Today's Reading Assignment
Oldy, but goody.
By Moe Lane Posted in Culture — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Why Speculate?, a speech that Michael Crichton made in 2002 (which doesn't spare our side). A particular gem below:
Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works 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 with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
Via Confederate Yankee's comment section, via Protein Wisdom: neither of the two articles have to do with Crichton, but they're both worth reading anyway.
I'd gussy this up further with some aimless pontification, but the wife's lab is doing an Open House today, and I gotta get going.
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my {/tongue in cheek} tag disappeared from the post above. Sorry...
I may suffer from hubris but not enough to think Crichton overlooked what follows, but it also explains the superficiality and blatant errors that appear across the media spectrum today.
1. The disappearance of bureaus. These assured at least some familiarity with the local terrain. This doesn't mean they weren't biased as well, and they were, but at least easily prevented factual errors weren't as pervasive.
2. The rise of "general" reportage. As Crichton mentions, reporters, authors, screenwriters, and others are expected to write, broadcast, and document areas in which they have absolutely no familiarity. Watch an average network news broadcast. The White House correspondent is as likely to cover the health care industry as not, and perhaps not know much about either. There is residue of specialization but it soon will be gone.
3. Journalism pays little. As a result, only the idealistic and/or unmarketable are likely to take entry-level jobs. The best and the brightest are in business or an actual profession.
I could go on. But next time a reporter intones about how the surge actually has failed or something similar egregious, rest assured that erroneous claim has at least some roots in the above. Ignorance may take a second seat to blatant bias, but it is a close runner-up.
I saw an idiot woman correspondent on CNN reporting a US aircraft carrier leaving for a duty station. The ape happened to gurgle that it had a crew of 5,000 soldiers, SOLDIERS !
You don't expect much but you have the right to expect something.
As to compensation, whatever starter salaries are for this accursed element of our work force they are attracted by something larger than money. God help us, they want to change the world.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
if you're going to forget it later. The Gell-Mann effect is non-operative until then. There exists what I call the willful gullibility effect whereby slobs swallow any absurdity crammed down their throats by a mendacious media because they want to believe it. An example of this is the still present reference to the war in Iraq as illegal. Plant the thought and observe the mindless follow the bread crumbs.
In line with the Gell Mann effect though, I worked with a guy who was quite skeptical of the news or coverage in the sports section. Turn the last page of that section and he became a babe in the woods, awaiting his Gerbers from the Masters of Information, the Giants of Journalism, the people who read Danille Steel or some such for intellectual stimulation.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Otherwise, the consumers would demand more. The media knows its market, so it has scaled back as I mentioned above to the point where it is little more than the late Hunter Thompson without the literary value or coherence.
I loved Hunt for Red October. But then again I'm a dumb**** infantryman and I don't know squat about submarines.
Then I read Clear and Present Danger. I served in a sister battalion of the one featured in the story and it was simply wrong on so many levels as to be farcical. Then I read Red Storm Rising. I worked war plans for a while. See my comments about Clear and Present Danger.
So now I'm left wondering should I like Hunt for Red October.
This is to make a point, not to initiate a threadjack.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
And you call yourself a man? And a conservative man at that!
What type* of self-respecting, red meat eating, All American, Red, White, and Blue conservative MAN would let a little thing like ‘the little lady’s’ career get in the way of his God Given Right to Pontificate Aimlessly?
I am disappointed beyond (further) words…
*A smart one, that does not want to be sleeping outside