Sometimes I feel like you spoil me by writing so m...

2012-01-22T15:17:00.323-05:00

Sometimes I feel like you spoil me by writing so many objectively correct articles.

Taken in the best light, that column was th...

2012-01-16T21:17:19.134-05:00

Taken in the best light, that column was the equivalent of your doctor asking you,

"Should I be prescribing medicine to patients? And if so, what kinds and how much?"

When people talk about how blogs are just big echo chambers that never let in outside information, I always ask "compared to what?"

I think "We're just responding to readers...

2012-01-15T12:53:52.418-05:00

I think "We're just responding to readers' desires!" doesn't have anything to do with actual readers (the aborted comments section of the original article) but has to do with advertisers.

"Mr. Editor. I have this really great story. ...

2012-01-14T13:28:53.424-05:00

"Mr. Editor. I have this really great story. It's about how the American President lied to the public in order to get us into war. The story has multiple, well-documented pieces of evidence including interviews with named sources. This could be our biggest story yet!"
"That's very interesting. I don't want interesting! I want photos! Photos of Spider-Man!"

That's a good point. Please indicate where Art...

2012-01-13T15:49:20.159-05:00

That's a good point. Please indicate where Arthur Brisbane made any allowance for any of those factors.

This is certainly plausible, but it overlooks inst...

2012-01-13T15:36:19.804-05:00

This is certainly plausible, but it overlooks institutional and structural factors that affect how journalists report the news. Editors have a say in what is reported and how it is reported, which affects what journalists do, and editors are under pressure from their own bosses (who are under pressure from owners/shareholders/etc to follow market forces or something) to promote a certain style of

I like that the structure went: Step One: "ou...

2012-01-13T14:13:50.318-05:00

I like that the structure went:
Step One: "ought our newspaper be free of easily-disproven falsehoods introduced by our insane addiction to he-said/she-said coverage of all matters??"
Step Two: "ooo, that IS a puzzler"
Step Three: "let's resolve this toughie of a conundrum by...man-on-the-street interviews!"

I.e., the proposed solution

I'm particularly fond of Dara O'Briain'...

2012-01-13T13:36:28.933-05:00

I'm particularly fond of Dara O'Briain's extreme example of a NASA scientist on a show to talk about a satellite and then the host turning to "Barry, who believes the sky is a carpet painted by God"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMvMb90hem8
around the 3:20 mark

The world is doomed because of chicken. I should ...

2012-01-13T13:18:21.970-05:00

The world is doomed because of chicken.

I should probably explain.

In game theory, interesting situations (that make for good case studies) are given rather whimsical names. Chicken is named for the testerone-driven game where two teenagers with more balls then brains drive their cars directly at each other until they either swerve or crash. Swerving is bad since it makes

"he looked disorganized, rabid and crazy. To ...

2012-01-13T11:06:28.073-05:00

"he looked disorganized, rabid and crazy. To my mind, the reason they let him go on was because every minute more that he talked was another advertisement against what he believed in"

Cable News isn't designed for our demographic, though.

It's funny that you say that, because I watche...

2012-01-13T10:30:19.616-05:00

It's funny that you say that, because I watched Sununu on MSNBC, and he looked disorganized, rabid and crazy. To my mind, the reason they let him go on was because every minute more that he talked was another advertisement against what he believed in. He was angrily shouting at an analyst who correctly gave him historical poll results, then took a while to remember what year they came from,

"By the way, I should add that I did receive ...

2012-01-13T10:29:26.696-05:00

"By the way, I should add that I did receive some thoughtful responses to the blogpost from people who recognize that the issue is timely and unresolved."

Fucking hack asshole.

"there once was a time when simply writing down politicians' statements without further comment on their veracity actually had some value."

Yeah, in that era we got

During their coverage of the New Hampshire primari...

2012-01-13T10:12:02.069-05:00

During their coverage of the New Hampshire primaries on MSNBC, the prime-time crew had John Sununu on to talk about Romney. It was one of the most egregious examples of this kind of shoddy journalism that I've ever seen on television. Sunny falsely asserted bullshit about how Obama's policies have destroyed our economy and how the president is weak on foreign policy, among other complete

To be sure, letting journalists directly chall...

2012-01-13T09:22:52.844-05:00
To be sure, letting journalists directly challenge falsehoods in their columns might lead to mistakes, even ones that slip by copy editors and bureau editors. Charging daily beat writers and even the low-men on the totem pole with the duty of putting accountability up-front in stories will create gaffes and problems that editors will need to walk back.

Is it too much that I

It's a bitter irony that there once was a time...

2012-01-13T08:51:23.207-05:00
It's a bitter irony that there once was a time when simply writing down politicians' statements without further comment on their veracity actually had some value. Simply distributing what politicians were saying kept the public more informed than they otherwise would have been, but reporters thought their job meant even more than that.

In an era where I can just find the press

Huge thanks to readers on the Destructo Facebook p...

2012-01-13T07:07:10.923-05:00
Huge thanks to readers on the Destructo Facebook page who provided some of the quotes above and also wrote one. They're awesome people. They made the above bits better.

Comments on Et tu, Mr. Destructo?: Shantytown on the Fourth Estate