The News Media’s Dangerous Addiction to ‘Fake Facts’

The News Media’s Dangerous Addiction to ‘Fake Facts’

What do most people not understand about the news media? I would say two things. First: The most important bias in news media is not left or right. It’s a bias toward negativity and catastrophe. Second: That while it would be convenient to blame the news media exclusively for this bad-news bias, the truth is that the audience is just about equally to blame. The news has never had better tools for understanding exactly what gets people to click on stories. That means what people see in the news is more responsive than ever to aggregate audience behavior. If you hate the news, what you are hating is in part a collective reflection in the mirror. If you put these two facts together, you get something like this: The most important bias in the news media is the bias that news makers and news audiences share toward negativity and catastrophe. Jerusalem Demsas, a staff writer at The Atlantic and the host of the podcast Good on Paper, joins to discuss a prominent fake fact in the news — and the psychological and media forces that promote fake facts and catastrophic negativity in the press. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Jerusalem Demsas Producer: Devon Baroldi Links: "The Maternal-Mortality Crisis That Didn’t Happen" by Jerusalem Demsas https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/no-more-women-arent-dying-in-childbirth/678486/ The 2001 paper "Bad Is Stronger Than Good" https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf Derek on the complex science of masks and mask mandates https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/covid-lab-leak-mask-mandates-science-media-information/673263/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jaksot(348)

America in the Age of Diagnosis

America in the Age of Diagnosis

America is sicker than ever. That’s what the data says, anyway. Psychological and psychiatric diagnoses have soared. Between the 1990s and the mid-2000s, bipolar disorder among American youth grew by...

9 Syys 202557min

Trumponomics Explained, Part 2: The Enshittification of American Power

Trumponomics Explained, Part 2: The Enshittification of American Power

In the second of our two-episode series on Donald Trump, economics, and power, we talk to Henry Farrell, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins. Farrell has written extensively on how the U...

5 Syys 202552min

What Is Trumponomics? Part 1: How Donald Trump Is Breaking American Capitalism

What Is Trumponomics? Part 1: How Donald Trump Is Breaking American Capitalism

Today is the first of two interviews this week trying to answer this question: What is Trumponomics? From the 1980s to the 2010s, it was generally assumed that Republicans and Democrats had settled d...

3 Syys 202549min

The Healthiest "Super-Agers" Have One Thing in Common, According to a 25-Year Study

The Healthiest "Super-Agers" Have One Thing in Common, According to a 25-Year Study

Memory is the glue of life. Without it, our focus softens, our experience of the world blurs, and our identities melt away. But as people age, their memory declines. Many billions of dollars have been...

27 Elo 202541min

Plain History: How the Transcontinental Railroads Built the Modern World

Plain History: How the Transcontinental Railroads Built the Modern World

Today’s pod is about the economic story of the moment. It’s about new technology that supporters claim will transform the U.S. economy, an infrastructure build-out unlike anything in living memory tha...

20 Elo 202555min

The Modern World Is Changing America’s Personality For the Worse

The Modern World Is Changing America’s Personality For the Worse

According to analysis by Financial Times writer John Burn-Murdoch, something extraordinary has happened to Americans’ personalities in the last decade. Longitudinal tests indicate that we’ve collectiv...

13 Elo 202547min

Will AI Usher In the End of Deep Thinking?

Will AI Usher In the End of Deep Thinking?

Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis published the latest GDP report. It contained a startling detail. Spending on artificial intelligence added more to the U.S. economy than consumer spending l...

6 Elo 202558min

The New Geography of Housing in America

The New Geography of Housing in America

Subscribe to Derek’s new Substack. In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers was 28. Now it’s 38, an all-time high. In 1981, the median age of all homebuyers was 36. Today, it’s 56—another all...

30 Heinä 202542min

Suosittua kategoriassa Politiikka ja uutiset

aikalisa
rss-ootsa-kuullut-tasta
tervo-halme
ootsa-kuullut-tasta-2
politiikan-puskaradio
viisupodi
et-sa-noin-voi-sanoo-esittaa
otetaan-yhdet
rss-vaalirankkurit-podcast
rss-asiastudio
rss-podme-livebox
the-ulkopolitist
rss-kaikki-uusiksi
rss-tekkipodi
io-techin-tekniikkapodcast
rikosmyytit
rss-mina-ukkola
rss-fingo-podcast
rss-hyvaa-huomenta-bryssel
rss-kuka-mina-olen