[mjlee]

Michael Crichton observed this and called it the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. I think he said publicly that the name was to ride on the coat tails of Gell-Mann's public success:

>>> “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

[nemild]

One caveat I would make: it is often over-generalized to then dismiss all media on a topic, especially when readers have some limited knowledge of the topic at hand.

[jdc]

Right, remember to keep your eyes peeled for that 10 or 20% of media that isn't BS.

[imesh]

If only there was some way to know that the 10 or 20% you think isn't BS isn't BS and you aren't labeling the non-BS as BS.

[jdc]

Ofc a more nuanced discussion would have to include something like a probabilities of expected values. But given the cost of creating BS is cheaper than refuting it and the media's proclivity for distributing it, I'm very willing to be somewhat biased against it.