What you're describing is Gell-Mann Amnesia:

"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

My favourite example of this is the Economist news magazine. The Economist reports on a much larger range of country and topics than the typical magazine or newspaper. Many of its readers like it for that exact reason: it gives them information on stories they won't normally find in their local or national news sources and they want to be informed about, say, hydroelectric developments in the Congo.

The problem is that writing about 25 different countries in a single issue doesn't mean they actually have experts on most of those places or people on the ground to do original reporting. Often, it devolves into British or American writers regurgitating inaccurate information from the Internet. But if it's the only thing you read about, say, forest exports from Myanmar, you have no reason to question it.

The easiest way to see this is to be a non-US/UK/EU person and read an article in the Economist about your own country. Then you realize that all the other articles are just as simplistic and uninformed.

My experience is the opposite. And I'm definitely not blind to the Gell-Mann Amnesia, I notice it on Wikipedia all the time.

I've noticed that in The Economist the articles about my field of technology, work, and my small home country, have been accurate to the point that I suspect they have had experts in the field involved in creating them. That gives me confidence in the articles about issues I'm not intimately familiar with.

That is why The Economist is one of the few news sources I read after cutting out following daily news completely. As a result I'm much better informed about the facts and issues than I was when reading huge amounts of daily news. It boils down to a difference between consuming mostly noise and consuming mostly signal.

Interesting. My own area of knowledge is renewable energy, a topic which appears with moderate frequency in TE. I would say 8/10 articles are merely repackaging reports published by major global consultancies like McKinsey, Navigant, etc. that I had seen two or three months earlier through my employer (a large multinational energy company). I would not say the information is not correct, but it hardly insightful and often presents an incomplete picture which looks at the industry primarily from the perspective of financiers.

Well that's why it's not called The Technologist I guess :) It's hard to expect non-specialist publication to write anything non-trite to an expert in the field, but just not botching up the basic facts is often refreshing.

Repackaging reports and press releases (without attribution!) is major problem in news everywhere.

perhaps not insightful to you, someone with knowledge of the area. but how about others? how about me? where should I gain my insights into all of the various industries that I don't have direct knowledge of today?

I'd like to echo this sentiment. In fact, this is the exact reason that I happily pay for The Economist. Even when reporting on topics with which I'm quite familiar, The Economist nails it in terms of accuracy.

For instance, recently there was a writeup on quantum computing in which they made a somewhat hyperbolic claim regarding D-Wave. This gave me pause; however, the point was clarified in subsequent paragraphs, thus restoring my confidence in their analysis.

Much like the parent poster, I too have dropped many of my daily news sources, but not The Economist. I've yet to find a publication which matches it in terms of coverage and accuracy--not to mention their exceptionally high-quality audio recordings of each edition (perfect for commuting!).

yes and no.

Ive noticed the economist has a habit of playing policy games.

In that case they publish nonsense to further certain policy aims.

But often its well researched unbiased material.

not that easy to tell the difference.

but infinately better than the junk put out by the likes of the bbc fox cnn times etc.

Totally agreed.

But the nice thing about the newspaper (The Economist refers to itself as a newspaper, not a magazine) is that they provide pure opinion journalism and as a reader you know exactly where they are coming from.

While I agree a lot with the publication (for example: they argued to liberalize drugs, or advocated gay marriage literally decades before it was chic). I encounter my share of (what I lovingly refer to as) full-of-shit opinions, with which I wholeheartedly disagree.

Overall, though, it's one of the last remaining publications, on which I put a certain amount of trust because they usually know what they're writing about and even on the subjects on which I (partially vehemently) disagree it's always an interesting read.

Because they argue their position intelligently and competently. It won't make me a believer, but it's useful and interesting to get the counterpoint from a reputable and trustworthy publication and sometimes get your dogmas slightly shaken in the process.

Additionally, I feel they present opposing opinions with proper weight and fairness (before arguing against these points), so you never quite feel totally in the dark about the full controversy.

How is an opinion "full-of-shit? Do you not think that is their actual opinion?

I'll give you an example. The Economist has a few core principles that they hold very dear. Two of these are social liberalism and trade liberalism. They are strong believers in the free market. Applying these principles to issues in the recent past, the Economist took positions in favour of both legalisation of drugs and enacting the Trans Pacific Partnership. Most people (but not all) disagree with one of these stances but not the other. A Reagan Republican would favour trade and "just say no" whereas an Obama Democrat would demonise the TPP and demand the end of a failed, pointless war. It's easy to see how such people would find some stances taken by the Economist as "full-of-shit".

I'm a long time subscriber to the Economist, ever since I was in high school. I appreciate their breadth of reporting and their commitment to provide opinionated takes on news while also giving a balanced take on news. Very few times have I felt the "Murray Gell-Mann effect" while reading it. I can recall just one instance they have been wrong about a topic I'm knowledgeable about. That's a better record than any other publication I read.

I thought we liked BBC?

Reading the above quote from Micheal Chrichton, I immediately thought about The Economist and how they are usually well informed. I remember a short article on some legal case in rap music. I used to be very into rap, and while I didn't learn a lot from the article it did confirm that the writers take it very seriously whatever topic they are reporting on.

I stopped reading TE because I was put off by their too steadfast belief in monetarism as the be it end all. To their credit, they are pretty upfront about that though.

Actually, the Economist has about 400 reporters for a 50 page weekly magazine, about 8 per page, so they do have enough people to include experts for all those fields.

The times I read an Economist article about my country or my line of work the coverage was actually very good, but your milage may vary.

I am from a non-US, non-EU, non-UK country and the Economist coverage about my country isn't perfect but it's pretty decent.

Non-UK after non-EU already? the brexit hasn't happened yet :)

To be fair, I live in the such a country. Only, in my case, it is Norway, so it is kind of different altogether.

Very true, but TE is usually way less wrong than the alternatives. The journalists there at least seem to know how to use Wikipedia. I mean, what am I supposed to read instead?

The Economist also has a fairly evident political agenda.

I don't follow it that closely, but aren't they also pretty up-front about their own bias?

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

Indeed, and that is why I very rarely read it - for me, it would be too echo-chambery. I read the NYT quite deliberately and every day, enumerate why Krugman and Blow are wrong about whatever they are pontificating about...

Has The Economist shifted? I started reading it in about 2000, and at the time I really liked it because it seemed so intelligent and neutral. It seemed like such a pleasure to read something that went deep into interesting topics without an obvious axe to grind.

In the past ten years it seems to have drifted gradually leftward. Sometimes I can't reconsile The Economist of 2000 with the one of 2016. Did The Economist move gradually to the left or did I move to the right?

I think you've moved to the right, or this is another case of "reality having a leftwing bias". Or perhaps issues not reducing clearly to left/right.

The Economist were always Mill/Smith liberals, in favour of free trade, light but effective regulation, against the War on Drugs, pro-migration etc. They have a strong tendency to recommend economic liberalism regardless of what the problem is. These days the "right" have moved to "illiberal" positions - restricting free trade and migration. That may be what you're seeing.

If $xyz seems neutral to you, then it might mean you are politically and tonally aligned with $xyz ?

They have shifted over the past years, from small-business, fair/relatively-free market stance towards elitism/globalism.

My subscription is up in January, and -for the first time in 25 years- will NOT be renewed.

Left? The Economist has a blatant liberal slant.

I think it depends on your viewpoint.

I think The Economist is pretty open about their liberal slant (Adam Smith liberal, not US politics liberal).

I would think that a publication called 'The Economist' would be Adam Smith free market liberals.

Essentially it is, with caveats. The Economist was originally a publication set up to protest the Corn Laws and their distortion of the marketplace. The stance has shifted over the years but the tone is often inline with the founding idea that people and businesses should be left up to their own devices unless there is an excellent reason to intervene.

...compared to those outlets where is not that evident ?

Because I cannot think of any publication that I would call completely impartial (it also would make for pretty dry reading).

The Economist is not perfect but is the best news source I know, by far.

This quote has always bugged me a little bit. It does seem reasonable to expect that reporters and editors know more about the major world events that are the paper's bread and butter and less about other things.

The structure of a typical science section doesn't help. There are typically only a few reporters--often only one-- and they tend to cover whatever's timely (e.g., has recently been announced/opened/published), which doesn't let them build up much expertise. I think this also explains why pop-science articles tend to conflate background (here's what was known before this paper was published) and whatever actual result was: it's all new to the reporter.

That said, I was recently interviewed by CBC about my research and I thought they did a very good job. Everyone seemed prepared, asked reasonable questions, and the final product matched what I said!

I have also been interviewed by CBC (about floppy disks, oh well) and they were great. They put me in the best possible light, made me sound coherent, and got the facts correct.

It's funny to me the quote mentions Palestine. I once spent six months in Israel on study-abroad (I was a near eastern studies major). While there I saw certain things firsthand. When I came back I noticed that all the US newspapers I could find in the University library all reported falsehoods regarding the events. I actually found that the BBCs coverage was the most honest and accurate. This experience has always left me wondering, "If an event that I have personal knowledge of was not reported accurately in the newspapers, how do I know that other events that I do not have personal knowledge of are reported accurately?" It doesn't seem to be enough to use multiple sources since all of the US sources I could find were inaccurate and how would I know if the BBC was always accurate?

The main way I've found is to just read something from multiple countries. For a given article I care about or feel dubious about I always try to get at 3 or more country's take of it. While it doesn't help you find the 'truth' writers tend to misinterpret the same things different ways while things that are actually reported figures will lean more consistent.

Also for lots of things there is generally the direct source available if it is economic/legal/statistically relevant and a quick skim of that is a good get you up to speed thing. The writer made mention of something as 'interesting' so that's just a key to me to go looking for information in that direction where otherwise I would not.

One thing I should point out is that my story took place more than 2 decades ago in the pre-WWW days. It was a lot harder back then to check sources in multiple countries.

There's a bit of irony in this quote coming from Michael Crichton. When I started hanging out with the Science Online community in the early 00s, I learned that Crichton was widely regarded as spreading bad science by regularly citing discredited studies or fringe research in his books.

He was also known for getting even basic science wrong, like in "Jurassic Park," where the scientists fill-in missing dinosaur DNA by splicing it with reptile and amphibian DNA. Anyone who has studied dinosaurs knows that their closest living relatives are birds. How could someone with so many references and claims of research in his books miss such an elementary fact?

Then there was that embarrassingly awful book attacking the idea of climate change... but I think Crichton is a great example of this Gell-Mann phenomena. I know many people, even academics, who have read his books and will bring them up as having a degree of science fact.

>> How could someone with so many references and claims of research in his books miss such an elementary fact?

Because following that scientific fact would have ruined one of the major plot points of the story? Fiction authors do take some liberties to suit their fictional stories.

Jurassic Park was published 1990. I don't think that birds being the closest relatives of dinosaurs was established beyond doubt at that time as the theory of dinosaurs being ancestors of birds was revived only in the 1970s.

Funny. After reading this, I decided to comment that in my mind The Economist is a somewhat good counter example. Then I noticed that pretty much all other comments were already discussing TE. I guess I can keep on paying my subscription.

It seems rather ironic to me that this theory, which uses as it's basis that some journalists mix up cause and effect, then turns around and in essence posits that because some articles have errors it means that all articles have the same category of error.

It's not at all evident to me that every article in a more reputable news source will make errors in every thing they report on.

I have a couple of areas of interest where my knowledge is quite deep and I notice this whenever there's anything about those subjects written in the local or national press.

I see people asking why we can't have a meaningful dialog about the subject and it's because at least half of us don't understand the basics of the issue.

You see this all the time with startup news. Read a mainstream article about a startup you know personally.

Sure the main details are all there, but the small details are changed/ omitted to fit the mould of the story the author had in mind.

>read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate

This was not stated. The opposite was implied in GP's case.

It's relevant to mention this, but it is emphatically not what was being described.

I don't see this effect. The more inaccurate and biased stories I read makes me read the other stories actively looking for biases.

I think people are turning off MSM big time after this election.

Michael Crichton? The xenophobe and anthropocentric climate change denier? Pot, meet kettle.

He should have stuck to fantasy land, err, show business.

The quote can stand on its own merit. Discrediting the source doesn't change the words.

I've changed my mind. Thank you.

Who better to explain profiteering from misogyny, lying, hysteria, anti-intellectionalism, war-mongering, amnesia, obfuscation than Micheal Crichton?

More people are interested in world events than in science, so it's reasonable to assume a newspaper will set a higher standard of reporting for those events. A journalist who studied political science isn't equally inept at writing on all subjects; he might have some very good insights on politics. Similar to how most HN readers have very little expertise outside of software engineering, and have said some pretty ridiculous things on other fields.

> Similar to how most HN readers have very little expertise outside of software engineering, and have said some pretty ridiculous things on other fields.

Wow, that could hardly be more wrong. HN has repeatedly demonstrated expertise in a very wide range of subjects. Sure there is a bias towards software but that's hardly the limit. Even if HN was only read by SW exports assuming that they don't know about anything else is ridiculous. Not that HN is nonsense free. Your comment for example.

> HN has repeatedly demonstrated expertise in a very wide range of subjects.

Although I agree with this, there is also a lot of nonsense and factually incorrect statements. Not everyone is an expert in every field, and many people will make bold claims about topics in which they're not well versed – even on HN. Unfortunately, this applies to me as well sometimes.

The media is shocked even after all newspapers and TV backed a single candidate, she lost. I speculate internally they blame alternative media, so now they run a campaign against 'fake news'. Of course it couldn't just have been the fact that most states and rural counties did not like Clinton much at all - the media's headquarters are all located in big cities so they were all blind. They are now blaming and accusing 'fake news' instead of taking a good look at themselves.

The media wants to be shocked that covering Trump 24/7 yielded a victory for Trump.

And by complete coincidence, they now have a lot more to get people riled up about (and more clicks to sell) for the next four years.

That goes along with my thought that sometimes the NRA would rather have a Democrat in office for much the same reasons.

They covered the election 24/7, not just Trump, and why not?

It probably applies more to the Republican primaries, where Trump seemed to get as much publicity as the other candidates put together (and much more in international media)

Negative publicity from news sources the typical registered Republican had a fairly low opinion of almost certainly helped him greatly in what was arguably the more difficult contest for him to win.

This is pretty much the DNC playbook from the election, elevate a fringe candidate and marginalize the moderates during the primaries, to make it easier to tear down the candidate during the election. Problem is Dr. Frankenstein wasn't able to control her monster

Operation Pied Piper, The DNCs 2016 Strategy From Wikileaks part of Podesta release

1) Force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election;

2) Undermine any credibility/trust Republican presidential candidates have to make inroads to our coalition or independents;

3) Muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC.

Pied Piper Candidates

Ted Cruz

Donald Trump

Ben Carson

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1120.

see the attachment with email for the Strategy.

Negative publicity can swing both ways though, it could just as well sink him.

Maybe Ron Paul should have gone for that kind of infamy :-D

It definitely is frightening at times. And frustrating at all other times too. I remember when news articles reported all the known facts up front, or they would do some research to post base facts. Talking about air accidents above, I remember when the first lines of a news article would contain the location, info on the airline as well as the aircraft type, departure and destination information etc.

But it appears that these days, the rush to post something that will get clicked on bypasses all the actual information that people might want to know.

Take the recent tragic crash in South America that wiped out a whole football team. When I heard about the scale of the accident, one of my first questions (as a former pilot, and knowing the carrying capacity and safety reputation of most aircraft) was "I wonder what aircraft model it was?".

I read through 3 articles on common news sites which didn't state this information at all. Two of them didn't even have the airline or carrier name published in their story. I ended up resorting to a pilot discussion forum, where I found out the information I wanted.

You hit the proverbial "nail on the head." Before 24/7 news channels and online access, the rush to "scoop" another newspaper still had a 16-hour cycle due to daily print runs. The infamous incorrect front page presidential election result made editors back up and double check things before rushing a story, but it didn't last long. Many years later, Dan Rather lost his job for not fact checking before reporting something he wanted to believe.

When television news first appeared in the US, some claimed the death unfiltered information, which was already filtered, while others claimed the death of newspapers. The first didn't change much and the second barely changed.

24/7 cable news was already in vogue before Dan Rather's incident, who I believe claimed the high road, which helped remove Dan Rather. All that changed when the revenue sources changed.

What I personally find hypocritical is the different standard for "breaking" news versus "regularly scheduled" news. Bryan Williams was excoriated for honoring veterans and having a normal, human memory. Breaking news and special updates are blatantly suspect and misleading, feeling line "spray and pray", with minimal or no fact or source checking, and there appears to be no consequence. I believe the Rather case was egregious and the Williams case trivial.

I have a link to a study I need to find and post relating to the amount of international news viewing by country. More international news generally means more sources, purportedly meaning more viewpoints and balance.

It feels like P. T. Barnum is running much of today's media outlets. Sensationalism combined with instant gratification gets more views = more ad revenue. "Always follow the money." as told to Bob Woodward in _All The President's Men_.

The Rather case really changed my view on the mainstream media. It isn't just that they went on-air with something without any fact checking, which even the most cursory fact-checking would show to be fabricated, because it fit the narrative that they wanted to tell. It's that not only them, but the entire rest of the mainstream media, continued to defend it, even as the evidence accumulated that it was not only fake, but a really lazy, badly-done fake. Aren't these companies supposed to be in competition? Shouldn't they call each other out for blatantly biased, shoddy journalism? I guess pushing their chosen narrative is more important than that.

Really makes you wonder how many other con jobs they've tried to sell us, before the tools existed for independent parties to get their own research out to the public. And now they're telling us to beware of "fake news", as if they haven't been publishing it themselves for decades at least.

> What's really really scary to me lately is all of this talk about "fake news", which originally referred to outright lies that were part of click-farms, but is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news.

I am surprised by that too. This whole "fake news" thing appeared out of thin air around the US election and is reportedly a new phenomenon - as if most of the "regular" news coverage wasn't already of various degrees of fakeness.

The fake news being talked about is actually fake, as in nearly 100% made up with the intention to misinform. It's definitely not new but I saw it way more during the election and it's very different from shittt reporting.

Maybe I am misreading you and other posters here, but I am getting the idea that people don't think this is a real thing or that it's no worse then actual news. This shit is real, harmful, and really not hard to find. I have a pretty trimmed down Facebook account but I would see multiple fake news posts shared by people every other week or so this past year. The way people talk about manipulative ads here could be applied to these articles. The worst part is they are incredibly easy to debunk, but no one gives a shit about checking what they read.

> Maybe I am misreading you and other posters here, but I am getting the idea that people don't think this is a real thing or that it's no worse then actual news.

Can't say for others, but personally, I do believe the phenomenon is real. But I don't see it as something significantly different than "regular" reporting. It's a difference in degree, but not in kind. Regular news already only pays lip service to factual accuracy.

It was an undefined talking point that has spread farther and faster than it was likely intended. I suspect it will disappear soon as the stupidity of it starts to affect the major news agencies and social media.

It referred to a real and serious phenomena, but now the phrase has been muddied by political rhetoric. It's still a problem, and it's different enough from the old clickbait sensationalism and conspiracy theory chain emails that it deserves its own name.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-the-new-yellow-j...

https://medium.com/@ev/i-found-it-interesting-that-when-i-we...

Nah, for the most part what some are calling "fake news" is still the old-fashioned clickbait.

I can remember several scandals over the years from the big news agencies that would be considered "fake news" by today's standards. They range from just being wrong to outright fraud. This is nothing new, this crap existed before there were websites. It's just that people simply choose not to remember to continue their desire to have something whine about.

It is also an old tactic by people wishing to discredit those that disagree with their agenda, whether it is political or economic.

I suppose fake news has been totally normal in the showbizz coverage world - and popular. Now it goes mainstream and people complain...

> is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news.

I believe that was the intent all along.

Blocking the bad ones and blessing the good ones are two sides of the same coin. We seem to think as long as government isn't doing it, it's not "censorship" and no problem. But we learn that time and time again, various governments major tech firms are actively working together.

Even more fun.. where did you hear the term "fake news" or where do you hear it regularly? Is it the same people who claim they're the "real news"?

Whether you agree or not, if you ask any suspect if they're guilty, the answer is "No!"

Sorry, but there actually are people who admit to writing fake news: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...

Yes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-t...

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

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

The first two were both NYT journalists - one a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1932 - and the third covers the 1890s, so let's stop acting like it's new, unique, or exists exclusively on one side or the other. This is how much of the modern press started.

Do I understand correctly that you would like to take back your earlier claim: >Whether you agree or not, if you ask any suspect if they're guilty, the answer is "No!"

I'm sorry but even I don't follow your logic. AFAICT your parent is simply pointing out the pot calling the kettle black.

He's saying that if the "suspect" is NYT, then his logic fails because they're reporting on their own fake news.

I believe the parent poster is saying that fake news isn't a new phenomena; I don't believe it was condemnation of any specific news outlet.

Any search of history can find fake news going way back; the difference today is the ease of producing it and how easy it is to spread rapidly.

Yes: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/

I mean, obviously: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/photos/barack-michelle-obama...

Blame OJ Simpson and that fucking white Bronco.

That started this era of nonsensical analysis and up to the second coverage of random car chases, progressed to constant updates about other random things, and then the 9/11 ticker sent it to the moon.

> What's really really scary to me lately is all of this talk about "fake news", which originally referred to outright lies that were part of click-farms, but is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news.

I'm genuinely curious to know where it's talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are the pinnacle of reporting?

Honestly I never hear/read anything but hate for them?

>What's really really scary to me lately is all of this talk about "fake news", which originally referred to outright lies that were part of click-farms, but is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news.

this is an intentional ploy designed to conflate the issues of tabloid-trash and dissent.

we don't even need a ban for the tabloid trash... but once we link it to dissenting from the mainline and call it the deciding factor of the election (a huge leap...), we put the mainstream media who have proven to be incompetent and dishonest back at the wheel.

> frightening

Well, it's sad. But, in part, you can relax: The "fake news" is just a current meme and will go away in at most a few weeks.

You can hear so much about such a meme because the news organizations form herds, gang up, pile on.

Tribal instincts, competing for scarce resources?

Maybe you were responding to "form herds, gang up, pile on". My explanation for why they do that: For a newsie, if some of the bigger guns in the MSM are saying that some candidate is a dirty rat, then it is both safe and easy for all the other newsies in the MSM to do the same. Just one newsie calling dirty rat likely won't have enough credibility to get much traction, but, if all the MSM newsies are saying dirty rat, then they all get credibility, not just for a claim of dirty rat but maybe also even for little green men from Mars. More generally, gangs offer to their members some safety of numbers, and people in gangs are more willing to throw stones.

A friend of mine who remembers NYC some decades ago explains that the NYT wrote the stories and the rest of the MSM, especially the TV evening news, just went along -- easy, "no real work about it".

Yes, no doubt much the same applied to tribes. If everyone joins in, then can bring down an elephant, mastodon, bison, reindeer or some such, no one member of the tribe is at much risk of injury, and everyone in the tribe eats that day. If some guy in the tribe just wants to sleep through the effort, then maybe the rest of the tribe won't let him eat!

> Frightening. Really truly actually frightening to me.

Don't worry, Congress is going to fix that for you if the "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 ", H.R. 5181 passes. We'll have trusty folks over at the "Center for Information Analysis and Response" [1] to help us by "disseminating fact-based narratives" (!) to aide in determining whats true and whats false. How handy!

[1] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr5181/text

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-07/propaganda-bill-con...

Done. It passed and we now have a Ministry Of Truth.

>"I've seen this directly, too. I've been on the local news quite a few times, and EVERY TIME what they end up broadcasting, and what I was explaining to them are different things."

Completely agreed from personal experience. Not new but always worth re-iterating.

The news can't even get the basic facts right without twisting through addition or omission.

How are we supposed to rely on them when factual sources are suspect/false in the age of fake/lie-news?

Find experts. Do your own research.

I have seen this happen to a friend. He was active in a political party, and was interviewed by a local station which was doing a piece on politically active millenials.

They sent a reporter with a camera crew and he spoke to them for over one hour about his political views and ambitions. In the end, only a single soundbite ended up in the piece. It was a metaphor he used somewhere inbetween, so forgettable that I can't even recall it.