From: Zack M. Davis Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2026 02:14:31 +0000 (-0700) Subject: revising journalist section X-Git-Url: https://zackmdavis.net/blog/source?a=commitdiff_plain;h=f9c4ba9512755c4deaa09d2d173faf6279d512d7;p=An_Algorithmic_Lucidity.git revising journalist section --- diff --git a/content/drafts/accidentally_misleading_people_should_be_embarrassing.md b/content/drafts/accidentally_misleading_people_should_be_embarrassing.md index 93e742f..0d80587 100644 --- a/content/drafts/accidentally_misleading_people_should_be_embarrassing.md +++ b/content/drafts/accidentally_misleading_people_should_be_embarrassing.md @@ -22,15 +22,15 @@ But the innocence of my soul didn't matter. I knew that raising a suspicion that ----- -Another time, a journalist wrote an article paraphrasing a source as saying that it "could be unfair" for journalists to "discuss[ ] both critics and supporters" of some controversial public figure and that they should instead "somehow prove statistically which side was right." I was familiar with the source's work, and the paraphrase didn't sound like something she would say. When I had occasion to talk to the same journalist three years later, I remembered that line from the article and asked the source about it. She told me that she recalled telling the journalist that she "wasn't a huge fan of 'both sides' journalism, where you just find someone with one opinion and someone with the other opinion" rather than trying to "figure out the truth" and had given suggestions for data sources that might bear on claims about the public figure. +Another time, a journalist wrote an article paraphrasing a source as saying that it "could be unfair" for journalists to discuss "both critics and supporters" of some controversial public figure and that they should instead "somehow prove statistically which side was right." I was familiar with the source's work, and the paraphrase didn't sound like something she would say. When I had occasion to talk to the same journalist three years later, I remembered that line from the article and asked the source about it. She told me that she recalled telling the journalist that she "wasn't a huge fan of 'both sides' journalism, where you just find someone with one opinion and someone with the other opinion" rather than trying to figure out the truth; she had gone on to give suggestions for data sources that might bear on claims about the public figure. -In light of that statement, I thought the paraphrase in the article was misleading. ("[S]omehow prove statistically which side was right" leads readers who aren't familiar with the source's work to imagine that she has an unreasonable faith in the power of statistics to resolve all questions, whereas voicing skepticism of [false balance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance) is eminently reasonable. "Somehow" implies vagueness, but pointing out data sources that bear on some question is supplying a specific "how.") +In light of that statement, I thought the paraphrase in the article was misleading. "[S]omehow prove statistically which side was right" leads readers who aren't familiar with the source's work to imagine that she has an unreasonable faith in the power of statistics to resolve all questions, whereas voicing skepticism of [false balance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance) is eminently reasonable. "Somehow" implies vagueness, but pointing out data sources that bear on some question is supplying a specific "how." -When I brought this up to the journalist, he didn't seem embarrassed. "I had to boil down what she said to plain English," he said. When I continued to insist that it seemed like a bad paraphrase when compared to what the source had told me later, he said, "Is that necessarily what she said to me?" +[When I complained about this to the journalist](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P8GuwYdy6foSzyZog/conversations-with-cade-metz-on-the-rationalists#24_June_2025), he didn't seem embarrassed. "I had to boil down what she said to plain English," he said, recounting that the source had objected when he said his coverage would represent both views of the public figure. When I continued to insist that it seemed like a bad paraphrase when compared to what the source had told me later, he said, "Is that necessarily what she said to me?" -And in absolute fairness, maybe it wasn't, _necessarily_. I of course was not present for the conversation between the journalist and the source; I don't have the recording, if there was one. Even if the source can assumed to be an authority about what she _meant_ to say, I cannot with absolute certainty rule out the scenario where the "somehow prove statistically which side was right" line was a reasonable paraphrase of the words she had literally said at the time and that her reconstruction three years later of what she remembered saying was unintentionally injecting more nuance after the fact. If the journalist had reasonably paraphrased the words that were said to him at the time and the source didn't object during the fact check call, then he was innocent in his soul. Even if his readers walked away with a distorted impression of what the source believed, the miscommunication wasn't his fault. +And in absolute fairness, maybe it wasn't, _necessarily_. I of course was not present for the conversation between the journalist and the source; I don't have the recording, if there was one. Even if the source can be assumed to be an authority about what she _meant_ to say, I cannot with absolute certainty rule out the scenario where the "somehow prove statistically which side was right" line was a reasonable paraphrase of the words she had literally said at the time and that her reconstruction three years later of what she remembered saying was unintentionally injecting more nuance after the fact. If the journalist had reasonably paraphrased the words that were said to him at the time and the source didn't object during the fact check call, then he was innocent in his soul. Even if his readers walked away with a distorted impression of what the source believed, the miscommunication wasn't his fault. -I still think this episode _looks bad for him_ and that he should have been _embarrassed_. Sources deciding whether they should talk to him are mostly worried about the risk that their views will end up being miscommunicated, not whose fault a miscommunication would be if it happened. Unlucky accidents do not impinge upon the innocence of one's soul under the moral law, but the moral law is unmercifully permissive about everyone else's right to _avoid unlucky people_. +I still think this episode _looks bad for him_ and that he should have been _embarrassed_. Potential sources deciding whether they should talk to him are mostly worried about the risk that their views will end up being miscommunicated, not whose fault a miscommunication would be if it happened. Unlucky accidents do not impinge upon the innocence of one's soul under the moral law, but the moral law is unmercifully permissive about everyone else's right to _avoid unlucky people_. -----