Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

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That you and vertex-four disagree not only on the facts, but on the nature of facts indicates that perhaps his point has some merit. ;-)

FWIW, I've been that primary source for some major news stories, and the final story usually bears just a passing resemblance to reality as I experienced it. Assuming good faith on the part of the reporter, I have to assume that reality as I experienced it bears only a passing resemblance to reality as other primary sources experience it, which is congruent with other known facts like the difficulty of communication, the existence of cognitive biases, and the field of psychology. Objectivity is a myth; it's oftentimes a useful myth, but it's worth remembering that the reporter has his own biases and preconceptions as well, and as the person choosing what to report upon, these will necessarily make it into the final piece. The audience has their own biases as well, so they won't be reading exactly the same piece that the reporter wrote.

"That you and vertex-four disagree not only on the facts, but on the nature of facts indicates that perhaps his point has some merit."

Unlikely. One of us has spent a large chunk of their professional career working in and around newsrooms.

The fact is that facts lie and don't always capture the big picture and they certainly don't capture the importance of an event in and of itself.

With millions of events happening each and every day the simple act of choice is incredibly meaningful.

Your own belief in the objectivity of modern newsrooms proves my point.

Clearly both Al-Jazeera and Fox News do fact checking... yet one would be left with a very different view of the world depending on who did the reporting.

It certainly proves nothing of the kind, and your use of the phrase "belief" is disingenuous. It implies an element of faith that is entirely lacking from any of my assertions. My statements are made based on direct observation of 35 independent newsrooms and direct access to the AP wire over a period of three and a half years. Fox is an outlier in the industry.

The fact that you use the authority argument means you are the opposite of an authority on objective truth.

If anything it is the one place where getting the objectivity wrong has no consequences. In a typical company if you are getting the truth about something wrong (e.g. what people want, what people are willing to pay, where the market will move to) the lack of profit margins will refute the correctness.

In a newsroom however objective truth is a hygiene issue like a cook washing his hands. They should. But if they don't it has very few consequences.

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