Saturday, November 12, 2016

Seeing a lot just by observing …

… Here’s to the return of the journalist as malcontent - Columbia Journalism Review. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)

… journalism’s fundamental failure in this election, its original sin, is much more basic to who we are and what we are supposed to be. Simply put, it is rooted in a failure of reporting.
Something Konrad Lorenz said has bearing on this: "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." Take some time, from time to time, to question your own presumptions. And get out more. Above all, avoid categorical thinking.



10 comments:

  1. 'We need to embrace, even relish, our legacy as malcontents and troublemakers, people who are willing to say the thing that makes everyone else uncomfortable.'

    My question is, how will Trump react to troublemaking journalists? Will he mature and accept them as an essential part of democracy? Or will he react petulantly--or worse?

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  2. Let's hope better than a lot of anti-Trump journalists are reacting to Trump's election and those who voted for him.

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  3. Well, Trump is back to tweeting again.

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  4. Frank, live for a time in a country where critical journalists are hounded, imprisoned, and worse. I have.

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  5. But, Lee, most of our journalists are only critical of one side. Good journalists cast a cold eye on the entire political class, parasites wanting mostly power for themselves and their friends.

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  6. If you mean 'objective' by 'cold', I'm not sure that's really possible. Humans filter; it's inherent in their nature.

    As to the political class, I probably don't disagree. It's why I've come to appreciate Angela Merkel more and more, no matter what you may think of one or another of her policies.

    And some of the local politicians I've come to know are interested in solving problems rather than accumulating power.

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  7. Jeff Mauvais11:33 PM

    The true scientist doesn't arbitrarily discard a favorite (or any) hypothesis, he disproves it. All experiments should be designed with that goal in mind.

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  8. I would be hesitant to equate journalism with science.

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  9. Jeff Mauvais11:28 PM

    Lee, if your response was directed to me, my comment was about Frank's invocation of Konrad Lorenz' advice. My broader, if more cryptic, point is that opinions, like scientific hypotheses, are not jetsam that can be picked up and discarded during a leisurely walk along the beach. They should be the products of hard work: acquisition of knowledge, deep experience, sustained thought. And constantly challenged.

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  10. Jeff, I certainly can't disagree with your broader point, though there are certain criteria that scientific methodology requires, like repeatability, predictability, controls (double blind, for example). Thus, even the social sciences are much trickier beasts than the so-called hard sciences. And opinions, in the end, are much more emotion-based than evidence-based (and reason-based), no matter how much we may pretend otherwise.

    Which is not to say that we ought not try.

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