Links 2023-02-22
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Should we trust the media? That is the theme of these links. I’ll start with Richard Hanania’s take since it resonated with me enough to inspire creating this link theme. But I follow it with Bryan Caplan’s reply, which I strongly agree with.
There is certainly conflict between the two, and while I could sense my unease when I first read Hanania’s piece, it was Caplan’s that made my objections concrete. To be clear I think Hanania is basically correct in saying that the media is honest as far as technical honesty goes and good as their existence is a slight net positive for society. Hanania also is correct to identify the difference between MSM and its generally conservative alternative with the later being generally superior. At the same time Caplan is more correct when viewed on a deeper level.
Meaningfully we want honesty beyond “well, I’m not technically lying [wink, wink]”. Lies of omission can be as bad as lies of commission. This is especially true in the case of a trusted source of information much less wisdom.
As someone who has stated that “most news is entertainment and most of that is proverbial porn”, I have to be sympathetic to Caplan’s “If the latest tale of odd woe is outside the first-hand experience of anyone you know, you don’t need to hear about it.”
His take is a bit pessimistic to be sure. Yet sometimes the world gives us a mess as too much of a good thing, in this case journalism, leads to a lot of a bad thing due to malevolent actors or simply the law of diminishing returns.
In case these Substack links below don’t show up for you, here is Hanania and here is Caplan.
Scott Alexander had two thought-provoking posts prior to Hanania’s and largely in the same camp. See here and here.
As perhaps an example that supports Caplan, consider this piece that is part of a series Roger Pielke Jr. has done on “what the media won’t tell you about . . .” In this case he is discussing tornadoes.
Finally, consider the case of 60 Minutes interviewing Paul Ehrlich, which HumanProgress defeats in 9 questions. Let’s call it: “Old-people media giving us a very tired take”, or “Remember how we in the media championed some really bad ideas? Well, let’s have a redux of that.”