I am giving Scott the benefit of the doubt because it's Scott, but I am slightly annoyed that he doesn't actually clarify what he thinks counts as a 'lie.'
I think his central point here is this:
But people - including the very worst perpetrators of misinformation - very rarely say false facts. Instead, they say true things without enough context. But nobody will ever agree what context is necessary and which context is redundant.
They often say true things without enough context, then leave it to the reader to draw a false conclusion, which is a conclusion that the writer wanted them to draw anyway. Indeed, they often frame the 'true things' being said with their own opinion for context in order to ensure the reader is drawn to the conclusion they want them to reach without just saying it.
It looks something like this:
"Enraged Trump irresponsibly claims, without evidence, that he is being 'targeted' by an investigation into his charity's shady activities."
(I made this headline up, but you can find similar ones with minimal effort). Then the rest of the article will keep this exact tone and pick it's phrasing and framings to keep Trump squarely as the angry villain in the reader's mind, and omitting whatever might contradict this viewpoint.
Because okay, maybe Trump did say something along the lines of
"It's horrible that I'm being unfairly targeted for investigation because they don't like the causes my charity supports."
Is Trump 'enraged?' To the extent being angry is a matter of degree, him being 'enraged' can be true if he's 1% angry or 99% angry. Is it 'irresponsible' for him to make this statement when an active investigation is occurring? From a particular point of view, it could be. There's no hard-and-fast definition of what is and is not 'irresponsible' to say. Is this claim 'without evidence?' Well he didn't cite any, maybe he's got some maybe he doesn't, but this hardly matters to the story. Are his charity's activities shady? Again, point of view, and matter of degree. If they're not illegal and the funds are not misappropriated for non-charitable purposes, then 'shady' could just mean 'gives to causes we find distasteful.'
So there's no outright fabrication in the story, and yet, the story would lead the reader to believe (or confirms the reader's belief) that Trump is puffing mad because he's going to be found criminally liable for using his charity to fund underhanded and possibly criminal activity.
And one can dial up or dial down this effect simply by changing the adjectives used.
"Defiant Trump firmly claims that he is being 'targeted' by the politically motivated investigation into his charity's important activities."
And as long as the actual underlying details are never declared in the story, and the reader doesn't do their own research, then they form a belief based on implications and filling in (intentional!) omissions from their own head which won't quite match reality.
Have they been lied to? In my view yes. In that it would be extremely, extremely easy to report the 'simple truth' which describes the event in question:
"Trump claims he is being 'unfairly targeted' by an investigation into his charity's activities."
and fill in all known and relevant details in a similarly straightforward fashion, so that a reader doesn't have to fill in details that were intentionally left out, and can actually be confident they got the "whole story" before drawing any conclusions.
The act of typing out a story that is based on facts you have in your possession, then intentionally choosing to omit or minimize facts that would suggest a different conclusion to the reader, AND then adding in opinionated/biased language that is pushing the conclusion you want is, in fact, lying.
And yes, that applies to Infowars, MSNBC, WSJ, NYT, Fox News, and all the rest, regardless of political affiliation.
So I would be WAY less charitable than Scott is being if I wrote on this topic.
Of course, if Scott's doing a meta thing where he's posted this story without 'enough' context and slightly misleading interpretations of data and he's going to post a longer essay that builds on it, then bravo.
The act of typing out a story that is based on facts you have in your possession, then intentionally choosing to omit or elide facts that would suggest a different conclusion to the reader, AND then adding in opinionated/biased language that is pushing the conclusion you want is, in fact, lying.
I'm not so sure. I'm leaning more toward Scott's assessment that this isn't lying, as in knowingly transmitting false information. I'm not sure what a better word for what you and Scott are using as examples though. In my mind, I call it simply bad faith communication or bad faith argument.
What I find more interesting is the question of how much of this type of communication is done consciously? Do the people writing for Fox News or the NYT sit down and say to themselves, "I am now going to try and trick another mind to believe what I think it should believe?" Or is it more subconscious, like, "I will now fill the reader's mind with The Truth!"?
Given how people communicate around me, I'm not sure. It often feels that when people talk about politics around me, they often reuse the same rhetorical techniques they heard on a show without much thought. But I'm not sure they're doing it all consciously.
What I find more interesting is the question of how much of this type of communication is done consciously? Do the people writing for Fox News or the NYT sit down and say to themselves, "I am now going to try and trick another mind to believe what I think it should believe?" Or is it more subconscious, like, "I will now fill the reader's mind with The Truth!"?
In my experience (as a former journalist) it usually starts off with the latter and morphs into the former if you aren't vigilant (which is why it is better to just not do any of it.) It starts off with you reading some moron on social media explain things exactly backwards or in some other bizarrely stupid fashion, and so you write an article explaining how things really went down, and you use emotive language to drive home how right you are. Then your article, which is full of slams against the outgroup, gets retweeted by your colleagues and maybe a big name retweets it! Plus your boss loves it and so do all of your friends! Depending on how much you have dealt with popularity already, it can go one of two* ways - it either overwhelms you immediately and you instantly begin writing for more retweets, or you marinade in it and stick to what you were doing, and over time - as the depression endemic with being a truth teller in a post truth world blossoms and grows - subconsciously your brain recognises that you are less unhappy when you write the party line, and then you begin writing for more retweets. I'm not sure which is worse - the instant party slave has desperation behind them, but the boiled frog has had time to rationalise and justify everything she's done.
*There is a third route of course - due to broken brains and a prior surplus of popularity you don't give a shit about praise from anyone who isn't your dad, and so all the praise you get for your slam article makes you ashamed of it and yourself for writing it and you resolve to never do it again and you put way too much effort into making every article give as many facts as possible, and your commissions slowly dry up as your dry and informative articles are pushed aside by bombastic partisan bullshit. Eventually you quit and end up writing puns to annoy smart people in debate forums and working at a farmer's market, and you find you are infinitely happier than you were when every day meant grappling with a choice between sticking to your principles or being good at your job.
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Notes -
I am giving Scott the benefit of the doubt because it's Scott, but I am slightly annoyed that he doesn't actually clarify what he thinks counts as a 'lie.'
I think his central point here is this:
They often say true things without enough context, then leave it to the reader to draw a false conclusion, which is a conclusion that the writer wanted them to draw anyway. Indeed, they often frame the 'true things' being said with their own opinion for context in order to ensure the reader is drawn to the conclusion they want them to reach without just saying it.
It looks something like this:
"Enraged Trump irresponsibly claims, without evidence, that he is being 'targeted' by an investigation into his charity's shady activities."
(I made this headline up, but you can find similar ones with minimal effort). Then the rest of the article will keep this exact tone and pick it's phrasing and framings to keep Trump squarely as the angry villain in the reader's mind, and omitting whatever might contradict this viewpoint.
Because okay, maybe Trump did say something along the lines of
"It's horrible that I'm being unfairly targeted for investigation because they don't like the causes my charity supports."
Is Trump 'enraged?' To the extent being angry is a matter of degree, him being 'enraged' can be true if he's 1% angry or 99% angry. Is it 'irresponsible' for him to make this statement when an active investigation is occurring? From a particular point of view, it could be. There's no hard-and-fast definition of what is and is not 'irresponsible' to say. Is this claim 'without evidence?' Well he didn't cite any, maybe he's got some maybe he doesn't, but this hardly matters to the story. Are his charity's activities shady? Again, point of view, and matter of degree. If they're not illegal and the funds are not misappropriated for non-charitable purposes, then 'shady' could just mean 'gives to causes we find distasteful.'
So there's no outright fabrication in the story, and yet, the story would lead the reader to believe (or confirms the reader's belief) that Trump is puffing mad because he's going to be found criminally liable for using his charity to fund underhanded and possibly criminal activity.
And one can dial up or dial down this effect simply by changing the adjectives used.
"Defiant Trump firmly claims that he is being 'targeted' by the politically motivated investigation into his charity's important activities."
And as long as the actual underlying details are never declared in the story, and the reader doesn't do their own research, then they form a belief based on implications and filling in (intentional!) omissions from their own head which won't quite match reality.
Have they been lied to? In my view yes. In that it would be extremely, extremely easy to report the 'simple truth' which describes the event in question:
"Trump claims he is being 'unfairly targeted' by an investigation into his charity's activities."
and fill in all known and relevant details in a similarly straightforward fashion, so that a reader doesn't have to fill in details that were intentionally left out, and can actually be confident they got the "whole story" before drawing any conclusions.
The act of typing out a story that is based on facts you have in your possession, then intentionally choosing to omit or minimize facts that would suggest a different conclusion to the reader, AND then adding in opinionated/biased language that is pushing the conclusion you want is, in fact, lying.
And yes, that applies to Infowars, MSNBC, WSJ, NYT, Fox News, and all the rest, regardless of political affiliation.
So I would be WAY less charitable than Scott is being if I wrote on this topic.
Of course, if Scott's doing a meta thing where he's posted this story without 'enough' context and slightly misleading interpretations of data and he's going to post a longer essay that builds on it, then bravo.
I'm not so sure. I'm leaning more toward Scott's assessment that this isn't lying, as in knowingly transmitting false information. I'm not sure what a better word for what you and Scott are using as examples though. In my mind, I call it simply bad faith communication or bad faith argument.
What I find more interesting is the question of how much of this type of communication is done consciously? Do the people writing for Fox News or the NYT sit down and say to themselves, "I am now going to try and trick another mind to believe what I think it should believe?" Or is it more subconscious, like, "I will now fill the reader's mind with The Truth!"?
Given how people communicate around me, I'm not sure. It often feels that when people talk about politics around me, they often reuse the same rhetorical techniques they heard on a show without much thought. But I'm not sure they're doing it all consciously.
In my experience (as a former journalist) it usually starts off with the latter and morphs into the former if you aren't vigilant (which is why it is better to just not do any of it.) It starts off with you reading some moron on social media explain things exactly backwards or in some other bizarrely stupid fashion, and so you write an article explaining how things really went down, and you use emotive language to drive home how right you are. Then your article, which is full of slams against the outgroup, gets retweeted by your colleagues and maybe a big name retweets it! Plus your boss loves it and so do all of your friends! Depending on how much you have dealt with popularity already, it can go one of two* ways - it either overwhelms you immediately and you instantly begin writing for more retweets, or you marinade in it and stick to what you were doing, and over time - as the depression endemic with being a truth teller in a post truth world blossoms and grows - subconsciously your brain recognises that you are less unhappy when you write the party line, and then you begin writing for more retweets. I'm not sure which is worse - the instant party slave has desperation behind them, but the boiled frog has had time to rationalise and justify everything she's done.
*There is a third route of course - due to broken brains and a prior surplus of popularity you don't give a shit about praise from anyone who isn't your dad, and so all the praise you get for your slam article makes you ashamed of it and yourself for writing it and you resolve to never do it again and you put way too much effort into making every article give as many facts as possible, and your commissions slowly dry up as your dry and informative articles are pushed aside by bombastic partisan bullshit. Eventually you quit and end up writing puns to annoy smart people in debate forums and working at a farmer's market, and you find you are infinitely happier than you were when every day meant grappling with a choice between sticking to your principles or being good at your job.
...That third route sounds oddly specific, is that based on a real person?
Yeah I got to the end and realised that I never went party slave or boiled frog, so which route did I go? The route of self righteous failure.
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