Comment by 0xy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0xy | Hacker News Reader

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Among 30 news organisations in the United States, none of them were trusted by more than 50% of Americans according to Pew Research. [1]

This indicates the dramatic damage done to news organisations when they have been caught in egregious lies and falsehoods, again and again.

Remember, when Twitter cites "official sources", it doesn't mean it's correct, or even that it's not totally fabricated. It means it's probably partisan-slanted "news" written by discredited media organisations.

Even news organisations that are generally trusted on HN have enormous bias and propensity for lies.

Such as the Washington Post falsely claiming Russia hacked critical US energy infrastructure, then retracting the fabricated claim altogether. [2] Or NPR claiming the victim driver of a vehicle during a protest who was attacked violently by gun-wielding assailants was a "right-wing extremist", which was nuked without retraction (they did not apologise for the slanderous claim). [3] [4]

The Associated Press, a self-claimed non-partisan news organisation, falsely claimed the Trump campaign detained 100,000 migrant children, while the actual truth was that it was orchestrated during the Obama administration. Reuters, AFP and NPR also participated in this fabrication. [5] [6] [7]

[1] https://www.journalism.org/2020/01/24/u-s-media-polarization...

[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/12/31/1533245/washington-p...

[3] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbEIlsUUcAACYht?format=jpg&name=...

[4] https://www.wave3.com/2020/06/18/protesters-arrested-followi...

[5] https://abcstlouis.com/news/nation-world/retractions-issued-...

[6] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/multiple-outlets-retract-stor...

[7] https://www.imediaethics.org/ap-afp-reuters-npr-retract-chil...

> This indicates the dramatic damage done to news organisations when they have been caught in egregious lies and falsehoods

No, it mostly reflects the rise of ideological tribalism supported by the rise of a diverse array of media outlets catering to (and reinforcing) preconceived biases (some originally driven by propaganda interests, but more driven by the business desire to capture a distinct demographic market for advertising; in the end, the interests overlap and coexist.)

It is not just that. You do not need to made new outright lies in order to cater to preconceived biases. But, that is literally what is happening and was happening for years. It reflects also the fact political actors figured out that cynical insertion of massive lies is good for them and thus doing it.

Just catering to preconceived biases leads to basically good faith bias with a bit of manipulation. The current situation is well beyond that.

> enormous bias and propensity for lies

So based on your citations, "enormous" is roughly a handful between the thirty of them over the last decade?

Get some perspective, do you actually think the WaPo literally made up a story or do you think they (let's be uncharitable) ran with a story they should've done more due diligence on?

Between the Iraq war and the absolutely atrocious handling of mask misinformation (Openly saying "No, you shouldn't wear masks. They are for doctors only." and then wondering why people became skeptic of mask usage) at the beginning of Covid, the death toll of missing due diligence is quite high. Both seem to have some incentives for making up the stories (fueling the war machine, securing masks for doctors) and should not have been printed if any amount of due diligence was done.

There's no difference between incompetence and malice when the stakes are war. In any case, it indicates they are not fit to moderate discourse.

It's easy to see how a false story about a serious attack on US infrastructure could spark confrontation, or even more serious war (much like when NYT fabricated evidence that WMDs existed in Iraq).

The citations can only include mistakes, not the enormous (and much more effective) bias in choosing which stories to run and how to frame them. Do you think it's a coincidence you only hear of police killings when the victim is black? Or, in the rare case when covering a white victim, that their race never makes the headline?

> This indicates the dramatic damage done to news organisations when they have been caught in egregious lies and falsehoods

No, it mostly reflects the rise of ideological tribalism supported by media outlets.

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