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0 pointsgraemep6mo ago0 comments

Its the same in many areas. You have just escaped Gell-Mann amnesia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

Inaccuracy is a common complaint about science reporting.

If you look at how a country is reported in another country, it is often highly inaccurate. In my case its mostly been how Sri Lanka is reported in the UK, but I have also seen lots of inaccurate reporting of the UK in American media (and not restricted to any type of media or political side.)

I have seen quite a bit of inaccurate reporting of business and finance.

Lots of bad reports of survey data, especially related to things like religious and political attitudes. Often the result of badly (or dishonestly) crafted questions.

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mh-6mo ago

> just escaped [..]

About 20 years ago, haha, but yes. Am familiar with that term from Crichton.

> [..] UK in American media

If it's any consolation, much of the reporting I see on America in American media is also inaccurate.

> survey data

To me this is perhaps the most egregious bad faith reporting I see. The survey questions themselves are often designed in a way that will likely produce a given result, whether through malice or incompetence. Then the reporting on those results buries the actual questions asked.

I saw one recently, from the early 2000s, that said "majority of Americans cannot locate the Middle East on a map".

But the actual survey's findings were "the majority of Americans can not identify the Middle East on a map".

And what did it mean by that? It was a multiple choice question and if you failed to include the correct extent of North Africa that is regarded as the Middle East, you were considered unable to identify the Middle East.

Something like 85% correctly included Saudi Arabia.

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