aflanigan wrote: 
What are you talking? I was Iarate just the other day as a matter of fact...

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
Not every thoughtful person has such a low opinion of the original Sophists. Robert Pirsig believed they got a bum rap, and he makes a pretty good case for it in his famous book.

It's a shame that the word "sophistry" has attained the status of a pejorative. The root word, sophos, means "wisdom", which we could definitely use more of.

At least they haven't stolen arete and turned it into a pejorative, yet.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
This course is being offered locally here: http://callingbullshit.org/  It is very popular.  

aflanigan wrote:
Giving up and dumbing our standards down is not maturity, it's despair. We get nothing more than we demand and usually less. We should demand more.

And your diagnosis is beyond flawed—the problem predates the internet. Journalism has always relied on eyeballs for revenue, even back when type was made of lead. The problem is partisanship and unprofessional conduct. And I don't just mean by citizen-journalists/bloggers/anonymous posters on internet forums (like us); the problem is with old-school graduates of journalism schools working for supposedly credible outlets.


Perhaps you could explain the difference between lowering our expectations and giving a pass.

Let's use our informed status as news consumers (eyeballs) to drive change. Deprive outlets that have ceased to be credible of the attention that feeds them.


We as individual human beings have a responsibility to act as we believe. "I see a problem" only equates to "Government should intervene" if you see every problem as a nail and government as the hammer—and the only hammer in existence, at that.

8-track tapes suck compared to...well, every other medium for storing sound. They aren't a problem anymore, but not because a government agency was created to make 8-tracks stop sucking. We stopped buying them and moved to better alternatives as soon as they became available.

We won't be able to inform every consumer of news; there are people who visit Infowars and Natural News and CNN daily. And a great many people are content to be lied to so long as the lies match their prejudices. All we can (ethically) do is offer or promote alternatives, and back those sources with our eyeballs and subscriptions.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
As I say, a lie can contain many truths, but the truth will harbor no lies...

Stoics vs. sophists
ok, not the best link.. but you guys arguing about this reminds a bit of this ancient debate.

btw, I don't see either of you as sophists, but holding journalists to account for what they write is a question of our attitudes toward the truth, or if not that, at least some modicum of logical consistency. Allowing them to write any bullshit is surrendering the field to the sophists, who are already in the ascendancy. We are in a world of alternative facts and rampant misinformation when all that counts is your party allegiance and the truth can be shoehorned to fit your party program. At the moment I am grateful for anyone who has the balls to stand up and claim bullshit.
Just because the media earn their dough from clicks and advertising revenue doesn't mean we have to accept that low base line, even if it is dictate of the free market and demand for misinformation.
 

 Lazy8 wrote: 

That's the whole point, though, really. We can live in lala land and howl in protest every time the reality of how journalists get compensated based on paying audience and advertising, or we can put on our big boy panties and accept the fact that journalistic integrity is an ideal, but the reality is content that varies wildly in veracity and relevance.
 Lazy8 wrote:

Nobody is giving anyone a pass, sir. Least of all me. Just being realistic in my expectations of how often and how close they live up to the ideal, and being an informed consumer if possible.

If your complaints about the press not doing their job in the way you want them to  are not to be construed as calling for some outside organization (governmental or NGO) to rein them in, then what is your proposed answer? I would concur that there are many ignorant consumers out there, whether it comes to politics, medicine, or media. How are we to get significantly larger numbers of them to sharpen their skepticism and become attuned to confirmation bias? Rather a conundrum.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Utter bull. I do not have time now, but I hope to get back to this to explain my conclusion. Reap and sow.

aflanigan wrote:
No. I think I got it right the first time. It may be unrealistic to expect these days, but that is what journalism is—as opposed to just writing stuff that matches your prejudices.


If you're going to give news outlets (like the NY Times, WaPo, et al, as named in the article I posted) a pass on doing journalism because they're just entertainment then what does that leave us for actual news? Glenn Greenwald can't cover every story. And maybe I missed where I called for government oversight of the press—you should point that out so I can be reminded of what I think about it. I'm calling for readers to hold their news sources accountable for sloppy journalism.

A reporter's job isn't just to latch on to a source and repeat whatever s/he's told; that makes the reporter a mouthpiece, not a journalist. A source is just that: a source. Evidence of a story, not the story. Journalism requires looking beyond confirmation bias and verifying the truth of a story before repeating it.

Rolling Stone got reminded of this rather forcefully last year. I think the warning is timely.

My skepticism may inform my politics but my politics are irrelevant to this issue. Matt Taibbi is about the most stridently anti-libertarian journalist publishing today, and his take on this matches mine.

Posted: Feb 24, 2017 - 7:12pm

< Reply | Edit | Delete >

Morning Joe Says It’s Their Job To Control What You Think SCARBOROUGH: “Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, ‘Yeah you guys are going crazy. He’s doing — what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do.'” BRZEZINSKI: “Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.” Q E D ...

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Limiting the press to publishing verifiable facts/information strikes me as rather unrealistic. Care to have another crack?

You seem to be dumping your dissatisfaction with our political process entirely in the lap of people who get paid to entertain you and me. I forget where I read it but some former journalist said/wrote that an editor he admired told him that it was not the press' job to give people the truth: It was their job to put it within reach (I'm paraphrasing here). More surprising is that an admitted libertarian would forget the principle of caveat emptor. We have relatively little regulation/government oversight of the press. One would think a libertarian would be celebrating this, not complaining about it. But at any rate, I think some of the burden for your dissatisfaction has to be borne by news consumers as well as producers. 

The Washington press pool in particular is not going to give up reporting on the national political conversation (or local conversations), nor should they. Knowing what politicians are saying about various issues is fairly substance free, but can help you to get insight into what people are thinking. As for the original story I linked to that was circulating underground last year that Foer decided to publish, I would point out that some things can't be verified for certain. Traffic analysis is a time-honored technique of intelligence gathering. You can criticize the data the article reported, and certainly the implicit or explicit conclusions drawn. Foer seemed to include some caveats, perhaps not enough for some. Fair enough.

Ultimately, I think responsible journalism doesn't mean automatically throw out material given to you by a source with an agenda; almost every source has one. Keeping the possibility in mind should be the goal of any responsible journalist, definitely. There are steps you can take to minimize the risk of being manipulated into serving as a political tool. So perhaps that's what you want the press to do a better job of?

And maintain healthy skepticism/suspicion regarding all your sources, definitely. I'm with you on that one. Should apply to voters' relationship to politicians, as well.  
Edit: If it's speculative journalism that irks you and you'd like to go away, good luck. Seems to me that horse left the barn during the infancy of the Republic.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
I do take into account everything you say in regards to my last comment.  The Obama part enters when looking at the FISA Court warrant requests including most importantly who initiated them, why the requests were made in the first place and who knew what and when.  We do know what happened at the IRS and the Tea Party, not that anyone was ever held accountable ...

 kurtster wrote: 




Ok, here's the deal. Was Trump wiretapped? Absolutely, but so is everyone else by virtue of the NSA, FBI, CIA whoever wiretaps EVERYONE. However it is doubtful Obama himself had anything to do with it just as he had nothing to do with the fact that he was wiretapped as well. Just another day in the surveillance state.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
The media falls victim to its own confirmation bias and just passes it along as fact and gets accepted farther on down the line.

On this fire storm over Trump using the term 'wiretap'.  Perhaps it can be considered a generic term for surveillance considering how old Trump is.  Its like Kleenex for tissues and Xerox for copies.  If one considers 'wiretap' in these contexts, Trump's tweet has a different meaning.  In that context, does it make it more or less conceivable that Obama would or was spying on Trump ?  Shouldn't matter.  

I wouldn't put anything past Obama.  The man had an American citizen deliberately killed without due process or a trial.  Sets the bar rather low for scruples.

 Lazy8 wrote: 





Naw press is impartial and is only looking out for the publics interest as always.........lol. I can't even.

 aflanigan wrote:
First: what's the goal?

Implicit in the article is an admission: the press is partisan, and Trump and his administration are The Enemy. Previous Republican administrations have tiptoed around this, seldom acknowledging it publicly. The voters aren't all stupid; that partisanship was never far below the gloss of impartiality. Trump referred to it directly. In the process he conflated himself and his administration with "the American people", but he mentioned something that was obvious but taboo to speak of.

Sadly the press is making this easy for him. Outlets like the NY Times are squandering their credibility, and Trump is exploiting that. Now when we need a free and vigorous press more than ever it's pulling its own teeth.

But you had a question: the strategy. How about journalism? Print what you can prove. When someone is spoon-feeding you information you can't verify they are manipulating you. They have an agenda. That's a story too. When it matches your agenda that should make you even more suspicious, not less.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
I've ever thought he was stupid, in fact I think he is very savvy. Hubris is something else though. he's certainly got a vulnerability in that realm and I will be surprised if he makes 8 years without hitting that wall. November 2018 will be an interesting marker in our history. 

 Lazy8 wrote:You raise a good point. First, as most of the GOP folks in Congress such as Chaffetz are still dutifully pulling on oars rather than heading for the lifeboats, I would not be so sanguine about the thoroughness/impartiality of any Congressionally-headed investigation. A whitewash for political cover would seem a distinct possibility, at least until GOP leadership in Congress gets fed up with Trump.

Second, any political strategy, even something as seemingly mundane as conducting an investigation, carries risks. The same risk (double jeopardy protection) applies to investigating a murder or any other crime.

What's the alternative strategy?  

 Proclivities wrote: 
That's the technique here, but the chumming is in response to a threat. It's establishing an alibi, some thing he can point to later and say "I talked about this months ago," which knocks down the threat, sometimes before it really gets up a head of steam. 

"Threat" being anything that can cause problems. The easiest threats for him are other people. Hillary, Marco, Ted Cruz, he branded them, mentioned some real or fake episode of crookedness, littleness, or lying before they became a bigger problem. Then all he had to do was repeat the trigger word, Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, Lyin' Ted, and they couldn't get out from under that. And look, we're already headed down the road to any Russian contact with the Trump Campaign was Obama's doing. Couple more weeks and we'll be there.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
That crossed my mind a while ago as well.  It's almost like Trump and his crew are chumming the water and dragging a seine.  More pertinent issues are being ignored.