It's probably true that if you're good enough at evaluating sources, you can find superior technical detail from a free source than from traditional news. The theoretical purpose of traditional news is to be a reputable clearinghouse for skilled researchers and source evaluators to find good enough sources for a wide variety of things.
There's not enough time in the day for someone with a different full time job to properly inform themselves on every issue, so, in theory, news publications pay people to make that their full time job.
Unfortunately, that's not actually what most people want out of news, and is not something most people are actually willing to pay for, so the average quality of the product has quietly degraded over the years, catalyzed by digital media trends in general and sharply hastened in 2016.
When I read a news story on something I already know about, it generally sounds like sophomoric hogwash. I have to assume the stories that I know little about are also hogwash. I.e., an argument that a newspaper is vetting information makes little sense to me.
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.
Comments
It's probably true that if you're good enough at evaluating sources, you can find superior technical detail from a free source than from traditional news. The theoretical purpose of traditional news is to be a reputable clearinghouse for skilled researchers and source evaluators to find good enough sources for a wide variety of things.
There's not enough time in the day for someone with a different full time job to properly inform themselves on every issue, so, in theory, news publications pay people to make that their full time job.
Unfortunately, that's not actually what most people want out of news, and is not something most people are actually willing to pay for, so the average quality of the product has quietly degraded over the years, catalyzed by digital media trends in general and sharply hastened in 2016.
When I read a news story on something I already know about, it generally sounds like sophomoric hogwash. I have to assume the stories that I know little about are also hogwash. I.e., an argument that a newspaper is vetting information makes little sense to me.
That's the purpose of a newspaper. That isn't to say they're doing a particularly good job these days.