'Facts are awkward. They take sides'

johnfás wrote:

What is a fact?

The amount of times, particularly when I was studying Political Research Methods at UCD, that I have read something which appears prima facie to be very factually based, only to read the raw statistical data and see that it can be construed in a completely different matter if that is what you wanted to do.

Facts certainly can take sides, it depends on how you use them. However, more often than not neither side of an argument is relying on facts. They are merely taking a snapshot which has some factual basis in order to justify their point of view.

In the law, and in propoganda, facts are used in an adversarial way, selectively.

Can "balance" be a subtle form of propoganda?

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

If there are and there almost always are, balancing facts to be heard, they need to be heard, what people feel about that is neither here nor there. Having “balance” does not automatically imply an equal importance, it may only slightly negate the wrongdoing of one side, but it needs to be heard and to deny it as some do here and look for 100% right on one side and 100% wrong on the other is in my view a completely unsustainable position, lacking in any objectivity and also, from their own point of view, a totally counterproductive stance.

Got any good examples?

All my examples are good.

In this case, let your imagination run free.

Well as you are keeping them to yourself, its your own imagination will have to deal with them.

Facts of course, in the interests of "balance", can be used to defend the indefensible.

cactus flower wrote:

In the law, and in propoganda, facts are used in an adversarial way, selectively.

Can "balance" be a subtle form of propoganda?

Not only in the law. They are used in a selective way by the writers of history, when they examine a hierarchy of facts and make a judgement themselves of each one's importance. When I wrote history essays in College there were facts I left out, owing to word limits and other such constraints. I made a judgement that they were not of core significance to my essay, but it was me who made that judgement. Had I included slightly different facts the outcome of an essay may have been quite different. One might argue they can also be used selectively in science - look at the MMR vaccination debacle.

And of course "balance" is a form of propaganda. One only need look at Barack Obama at the moment to see that in full motion. His public persona of balancing sides, of being a mediator but domestically and internationally between competing concepts is a huge PR coup for his administration. Whether it is really the case or not, is of course an entirely different matter.

In my opinion, anyone who posits themselves as something akin to a "factualist" who lives their life solely on the basis of statistics... is likely to fall on their own sword.

ibis wrote:

Climate change, creationism - the list goes on. It's an overt phenomenon, though - the 'balance' only tends to disappear when an agenda is being pushed at the editorial level. Otherwise, you'll have a widely held and properly supported view on the one hand, and on the other some nut in a basement whose view is unique to him and supported only by his mother - until the article is published with those two views apparently equal in importance, whereupon tens of thousands of muppets will like the sound of the madder one. If von Daniken proves anything, it's that there's a huge market out there for bullshit.

There's no need to get personal, boyo

Are we missing the idea of DATA from this thread or would it confuse it too much? I'd still like to see atmospheric CO2 readings for each day of the week or each week anyway. The climate change debate has its own balance and imbalance and though you yourself are not a proponent of it, denial is often met with outraged indignation.

Auditor #9 wrote:

ibis wrote:

Climate change, creationism - the list goes on. It's an overt phenomenon, though - the 'balance' only tends to disappear when an agenda is being pushed at the editorial level. Otherwise, you'll have a widely held and properly supported view on the one hand, and on the other some nut in a basement whose view is unique to him and supported only by his mother - until the article is published with those two views apparently equal in importance, whereupon tens of thousands of muppets will like the sound of the madder one. If von Daniken proves anything, it's that there's a huge market out there for bullshit.

There's no need to get personal, boyo

Are we missing the idea of DATA from this thread or would it confuse it too much? I'd still like to see atmospheric CO2 readings for each day of the week or each week anyway. The climate change debate has its own balance and imbalance and though you yourself are not a proponent of it, denial is often met with outraged indignation.

Perhaps Ibis is using "balance" in the sense of scientific objectivity? That is quite different to the toxic balance that Aragon was writing about.

There are times, and a good thread can be a case in point, when the conflict between two opposing arguments, each depending on selective use of facts, can produce an improved understanding of the facts.

Selective use of facts becomes dangerous when there is no debate, no opportunity to reply or when no one is listening to the opposing point of view.

And your final statement really hits the nail on the head. You simply cannot legislate (and I don't mean that in the legal context) against selective use of facts. It is a natural consequence of someone wanting to support their point of view. It always has and always will occur and there is nothing particularly wrong with it. What is, however, important is the opportunity for people with conflicting views to air their opinion as listening to them togther you are more likely, no not necessarily, going to hear the more likely truth.

cactus flower wrote:

Perhaps Ibis is using "balance" in the sense of scientific objectivity? That is quite different to the toxic balance that Aragon was writing about.

There are times, and a good thread can be a case in point, when the conflict between two opposing arguments, each depending on selective use of facts, can produce an improved understanding of the facts.

Selective use of facts becomes dangerous when there is no debate, no opportunity to reply or when no one is listening to the opposing point of view.

On the back of what johnfas says about legislating, what if you used facts selectively to get the truth out to people

Auditor #9 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Perhaps Ibis is using "balance" in the sense of scientific objectivity? That is quite different to the toxic balance that Aragon was writing about.

There are times, and a good thread can be a case in point, when the conflict between two opposing arguments, each depending on selective use of facts, can produce an improved understanding of the facts.

Selective use of facts becomes dangerous when there is no debate, no opportunity to reply or when no one is listening to the opposing point of view.

On the back of what johnfas says about legislating, what if you used facts selectively to get the truth out to people

Presuming its the truth, I suppose we call that education.

cactus flower wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

ibis wrote:

Climate change, creationism - the list goes on. It's an overt phenomenon, though - the 'balance' only tends to disappear when an agenda is being pushed at the editorial level. Otherwise, you'll have a widely held and properly supported view on the one hand, and on the other some nut in a basement whose view is unique to him and supported only by his mother - until the article is published with those two views apparently equal in importance, whereupon tens of thousands of muppets will like the sound of the madder one. If von Daniken proves anything, it's that there's a huge market out there for bullshit.

There's no need to get personal, boyo

Are we missing the idea of DATA from this thread or would it confuse it too much? I'd still like to see atmospheric CO2 readings for each day of the week or each week anyway. The climate change debate has its own balance and imbalance and though you yourself are not a proponent of it, denial is often met with outraged indignation.

Perhaps Ibis is using "balance" in the sense of scientific objectivity? That is quite different to the toxic balance that Aragon was writing about.

Well, I'm more using 'balance' there in the toxic sense Aragon means. It appears in "scientific journalism" as well, where it is equally toxic but for different reasons.

You do need balance and objectivity in journalism. However, that is not usually what one gets - what one actually gets is a sort of quote from an opposing viewpoint, rather than balanced and objective treatment of the original material. You can pretty much hear the editor saying "that's a great article on the success of the condom program in Africa - now, get me a quote from an abstinence advocate and we're good to go". So the eventual article goes something like this:

Quote :

Huge success of condom program: now in its fourth year of operation, the UN-backed free condom program in Mabadishu has been a huge success. Condom distribution points around the region are now distributing upwards of 12,000 condoms monthly. Local rates of new HIV infection have plummetted from 67 per thousand to 12 per thousand over the course of the program, and a formal epidemiology study published in this month's Lancet establishes what the authors describe as a "very strong case" (Jones et al) that the reduction in HIV transmission follows the condom distribution program, as does an anthropological study on the impact of condom use in the local sex trade....etc etc.
...
Of course, not everyone agrees that the falling infection rates are the result of the free condom program. Local Abstinence International program director Kate Hornby puts the decline in local AIDS rates down to a program of abstinence lectures in local schools. "Condom distribution", she says, "only encourages promiscuous extramarital sex, which is clearly linked to higher rates of HIV transmission".

The quote from the abstinence advocate is inserted into the article to provide "balance", but does no such thing. We know nothing about Abstinence International, and we have no idea whether their claims can be taken seriously, let alone at face value. What if they are a shoestring operation, consisting solely of the 'director', who manages to lecture at about 2 schools a month, reaching a total of a few hundred adolescents every year out of a population of 4 million people? Where is the equivalent epidemiological study that backs up her claim to have an impact? What study is she citing that shows that 'promiscuous extramarital sex' is clearly linked to higher rates of HIV transmission? What cultural context was that study done in?

That's really quite typical of this kind of reporting - on the one hand we have a mass of studies (which are examined critically), on the other hand we have the unsupported word of one person, which is inserted uncritically in the article. The claim is simply presented as if it had equal weight with the rest of the article. Even worse, it is usually at the end of the article, because it has been tacked on to meet the "balance" requirement - and so it is the last thing one reads, as if it were the conclusion.

I could go on, but it would mostly be rant...

Those are very good examples of what Aragon was talking about.

Quote :

You do need balance and objectivity in journalism.

What do you mean though by appropriate "balance" in journalism ?

cactus flower wrote:

Those are very good examples of what Aragon was talking about.

Quote :

You do need balance and objectivity in journalism.

What do you mean though by appropriate "balance" in journalism ?

Well, a balance is a weighing scale - it means weighing the opposing claims in the same scale. In the fictional article above, the appropriate balance could be to mention the Abstinence International claim, but to give it an equally thorough treatment - which makes your article a comparison of programs - or to dig up a comparative study, if that exists. In that case the 'balancing' bit of the article would read something like:

Quote :

While condom programs such as the Mabadishu one have a good track record in reducing rates of HIV infection, there are alternative methods, such as abstinence only programs. However, there are few formal studies available on the effectiveness of abstinence programs, and what there is (eg Bobbet et al) does not suggest a statistically significant effect.

Now I can tell you that the above would be seen as "unbalanced" and "unfair", and would generate lots of letters from abstinence advocates roundly condemning the lack of balance in the aricle and claiming huge success rates for their program - and who knows? Perhaps they do have a peer-reviewed study that shows their program is successful - but that won't change the point that as a general rule such programs are not effective.

Unfortunately, the easiest thing for the journalist is not to bother with a real weighing of the alternative claims, but to simply grab an opposing quote and stick it in unweighed. That's not balance - it's the equivalent of saying "well, I have one thing on this side of the scale, and one on the other - so they must be equal". The advantage is that it's quicker, involves no research, requires no judgement, and generates no complaints - none of which are of value to the reader.

Personally, I would rather read something that is honest about its agenda, and the case it's making, that that kind of a fudge.

I'm not talking about a proper review of studies, which is a completely different thing.

One of the greatest fallacies imo is the notion that 'there are two sides to everything'. People trot this notion out when confronted with evidence of some sort of wrong doing and because of some weird, unquestioning belief in its veracity, proceed to go out of their way to render innocent people equally culpable in things that have been done to them - or conversely guilty people equally innocent.

Mediation is disatrous for doing this. In fact it's the whole premiss of the concept. But without exception when an individual undertakes a mediation process with a powerful organisation like an employer or whatever, the net result of the process to force them to wear some portion of the responsibility and consequences of behaviour for which they are not responsible. Many employers are deft at manipulating this process. So long as they concede something they are deemed to have been 'reasonable' and the employee may end up, say, with a sum of money and no job - because of the oft asserted rationale that the relationship between employee and employer is no longer tenable. Outrageous.

Often times too, when a person has been done to and if they are not securing a just response, they may eventually do something rash, eventually. The media often lights on the rash behaviour putting hugely disproportionate emphasis on it while forgetting entirely the original and more serious wrong.

The exact same thing is happening to Hammas: 60 years of outrageous treatment of the Palestinians, a pathetic military defence, vicious blockades against them, far more death and destruction suffered and yet the emphasis in the media is almost exclusively on what they do to Israel rather than the other way around. Israel is repeatedly said to be defending itself while there is no consideration or mention of a Palestinian right to self-defence - despite unbelievable provocation. It's as if the media has collectively looked at the ugly facts, found them too horrible for words and found a way of rendering what Israel is doing into something they can cope with. I don't want to dwell on that example - there are other threads dealing with it. But you might see the point.

My conviction is that in fact there are almost never two sides to any dispute that actually balance out equally. In most cases there almost always a protagonist whose original wrong is the true source of whatever problems ensue. Absent the righting of that original wrong and the disputes are destined to carry on for infinity. The media is atrocious at noticing when this is happenig - across all sorts of issues. Bertie Ahern eg - even you accept that his behaviour was merely foolish or misguided - was still hopelessly inappropriate, unprofessional, embarassing for the country and against all the standards he professed to support. Yet the 'God love him' brigade were out in full throughout the whole debacle. The stuff about his divorce was classic evening up/'balancing' out commentary. It simply could not be openly contemplated that the behaviour was just plain wrong and that he should go. Some people did say that of course but the overwhelming majority in the media didn't dare to go there.

With respect, many of the arguments which you post here are value judgements based on your understanding of the facts. You present, for example, that there is only one truth in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. It might be a point of view which I have some sympathy for and yes it is based on an understanding of certain facts. However, at the same time, it does ignore or at least rank as second order a whole set of other facts. It is your value judgement, however agreeable that judgement is, that a rocket fired into Israeli territory does not warrant an airstrike.

Facts are how many bombs were dropped, how many lives were lost and how many buildings were destroyed. The rest is, I am afraid, opinion. We must not seek to belittle opinion, it has the same value as fact. But it is not, in fact, fact.

Quote :

It is your value judgement, however agreeable that judgement is, that a rocket fired into Israeli territory does not warrant an airstrike.

This is going to be a matter that may be adjudicated on by international law. There is at least a case to answer.

The question of a proportionate response is not a straightforward one for any court come to a conclusion on. You could come up with a lot of different answers, and at the end of the day, most people might look at a verdict and conclude "the law's an ass" if they disagree with it.

In a conflict like Gaza, there are not only facts, there is a conflict and so in that there are opposing interests. The historical events that led to the Gaza situation, and the territory itself, are objective and unchangeable irrespective of our points of view, but who we want to win is down to which side we are on. A neutral position is not really possible to sustain, as neutrality favours the winner.

I don't think that opinion, which can change, has the same value as fact (reality), which is immutable, although opinion can influence future facts.

Facts:
Israel colonised Palestine.
Palestinians have repeatedly been forced in huge numbers to leave their homes, towns and farms.
The Palestine death toll has been far greater - by a huge margin - than that of the Israelis.
Palestinians live in dire humanitarian need - even before the war in Gaza.
All of the post 1967 sttlements have been declared illegal by the UN
The US, on average, supplies Israel with 3bn dollars worth of weaponry each year
Hamas did not break the recent ceasefire
Hamas is the elected government of Palestine

There are no value judgments in the list of facts above. Media reporting singularly fails to reflect these truths and where my value judgment comes into it is in interpreting why that should be so. Israel is unquestioningly backed by the US (another fact) and because of that, I believe, those who are economically or strtegically obliged to the US (most EU and other countries) will prefer not to focus on the facts but on supporting the US/Israel alliance mainly for fear of economic or other forms of reprisal. Thus Israel's conduct is sanitised, rationalised and air-brushed well beyond what the facts can support. It is precisely because there is such an enormous discrepancy between what the facts plainly tell us and what is being claimed that Israel is so ferociously bullying in its own defence. There is a deliberate, well-documented policy of Israel's to be aggressive. I believe that it was David Ben Gurion, again, who said that if people were ever allowed to discuss this situation outwith the context of the holocaust it would very quickly become apparent that they were setting up a form of apartheid. That was to be avoided at all costs and they've succeeded, with US support to do this for 60 years now. We all know the US has no altruistic interest in the region and what its motives are.
The facts however, keep bobbing to the surface, refusing to be drowned.
I won't talk about Gaza or Palestine here again though as it wasnt really what Id hoped the discussion would be about. There are screeds of examples we could look at.

Here's an editorial in today's Irish Times about an anticipated increase in crime resulting from the recession:

Link

The omission of facts is another aspect of the 'balancing' agenda of the media. In this editorial the anticipation of na impoverished and more desperate population resorting to criminal behaviour focuses exclusively on containment and punishment. For an editorial in a major national newspaper not to once mention the possibility of tackling poverty as the cause of crime is pretty extraordinary. Notice too, how increased surveillance is being slipped in as a solution. Also, the world and its wife knows that the increase in drug trafficing is as a consequence of the return to full production in Afghanistan. That's where the answer to tackling a lot of the drug problem lies but there are embarrassing questions to be asked of the US and the CIA about how this has come to pass. It is well documented that the CIA has funded many of its covert operations through drug trafficking. Most damning of all is the fact that the Taliban had completely stopped it before the invasion. Within one year it was back up on its legs again, resulting in the flooding of countries worldwide with drugs. That's a big subject in itself but it seems extraordinary that there was not even a sentence about the problem of drugs from Afghanistan in the context of that editorial.

cactus flower wrote:

Quote :

It is your value judgement, however agreeable that judgement is, that a rocket fired into Israeli territory does not warrant an airstrike.

This is going to be a matter that may be adjudicated on by international law. There is at least a case to answer.

The question of a proportionate response is not a straightforward one for any court come to a conclusion on. You could come up with a lot of different answers, and at the end of the day, most people might look at a verdict and conclude "the law's an ass" if they disagree with it.

In a conflict like Gaza, there are not only facts, there is a conflict and so in that there are opposing interests. The historical events that led to the Gaza situation, and the territory itself, are objective and unchangeable irrespective of our points of view, but who we want to win is down to which side we are on. A neutral position is not really possible to sustain, as neutrality favours the winner.

I don't think that opinion, which can change, has the same value as fact (reality), which is immutable, although opinion can influence future facts.

As a matter of law in criminal cases force used in self defence must not be greater than the force used to begin with. You can't shoot a burglar dead in self-defence for instance even if he has threatened you.

johnfás wrote:

We must not seek to belittle opinion, it has the same value as fact. But it is not, in fact, fact.

therein lie most of our troubles. Opinion equal in value to fact?, poppysomething.

Quote :

If only journalists could get that point through their heads...it's a source of unremitting frustration and annoyance that no matter how blindingly atrocious some behaviour is, where powerful, establishment-approved people/corporations/governments are concerned most journalists will, zombie-like, go out of their way to render hard evidence of even appalling behaviour tame and innocuous in the name of a thing they call 'balance'.

Is this a good example?

tonys wrote:

johnfás wrote:

We must not seek to belittle opinion, it has the same value as fact. But it is not, in fact, fact.

therein lie most of our troubles. Opinion equal in value to fact?, poppysomething.

I don't agree with that Johnfas and neither does the law. I agree that all things being equal where people express genuine opinions they should respect one another and try as much as they can to find common points of agreement - which often are missed especially when people are angry.

If opinion was accepted to be as important as fact, our entire legal and political system would collapse. Science and empirical research would become redundant. Honesty is the key here, imo.

It is my opinion that, contrary to Aragon's insistence, there are two sides to everything. Israel attacked Hamas, Hamas attacked Israel. These are two facts I hope we can all agree on and I think they bear some relation to one another.

Aragon seems to confuse the the idea of everything having two sides with the ridiculous notion that everything has two equal sides. This not normally the case in my opinion. It is certainly not the case in the Gaza-Israel context.

905 wrote:

Aragon wrote:

This idea that it is more 'blanced' to pretend that there are two equal protagonists in this war could not be more mistaken - though it is an impression deliberately cultivated by the US, the UK and Israel in particular. It's astonishing but true that no matter how vicious and unwarranted the bloodletting by these three, people such as yourslef seem incapable of standing back and looking at what is happening in real terms.

The issue of balance is an interesting one. I'm not aware of anyone (on either side) equating the two, though I'ver heard the accusation often enough. There was talk of Hamas having a wel-armed force. But in moral and political terms, Hamas was a terrorist group willing to sacrifice innocent civilians and Israel was a democratic legitimate state using legitimate force. Or Hamas was a democratic force fighting against the odds with a better armed and funded Imperial force intent on genocide and slaughter.

Where there is balance is in the insistence that both sides need to change their ways to promote peace. Seeing as both sides seem to reckon they are completely in the right, this is not apparantly a common view among those involved

This was a debate myself and Aragon had a while ago (link). I stand by my assertion that no one equates the two sides, until someone provides alternate evidence of course.

On the issue of media balance, there is plenty to be said about censorship-by-balance, though that is not an entirely accurate term. There's been cyber-ink spilled over this by myself earlier.

905 wrote:

The fellow giving out about BBC coverage seems to be overly concerned with the struggle for balance, which he argues dilutes the suffering of the Palestinian people and equates the two sides. I myself am concerned with balance and holding both sides to account, for my troubles I am branded an Israeli apologist. Personally I feel that the last thing the world needs is one-sided coverage. He may have a point that prioritising balance over, say, proportional suffering can weaken a report but I think it is the lesser of two evils. To start off every report with the words occupation and not provide a context for that occupation would do no one any good and leave the report open to the accusation of apologist, a word he’s fond of throwing around.

Someone suggested that everything that hapens in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict should be set in the context of the illegal occupation, which sounds like a get-out-of-gaol card to the Palestinians to me.

I take the issue very seriously, whether people like it or not. On this Hamas-Israel topic I have been nearly always defending Israel, thanks to an enormous amount of bias, not fact, bias, that has come in. There has been no corresponding pro-Israeli bias, thank God. I shudder to think what it must be like over on P.ie. I have said before that I do not want to see this site become an Israeli-bashing site where cosy consensus is taken for unanimous consent on the facts. I have said before that the word 'fact' gets much abuse and that I will not stand for it if I notice it. If people will hide behind one set of facts and not point out another, quite relevant, set of facts (Aragon mentioned the money and weaponry being supplied to Israel, but neglected to mention the assistence given to Hamas by Iran; no question of 'balance' but both are facts and one is relevant to the other in my opinion), then I will point them out.

Good post 905, although I don't agree with every word, I appreciate that you bring a welter of facts and questions to this as to other themes and that they are all the better for that.

A get out of gaol card is just what the Gazans could do with, too.

Aragon wrote:

As a matter of law in criminal cases force used in self defence must not be greater than the force used to begin with. You can't shoot a burglar dead in self-defence for instance even if he has threatened you.

Incorrect. The test applied to self defence is one of reasonableness. That is, did the degree of physical force used extend beyond what a reasonable person would have done in the circumstance. This can extend to lethal force. I refer you to the recent case involving Pádraig Nally, a farmer, in 2006, when lethal force was accepted as self defence following Mr Nally's shooting dead of John 'Frog' Ward, a trespasser on his property. Your synopsis of the criminal law in Ireland is fundamentally flawed.

Beyond which, the criminal law as it applies in Ireland is irrelevant in the context of Israel.

Johnfas, we have both studied law, ok? I was talking in terms of general principles and the law is overachingly clear on the point I was making. I wasn't stating the position in Irish law specifically - and in any case the interpretation of 'reasonableness' is another open book. Regardless of the case you mention, it is still the law that force is required to be proprotionate - the judges were clear about that. The case you mention was carefully distinguished so as to make it as unique as possible - i.e. it set's a very narrow and weak precedent. The reasonableness test is interpreted strictly as a matter of principle precisely not to create a situation where people can legally turn themseleves into judge, jury and executioner.

Whether you have studied law is pretty irrelevant. Your statement that "the force used in self defence must not be greater than the force used to begin with" is fundamentally in error. In your initial statement you equated the word proportionate with the word equal, these are not synonyms. If you don't want the Nally case, which was merely the most recent, you can also be referred to People (AG) v Keatley a case from the 1950s. Provided the physical force used in self defence is not excessive lethal force can constitute a full defence to a charge of murder. If the force used was deemed to be excessive this is generally elevated to manslaughter, but not murder. These are points which are lost on your initial statement, whether you meant them to be or not.

The difficulty with the Nally judgement was not actually not in fact the level of force used but the retreating from the situation and then returning to use further force. The question arose as to whether this was still an act of self defence.