[georgemcbay]

PR gaming aside, I'm always a bit horrified when I read a general media story about something that I know a lot about (like, say, computer programming) because the articles are often a very superficial treatment of the subject while trying to not seem so superficial, and in a lot of cases they are either so simplified that the information they present is misleading or in some cases they are just spouting completely incorrect nonsense in a soothingly authoritative tone.

The reason I am horrified is not because I'm offended that they don't understand computers, but because I realize that the articles that they write in fields I'm not intimately familiar with are almost certainly equally stupid sounding to people who are, and thus I'm likely woefully misinformed on a great many things.

[hga]

From http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel..., a quote by Michael Crichton:

"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."

Nowadays I only follow the conventional media to know what they think is important, since that drives a lot of important things.

[caseysoftware]

I spent almost a decade in DC and knew many political, legal, and technology reporters. For the most part, they often don't know what they're talking about. They have no background in the subject, no training or study in the subject, and rarely do any research on their own.

The worst/laziest literally copy and paste from their "trusted sources" instead of writing it on their own.. which is even worse when that source is a press release or otherwise manicured statement.

[thoughtcriminal]

Nicely articulated. I feel exactly the same way. Now I question everything I read, and will reference a variety of sources on important issues.