yes you can't just believe whatever you hear on twitter either, you can't just believe whatever you hear from anyone. But believing things because you like the person writing it is precisely the attitude that is encouraged by the press as an institution. They all trade on perceived credibility, and in so doing, encourage the notion of credibility as an intrinsic quality, rather than a thing informed by circumstance.

A paper does not tell you "trust us because material circumstances promote accuracy and honest from us in this instance" they just say "trust us because we're trustworthy" and this is expected to apply universally.

And if the end result of trashing the press is just that people don't trust generally that's still preferable to a situation where people trust whoever has the biggest budget or whoever aligns with their political views.

We know exactly what it looks like when people "don't trust generally": they end up joining anti-vaxxer websites and we get measles outbreaks in 2018. No thank you.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2018 18:35

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

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. :shrug:

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 01:09

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

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.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 03:46

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

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?

Same to you. If your mission statement is "sell clicks regardless of accuracy, but don't actively lie" why would you bother to respond to criticism unless it generated clicks?
edit:
And don't say "Because your audience wants accuracy", that can't be the case based on your mission statement.

"If your straw man is so weak, how can he ever defeat me? Check and mate, lieberal! :smaug:

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 03:53

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

OwlFancier posted:

I would disagree given that this presumes the existence of a non ideological view of the world as an alternative. And anyone who believes that is obviously already the world's biggest mark.

Ah, yes, the stable genius stalwart against propaganda that is the solipsist. :hmmyes:

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 04:19

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

OwlFancier posted:

Do point me to this presumed golden age of rational thought and objective truth that we are moving away from?

Your rejection of the very idea of "facts" makes you the best mark for disinformation campaigns. If there is no non-ideological truth, there is nothing to strive for, all that matters is whether the source appeals to you ideologically, and all it has to do is tell you what you want to hear.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 04:22

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

At some point you need to come to terms with the fact that some outlets give you negative information utility, as in you spend more time filtering their output for any type of facts than you do gaining anything out of them. Especially when they're explicit propaganda outlets, like RT. Al Jazeera English at least has interesting coverage as long as you don't expect to get anything good about Qatar or things that matter a lot to the Qatari regime, they had some interesting coverage of various Arab-Israeli conflicts that benefited from their unique ability to interview and/or use materials from all sides of the conflicts in ways that, say, an Israeli source wouldn't, but RT has only one purpose, and that is to make English speakers question reality and in the process not be able to be able to address Russian actions. They take up fringe actors from all sides of the English speaking spectrum for that purpose. They don't belong in the same paragraph as sources like the New York Times, where in most cases, if they are reporting a statement of fact, you can be reasonably sure that it's accurate, or that it will be retracted if it's not accurate, and which employs people who are actually looking for facts.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 05:13

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Has it occurred to you that maybe the experience of the particular last few decades in the former center of empire and current running self-important running joke for the world community Knifecrime Island might not be representative of the entire landscape of media in the entire world?

# ¿ Jan 6, 2019 01:43

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Now for something completely different, and worth keeping in mind as you're equivocating: turns out that in order to train censors, you have to teach them, at least, the history you're trying to suppress. From the Lying New York Times:

https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1081037556257443841

# ¿ Jan 6, 2019 01:57

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

I finally broke the 1000-page mark on The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, meaning I'm getting close to finishing it, and while there is a lot going on in that book, one aspect of it has to do with why a lot of the atrocities Robert Moses committed against the people of New York were unreported and/or misreported, and what happened to change his coverage from almost universally favorable (papers were often commissioning him to write articles about his efforts) to hostile, which I think might be relevant to this thread. I am going to need a break from that book after I'm done with it, but would there be an interest in a summary from a layman such as myself about what I got out of that book sometime in the future?

# ¿ Jan 6, 2019 23:14

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Discendo Vox posted:

Holy poo poo, yes please. I've got two volumes of the lyndon johnson bio sitting somewhere unread because I want to read it all at once. Also how thick is it, wikipedia says 1300 pages

It is two inches thick. Not for the faint of heart or weak of wrist.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2019 02:14

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Discendo Vox posted:

Some definitions say yes, but it gets hard to tell what counts as "state run" at times. Fox News feels like propaganda, but it's controlling Trump rather than vice versa. The thing about propaganda is it takes a lot of resources to sustain-a building full of trolls working shifts, etc. States are more likely to have the resources and the drive/goals that make propaganda seem worthwhile.

This reminds me of a video about propaganda I'd watched a while ago, and found illuminating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ1Qm1Z_D7w

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 03:19

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:35

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Deified Data posted:

I don't really know where else to post this but I had like an hour-long conversation with my SO over the weekend trying to convince her that Jeremy Corbyn wasn't an anti-semite or the "Trump of the UK".

She's not stupid nor conservative, and at least leans left even if she's turned off by hyper partisan poo poo and avoids it if she can. She told me this was basically how NPR and BBC world service are covering him 24/7 and without digging deeper it basically gives the impression that Corbyn is the Trump to May's Clinton. I wanted to just start playing the recent Chapo ep about the character assassination of leftists by the mainstream but that's not how real humans interact so I was just kinda stuck going "he didn't say that" or "that's not a thing that happened".

I expect this kind of poo poo out of right-wing news but didn't expect something so milquetoast to be rolling so hard for this narrative.

Labour does have an anti-semitism problem, though. A couple of MP's split over it and a bunch of Corbynites are calling anyone mentioning antisemitism zionists, even Jewdas. It's not some kind of media invention. Here, from the IoSM thread:

TinTower posted:

Sarah herself isn't the IOSM; the IOSM is in the attached screenshot.

https://twitter.com/SarahxDorman/status/1105228973309677573

Some context for those who aren't familiar:

Gilad Atzmon is an ex-Jewish musician who loves to push the Holocaust denial, Jewish deicide, and Zionist NWO conspiracy theories.

Jewdas are the socialist Jewish group who are mostly famous for hosting a seder last Passover that Jeremy Corbyn attended, and for being subsequently lambasted in the right-wing press for not being sufficiently pro-Israel.

TinTower posted:

�These Jews are literally like Hitler for objecting to people who make excuses for my literal Holocaust denial.�

e: same thread

Rather weird how socialist anti-Zionist Jews always seem to become far-right Israeli stooges once they call out anti-Semitism, isn�t it?

TinTower posted:

I mean, it already happened to Jon Lansman and Rhea Wolfsson. It was only a matter of time before they went for Jewdas.

See also:

Momentum, that well-known anti-Corbyn Israeli-funded pressure group in the Labour Party.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2019 15:33

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