You can't entirely trust the media, no really

[drdoug]

The respectable, reputable media present a version of what has happened in the world that can be as misleading as possible without being actionably wrong about what actually happened. (The disreputable media just make it up, but you know that.)

Have a look at these lovely photographs of the day, from teh Graun. In particular, look at the one

Comments

[d_floorlandmine]

Thanks - that's a good demonstration that, while the camera doesn't technically lie, the absence of context, or, worse, the application of a different context, can give a whole different interpretation.

(Also, an interesting revelation about your family!)

[drdoug]

Functional programming can strike anywhere, any time. But people don't like to talk about it.

[d_floorlandmine]

And I've just remembered a classic example of context vs cropping - I just can't remember where from.

In an image, there is a boy with his hands raised, as if to shield his face from attack. Then it is revealed that, in the uncropped image, there is a football left of shot, that he's actually raising his hands to catch ...

[drdoug]

I've seen something similar but dodgier - I think in a JW leaflet - where close-cropped it looks like a black bloke grabbing a white woman for what it invites you to imagine are nefarious purposes, but in the wider shot, he's saving her from an oncoming truck.

[uon]

My favouritest thing to do on a sunny day in the countryside is.. ..sit and watch hay baling and wrapping. I could watch it all day long: there's something incredibly soothing about watching the tractor drive steadily up and down a huge field, raking up big bales of hay, spinning a protective layer around them and then gently depositing them on the ground like little eggs from which the baby tractors will emerge at night to seek their first prey.

[drdoug]

They clearly eat their shell as soon as they emerge, perhaps because they're nutritious. A field can be full of eggs one day and completely clear the next day with not a trace left.

Life must be pretty tough for baby tractors. A single tractor can lay tens of thousands of eggs, but only a few survive to adulthood.

I'm slightly boggling at the sort of apex predator that would have a significant effect on tractors. What horrors lurk unseen in the countryside?

[purplerabbits]

I think the predation happens at egg level, before the baby tractors have developed their adult defences. My dad told me that cows and horses eat them, which would make sense as tractors are the natural enemy of horses and oxen and have indeed surplanted them in much of the country...

[drdoug]

That seems an impressive fit to the evidence we have, and an interesting predator-prey cycle to model. The population of draught ungulates has indeed declined as the population of tractors has increased. Presumably, if the population of horses and oxen falls far enough, we'll be faced with an uncontrollable explosion of tractors. Unless the process of random mutation throws up a ruminant capable of taking down fully-grown adult tractors ... and we'd be back to my rural horror scenario.

[purplerabbits]

So much yes. Edinburgh SFSoc had a rule named after our friend Justin B Rye, because he was so good at pointing out press errors. Rye's law states that the accuracy of a media item varies as the inverse of the amount the reader/viewer happen to know about the subject.

[drdoug]

Hah! Excellent. Although presumably it's the apparent accuracy, rather than the actual accuracy?

[purplerabbits]

I think the law as originally stated implies that *obviously* all the other media items are true and it is the purest coincidence that the ones your know about are wrong wrong wrong.

[drdoug]

That's even better. Yes.

[jvvw]

Two of the three times that I've been interviewed by newspapers/magazines, the journalist has completely fabricated quotes from me. Not just paraphrasing, complete fabrication.

[drdoug]

That's horrible. Several of my friends have had horrible experiences that way. In particular, if the tabloids want to use you to tell a story that requires a villain, they are horrible.

I've been really lucky and the few times I've interacted with journalists on the record, they've been minded to make me sound good.

[jvvw]

Once was horrible because some people thought I did a bad job with the interview and were annoyed with me about it, the other was harmless if annoying and mostly amused Jon because the fabricated quote discussed me doing ironing which is not something I am known for!

The first time I put it down to bad luck encountering a dishonest journalist, but the second time made me wonder if it was actually common journalistic practice. I also have lots of respect for Aleks Krotoski as a result for quoting me absolutely verbatim on the occasion it didn't happen!

[thekumquat]

I went for a media training session a few years back. The most instructive moment was when they explained that journalists will, almost without fail, ask questions of the form "Do you think that, possibly, maybe, blah blah blah?", and any answer with the word yes involved, usually along the lines of "Well, yes, possibly, if $unlikelyevent and $otherunlikelything happened", will be reported as "So-and-so said, "Blah blah blah", and this will leave no comeback in court.

And also that they are under incredibly tight deadlines, so your best bet if they wake you up asking what you think about $newsstory is to promise to call back in 15 minutes, and you prepare your sentences in that time. If you don't promise to get back to them in that time, they will be calling Dr Rent-a-gob or Ms Gobshite MP who will always say something entertaining.

[barakta]

This thread makes me think of the 1990s and when we had discussions like this all the time on LJ!