
The Increasing Problem with the Misinformed - r721
https://www.baekdal.com/analysis/the-increasing-problem-with-the-misinformed
======
AlldenKope
1\. Arguably the biggest misinformation problem involves scale. Media spends a
lot of time talking about something of relatively small impact, like guns, or
transgender bathroom protocols - and these are important - but practically
neglible compared with, say, discussing solutions to large-scale problems like
poverty/income inequality, or mosquitoes and communicable disease - which is
exacerbated by climate change, which drives droughts and more poverty, which
makes calls to jihad more appealing to disenfranchised young men, and so on.
Not that we must always think big picture - part of solving big problems
involves breaking them up into smaller problems, but the amount of time
devoted to addressing issues of critical importance to our society is grossly
disproportionate compared with issues where the magnetism is primarily
emotional.

2\. This article doesn’t really address a) Politifact’s cherry-picking or b)
its ownership. Want to paint a politician as more honest? Fact check more
statements from them that you know to be true. As long as the aggregate score
tops the competition you’re against, you’ve nudged your readership. The
article also doesn’t go into ownership - Politifact is owned by a newspaper
who has endorsed a candidate, who in turn has owners with interests.

3\. As for sites that explain the news, there should be more of them to
emphasize what’s important and why, and what the potential solutions are.
Sites like Vox, however, are biased and often intellectually dishonest.
They’ll use opinion as evidence for their conclusions. See for example
(adblockers on) an article where they are claiming to assess media bias
against Sanders, and say things like he is “at sea in foreign policy” without
providing any evidence or analysis to support that claim. Even 538 - though I
admire their data-driven approach - write scathing editorials against Trump. I
don’t like Trump, but to say 538’s journalism is objective is to admit
illiteracy. See headlines like “Trump doesn’t have a monopoly on intolerant
supporters”.

~~~
unchocked
Re 3.: I think you mistake a lack of neutrality for lack of objectivity. Back
in the "he said she said" days of journalism objectivity and neutrality were
one in the same, but the article is about how the wheels are coming off that
model (in a nutshell, this is due to an overabundance of information and the
rise of PR). Objectivity is is possible without neutrality: in this model of
journalism speaking the truth doesn't require opposing viewpoints, and not
only can but must feature an editorial slant.

So I don't think that considering editorial journalism as objective is in any
way illiterate. Cronkite may roll in his grave, but the landscape of media has
changed.

~~~
AlldenKope
The rise of PR is definitely a problem, as is the consolidation of media
conglomerates.

Plus good journalism is just really difficult. Another comment below
referenced the Gell-Mann effect, which is really easy to lose sight of in day
to day reading. There is also a lot of pressure to publish quickly - at the
cost of quality - and that's on top of the incentives to nab clicks.

I like the notion of journalism as debate, where the sides are clear and each
must marshal evidence to support their position. Though like another comment
said, we can still get BS evolution vs skeptic debates because too often the
burden of evidence is ignored. Then what are the sides? Left vs Right?
Corporate vs Independent like Politifact vs Fair.org?

And then: evidence can be manufactured. Need support for a policy? Fund a
think tank to do a study it.

Not that studies are always self-interested. Take Y-Combinator's exploration
of Universal Basic Income. They don't stand to directly benefit from exploring
it; they see a massive challenge, and have the assets to explore UBI as a
potential solution.

I do, however, believe journalism will improve in the long run, in large part
because I believe good ideas and quality usually survive. And we have more
good ideas than ever.

~~~
weaksauce
There are great ideas out there but there is also a lot of noise out there.
The noise drowns out the quality because it's easier to produce and it's more
frequent.

------
whack
I agree with the article's premise that a misinformed public is dangerous to
democracy, but I disagree with the premise that this is a new development. The
public has always been misinformed for one simple reason: everyone loves to
form opinions on how things ought to be, but few people feel the need to do
the research and homework needed to actually form credible opinions on the
topic.

This is not a popular thing to say, but democracy would work a lot better if
misinformed people were simply not allowed to vote:
[https://outlookzen.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/democracy-by-
jur...](https://outlookzen.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/democracy-by-jury/)

~~~
kawera
The problem is how to define "misinformed". The education system could play a
role preparing voters, maybe even requiring an exam to become a voter, analog
to driving.

~~~
CM30
Problem is, that leads to two issues:

1\. If the knowledge required for the exam is just basic stuff like 'how the
voting system works', then it's not really much different from how things are
right now. Not knowing how your votes affect the system isn't really the issue
leading to misinformation right now.

2.If there's absolutely any possibility for political 'bias' to seep in, then
such an exam/educational system would have devastating effects. I mean, we've
already got problems in some schools and local educational systems with
religious folks trying to have 'intelligent design' taught as science. What
stops them trying to put Fox News esque talking points in the exam and doing
their damn hardest to try and push for religious conservatism among the next
generation? Or in areas with opposite political views/population demographics,
'progressive' talking points being snuck into this example/course? Imagine a
system where questions about religion and abortion/gay marriage or about
'social justice' issues are in the curriculum and anyone who don't answer them
in the way the education leaders don't like doesn't get the right to vote?
That could turn very bad, very quickly.

At least learning to drive is pretty neutral on a political level. There's no
one trying to tie parallel parking and three point turns to Satanism or
racism.

~~~
kawera
I agree and had in mind something like teaching critical thinking/fact
checking but than this would probably be the last thing religious schools
wound want.

------
coldtea
> _But there is a problem with this graph. By ranking the data like this, we
> don 't take into account the severity of the lies a person makes._

That's the problem? The fact that you take a site at face value regarding its
fact checking score, which could be totally BS, partisan, inaccurate, etc., in
real life, isn't a problem?

> _But look at the above graphs. If PolitiFact was clearly biased, they wouldn
> 't be as wide ranging as this._

That still leaves two ways it can be partisan (or, off) wide open:

1) It can be partial to the shared assumptions/ideology of both parties (who
are more alike than different compared to how parties are in other western
countries).

2) It can be partisan to one party, and still mark as "bad liars" its people
-- only for that party it does it for second players, whereas for the other
party it does it for the leadership and first-rate players.

This still gives a total like "here, we have reported on 100 lies from
Democrats and 100 from Republicans" thus we're impartial, while still hurting
one or the other party far more.

~~~
nickledave
You have a point. It would be interesting for you to plot the data, or ask the
author to plot the data, with rankings of party members, so we could see
whether your hypothesis is true. Hypothesis: Politifact gives more "pants-on-
fire" ratings to the leadership of one party than another. If true, then there
should be a greater number of e.g. Republicans than Democrats that receive the
'pants-on-fire' rating. Of course, there could be other explanations besides
bias even if that result turns out to be true. For example, the Politifact
site [1] says that they choose which politicians' statements to validate based
on how much press a statement gets. You'd have to somehow show that they're
not just giving more high-ranking Repubs 'pants-on-fire' ratings because
Repubs are getting more press attention overall for things they say. Gee, I
can't think of any Republican candidate that keeps saying things mainly to get
free publicity in the press. [1] [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/article/2013/nov/01/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/article/2013/nov/01/principles-politifact-punditfact-and-truth-o-meter/)

~~~
JoBrad
I think your second sentence was sarcastic, but in case others also miss it:
the OP's article specifically plots one party vs the other.

------
CM30
Of course, there are also a few more reasons this sort of 'misinformation' is
becoming an issue. Like all the sites online that actively make up news and
stories to get clicks on social media, while only saying its 'satire' someone
deep in a disclaimer page linked from the footer. It's pretty hard not to be
misinformed if the internet is filled with deliberately misleading fake news
sites that try and capitalise on people's fears and political opinions to get
ad clicks.

Just look how many debunked stories on Snopes comes from sites whose sole
purpose is to trick people on Facebook.

In addition to this, a lot of journalists need to ask themselves whether
people's distrust of them comes from them being treated as 'idiots' by the
press that's supposed to represent them.

There's a point here where the article says:

"Only about 20% feel positive towards newspapers today, again following the
decline in trust in our politicians."

But how about another reason? It's not just the fact the politicians are seen
as almost completely non trustworthy, but the fact the press are seen as
completely out of touch and more interested in supporting the 'status quo'
than the population. It's the fact that having an opinion to the left or right
of the media gets you labelled as 'crazy' or 'bigoted' or 'horrible'. That
supporting Sanders gets you called a 'Bernie Bro'. Etc. The level of contempt
a lot of journalists show towards their audience leads to people hating them,
which leads them finding people that exploit that hatred for less noble ends
(usually extremist groups and publications).

That's something else the press needs to fix, and fast.

~~~
pm90
Agreed. I also see something similar in academia, which might be why the
general public tends to view it as 'aloof'.

------
dlandis
Since the article relies on PolitiFact's conclusions so heavily I kept waiting
for the author to at least acknowledge some of his assumptions about
PolitiFact. And since this article was largely about misinformation, it is
hard to ignore the irony of blindly accepting the conclusions of what is
really just another partisan site with its own agenda.

> "For instance, I thought Sanders was more truthful than Clinton. I has also
> assumed that Rubio was as bad as Cruz. But, as you can see, my personal
> assumptions were wrong."

Then you see statements like those in the article -- does the author _really_
believe that someone's overall truthfulness can be gauged in this manner?

------
blfr
The guy who thinks it's OK to slam reporters isn't misinformed. His knowledge
of the facts completely matches the journalist's description. Where they
differ is in their _opinion_ of what is an appropriate response.

Basically, OP argues that people who disagree with him haven't been preached
to enough. This condescending article is more of a reason than an explanation
for why people think it's OK to slam reporters.

PolitiFact does the same thing. They take what is clearly an opinion and rate
it:
[http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2015/dec/04/ted-c...](http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2015/dec/04/ted-
cruz/ted-cruz-incorrectly-says-obama-forcing-boys-and-g/)

It's not some unsubstantiated claim from politicians that the press is lying.
They're simply the closest to the action. Watching Youtube or Liveleak videos
of various events posted on social media and then hearing about them on the
news is how I have developed a lot of contempt for journalists and journalism.

And it's not a new observation.

 _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._

The Internet just made it easier to learn more about various subjects. You
don't have to passively listen to some anointed fact-checkers, and you're not
limited to your narrow area of expertise.

~~~
Mithaldu
Please explain this to me. How is the following an expression of opinion?

Ted Cruz: "[...] federal government is going after school districts, trying to
force them to let boys shower with little girls."

Did they leave out something he said beforehand?

~~~
brbsix
It doesn't seem to be opinion, nor does it appear to be false. PolitiFact only
seems to take issue with Cruz's use of gender identities. Apparently it's
incorrect to identify genetically male students as boys.

~~~
Mithaldu
Lie by omission is a thing.

The average person will understand that sentence as "all boys", while even the
least favourable interpretation of the reality is "some boys".

------
jccalhoun
I don't know if it is increasing or not. The paper doesn't really present
evidence that misinformation is actually increasing. Is it worse than during
the lead-up to the Spanish-American War?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%8...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%80%93American_War)

------
adrenalinelol
I'm not a Trump supporter (I feel like it's odd that I need to label myself as
such thou) but this article is clearly biased against conservatives (and Trump
in particular). As mentioned by another poster, unless there is indiscriminate
selection of statements being fact-checked, than the data is little more than
infotainment or worse, intellectually dishonest reporting trying to masquerade
as some form of scientific reporting.

I'd also point out that while a misinformed public is bad, the main-stream-
media becoming more and more overt with their biases to justify skewed
reporting is fanning the flames of mistrust in the media and large
institutions in general. The boy who cried wolf here is a very fitting
analogy, when the media wants to report something important, and then proceed
to report it straight, there is a large amount of the public which will
_assume_ there is a hidden agenda, regardless of the supporting facts. I
personally believe this was one of the reasons it took so long for the
country's opinion on climate change to beign shifting.

------
c0g
I'm curious - the author talks about the New Years sex assaults then says it
was reported incorrectly, and even quotes something. Is there an article that
sets it straight? Wikipedia's article has it that more than half of the crimes
on New Years were done by refugees or illegal immigrants.

------
brbsix
Maybe I'm missing something here, but can you really make any sort of
meaningful comparison between the various entities on PolitiFact?

I can only imagine that most politicians and public figures are making several
thousand statements per year. PolitiFact has this to say: "Because we can't
possibly check all claims, we select the most newsworthy and significant
ones." In other words, their selection process is completely arbitrary. They
aren't taking representative samples.

Just as an example, 10% of Trump's statements might be completely false, but
if you're selecting the most outlandish and newsworthy claims to evaluate, it
may appear to be 90%. Which is fine and all, until you start believing you can
use this to compare the honesty (or whatever criteria) of various candidates.

------
pi-rat
To regain some trust from readers:

\- Stop the clickbait (you won't believe, will shock you, etc..)

\- Stop ads camouflaged as articles (no, a tiny 10% gray label is not
enough..)

\- Stop the fear mongering.

Thank you in advance.

------
known
1\. "Media does not spread free opinion; it generates opinion." \--Oswald
Spengler
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Democr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Democracy.2C_media.2C_and_money)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry)

------
dforrestwilson1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism)

Setting the clock back to the 1890s.

------
Animats
It's not just reporting. Editorial "news judgement" of what makes the front
page has become much worse since news outlets started using clickthrough rates
to drive article visibility. There are newspapers where the clickthrough rates
are displayed in the newsroom. Some front page content in major newspapers now
comes from Outbrain. The Washington Post has gone way downhill in news
judgement in the last two years.

It's getting hard to find any news source with any decent news judgement. The
Reuters RSS feeds are still reasonably good. The Economist remains useful. But
it's hard to find a mainstream news source that doesn't suck.

------
pnathan
Longform content is even more valuable than it was before. Sell deep
investigative content on current events and movements; sell the ability of a
reporter to spend time combing the facts out.

I can read twitter and the drudge report too. Sell me something better.

------
appleflaxen
Weird that the proposed solution is to make newspapers write better news. What
prevents this from being copied over and over again by web-based news outlets,
thus destroying their ability to generate revenue?

~~~
crispyambulance
Clay Shirky has an interesting essay about exactly this topic
([http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-
thinking...](http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-
unthinkable/).

"Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism."

------
pdonis
If the public is misinformed, who is misinforming them? The press.

------
0xabababab
Does anyone actually read that many statistics outside of an academic paper?

------
ams6110
Who checks the fact-checkers?

~~~
alanwatts
The same people who guard the guards

------
miguelrochefort
If you think the problem with democracy is the public being misinformed,
you're part of that group.

------
andrewclunn
I'm offended, or at least I assume I should be, since I only read the
article's headline.

