How to have contentious discussions… — 10 Comments
That was an interesting article. What frustrates me so much about TV journalism is that it is so simplistic.
If I think we should worry about plastic in the ocean, then I should support banning straws and ignore all the other plastic we use. Maybe we should give a little more attention to scientists who are trying to develop biodegradable plastics and pay a bit more for products wrapped in them. I can virtue signal in one trip to Starbuck’s, but it is a lot more time consuming to find out about where our research money is going and trying to redirect a bit of it.
This was also my big problem with Michellle’s eating healthy programs. It should not have started with school cafeterias, but at home with the snacks mom gave their kids. Same with BLM: What about the first 18 years of the kid who was killed by a cop? Didn’t that time matter?
I have been blessed in my life never to fit into a niche, so I often had exposure to different viewpoints and experiences.
It was an extraordinary opportunity. For three hours, nine cameras captured the group’s conversation about Twitter, President Trump, health care and the prospect of a new civil war.
Snorts. Is that a common table of discussion now. It certainly wasn’t the case back in 2007 USA. The reason why prophets were considered crazy and had to be gotten rid of is pretty simple: they were crazy. Nobody with world based common sense is going to believe someone coming out of nowhere, the desert or wilderness, with no social or monetary authority to speak of, claiming that “you will all die unless you all repent and follow the word of God coming from my mouth….”
When asked “why” they should give up their national power and wealth and other successes, the answers from the prophets is usually “because my god said so”. Reason? Nope. Logic? Nope. They didn’t channel the Voice of the god thing with reason or logic, so they cannot use logic or reason to explain it. Thus prophet=crazy.
Even crazier in many ways than poets.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve been a journalist for over 20 years, writing books and articles for Time, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and all kinds of places, and I did not know these lessons.
Good for you. If you had learned and even used those lessons, you would have been out of a job pretty quick. Pay attention to how world based social and monetary status does not actually matter all that much to the Divine Counsel or Elohim.
The “automatic moderator” claims I posted this already but it doesn’t show up on refresh, so I will try again. Apologies if it is indeed a duplicate.
* * *
A very interesting article, and I support the author’s intention to improve journalism by introducing and fostering more complex story-telling, but doubt it will ever happen, because news media owners and journalists are NOT necessarily attracted to the idea of lessening conflict.
Also, I noticed here, as in other seemingly “balanced” essays and studies, that the author falls prey to some of the very problems she elucidates.
For instance:
“Worse yet, people exposed to information that challenges their views can actually end up more convinced that they are right. (And more educated people are not necessarily less biased in this way. For example, scientific literacy and numeracy are not strong predictors of believing climate change poses a serious risk to the public, as Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan has found.)”
Maybe they aren’t strong predictors because “climate change” in the sense used today meaning “ZMG the world is coming to an end because Big Oil” simply isn’t true, which obviously doesn’t even occur to either the author or the researcher.
Also, although she is genuinely advocating “more complexity” in news reports, the goal still usually seems to be “so we can Get Trump” as here:
“Instead, Haidt identifies six moral foundations that form the basis of political thought: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. These are the golden tickets to the human condition. Liberals (and liberal members of the media) tend to be very conscious of three of these foundations: care, fairness and liberty. Conservatives are especially attuned to loyalty, authority and sanctity, but they care about all six. And conservative politicians reliably play all six notes, Haidt argues.
Conservatives (and conservative media, I’d add) have a systemic advantage as a result. They can motivate more people more often because they hit more notes. (Notice how Democratic leaders still do not talk very often about Trump’s disloyalty to America, his cabinet members and his wives, in those terms, despite being bombarded with evidence of such disloyalty. They complain more often about injustice, indecency and unkindness, because those are the notes they most like to play.)
If journalists want to broaden their audiences, they need to speak to all six moral foundations.”
So, yeah, “be broader in your attacks on The Donald” is really good advice for building more trust of the news media among the Deplorables.
However, other than the author being a biased leftist trying to figure out how to better persuade conservatives they are wrong, it was a good piece, and I will try to use some of the ideas in my personal relationships.
Conservatives have listened, and often do listen, to liberals and Dem PC-bullies. Most thinking Reps know the arguments of the Dems, in ways the Dems would accept and recognize.
Most Dems, and especially Dem PC-bully journalists, do NOT know or understand the arguments of conservatives and Reps. Instead, they look for gotcha-quotes to prove the Reps are wrong, or racist/ sexist/ Islamophobic/ homophobic/ or some other reason that the Reps are evil.
This article might, but is unlikely to, help a few Dem PC-bullies to be open to really listening. Instead, it is more likely to help Dem bullies widen their reasons for attacking Trump and Trump supporters, including loyalty (as AesopFan notes above).
Very valuable are Haidt’s: “six moral foundations that form the basis of political thought: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. ” Supposedly with care, fairness & liberty especially for Dems.
However, until Dem media look at the unfairness of the their coverage of Hillary, who actually did commit numerous crimes (each and every Top Secret document on her server was a separate crime), as compared to Trump, the idea that they are being fair is ludicrous.
At one point she does a good critique of the Van Jones stunt of going into homes to “try to understand why Americans are so divided.” But he wasn’t trying to understand. And the author totally excuses this Fake News lie:
“To be fair, Jones did what most of us do when we are trapped in a conflict. He was so busy convincing the family they were wrong that he failed to prove he was listening.”
To be fair requires one to be honest, and Van Jones was, honestly, lying to himself about his purpose. Not to understand and explain the pro-Trump side, but to use whatever is said in a used-car salesman way to tell they’re wrong about their reasons.
In another minor note on Obamacare, journalists got factually involved “including the fact that healthcare premiums had been increasing faster in Alabama than in California.” Yet she doesn’t give the numbers? Yes, journalists should find out the facts, and give the numbers. Going from 1k to 1.2k; or going from 1k to 2.2k are both increases, but how fast, and what is the difference between areas both in percentage terms (from base) and in absolute terms.
Much of the truth is in actual numbers, yet too many journalists avoid numbers, too much. Knowing it was 50-50 women in CA & AL is actually less important to their conversation than what the pre- and post- Obamacare avg premiums were in CA & AL.
Finally, near the end Rubio is quoted: “We are a nation of people who have stopped being friends with people because [of whom] they voted for in the last election:” — actually, I have heard of many TDS folk who stop being friends with a Rep because of their vote. Reps who stop being friends are because of the whiny, often dishonest TDS outrage comments, which they don’t want to hear, or see on their FB timeline.
I think stopping FB “friends” from being PC-bullies, or otherwise jerks (including pro-Trump, anti-Dem) on your timeline is a good reason. To defriend because of the vote is rude.
Some Trump-supporters are rude (I try not to be). Many Dem Trump-haters are rude. Booting those you think are rude is fine. Who you voted for is mostly a criteria of the Dem bullies, who want politics to be most important to your life, 24/7.
In a free country, politics isn’t that important. We need to keep the USA free.
I do wish that I had more cash to help support you; maybe this idea can be used to get more cash from some of your other readers.
Quote from the article:
“Usually, reporters do the opposite. We cut the quotes that don’t fit our narrative.”
And THERE is the problem!
I actually liked this article. It had a lot of valid things to say. In particular, the idea that the real story is complex and not always coherent is refreshing to hear from a journalist.
BUT, she skirted around the issue that journalists far too often enter with a preconceived notion of what the story is, and then look for the facts to support that narrative.
The issues facing the journalism industry today are not just about a lack of journalistic skill. They are also about a lack of ethics in journalism.
“The issues facing the journalism industry today are not just about a lack of journalistic skill. They are also about a lack of ethics in journalism.” — Roy N.
Lack of skill + lack of ethics = Fake News
9,791 words. Sorry, but I’m surfing the internet to read news, not wanting to sit down and read a novel.
Well it was obvious from the first few sentences that putting some overpaid celebrity media people in charge of moderating a political discussion with the commoners, hasn’t going to work well.
Though there are definitely some good things in the article. I kept worrying that some of the motivation was 1) avoiding all that nasty effort required in digging up lots of facts, and 2) how can we journalist elites better manipulate the hoi polloi. What a relief that facts don’t motivate people, we can’t sell all that dry stuff in the media anyway.
Maybe I’m too cynical, but isn’t there the odor of condescension? We journalists must learn to lower ourselves into the emotional shoot-outs of our audience so we can con them into thinking correctly. It’s beyond their control, and they aren’t even aware of their own influences.
Aesop nailed with it the quote,
“scientific literacy and numeracy are not strong predictors of believing climate change poses a serious risk to the public, …”
Who has the confirmation bias here, and do those being polled have a deeper scientific understanding than the pollsters or journalists??
For some weird reason this all reminded me of Monty Python’s film skit “She turned me into a newt!” or “She’s a witch!”
“Lack of skill + lack of ethics = Fake News” – to quote myself.
“Fake news” may often be a matter of opinion, but a blatant case of intentional news fraud against the fair presentation of a news story of interest to Americans is hard to miss. Avoiding exploring why she was fired, when the opportunity to do so was readily at hand, has only one net effect: It avoids challenging the veracity of Manigault Newman’s charges against Trump and his administration.
There is, as yet, no evidence that any member of the press is in actual physical danger as a result of Trump’s “fake news” accusations, but with examples like this, there is an increasing number of examples of why the news media itself is in danger from its own conduct. And it certainly helps explain the plummeting credibility of the news media with the American people to the lowest point since Gallup started measuring it.
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That was an interesting article. What frustrates me so much about TV journalism is that it is so simplistic.
If I think we should worry about plastic in the ocean, then I should support banning straws and ignore all the other plastic we use. Maybe we should give a little more attention to scientists who are trying to develop biodegradable plastics and pay a bit more for products wrapped in them. I can virtue signal in one trip to Starbuck’s, but it is a lot more time consuming to find out about where our research money is going and trying to redirect a bit of it.
This was also my big problem with Michellle’s eating healthy programs. It should not have started with school cafeterias, but at home with the snacks mom gave their kids. Same with BLM: What about the first 18 years of the kid who was killed by a cop? Didn’t that time matter?
I have been blessed in my life never to fit into a niche, so I often had exposure to different viewpoints and experiences.
It was an extraordinary opportunity. For three hours, nine cameras captured the group’s conversation about Twitter, President Trump, health care and the prospect of a new civil war.
Snorts. Is that a common table of discussion now. It certainly wasn’t the case back in 2007 USA. The reason why prophets were considered crazy and had to be gotten rid of is pretty simple: they were crazy. Nobody with world based common sense is going to believe someone coming out of nowhere, the desert or wilderness, with no social or monetary authority to speak of, claiming that “you will all die unless you all repent and follow the word of God coming from my mouth….”
When asked “why” they should give up their national power and wealth and other successes, the answers from the prophets is usually “because my god said so”. Reason? Nope. Logic? Nope. They didn’t channel the Voice of the god thing with reason or logic, so they cannot use logic or reason to explain it. Thus prophet=crazy.
Even crazier in many ways than poets.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve been a journalist for over 20 years, writing books and articles for Time, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and all kinds of places, and I did not know these lessons.
Good for you. If you had learned and even used those lessons, you would have been out of a job pretty quick. Pay attention to how world based social and monetary status does not actually matter all that much to the Divine Counsel or Elohim.
The “automatic moderator” claims I posted this already but it doesn’t show up on refresh, so I will try again. Apologies if it is indeed a duplicate.
* * *
A very interesting article, and I support the author’s intention to improve journalism by introducing and fostering more complex story-telling, but doubt it will ever happen, because news media owners and journalists are NOT necessarily attracted to the idea of lessening conflict.
Also, I noticed here, as in other seemingly “balanced” essays and studies, that the author falls prey to some of the very problems she elucidates.
For instance:
“Worse yet, people exposed to information that challenges their views can actually end up more convinced that they are right. (And more educated people are not necessarily less biased in this way. For example, scientific literacy and numeracy are not strong predictors of believing climate change poses a serious risk to the public, as Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan has found.)”
Maybe they aren’t strong predictors because “climate change” in the sense used today meaning “ZMG the world is coming to an end because Big Oil” simply isn’t true, which obviously doesn’t even occur to either the author or the researcher.
Also, although she is genuinely advocating “more complexity” in news reports, the goal still usually seems to be “so we can Get Trump” as here:
“Instead, Haidt identifies six moral foundations that form the basis of political thought: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. These are the golden tickets to the human condition. Liberals (and liberal members of the media) tend to be very conscious of three of these foundations: care, fairness and liberty. Conservatives are especially attuned to loyalty, authority and sanctity, but they care about all six. And conservative politicians reliably play all six notes, Haidt argues.
Conservatives (and conservative media, I’d add) have a systemic advantage as a result. They can motivate more people more often because they hit more notes. (Notice how Democratic leaders still do not talk very often about Trump’s disloyalty to America, his cabinet members and his wives, in those terms, despite being bombarded with evidence of such disloyalty. They complain more often about injustice, indecency and unkindness, because those are the notes they most like to play.)
If journalists want to broaden their audiences, they need to speak to all six moral foundations.”
So, yeah, “be broader in your attacks on The Donald” is really good advice for building more trust of the news media among the Deplorables.
However, other than the author being a biased leftist trying to figure out how to better persuade conservatives they are wrong, it was a good piece, and I will try to use some of the ideas in my personal relationships.
Conservatives have listened, and often do listen, to liberals and Dem PC-bullies. Most thinking Reps know the arguments of the Dems, in ways the Dems would accept and recognize.
Most Dems, and especially Dem PC-bully journalists, do NOT know or understand the arguments of conservatives and Reps. Instead, they look for gotcha-quotes to prove the Reps are wrong, or racist/ sexist/ Islamophobic/ homophobic/ or some other reason that the Reps are evil.
This article might, but is unlikely to, help a few Dem PC-bullies to be open to really listening. Instead, it is more likely to help Dem bullies widen their reasons for attacking Trump and Trump supporters, including loyalty (as AesopFan notes above).
Very valuable are Haidt’s: “six moral foundations that form the basis of political thought: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. ” Supposedly with care, fairness & liberty especially for Dems.
However, until Dem media look at the unfairness of the their coverage of Hillary, who actually did commit numerous crimes (each and every Top Secret document on her server was a separate crime), as compared to Trump, the idea that they are being fair is ludicrous.
At one point she does a good critique of the Van Jones stunt of going into homes to “try to understand why Americans are so divided.” But he wasn’t trying to understand. And the author totally excuses this Fake News lie:
“To be fair, Jones did what most of us do when we are trapped in a conflict. He was so busy convincing the family they were wrong that he failed to prove he was listening.”
To be fair requires one to be honest, and Van Jones was, honestly, lying to himself about his purpose. Not to understand and explain the pro-Trump side, but to use whatever is said in a used-car salesman way to tell they’re wrong about their reasons.
In another minor note on Obamacare, journalists got factually involved “including the fact that healthcare premiums had been increasing faster in Alabama than in California.” Yet she doesn’t give the numbers? Yes, journalists should find out the facts, and give the numbers. Going from 1k to 1.2k; or going from 1k to 2.2k are both increases, but how fast, and what is the difference between areas both in percentage terms (from base) and in absolute terms.
Much of the truth is in actual numbers, yet too many journalists avoid numbers, too much. Knowing it was 50-50 women in CA & AL is actually less important to their conversation than what the pre- and post- Obamacare avg premiums were in CA & AL.
Finally, near the end Rubio is quoted: “We are a nation of people who have stopped being friends with people because [of whom] they voted for in the last election:” — actually, I have heard of many TDS folk who stop being friends with a Rep because of their vote. Reps who stop being friends are because of the whiny, often dishonest TDS outrage comments, which they don’t want to hear, or see on their FB timeline.
I think stopping FB “friends” from being PC-bullies, or otherwise jerks (including pro-Trump, anti-Dem) on your timeline is a good reason. To defriend because of the vote is rude.
Some Trump-supporters are rude (I try not to be). Many Dem Trump-haters are rude. Booting those you think are rude is fine. Who you voted for is mostly a criteria of the Dem bullies, who want politics to be most important to your life, 24/7.
In a free country, politics isn’t that important. We need to keep the USA free.
Neo, you might be interested in Bitch Media / Hearken ideas.
https://innovation.inn.org/2017/05/16/turning-readers-into-funders/
I do wish that I had more cash to help support you; maybe this idea can be used to get more cash from some of your other readers.
Quote from the article:
“Usually, reporters do the opposite. We cut the quotes that don’t fit our narrative.”
And THERE is the problem!
I actually liked this article. It had a lot of valid things to say. In particular, the idea that the real story is complex and not always coherent is refreshing to hear from a journalist.
BUT, she skirted around the issue that journalists far too often enter with a preconceived notion of what the story is, and then look for the facts to support that narrative.
The issues facing the journalism industry today are not just about a lack of journalistic skill. They are also about a lack of ethics in journalism.
“The issues facing the journalism industry today are not just about a lack of journalistic skill. They are also about a lack of ethics in journalism.” — Roy N.
Lack of skill + lack of ethics = Fake News
9,791 words. Sorry, but I’m surfing the internet to read news, not wanting to sit down and read a novel.
Well it was obvious from the first few sentences that putting some overpaid celebrity media people in charge of moderating a political discussion with the commoners, hasn’t going to work well.
Though there are definitely some good things in the article. I kept worrying that some of the motivation was 1) avoiding all that nasty effort required in digging up lots of facts, and 2) how can we journalist elites better manipulate the hoi polloi. What a relief that facts don’t motivate people, we can’t sell all that dry stuff in the media anyway.
Maybe I’m too cynical, but isn’t there the odor of condescension? We journalists must learn to lower ourselves into the emotional shoot-outs of our audience so we can con them into thinking correctly. It’s beyond their control, and they aren’t even aware of their own influences.
Aesop nailed with it the quote,
“scientific literacy and numeracy are not strong predictors of believing climate change poses a serious risk to the public, …”
Who has the confirmation bias here, and do those being polled have a deeper scientific understanding than the pollsters or journalists??
For some weird reason this all reminded me of Monty Python’s film skit “She turned me into a newt!” or “She’s a witch!”
“Lack of skill + lack of ethics = Fake News” – to quote myself.
Case in point from PowerLine’s headlines today:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/08/14/fake_news_and_news_fraud_137791.html
“Fake news” may often be a matter of opinion, but a blatant case of intentional news fraud against the fair presentation of a news story of interest to Americans is hard to miss. Avoiding exploring why she was fired, when the opportunity to do so was readily at hand, has only one net effect: It avoids challenging the veracity of Manigault Newman’s charges against Trump and his administration.
There is, as yet, no evidence that any member of the press is in actual physical danger as a result of Trump’s “fake news” accusations, but with examples like this, there is an increasing number of examples of why the news media itself is in danger from its own conduct. And it certainly helps explain the plummeting credibility of the news media with the American people to the lowest point since Gallup started measuring it.