“American Scientist” Understands Nothing about the Traveling Salesman Problem

Re:“American Scientist” Understands Nothing about the Travel... by rrauenza on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @11:59AM (#11572967)

I learned this early as a child. I stood next to my dad as he was interviewed by a journalist for a community event where he worked. When I later read the actual article, I was somewhat astounded by the inaccuracy. And I was a child!

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Re:“American Scientist” Understands Nothing about the Travel... by lotharbot on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @12:39PM (#11573365)

I learned this watching TV coverage of a particular protest/rally I had been to. There were no shots of the diverse crowd of thousands, only a single close-up of an old man who was dressed oddly. The much smaller counter-protest of ~10 people got more airtime, but instead of showing them yelling and cussing at the children in our group, a well-dressed female lawyer from their side was interviewed, with a few others packed around her and a tight camera angle to make it look like she was in the middle of a huge crowd.

Like, it wasn't just mildly inaccurate coverage as a result of the reporters not having good enough understanding. It was intentionally slanted coverage. And it made me think, if they can make something that straightforward look so different from reality, I have a hard time trusting their coverage in general.

(See also: Babylon 5 season 4 episode 8 "The Illusion of Truth")

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Re:“American Scientist” Understands Nothing about the Travel... by rlonstein on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @01:36PM (#11573912)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Knoll

First hand experience with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge

I heard it first phrased (and probably before the above) that the accuracy of a newspaper article is inversely proportional to how close you are to the subject.

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Re:“American Scientist” Understands Nothing about the Travel... by jandrese on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @04:54PM (#11575528)

One of the things I noticed in college was that the journalism major seemed to attract a class of people who are not good at comprehending complex systems. If you don't understand something, it's almost impossible to communicate the concept of it to another person.

My dad was a chemical engineer and whenever News 7 had a story about the chemical plant my dad would mutter about how they got the details (and pronunciations!) all wrong.

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Re:“American Scientist” Understands Nothing about the Travel... by hola_hola on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @05:02PM (#11575600)

I doubt it. You can find geniuses and idiots anywhere. Not sure why you are singling out journalism.

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