<quote>"There is no established rubric for peer review in the media; adherence to truth is largely a matter of self-regulation. Instead of peer review, in which experts check the work of other experts, media has editors and fact-checkers. Often, those people are not experts in the matters their institutions are covering. Worse, sometimes they are novices on subjects ranging from climate science to jet propulsion to even basic statistics.
But they still get to control the headlines on those stories. They still serve as the major conduit through which the public is informed about what are often intrinsically complex but extremely important matters. And even with strong editing standards in place, it is inevitable that some of the reporting for which they are responsible will lack crucial nuance or just be plain wrong."</quote>
I don't get the sense that the reporter was trying to mislead, but she was doing what reporters always do; twist what was happening into a narrative that they had concluded existed before they began researching and writing the piece. Something contradicts what you have to say? Discard it, and search for something that fits your story. Just like when you would write an essay in college; you're making a claim, and backing it up.
The same is true of events. Creating a story by asking some people questions and trying to bind their responses into a single narrative with one story that makes sense is often-times impossible. Not because the reporter is doing a bad job, but because their task is impossible. The war in Syria is often shown as two warring factions, when in reality there are dozens of groups who play off each other and fight against each other at different times. Even the armies themselves are trying to piece together who is fighting for and against whom today; to expect a reporter to do so is absurd. But that’s exactly what we do.
How, then, can we have any hope of gaining a definitive understanding in the world, if even people paid to do so full-time have difficulty grasping it? Maybe there isn’t any. Life isn’t simple, people aren’t just good or evil, and situations are never binary. Maybe we’re not ever supposed to look at what’s happening in the world and say, “I understand now; it’s simple.” Because it’s not. If we think that we’re probably missing a lot of pieces of the story.
Every reporter tries to simplify complex events to make it more palatable to a wider audience (for that is what media seek, I guess). Most of the time though, this 'simplification' goes too far. If there was more honesty in reporting (i.e. the reporter can give the events and say that they don't really know why it is that way) it would be more honest but maybe we are so used to people 'explaining' stuff that we aren't ready for that kind of reporting yet.
<quote>"There is no established rubric for peer review in the media; adherence to truth is largely a matter of self-regulation. Instead of peer review, in which experts check the work of other experts, media has editors and fact-checkers. Often, those people are not experts in the matters their institutions are covering. Worse, sometimes they are novices on subjects ranging from climate science to jet propulsion to even basic statistics.
But they still get to control the headlines on those stories. They still serve as the major conduit through which the public is informed about what are often intrinsically complex but extremely important matters. And even with strong editing standards in place, it is inevitable that some of the reporting for which they are responsible will lack crucial nuance or just be plain wrong."</quote>
I don't get the sense that the reporter was trying to mislead, but she was doing what reporters always do; twist what was happening into a narrative that they had concluded existed before they began researching and writing the piece. Something contradicts what you have to say? Discard it, and search for something that fits your story. Just like when you would write an essay in college; you're making a claim, and backing it up.
The same is true of events. Creating a story by asking some people questions and trying to bind their responses into a single narrative with one story that makes sense is often-times impossible. Not because the reporter is doing a bad job, but because their task is impossible. The war in Syria is often shown as two warring factions, when in reality there are dozens of groups who play off each other and fight against each other at different times. Even the armies themselves are trying to piece together who is fighting for and against whom today; to expect a reporter to do so is absurd. But that’s exactly what we do.
How, then, can we have any hope of gaining a definitive understanding in the world, if even people paid to do so full-time have difficulty grasping it? Maybe there isn’t any. Life isn’t simple, people aren’t just good or evil, and situations are never binary. Maybe we’re not ever supposed to look at what’s happening in the world and say, “I understand now; it’s simple.” Because it’s not. If we think that we’re probably missing a lot of pieces of the story.