I just forgot what I intended to write about. Luckily.
Could you imagine what our brains would be like, if we remembered all the clever ideas we ever had? What an incredible chaos there would be!
Forgetfulness is a much bigger gift to us from God than memory.
31 May 2008
01 May 2008
Headline spin and bias
Our opinions are usually based on facts to a reasonably large extent. I guess that at least 15% of our opinions come from evaluations of facts we hear. The rest is based on the subconscious desire to share opinions with people around us, the desire to oppose the opinions of people around us, and repeated unsubstantiated messages in media. It has been claimed that "the fourth estate", media, are important in forming our opinions, as they select which facts to give us.
At least as important is the way they present those facts.
One striking example of this is a story presented at sina.com and AFP. Both articles build entirely on a story from China's state news agency Xinhua (新华). They do not use any other sources. All the facts are the same. However, Sina's headline is Policeman killed in pursuit of riot leader. Read no further. You learn that a policeman is killed, the poor fellow. AFP's headline is Police kill Tibetan during gun battle in China: state media. Again, read no further. You learn that a Tibetan is killed by nasty Chinese police, the poor fellow. If you read both headlines you may end up very confused. Was a policeman killed or did he kill? It turns out both are true.
The two news sites slyly ignore the death of one or the other of the two victims in the headline. This conveniently twists the opinions of the casual reader, who reads headlines but not articles.
At least as important is the way they present those facts.
One striking example of this is a story presented at sina.com and AFP. Both articles build entirely on a story from China's state news agency Xinhua (新华). They do not use any other sources. All the facts are the same. However, Sina's headline is Policeman killed in pursuit of riot leader. Read no further. You learn that a policeman is killed, the poor fellow. AFP's headline is Police kill Tibetan during gun battle in China: state media. Again, read no further. You learn that a Tibetan is killed by nasty Chinese police, the poor fellow. If you read both headlines you may end up very confused. Was a policeman killed or did he kill? It turns out both are true.
The two news sites slyly ignore the death of one or the other of the two victims in the headline. This conveniently twists the opinions of the casual reader, who reads headlines but not articles.
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