Naturally, on any occasion when it is actually possible to check a journalistic report against reality, the journalist will turn out to be lying. This is not absolutely universally true, but it is impossible to appreciate just how often it is true until you have been reported-on in a case where you know the facts yourself.
tl;dr of course they're lying, it's easier to make stuff up then investigate so why wouldn't a reporter always just lie?
There really needs to be a phrase for this. I've noticed it myself. Whenever the news reports on something I happen to know a little bit more than average about, they almost universally get material facts (not just nitty gritty details) completely wrong. Taken inductively this is pretty damn scary.
It's called the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I don't necessarily endorse it, but here you go:
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.” — Michael Crichton
Ironically, Crichton was himself known to play fast and loose with facts. Mathematicians laughed at his portrayal of chaos theory and its implications in Jurassic Park, and the scientific community cried foul over his portrayal of climate science in State of Fear.
It's of course ok to bend facts when it's in the service of a fictional story, but Crichton too frequently was portrayed (often by himself) as a true subject matter expert.
Crichton's Travels is a fascinating and infuriating book. You know he's a human being just like yourself, but yet his thought processes are as alien as anything you'd expect to find in a Star Trek script.
The idea that the author of The Andromeda Strain could be taken in by spoon-bending was also more than a bit frightening.
A novelist is allowed (and encouraged!) to bend facts to make their books more exciting to the reader. Crichton may or may not have been an expert on certain subjects, but the contents of his fictional novels are not relevant to that discussion.
Sure, except that Crichton was extremely outspoken regarding "climate change as a lie"[1] where he used his book, State of Fear, to present his views as facts[2]:
I have had over a dozen positive articles about me written in newspapers, blogs, and TV segments over the years. Every single one of them misrepresented key facts, exaggerated my accomplishments, and oversimplified the invention/process. Initially I was shocked at the inaccuracies but over time I realized that despite the journalists' best intentions, they have to look at my story from different points of views and pick the angle that best fits the column's theme/focus - prodigious kid invents technology even Microsoft can't (David vs. Goliath), smart techies whip up app on weekend (HP/Apple garage-style startup), friendly-neighborhood IT guy takes a stab at unrelated field (everyone's a hidden genius).
One could argue that news must be devoid of any such slants, angles, or specific POVs but then we get caught in a debate about boring news that won't sell vs. sensationalized news that is meant solely to increase sales. Just like for programmers it is a constant balance between quality, deadlines, and cost, for journalists it is between truth, importance, and sales. '12 more people dead in blast in Tel Aviv' is truth and important but not sensational enough to sell. 'No-name D-list celeb gets caught speeding' is truth and sensational but not important.
In articles like this, they're trying to make it sound important and sensational while skirting around the limits of truth. In personal articles we've been involved in, they play the angles to show importance and make it sensational while not caring much about the factual accuracies.
But I like boring news that get straight to the point. Often the "getting an angle" style just makes the story longer, incoherent and boring.
I don't really like to write. I am only doing it because of a desire to express an idea or concept. Maybe journalism could improve with that spearhead.
I think "perverse incentives" covers it pretty well. Reporters who care more about truth than narrative are filtered out of most media outlets due to the basic economic forces involved. Season 5 of The Wire elucidates it better than I ever could (and of course, the series was crafted by a former journalist).
This needs to be the top comment. In a former life I was a local politician and currently I do some public policy work. I can say without a doubt that journalists do not print the truth. They print the story they want to convey. I've been quoted and misquoted so many times that I realized that the media just can't be believed. Now I do work on some government financial issues and media always gets it wrong, even when I show them government documents obtained by FOIA to show them they are wrong. The real kicker is that there's essentially no effective way to call media out on false reporting.
This is not absolutely universally true, but it is impossible to appreciate just how often it is true until you have been reported-on in a case where you know the facts yourself.
No, in that case you have a single data point that doesn't prove a larger point.
Don't get me wrong, I have no data to prove either side's argument, but suggesting that almost every single article written is a lie seems like a high level of paranoia.
I've had and heard about about enough encounters with journalists to say that while they may not outright lie, they will twist or omit facts to fit whatever angle they have in mind for the story. Often it's just somewhat annoying to those who know the whole story, other times it paints a completely wrong picture. But as a reader it's difficult to spot this because you usually don't have the entire background story.
I don't think it's paranoid to think that almost every article about a non-trivial subject contains over-generalizations, misquotes, or outright falsehoods. It's been startlingly consistent in the cases where I had a thorough understanding of the subject.
>Naturally, on any occasion when it is actually possible to check a journalistic report against reality, the journalist will turn out to be lying
I don't think this is true "on any occasion"; that journalistic lying is news indicates that it rarely happens or rarely is caught.
I think it's possible to see this as an example of a problem with this individual journalist, or with the culture of journalism, without assuming "the journalist will turn out to be lying" in all circumstances.
"that journalistic lying is news indicates that it rarely happens or rarely is caught."
Of all the times that I've been interviewed, I've been misquoted more often than not. Many others have noticed the same thing.
Scott Adams: "I've been interviewed several hundred times in my career. When I see my quotes taken out of context it is often horrifying. Your jaw would drop if you saw how often quotes are literally manufactured by writers to make a point. "http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/quote_approval/
Marco Arment: "I’ve learned the hard way, over and over again, that it’s most wise to talk to journalists the way you’d talk to the police: ideally, don’t. You have everything to lose and almost nothing to gain."http://www.marco.org/2012/09/19/quote-approval
I wonder why tech savvy people don't make use of the perfectly good recording device they carry with them at all times (their smartphones) to avoid being "misquoted".
Let the reporter do as he pleases, but inform him that you have a record of the interview too. That would keep them honest.
It doesn't help one bit. Journalists don't usually let you verify quotes, and once the newspaper is printed, there's little you can do. Even if you manage to get a rectification, no one reads it.
The first is that few are in a position to prove journalistic lies.
The second is that journalists do not like pushing reporting on other journalists lying because they are outing people they know, and they may get the same treatment some day.
The third (and in some ways most important) is that since the rise of the "blogosphere" in recent years, facts have become much less important. (Why? Because if you report something wrong you get clicks, then you publish a retraction and get clicks, then you can do a puff piece about "how could this happen" and get more clicks. Bingo, you earned ad dollars 3x when fact checking would have earned you nothing. What incentive, then, is there to fact check?) Therefore there is an erosion of standards which means that we should expect lying to go up over time.
My sister was famous back in "the good old days" of the 80s, back when media actually cared about its reputation. Even then it was a good idea to assume journalists were lying slime. Today I firmly believe that it is much worse.
If you are a blogger and disagree, then tell me this. How much of a fact check did your last 5 stories get beyond, "Can I find someone else saying this?"
Amateur-run blogs are far more honest than reporting, in my experience. The sympathetic phrasing would be that bloggers haven't had all but the last shreds of their integrity worn away by an editor demanding 6 column inches by deadline, over and over again. The unsympathetic phrasing would be that bloggers are not professional liars and might naively fear getting caught. Either way, I trust non-professional blogs over Wired News any day. Blog coverage is often honest and accurate. Reporting, when I or anyone I know or any subject I know about in detail is being reported on, almost never is.
Depends on the blogger. There are plenty of amateur hacks, particularly when you get into an echo chamber based on politics, conspiracy theories, religion, etc.
But there are a ton of subject matter experts (like John Baez) out there blogging on objective stuff, and their average quality is often amazing.
We're not even talking about John Baez here, just blogs randomly selected from the set of blogs on the Internet that I actually run across, which is admittedly a biased sample. The thought that any mainstream media could possibly, possibly be as trustworthy as a John Baez blog post is a thought worthy only of derisive laughter.
My last 5 blog posts (robotics on Hizook.com) were exceedingly fact checked. But then again, I'm a subject matter expert: I have a PhD in robotics. Terrance Tao... also exceedingly fact checked (Fields medal winner blogging about math). Richard Lipton... same (famous computer researcher blogs about P vs. NP).
I know that's not your point... but not all bloggers are equally sketch. Some of us know what we're talking about.
I also blog occasionally, and fact check my stuff. But if you're going to make money by the ad impression, you have a very specific set of incentives. Care and integrity are not high on the list.
Woah woah here... I wasn't about to fully support the grandparent here, but I would hazzard a guess that more often than not, persons end up misquoted, out of context, or sentences are strung together "just so" to make you "think" in a certain manner, that may not be factual. It happens everywhere. My own anecdotal evidence: I was in boy scouts, we camped near a farm field, trampled rows of corn to make a boundary for a capture the flag game, got busted, and had to go back and pick up all the corn by hand and make amends with farmer. The newspaper wrote up a fantastic article about how local boy scouts helped the community by helping a farmer reap damaged crops. there were no lies or factual inaccuracies in the article, sans lies of omission. From this, and what others respond to you, I'd believe this happens more often that not. But certainly not at 100% either.
It sounds like you are basing a sweeping assertion on your personal experience. I certainly empathize, but you simply can't paint the entire profession with that brush Even with the "not universally" half-caveat, you are still implying journalists lie and fabricate more often than not.
Even with the "not universally" half-caveat, you are still implying journalists lie and fabricate more often than not.
It would be an extraordinary claim to suggest that's not the case. Journalists are basically people who would rather be writing fiction, but who haven't figured out a way to get paid for it.
It's a terrible-sounding generalization to make, but I will stand by it.
Where on earth do you get that generalization from? You think that the journalists following the 2012 election didn't care about the subject at hand at all, and were just looking for a new source of writing inspiration?
Where on earth do you get that generalization from?
See above.
Election reporting isn't comparable to the scenario in this story, because there are literally more reporters than there are subjects being reported upon. In my experience journalists play fast and loose with the facts when there is a low likelihood that someone will call them on it. That's why the previous NYT scandals have involved remote correspondents (Blair) and/or cases where the journalists are serving as lapdogs for powerful political interests (Miller).
If this NYT reporter indeed misrepresented the facts of his test drive, then he's just an idiot, plain and simple. He either knew or should have suspected that the car was logging his every move, and that an adverse review would be challenged strongly by the company.
You made a generalization about journalists, which I disputed. Your response has granted that your original generalization is not, in fact, generally applicable (with reasoning that ought to also exclude all political journalism, as well as the vast majority of other current affairs news and sports journalism amongst others) and then started talking about the NYT review.
So I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to respond. You can't make a broad statement like "Journalists are basically people who would rather be writing fiction" then immediately rebase to "the scenario in this story".
tl;dr of course they're lying, it's easier to make stuff up then investigate so why wouldn't a reporter always just lie?