While our own commenters discuss the origins of the hapless “brass monkey”, it seems appropriate to drop in a plug for – and invite discussion of – last week’s episode of “On the Media” on NPR. They aired a series of stories – many of them having been aired previously – around the theme of popular cultural myths, including:
- Obama the secret Muslim
- Rosa Parks
- The Bradley Effect
- The Kitty Genovese murder
- Spitting on returned soldiers
- Coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis
The part of the show that I found most interesting was the discussion with political scientist Brendan Nyhan about research into the effectiveness of corrections – in short, the evidence suggests that just stating that something is not true can actually backfire, and some of the alternative correction strategies Nyhan has investigated produce mixed results. But this part of the discussion resonated with me:
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mm-hmm. Now, you’ve spent years doing studies on correcting misperceptions and you also ran Spinsanity, which is a political factchecking website that was a precursor to sites like FactCheck and PolitiFact. What do you think is the best way to combat misperceptions?
BRENDAN NYHAN: When we were working on Spinsanity we had a group of readers who were very interested in finding out about political spin, and even then it was incredibly difficult to get them to accept corrections that targeted the side that they liked the best. So you can imagine how hard it would be with the general public.
So what I think is the most effective approach is to go after elites, to shame the people who are promoting these things, who are putting them out there.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You’re talking about the punditocracy and politicians, and you’re talking about going to the wellspring of these misperceptions?
BRENDAN NYHAN: That’s right. One of the things we tried to do at Spinsanity was just to show in excruciating detail how frequently people like Ann Coulter and Michael Moore distorted the facts. And at some point, people have to be cast out of polite society. You have to simply say, that is irresponsible and we’re not going to give you our air time, our print to make that sort of a claim.
Politicians and talk radio hosts, they’re going to push these things when it’s in their interest to do so. It’s a simple cost-benefit calculation. What I want to do is increase the cost.
It seems to me that part of what we do here is attempting to achieve that same effect, but I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts about how the cost-benefit equation works in Australia. To what extent are politicians and pundits held accountable for distorting the facts? And how can we increase the cost for those who do?
19 Comments
…and this is exactly why Bolt and the rest of News Ltd. hate the internet while attempting to control it: they are being held up to scrutiny to a degree that was unheard of when they were cosied up in their editorial suites. It’s a wonderful world.
Andrew Sullivan discussed the accountability of the MSM in relation to the sarah palin experiement and the media’s failure to properly question fundamental aspects of her suitability for VP lest they be called biased. Don’t we see exactly the same thing here from rightwing columnists whenever journalists acting properly put politicians under scrutiny: they are accused of bias if the politician happens to be conservative.
Sullivan suggests removing these people from their positions of power. Like monkeywrench says, the changing face of how media is delivered to people has already taken power away from the media elites. hopefully further shifts will keep the momentum going in that regard.
How can this guy possibly equate Ann Coulter to Michael Moore? That’s BS. I’m sure Moore has distorted facts occasionally, but Ann Coulter? That woman spews distorted bile everytime she opens her mouth.
in short, the evidence suggests that just stating that something is not true can actually backfire, and some of the alternative correction strategies Nyhan has investigated produce mixed results.
Oh, so should I be saying that Guy Rundle is a really with it writer and Crikey ought to thank their lucky stars they have sheer genius like that in their pockets?
Confessions:
Sullivan wanted Palin to prove the young kid was hers and not her daughter’s. Palin’s an idiot but Sullivan is even worse if that were at all possible.
i’ve just heard on A-PAC the Attorney General giving a talk about native title and he said he recognises changes to native title need to happen, it will take place with full consultation with stakeholders, and that he “hopes the media will be responsible in reporting those changes.”
maybe the government has decided it will lead from the front in demanding the media get its act together in terms of reporting.
Very interesting reading TZ, thanks for the links. I especially enjoyed the Rosa Parks piece.
Confessions: “Andrew Sullivan discussed the accountability of the MSM in relation to the sarah palin experiement and the media’s failure to properly question fundamental aspects of her suitability for VP lest they be called biased.”
Are you so “profoundly ignorant” – to use your words – that you actually buy this crap?
Slamming Sarah Palin was ALL the mainstream media did “last fall”.
I know you lefties have your heros, but really. Andrew Sullivan??
The guy is known only for the laughing stock he created of himself after he started DEMANDING the birth certificate of Sarah Palin’s youngest son. And I think he is actually STILL carrying on about that, isn’t he?
The Rosa Parks example is a good example as to how the media controls public discourse, in this example, the discourse over history. Historians of the civil rights movement have no doubt been aware of Parks’ political beliefs and attitudes since historians of the civil rights movement have existed, and these facts are certainly apparent in the various books and articles that have been written since, but because the media has such a greater influence and reaches so many more people than academic journals and history books, suddenly Rosa Parks becomes the friendly-face of the non-violent civil rights movement. The same treatment has occured to MLK, as far as I know.
It’s one reason I believe Robert Fisk when he says the best journalists have a background in history and politics.
It’s very difficult to effect change in Australia, I believe. If you try to do it from outside the system you are rarely effective and if you try to do it from within a system you may effect change but it’s invariably at the cost of wrecking your own life, so many people don’t try.
A case in point is that of Deborah Lee Locke, a former NSW policewoman, who was a major cause of the NSW Police Royal Commission and who subsequently wrote the book Watching the Detectives. The events detailed in Watching the Detectives had the side-effect of basically ruining Ms Locke’s life. She no longer works, is basically in hiding and I think she’s had to move a couple of times to elude people chasing her.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2003/938081.htm
No names or pack drill, but I was in a position in relation to a NSW Govt agency where I could have put people in prison, and very likely brought down the NSW government, but I chose not to pursue the matter. I’ve felt guilty about that ever since. One reason I chose as I did was because nobody else would side with me, so I would have been one out; another reason was that I really believed they wouldn’t be able to cover it up, so it would come out anyway, but somehow the bastards did cover it up. I’d left by then, after working in this place for 15 years. A main reason I left was to get away from the smouldering bomb, but somehow they put the thing out.
NB – apologies about the Brass Monkey thing (was a good story though, wasn’t it?) but I still think there might be some truth in the story. The Wikipedia article quoted by RobJ seemed to rest heavily on one American investigation which may have been flawed.
pedro @ 7: you continue to reinforce my view that you are profoundly ignorant.
Why else would you continually submit comments that have fuck all to do with what’s being discussed? If you have nothing to say about the issue at hand, it’s best to stay silent and learn from those who do.
Confessions – you brought this guy into the discussion. His credibility as a suitable commentator is thus allowed to be questioned.
HegemonyOrBust – Coulter is a raving looney with the occasional good point. Moore uses dishonest techniques with an ambush methodology to present his point of view during confrontational points in his ‘documentaries’. I particularly disliked his portrayal of the NHS (British health service) in ’sicko’. As someone who is currently using the NHS (due to my wife being pregnant and being over here on work) I can tell you that his portrayal of the NHS does not reflect reality. He made it out to be a model health care system where you were seen to promptly always and never paid a thing. Bullshit! You have to go private just to get some treatments that are standard fare in the Australian public system – and you wait….and wait and wait….
Hey, I’ve got another cultural myth. That being “Rudd is the saviour!”
Let’s face it, 55% of Australian thought they’d elected a Hilary Clinton in Kev07, but what they got was Paris Hilton.
Except Paris has got better boobs.
His credibility as a suitable commentator is thus allowed to be questioned.
and that’s fine, except that pedro as usual has just regurgitated a tim blair talking point about Sullivan instead of refuting his claims about the GOP, MSM and palin as per my link.
Pedro should ask herself this: why is it that tim only EVER posts about andrew sullivan in terms of his stupid comments about trig, when sullivan posts waaaaay more than tim does, and also offers waaaaaay more opinion than tim about a great many things? Is it maybe that tim actually agrees with sullivan on all these other points (sullivan is a conservative as tim claims to be as well), and just uses the trig stuff to deliver yet more palin outrage porn for his fellow handwringers?
Actually Pedro has raised what possibly could pass as another cultural myth: Sarah Palin as victim of the media*. This is surely a reality that exists only in the minds of horny middle-aged men. consider:
she has lied repeatedly. And not just fudging, but outright lying about stuff that can be fact-checked.
she is amazingly ignorant about a great many things, but worse, not even curious about the things she doesn’t know. going the ignorant route worked with GWB and look how well that turned out! I can’t imagine it would work anytime soon.
she whinges when things don’t go her way. She also expects that the media should apply different standards to her than she expects should apply to other women, notably democrat women.
she deliberately polarizes people – REAL americans living in small towns, despite the fact that she is the darling of the urban elite and has been quite happy to parade about in their company.
this is the third time (I think) she has quit a job ahead of her full term. quitters have no business preaching to other politicians about their approach to certain problems, like the US economy. If she believed she knew better, she’d stick out her current gig.
*NOTE: there is a genuine argument to be made about female politicians and the shit they get from the media in general (the Young Liberals and their HAWT conservative women, attacks on gillard being barren because she’s childless, the attacks on Clinton in relation to her husband etc). the criticims i’ve given of palin are based purely on stuff she herself has said or done.
I googled WMD in Iraq recently and was astounded by the sheer volume of conspiracy theory webites and weblogs dedicated to the myth that WMD were found in Iraq. I was very dissapointed the conspiracy theorists seem to gain ground by sheer persistance and numbers of posts. Fox news polled up near the top of the listings with its story on “hundreds of WMDs found in Iraq”.
BRENDAN NYHAN said: And at some point, people have to be cast out of polite society. You have to simply say, that is irresponsible and we’re not going to give you our air time, our print to make that sort of a claim.
I would like to say we need to be able to fact check then cast out some bloggers but then when you have a heavily funded media outlet like Fox news fueling the fire what hope is there?
“Let’s face it, 55% of Australian thought they’d elected a Hilary Clinton in Kev07, but what they got was Paris Hilton.”
You must think this point particularly witty, considering you’ve now spammed it in at least three comment pages on Crikey.
Confessions:
Perhaps you can help me figure something out that I simply don’t get. What is it about Palin that made left wingers go red with rage and hatred about her?
Clearly she didn’t seem to be presidential material, however Joe Biden also doesn’t quite appear to be top rung either.
I still can’t quite understood why she illicits such vehement hatred from left-wingers.
Honest question as i really don’t get it.
Was it perhaps because although not strikingly good looking she was a looker and that fact combined with her policy beliefs made her something that was incomprehensible to lefties?
Baldrick, what the hell are you talking about? Ann Coulter has the occasional good point? Did she make that “good point” without distorting facts? Give me a couple of good points that she’s had, I’m curious now…
And Baldrick, You’re missing the point completely about the NHS. He wasn’t showing a documentary on the NHS system, that bit in Sicko was more a comparison case with the American health system to show them what they’re missing out on. So comparatively speaking, it IS a model system compared to the US. Especially to the 45 million americans without health care.
At least Moore digs into issues and presents a case. Coulter doesn’t. She just sits there and spouts ignorant crap. And that’s why I find it hard to believe that anyone would equate the two.
I’d post this in the Neda thread, but this one’s closer to the top and I’m more likely to get a response.
So – who reckons Neda’s a christian? (google it, if you don’t know what I mean). She well might be, and I have no actual problem with that, but I’m finding the trajectory of that theory in the blogospace quite interesting. It’s now uncontested fact on any number of blog sites, but nobody in the real media seems to have taken it on – probably because it would be a really rude and insensitive question to put to her family or friends just now (so it’ll have to be a murdoch paper, I guess – maybe news of the world can hack his message bank?).
On the basis of one photograph, it’s become truth that neda is a christian. I personally think she’s just wearing a pretty necklace – she likes necklaces, according to other photos easily found online, but there’s only one photo of her wearing a (fairly glittery) cross. I just don’t think that’s enough evidence. In a predominantly christian society, a cross is a pretty clear indication. But to iranians it’s a foreign symbol, without the same identification. How many surfers have yin/yang symbols on their stuff? They’re not ALL taoists, surely? I have a “white tara” in my living room from northern india – but I’m not a hindu.
But it doesn’t stop there. To some it’s now become the reason she was killed – and that’s getting a bit weird. It apparently changes the “meaning” of her death. I imagine that her fiance/boyfriend would be quite perplexed to be told that his squeeze was deliberately singled out by a sniper for being a christian.
Eventually I suspect this will be snopes material. But I don’t expect the believers to give up easily – it’ll be a case for disbelievers to prove she WASN’T. How do we KNOW she didn’t pray to jesus? I just wonder how far it’ll get before the scoffing starts.