fixing the media's bias

[Storm]

left or right, the MSM, talk radio and even the internet all have a bias that needs to be filtered out, we as viewers tend to have a confirmation bias that drives us towards media that fits our pre-existing views, since we cant buy out Rupert Murdock or stage a hostile take over of MSNBC. what can we as consumers do to fix the agenda driven side of media?

how about understanding logic? i just recently came across this http://www.triviumeducation.com/logic/ podcast on logic, (Informal fallacies with Dr. Michael Labossiere, Gnostic Media Podcast episode #062)
and this http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ logical fallacy list, what i did was open both and read the description of each fallacy as the podcast plays.
i also opened http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html a taxonomy of logical fallacy's and used this to see where the fallacy's fit in the taxonomy (also as the podcast played), it has descriptions linked to each fallacy as well..

i am far from an expert and far from having them all hard memorized for immediate recognition... but WOW... the fact that i can pick out even some fallacy's on the fly as i watch, read or listen to the media (including entertainment shows) has made a eye opening difference.. it is as if the media is now being run through a high powered bullshit detector.. one that i suspect everybody should have been taught in elementary school...

WARNING... do NOT turn spotting argumentative fallacy's in the media into a drinking game YOU MAY DIE OF ALCOHOL POISONING in the first half hour...!!!

There is not much we can do about the bias in mainstream media.  Large corporations like GE and News corp. own most of the media outlets, so their paychecks are already signed by the same people who want to maintain the status quo at all costs.

All we can really do is turn to alternative media, blogs, self-reporting, etc, although the quality of that is pretty poor, to be honest.

One thing I do to promote media that is not biased by corporate interests is donate annually to NPR.  NPR is one of the last remaining news organizations that does real, in depth reporting in foreign countries and is not beholden to any corporate interests.

[MediumTex]

Every news broadcast should start with:

"What you are about to see is based on a true story..."

[stone]

Reporting or even just observing anything entails putting it within a framework of understanding. I've been most struck by this when reading old scientific papers where all the raw data is totally accurately reported and as raw data fits perfectly into a current understanding of what is going on but was originally described in a narrative context that we know now is quite mistaken based on subsequent findings. Similarly if you show the same bit of raw data to a few people they often will each come up with quite a different story about what it shows.

[TripleB]

my title was a bit of a bait and switch i don't really expect to change the media... i am proposing changing the way our brains absorb and digest it, i do like to try (not always successfully) to fight my confirmation bias by listening to both sides of the spectrum (in addition to alternative media)..
i have a feeling that in spite of its lack of corporate interests that you would find the same kind of faulty arguments at NPR (i am not a listener so i cant say one way or the other) but it permeates most of what is out there, the trick isn't to find a media outlet with out it (if one exists) but to learn to recognize it, so faulty reasoning doesn't adversely influence your own thinking...

We can't fix the media's bias because the media is an organization that is incentivized to drive up ratings and also to allow sustainability (i.e. if it's a large corp like News Corp, they will bias their media politically in ways that benefit their large corp).

On one hand I was going to start to argue that we don't need big media with the internet, because we can get news from blogs and such. But then I realized they are all biased to, by the individual authors.

Then I realized everyday life is biased. Why do we measure things in 10s? The Dow his 13,000! Gold surpassed $1700! It's because we have 10 fingers and are inherently biased by that. If we had nine fingers, then we'd make the numbers of important financial thresholds based on the base 9 number system instead.

I believe recognizing bias is an important critical thinking skill. Everything in the world is biased, including yourself, so having the media be biased could be a training tool for intelligent people who don't accept it at face value.

[MediumTex]

The news is just entertainment.

If it's not entertaining it will never make the news.

We imagine that there is such a thing as "news" that exists apart from entertainment, but I don't think that is true.

[FarmerD]

Every news broadcast should start with:

"What you are about to see is based on a true story..."

MT
No kidding.  I don't think reporters even get the basic facts correct most of the time. Every time I see your signature quote in your responses, I think of when I have been interviewed by TV/newspapers reporters.  For example, I was interviewed by the local ABC affiliate at Sheppard AFB.  When they played my interview on the 6:00 news, at the bottom of the screen they overlaid my name and rank.  My name was badly mispelled. This, despite the fact they shot the interview from the chest up with my name tag clearly visible.  Another time my quotes in the San Antonio Daily News were attributed to "Army Capt XXXX from Brook Army Medical Center".  I was a USAF Captain from Brooks AFB.  To me, attributing sources correctly in your story seems kinda important, but hey, I'm not a journalism major so what do I know. 

[FarmerD]

Not trying to start a liberal versus conservative (I'm neither) war here but.....

At my university, some student organization would poll the different colleges then post the voting preferences by college. I found the results extremely interesting.  For the Reagan/Mondale and Bush Sr/Dukakis elctions, the results were pretty much identical.

Engineering college: 65-35% Reagan Bush
Business:  55-45 Reagan Bush
Journalism:  96-4 Mondale Dukakis
etc

Until I saw these polls, I always figured the conservative claim of media bias was somewhat overblown.  After I saw the polls with the truly stunning poll numbers of the journalism students and faculty, I started reading the newspapers more carefully.   As humans we are all biased.  I think it's practically impossible to be 100% objective when reporting something.  In subtle ways, your biases always creep into your reporting.  Therefore, I think reporters can report anything they want as long as their biases are stated or known when reporting on politics, the economy, foreign affairs, social issues, etc.  That goes for liberals, conservatives, libertarians. 

[Gosso]

i tend to agree we are all biased and it is hard not to have it show through (for all groups), but we can separate the wheat from the chafe, there are two sides to the information we take in.. the who, what, where, when, and why, these should be possible to confirm from reputable sources, then there are the conclusions/arguments made from that information, and those should be able to stand the test of reason and logic..    
 reporters are free to present one or both sides to an argument, or as farmerD mentioned admit there bias and acknowledge that a part of what they do is commentary,
anyone who has spent time on an internet forum will likely recognize an Ad Hominem and maybe a straw-man,  ;D    but the shear variety of bad, sloppy, dishonest, fallacious thinking presented to us by politicians, reporters and commentators is pretty huge..  (here is a nice "top ten list" that i just ran across http://open.salon.com/blog/emagill/2010/04/09/top_10_logical_fallacies_in_politics)

I believe recognizing bias is an important critical thinking skill. Everything in the world is biased, including yourself, so having the media be biased could be a training tool for intelligent people who don't accept it at face value.

 thanks tripleB... this is what i was trying to suggest in the OP, running the information we get from the media through the filter of critical thinking and logic and using it to make our skills better..

I just read through that linked blog and found it very interesting.  A lot of it seems like common sense, but when you put it all together it is shocking to see just how much power this can have over people.  I wonder if the people in media/politics are conscious of the fact they are using these logical fallacies...would they be trained in this?

[Storm]

Engineering college: 65-35% Reagan Bush
Business:  55-45 Reagan Bush
Journalism:  96-4 Mondale Dukakis

To be honest, it really doesn't matter.  Do you really think any journalism major, bright and fresh out of college, getting a job at NBC/Universal (owned by GE) isn't going to tow the line when the GE corporate masters want a war?  Demopublican, Republicrat, Independent (if there is such a thing), they will all happily say "yes master, we'll talk about how evil Iran is if it'll sell more laser guided weapons systems for GE!"  And if they don't, there are thousands of other fresh young journalism majors that want their job enough to run whatever stories GE wants them to run.

[Storm]

I wonder if the people in media/politics are conscious of the fact they are using these logical fallacies...would they be trained in this?

  bottom line ... "i don't know"..    
 if i put my tinfoil-hat on for a minute, and look at how often people are manipulated using bad thinking-false arguments, towards ugly ends (or just into buying unnecessary consumer crap), and the fact that they don't teach this kind of important critical thinking skill (or thinking at all) in schools i would say "hell yes!" its done willfully on purpose...  

if i am trying to see it realistically, i doubt many of the people you hear fallacy's from are aware they are doing it. "they" like us probably never learned this stuff either, but somewhere behind them, the talking point writers, the spin doctors, the advertisers and the propagandists, who are working in think tanks and powerful organizations (political and corporate) probably do understand them, and how humans can be psychologically manipulated by them to achieve an ends..

I don't think so... a famous man once said: ""It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair.

This is the problem with media.  Even if they did understand that they were being asked to spread logical fallacies, they probably wouldn't care because their salary depends on not caring...

Obligatory Breaking Bad:  Fallacies; Fallacies... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhUNrpX8 ... re=related

[Gosso]

I wonder if the people in media/politics are conscious of the fact they are using these logical fallacies...would they be trained in this?

  bottom line ... "i don't know"..    
 if i put my tinfoil-hat on for a minute, and look at how often people are manipulated using bad thinking-false arguments, towards ugly ends (or just into buying unnecessary consumer crap), and the fact that they don't teach this kind of important critical thinking skill (or thinking at all) in schools i would say "hell yes!" its done willfully on purpose...  

if i am trying to see it realistically, i doubt many of the people you hear fallacy's from are aware they are doing it. "they" like us probably never learned this stuff either, but somewhere behind them, the talking point writers, the spin doctors, the advertisers and the propagandists, who are working in think tanks and powerful organizations (political and corporate) probably do understand them, and how humans can be psychologically manipulated by them to achieve an ends..

I'm with you, I cannot decide if it's intentional or just the nature of the business.

If anyone is really really interested in this subject I'd recommend The Century of the Self.  It is a very dry documentary and runs four hours long, but deals with:

- how corporations learned to manipulate you into buying their goods
- how Hitler was able to brainwash the entire German population
- how politicians began to move their message away from rational platforms to instead focus on "hot-button" issues
- the importance of psychoanalysis in the early 20th century, and then it's failure
- and some other stuff I have forgotten

The documentary mainly focuses on Edward Bernays and how influential he was in shaping the US mass psychology.  Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and used a lot of his uncle's work to influence the US population.  The whole thing leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach, but it gives you a great history of how Freud's work was used to control the "dangerous and unruly" crowds.

[Gosso]

Here's a quote from the Wikipedia page on Edward Bernays:

In Propaganda (1928), Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of democracy:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.[11]

[Tortoise]

If anyone is really really interested in this subject I'd recommend The Century of the Self.

Great documentary. Watched it several years ago, and it made a big impression on me.

Most of public relations, politics, and advertising seems to be based on the application of the triune brain model for the purpose of manipulation. In the triune brain model, the brain consists of (1) a primitive survival- and reproduction-focused "reptilian brain," (2) a less primitive, emotion-focused "mammalian brain," and (3) the logical/rational neocortex. The idea is that the reptilian brain wields the most powerful influence over human actions, so efforts to manipulate people are most successful when they focus on the characteristics of the reptilian brain.

French marketing specialist Dr. Clotaire Rapaille spoke about this in the 2004 PBS documentary The Persuaders:

My theory is very simple: The reptilian always wins. I don't care what you're going to tell me intellectually. I don't care. Give me the reptilian. Why? Because the reptilian always wins.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... aille.html

[MediumTex]

Most of public relations, politics, and advertising seems to be based on the application of the triune brain model for the purpose of manipulation. In the triune brain model, the brain consists of (1) a primitive survival- and reproduction-focused "reptilian brain," (2) a less primitive, emotion-focused "mammalian brain," and (3) the logical/rational neocortex. The idea is that the reptilian brain wields the most powerful influence over human actions, so efforts to manipulate people are most successful when they focus on the characteristics of the reptilian brain.

French marketing specialist Dr. Clotaire Rapaille spoke about this in the 2004 PBS documentary The Persuaders:

My theory is very simple: The reptilian always wins. I don't care what you're going to tell me intellectually. I don't care. Give me the reptilian. Why? Because the reptilian always wins.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... aille.html

Sorry guys, I missed a few posts.  I had to step out and get some beer.  I don't know why this urge came upon me suddenly.



So where were we at?  Oh yeah, the media is always deceiving us and trying to get us to believe things that aren't true.  I'm glad I am smart enough to resist all of their tricks.

[Gosso]

So where were we at?  Oh yeah, the media is always deceiving us and trying to get us to believe things that aren't true.  I'm glad I am smart enough to resist all of their tricks.

Since I have Bill Hicks on the brain, I thought I would post his comments on people in the advertising/marketing business:

WARNING: DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO ANY TOPICS REGARDING SUICIDE, OR DO NOT HAVE A STRONG/SICK SENSE OF HUMOUR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

[Gosso]

I was thinking about the logical-fallacies for a bit, and it occurred to me that these are not necessarily a bad thing.  These techniques can be used for good (at least whatever the person using them deems to be good).  Is it not more compelling to use the logical-fallacies to make an argument, rather than using pure logic and facts?  Most people have been programmed to respond very strongly to these techniques.  So why not give the media and whatnot a taste of their own medicine?

I will try to answer my own question.  This could be a very slippery slope, and in some ways will damage your credibility.

Just some food for thought.

[MediumTex]

it is a compelling and manipulative way to make an argument, but it smacks of the kind of leadership from above, control the irrational masses, that the documentary on Bernays you linked to talks about, (thanks for the link i am over half way through it ...good stuff) personally i don't think humanity is irrational by some fundamental genetic flaw, we are irrational due to a flawed education.. if you fix education you would get autonomous rational individuals (the kind a representative republic thrives on) if you kill critical thinking you get a population you can push in the direction of your choosing.. if you would like to see a interesting interview on the history of education and history in general, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8 its five hours and wanders from topic to topic but i got a awful lot from it, it has strong parallels to the Bernays documentary from an education/educators point of view



BTW "slippery slope" is also a type of fallacy, its not always a fallacy (some times one thing does lead to another) but unless the inevitability can be proven.....

"The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This "argument" has the following form:

Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another. "

I find that one way to cut through various mind-control and manipulation techniques is to try to identify what another person or party wants from me.  Once I understand what they want from me, it seems to make many of these manipulation techniques less effective.

For example:

- The news organizations want me to be in a constant state of either titillation or exasperation.
- The politicians want me to be in a state of fear that I perceive can only be remedied by some state action.
- Wall Street wants me to believe that the future is predictable and stocks always go up.
- The beer companies want me to buy their beer.

[Tortoise]

I was thinking about the logical-fallacies for a bit, and it occurred to me that these are not necessarily a bad thing.  These techniques can be used for good (at least whatever the person using them deems to be good).  Is it not more compelling to use the logical-fallacies to make an argument, rather than using pure logic and facts?  Most people have been programmed to respond very strongly to these techniques.  So why not give the media and whatnot a taste of their own medicine?

I will try to answer my own question.  This could be a very slippery slope, and in some ways will damage your credibility.

Just some food for thought.

I was never on a debate team, but it seems like becoming successful in the art of debate and persuasion requires one to learn about the various types of logical fallacies to both (1) defend against opponents who use them, and (2) use them against opponents when doing so is advantageous.

The U.S. presidential election debates are great examples of logical fallacies at work. Most of the candidates are well-trained in the art of debate, whether officially or by on-the-job training. Sometimes when I'm watching those debates, I feel like I should be holding a notebook so I can keep a tally of how many times each type of logical fallacy is used.

In my workplace, I've noticed that the most successful managers are the ones who can most skillfully persuade others, and often they seem to do this by applying logical fallacies to various degrees--not to overtly lie, but rather to take facts and twist them into a more persuasive "shape" so that they support (or at least appear to support) whatever agenda they are pushing at that time. In corporate upper management, this sort of constant persuasion/selling to various people and audiences seems universally to be a big part of the job.

[Storm]

The U.S. presidential election debates are great examples of logical fallacies at work. Most of the candidates are well-trained in the art of debate, whether officially or by on-the-job training. Sometimes when I'm watching those debates, I feel like I should be holding a notebook so I can keep a tally of how many times each type of logical fallacy is used.

Gingrich is the master of the ad-hominem.  Did you see the debate where he was asked about his ex-wife and immediately blamed the media for having the gall to ask the question?  It was truly masterful, and almost got a standing ovation from the crowd for what should have been a very embarrassing question.

[Gosso]

BTW "slippery slope" is also a type of fallacy, its not always a fallacy (some times one thing does lead to another) but unless the inevitability can be proven.....

Okay, screw it, I quit -- from now on I'm only speaking in equations

I + Feelings = Better 

[Gosso]

you are going to want to kill me.....

if what what you meant by this

Okay, screw it, I quit -- from now on I'm only speaking in equationsI + Feelings = Better

is that "speaking in equations is better because it makes you feel better". it would be "an appeal to emotion" it may be better to speak in equations but feelings associated with it neither prove nor disprove the premise..

"Appeal to Emotion"

An Appeal to Emotion is a fallacy with the following structure:

Favorable emotions are associated with X.
Therefore, X is true. "

seeing naked women covered in bottle caps make me feel good, mediumtex's favorite beer is associated with naked women covered in bottle caps, therefor that is the beer i should go out and buy

edit to add.... this is also a very common investing fallacy... appeal to emotion, "greed, fear, pride etc" is seen in many "pay me to manage your money/pro investment strategy" arguments..