Fiat News Index - November 2018
December 1, 2018·6 comments·epsilon theory archive
News outlets claiming to report facts are actually explaining how readers should think about certain topics at rates that rival pure commentary websites. The gap between what these outlets claim to do and what their language patterns reveal they're doing is widening, particularly when covering politics, markets, and climate. Something about how major newsrooms handle contested subjects has shifted the balance from reporting to directing interpretation.
• The explanation words aren't distributed equally. News outlets use interpretation-shaping language far more often when covering Trump, markets, or climate change than they do in typical articles. Some major outlets spike to levels comparable to commentary websites when covering these specific topics.
• Outlets with "news" in their name aren't the safest choice. Fox News, BBC, NY Times, and Washington Post all showed higher rates of explanation-language on political coverage in November than almost any other major outlet. The outlets claiming neutrality behaved more like opinion sites when the stakes felt highest.
• Science journalism creates a particular problem. Climate coverage contains more explainer language and fewer just-the-facts approaches than even polarizing political topics. The reasoning offered feels objective because it sounds technical, but the framing still guides interpretation.
• The pattern holds across news organizations of different political leanings. This isn't a left-right problem. It's a systematic shift across outlets toward explaining what readers should think rather than reporting what happened.
• The question becomes whether readers can distinguish between fact and framing anymore. If explanation-language dominates coverage of contested topics, what does it mean when citizens think they're reading news but are actually being guided toward conclusions?
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Comments
Fantastic! 2 questions: how did you pick left to right order for the last graph? Would it make sense to use the same left to right order as the first (generic FNI) graph?
It was the default order of the search, so more or less arbitrary. Have since revised to match the FNI rank ordering. Good thought!
Thank you! (Most Excellent)
Maybe a Bias Index is in those weeds afterall?
Kudos to Rusty and the entire Epsilon Theory team for creating this index . Really exceptional work you all are doing.
Using this index as a guide, I personally find it quite helpful to let me better “see” what’s going on in the world. And in a surprising way, I become more at ease with the world, have a greater capacity for truly listening to other’s opinions and in addition more tolerance for these (opposing) views and a willingness to change my own that simply wasn’t there before.
Special work you’re doing to help people like myself “see “ the world in a more open light. It’s working. Please keep it going !
It would seem the science related topics (climate change for example) are problematic topics to examine in this method. The reason for that would be that some causality in science is understood, predictable and law/well tested theory. Although articles in the New York Times might have a specific agenda or view point in articles about climate change they are also likely to have a scientific causality. While just getting the facts from an article is good, just getting the facts for science my also involve scientific causality which I believe is a little different then what you are hoping to achieve with this index… this sentence would send up all kinds of Alabama but I believe it just presents scientific fact, which in this case also happens to include scientific causality…Water boils at 100c, everyday bacteria found in water are sensitive to tempatrue change, as a result boiling water will kill most Bactria. Therefore boiled water it is safe to drink, however there are strains of bacteria that live on the ocean floor near hydrothermalvents, obviously this means not all Bactria is killed by 100c water. These type of bacteria are called extermophiles, fortunately, extremophiles require a harsh environment to survive, and clearly the kitchen sink is not extreme enough for these bacteria.
Although I appreciate the fact that the WSJ and FT are not included because they are in some “other” databases (perhaps with fees involved), they are two of the four missionaries you have identified elsewhere, and as such, I really think you ought to do whatever necessary to include them. Because of that missionary status, their exclusion is not merely a 2/32 exclusion, it is – from a certain point of view – a 2/4 exclusion. To me this weakens the entire effort just a bit.
So I do hope you will think about what it will take to include the WSJ and FT, and head in that direction.
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