I have followed the last two weeks as professors in fields that supposedly study critical thinking, decision making, fallacies, persuasion, and so on, have quickly shared and commented on a number of false, questionable, or seriously incomplete stories from BuzzFeed, CNN, MSNBC, and Vox. They also quickly shared columns with errors (many errors) from the New York Times.
We can argue about other news sources being lousy — but my colleagues tend to be progressives who trust certain sources without much hesitation. They trust the mainstream media, and that’s not good in this Internet Age. Thought I differ with the political leanings of most (not all) professors I know, I understand Fox News is mostly opinion and chatter. I understand MSNBC is the same, from another perspective. The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, along with BBC and Bloomberg remain my trusted sources.
BuzzFeed? Clickbait lists and sloppily sourced stories.
CNN? Increasingly engaged in “what if” chatter based on sources like BuzzFeed. Why? Where is the original reporting?
MSNBC and Vox engage in wishful repeating of anything anti-Trump. I dislike Trump, a lot, because he has elevated the opposition through his bigotry and ignorance.
I, like my colleagues, tend to trust the old brands of journalism, but not as much as I once did. The news media must be questioned. Especially when they “report” viral videos and rumors.
Let’s understand that the media are not what they were before 24-hour cable speculation became the norm. The days of large newspapers carefully vetting multiple sources and then cautiously fact checking one more time? Those days are ancient history. We in the era of Twitter Time.
In Twitter Time, first is often more valuable than accurate. In the old days, a “scoop” was first by days. Today, a scoop is posted to a website minutes before the competition posts a similar story.
We have, as a culture, failed to evaluate information. That experts in thinking fail, too, worries me.
Slow down. Stop responding and sharing in Twitter Time to what you read. If you’re going to use fallacies and generalities yourselves, this proves that humans judge and then rationalize.
I’ve seen the misuse of terminology, genetic fallacies, bandwagons, appeals to authority, and more. All in the last two weeks. Some are long-time annoyances (cherry picking sources and data), but now we’re seeing divisions and rushes to judgment we claim to teach are faulty logic.
There’s a good reason I don’t actively use Twitter or receive FaceBook “alerts” on my phone: the impulse is to quickly respond.
Because I’m not progressive, I tend to see the flaws in the left and in anti-conservative or anti-libertarian reporting. But, I also see how lousy conservative media are — and how non-conservative they are, in reality. Basically, I see sloppy and untrustworthy media on the left and right, and in the middle.
Media seek audiences. The race for audience clicks and reads is a problem. Stop feeding the sharks, especially those like BuzzFeed.