Some types of stories that warrant reduced credibility

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Sun Jan 13, 2013, 08:05 PM - Edit history (4)

"Reduced credibility" is not the same as being false.

It just means that there is no strong reason to assume it is true.

All advertising has reduced credibility. An ad's claims may be litterally true, but if a better way of expressing the truth was inconvenient to the goal of the ad it wouldn't be in the ad.

Fox News is a good example of low credibility. Fox reports dozens of true stories every day, but they report enough false stories that the reasonable thing to do with a Fox story is to ignore it, or if it matters to us, to consult a more reliable source to see if it is confirmed.

Some other types of story with low credibility...

• Popular science reporting that says anything extraordinary. Since popular science reporting often mis-characterizes or exaggerates findings while burying contrary evidence, mainstream press science stories that are in any way extraordinary require a skeptical reading.

• Tabloid stories. This is obvious to Americans for American tabloids, but many folks think that some ridiculous foreign sources are legitimate. The Jerusalem Times (I think that's the name) breaks startling news all the time... startling news that nobody else reports, and turns out to have not been true. And Russian news sources... Oy!

Keep in mind that every nation has media that people there know is like our Fox News, or our supermarket tabloids.

Special mention here for The Daily Mail because it seems like half the time a headline seems too good to be true it turns out to be the Daily News. The Daily Mail is a Right Wing tabloid, by UK standards. And being British does not make it a legit newspaper. It should never be relied on for anything. Unfortunately, since everything the Daily Mail reports is sensationalized and distorted, and designed to outrage the reader, it sometimes provides a version of reality that some folks want to be true. Hence we see Daily Mail stories daily on both DU and on the Drudge Report. Whatever they are covering they cover it irresponsibly, so their version is always juicy. And when the Daily Mail reports on American stories it often does not seem to care how accurate the stories are because it is a British tabloid. It's audience is British. American news is entertainment.

• Stories about lawsuits filed. This is a BIG one. Outrage stories are published every day based solely on one side of a lawsuit. The other side often declines comment, which is posed as somehow shady. But just because reporters wish that all cases were tried in the press does not mean they should be. When somebody files a suit against someone else they write up the biggest claim they can make, include all evidence for that claim and leave out all evidence against that claim. Any story that begins "X happened, according to a lawsuit filed," is a very, very, very poor source of understanding of the events described. The impulse to believe the version of events that suits one emotional or political wants often leads to bizarre thinking, like that if the suit lacked merit as truth it wouldn't be allowed to proceed. That is silly. When a case is thrown out at first blush it is usually for technical legal reasons, like that even if the claims were assumed to be true they would not result in a proper case. A case making it into court is seldom a judicial endorsement of someone's story beyond that it is not impossible on its face.

• Press releases. This should be obvious, but when a scientific claim, for instance, is released to the press rather than submitted to a reputable journal, there is usually a reason. It is amazing the things that are out there in "articles" that include no skeptical analysis. It is easy to find one PhD somewhere to give a quote in support of anything, from right-wing economic theories to cars that run on water to cancer cures.

• Special mention: Things "they don't want you to know." This phrase is a major crackpot "tell."

[limpyhobbler]

1. ok but regarding those last two items in the list,

a lot of people are activists, not supposedly neutral observers. So press releases and agenda-driven stories are par for the course.
For the easiest example, consider that anything released by the White House, or read by Jay Carney, is a sort of agenda-driven press release. So, take it with a grain of salt. I'm not sure if there is any truly neutral information. Even a "straight news" article from the Washington Post is based on certain political assumptions and accountable to an agenda.

[cthulu2016]

2. I agree that there is no truly objective news.

There are no completely objective people to write such news.

But when we consume information in a form calculated to induce emotional response and reaction it has reduced credibility. Not zero, but reduced.

Consider how Nancy Grace talks. Of course someone butchering a child is terrible... we all know that. So what is the point in always calling the victim "little" Jessica... or continually noting her beauty or cuteness? What is the point in always referring to the killer as "a monster?" It isn't that the child was not cute or little, or that the killer isn't monstrous. It is that the form of the presentation, with ubiquitous perception-shaping language, is about what you would expect if you were being brainwashed or hypnotized.

The mode of persuasion would be an effective way to convince us of things that are not true, so we should be skeptical. If someone was lying top us, this is how they would do it.

I used to read the Daily Worker in the 1980s because it was so funny. There was a lot in it I kind of agreed with, but one couldn't take it too seriously because it would have articles with ledes like "Backward bigots and morons pass billing authorizing..."

I might agree with the analysis, but when the author is striving to tell me what and how to think before even telling me what it is I am thinking about, it suggests that the message warrants a more skeptical reading.

We all editorialize in the way we express ourselves, but it is easy to spot intentional emotional persuasion.

Anything with the forms of propaganda should be viewed skeptically, even though much of it will have some truth to it.

[Fumesucker]

3. "News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising." -William Randolph Hearst

I'll just point out also that American news is largely entertainment in America as well as in the Daily Mail.

This is particularly true of political news where actual policy discussion rarely rears its head and virtually all the "news" is of the horse race variety.

[D23MIURG23]

4. K&R