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The Power of Information Dominance
Here are several successive headlines for NYT coverage of the Gaza hospital blast:
The initial headline was “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.” It soon changed to “At Least 500 Dead in Strike on Gaza Hospital, Palestinians Say,” and then to “At Least 500 Dead in Blast at Gaza Hospital, Palestinians Say.”
BBC was as bad or worse:
I remember something a wise executive said to me once:
When you’re running a large organization, you’re not seeing reality. It’s like you’re watching a movie where you only get to see maybe one out of a thousand frames, and from that you have to figure out what’s going on.
If this is true of running large organizations–and to a considerable extent, it is–then it is even more true of the citizen in a large and complex country. Few people can have direct personal information as to what happened with a situation such as the Gaza hospital. They have to rely on sources–they watch a movie, using the above metaphor, and all they can see is selected frames. So the people who choose what frames are seen, and in what sequence, have enormous power.
The media is part of the feedback system of a society, and to the extent that that feedback is suppressed or distorted, bad things are likely to happen. It is as if the thermostat for your HVAC system was sending a “it’s too cold” signal when it is really way too hot. Or, more vividly, as if the hydraulic elevator servos on an airliner were receiving feedback that the actual position of the elevator is 20 degrees UP when it is actually 20 degrees DOWN.
The level of ideological capture, groupthink, and lack of interest in actual truth among much of our major media is very high.
Someone at X/Twitter asked:
At what point does having recent work for nytimes, or even TechCrunch, on a resume turn into a career risk because journalistic integrity is so low? Are we there already?
My–possibly too cynical?–response to this question was:
The people doing this probably think it creates career *benefit*, because it signals a tribal identification shared by a lot of prominent media organizations.
Published in General
I saw that on X as well – and it made me think: no wonder nobody trusts them.
Torsten Heinrich, the young German lad who does the Military and History channel on YouTube, put up a video yesterday showing proof that Israel didn’t bomb the hospital. The day before he had put up a video saying he would report back if information came in showing one side or the other was fibbing, but at that point he didn’t have the kind of proof he would want. (He does the same kind of reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Being a decent person, he’s on the side of both Ukraine and Israel, but doesn’t take either side’s claims in either conflict at face value, because all of them are capable of lying.)
Anyhow, he spent the last half of yesterday’s video lambasting the media for taking Hamas claims at face value instead of waiting for evidence to become available. He’s not the first person to criticize the media, but it’s interesting to hear a young German man who is usually very calm and measured do it with such vehemence.
But don’t you all worry your little heads over election integrity or vaccine safety. I’m sure we can trust our overlords to be honest, well-intentioned, competent, and informed when they tell us what to think about that.
What the heck, it’s just a little more Gell-Mann Amnesia.
I think it’s newsworthy that Baptist hospitals are in Gaza as well as rural Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, and Waco, TX.
Good job, Baptists.
Do you think the doctors who posed with corpses did so under duress? Or were fake?
I know nothing of this. But since Hamas lies and since the only thing we know is that they bombed the hospital parking lot, . . . one of those theories seems likely to me.
How many “bodies” were there supposed to be, anyway? At least that the doctors posed with. Initial reports claimed up to 500, but most likely – since the hospital wasn’t actually hit – there were something like 25.
I remember TV reports of fake “Palestinian” corpses in the past. One time it was a simple funeral procession, bodies carried through the streets on stretchers. At one point, one of them was dropped in the street. The “corpse” got up, looked around, and ran away.
Certainly desperate. Apart from good taste is there a reason a real doctor can’t give a press interview with real corpses in the background?
Professional dignity and good doctor-patient relationships, perhaps. For whatever reason, it’s not something that anyone can recall being done. If that is mistaken, Torston Heinrich would like to be informed.
Thursday at midday I learned from Russian state media that there had been some rowdy pro-Hamas protesters in the U.S. Capitol a couple days ago. I checked the WSJ and found a video about it but no article.
Does that have anything to do with information dominance?
I’m beginning to despair about news. The MSM can be written off, but even independent news sources all have their angle. There are literally no news sources that report all the facts and just the facts on this issue.
Edited to add:
Information dominance is only a positive when people believe in your honesty and fairness. When they stop it’s just wall to wall propaganda. Which I think is where we are now.
Notice how they don’t, technically, lie. It’s true that Palestinians said that 500 people had been killed by an Israeli air strike on the hospital. The giant photo of collapsed buildings accompanying the article is correctly identified in the caption as not being the hospital in Gaza.
It’s the truth. It’s nothing but the truth. But it’s not the whole truth. I suppose they think 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. They carefully cherry-pick truths and arrange they to convey to the reader what they know is a lie.
I’m reminded of a book I wrote a bit about a few weeks ago. On a few levels, Ringworld is about lies. The spaceship is christened the ‘Lying Bastard’. It’s supposed to be an exploratory/research vessel; but one character observes that while there’s nothing you could point to and say “that’s a weapon”, there was also precious little that couldn’t be used as a weapon.
An attack on the entire concept of Objectivity in journalism.
Well, it’s The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Provide bad information enough times, and people won’t believe you when/if you ever get it right. (And I don’t want to derail this thread, but I do believe overall the Covid vaccines have saved a lot of lives, even though the effects have been adverse for some groups such as 20-year-old males)
Boy Who Cried Wolf isn’t quite the right analogy for the Hamas case, though…it’s more like the boy said “It’s just a friendly dog,” then the wolf came and ate several people…rinse and repeat…and for some reason, the boy still kept his job as town watchman.
Excellent video, thanks!
In this particular case, there may not have been specific lies. But sometimes/often, there are.
Steven Sinofsky: Open-source news vs the traditional media. Worth reading.
Elon Musk linked the post and commented: “𝕏 is open source news. That is the right way to think about it. Excellent analysis by Sinofsky.”
For a dystopian picture of an America controlled by those who manage its communications, see my book review: Year of Consent.
Mainstream media lies are going to lead directly to deaths and injuries, if they haven’t done so already. In Ireland, where I live, there is plenty of antisemitism and a lot of hatred for Israel. But, unlike many other European countries, these sentiments have been expressed verbally rather than physically. This won’t last much longer. And our mainstream media are pushing us in this direction. They parrot every claim made by the “Ministry for Health” (Hamas), and as in the case of the hospital, either backtrack through subtle edits, or double down- mostly the latter.
On a broader issue, one struggles to see any mention in the media of hostages, ongoing rocket fire from Gaza, or dead militants. It’s all about the narrative.
Do you think most “regular people” there actually believe/agree with that? Or are they more likely just keeping their heads down to avoid becoming targets themselves, as mostly the government does whatever the hell it wants?
The Government has been somewhat measured in its response, expressing the necessary condemnations. It is, however, probably the most critical of Israel in Europe.
But nothing that they say or do could be as bad as the response of Sinn Féin – the political wing of the IRA, and very strong supporters of Palestinian militance. This Party has gone from pariah status to topping the polls and is likely to lead the next Government. Its leader did condemn the Hamas attack after a few days, but normal service has resumed. The idea is that if violent resistance against “the occupation” in Israel is justified, then the IRA campaign was also morally right.
In any event, the growth in support for Sinn Féin has increased the acceptability of the most virulent criticism of Israel in public discourse. There are small Parties and individuals on the Hard Left who are even worse. It’s terribly depressing. The European Parliament had over 500 votes in favour of a resolution condemning Hamas this week. 21 MEPs voted against – four of them Irish.
The Irish remember being colonised.
Not just a problem with media. The slime weasels who orchestrated the Russiagate fraud and its subsequent impeachment “investigation” along with those complicit in the partisan disgrace in the current DOJ will all wind up in blue chip law firms in DC and NY whereas former Trump White House counsel will be ostracized in many places.
Well, that’s interesting…I watched the Torsten Heinrich video several hours ago, I was just now looking for something on YT and it popped up a question about what I thought of Torsten’s video. Haven’t ever gotten a request like that before.
The Irish remember the Great Famine, when a million people died and more than that emigrated – while their rulers in Britain shrugged their shoulders. Even today, the population is less than it was in 1840. Irish people have more in common with Jews than with Palestinians.
This:
https://theworld.org/stories/2021-06-29/politics-ireland-s-enduring-support-palestinians
But also this:
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2023/10/11/news/northern_ireland_views_on_middle_east_conflict_tend_to_reflect_constitutional_preferences-3690886/
The first article is a reasonable reflection of the current debate – although it might have put more focus on the terrorism supported by the Shinners.
The second article is a reflection of the attitude of Irish terrorists and their fellow- travellers.
They never listen to Garak. They tell the same lies endlessly. Republicans racist, government good and kind and helping the poor, etc , etc.