Sir Simon Jenkins fails again

Simon Jenkins' most recent opinion piece continues his long, glorious tradition of making an utter fool of himself.

In it he lays into Michael Fish and the Met Office for the incorrect forecasts of "barbecue summer" that the press had been bleating about over previous weeks.

One of the many points Fish makes here in defense of the Met Office is that "A lot of blame has to lie with the media who misinterpret the forecasts."

The Met Office, being composed of scientifically trained professionals, in fact said: "there is a 65% chance of above-average temperatures."

Jenkins, however, goes off on one about how the Met Office shouldn't be paid for by the taxpayers if it can't even guarantee "barbecue summer."

Ignoring basic probability theory (that if there is a 65% chance of something happening then there is a 35% chance of it not happening) Jenkins essentially blames the Met Office for the failure of the media to report what the Met Office actually said.

The money quote is where Jenkins says:

We listen uncomplaining to this drivel from one day to the next. We are British. Weather forecasting is like abstract art, any fool can do it once he has got the job.

Ironically, his description of weather forecasting perfectly encapsulates his own "profession" of overindulged, pompous columnist.

Jenkins' piece really is a classic of a certain kind of opinion journalism, based entirely on prejudice and bumptious "common sense" with no reference to actual evidence, statistical theory, or human psychology, and with an hilarious lack of awareness of how much of an innumerate prat he comes across as.

Sanctimony in the UK

I've been trying to determine exactly why I feel so uncomfortable with the condemnation of MPs over their expenses claims.

The answer is I have been revolted by the sanctimonious priggishness of the newspapers. Sanctimonious priggishness is only fun when it is me directing it at others: even seeing someone else direct it at a third party is unpleasant, possibly because of rays of sanctimonious priggishness being reflected in my direction.

Daniel Davis calls it right: the MP who said that he deserved his taxpayer-funded duck house is exactly the kind of guy I'd vote for. Honest, to-the-point, pro-duck. Too bad he was a Tory.

Anyhoo.

During my working day I am exposed to a lot of newspapers.

As such I end up reading a lot of front pages. I'd rather not, but it is an occupational hazard, just like putting up with idiots buying shitloads of crap they don't need and then objecting to paying one penny for a bag "on principle".

Newspaper headlines are full of bile and self-rightous indignation at the best of times, but the tabs, and The Telegraph, have outdone themselves with their inane rantings on the issue of MPs expenses.

My objection is not to the reporting of the facts of MPs expenses (they should of course be public knowledge as a matter of course), rather it is to the attitude of the reaction to the reporting.

There is my visceral dislike of the vox-pop faux-outrage of TGBP as they rant away at their elected representatives whilst ignoring the various ways they're being fucked over by businesses, the media, their bosses, popular culture, and 21st century life in general.

But there is more to my dislike of this story.

Let's step back a moment.

In a society there are a few problems that need to be solved. One is the problem of how you identify error in a complex society. Another is how that error is broadcast, such that a solution may be found.

In a civilized society (or, in the absence of a civilized society, a pluralistic liberal democracy such as wot we 'ave 'ere) if you identify a problem you broadcast it, it is debated, critically analysed, and many solutions are proferred.

A solution or group of solutions will be selected after various deliberations and debate and compromise, then you move on. At some indeterminate time in the future the solution is tested or re-evaluated.

The way our system of liberal democracy has developed has lead to an important part of this process (primarily the identification and broadcast components, or as I shall call it "I/B") being carried out as a worthwhile byproduct of the profit-seeking activities of a collection of businesses called newspapers.

Newspapers are run by humans, so as I/B systems newspapers are subject to all the usual cognitive biases, and are therefore prone to horrible failure modes.

I suspect in the phase space of all possible ways of solving the I/B problem newspapers occupy a local maxima. There may well be better ways of dealing with I/B (some kind of universal Panopticon and a million bored apes?).

But here the press has failed in that is has chosen to concentrate on a minor side-effect of the wider problem:

MPs were writing the rules for their own expenses. To whom are they accountable?

Half our legislature is unelected. This is a bad joke.

Our executive is more powerful than our legislature. This is a bad idea.

If there is a problem here it is bigger than the problem of MPs expenses, it is a problem with the way our legislature is set up and our government is elected.

So why are the newspapers focussing on the sneering, snide, grumpy, petty, priggish, holier-than-thou, expenses-obsession rather than the actual issues.

The British are possessed of the same peasant mentality as the Americans. Easily distracted by the threat of external foes but fundamentally incapable of addressing the real problems.

I agree with what Joan Smith writes in The Guardian

The British public – not all of them, but the smug guardians of morality who are enjoying this crisis so much – say they are disgusted by the behaviour of our elected representatives. Let me say that it works both ways: for the first time in my life, I am sick of my country. I am sick of the daily undermining of democracy, and sick of the sadistic pleasure people take in humiliating decent public servants. Even so, I will go on urging my friend not to give up her seat. She is a brilliant constituency MP, and I don't believe anyone should give in to bullies.

Indeed.

I see their knavery; this is to make an ass of them

I've been doing the rounds of the UK anti-tabloid blogs over the last few days: including the The Sun Lies, Enemies of Reason and Alone in the Dark.

The creators of these blogs see it as their duty as good citizens to refute and rejoin every last lie, exaggeration, misrepresentation, canard, fib, falsehood, and untruth that pours from the pages of those grotesques of British public life: The Daily Mail, The Sun, and The News of the World.

This is an entirely necessary task, as the tagline on Mail Watch says:

We are not here to hate the readers of the Daily Mail.

We are here to show them that they are being lied to.

We ask our readers and contributors to keep this is mind.

Indeed: but Daily Mail readers aren't stupid (or at least not as borderline-disabled as you'd have to be to believe what is written in The Mail) so why do they continue to buy a newspaper that is lying to them?

I'm not being naive here: why do people read The Mail? Is there a particularly good crossword? Are the horoscopes particularly accurate? Is the sports coverage terse and reliable?

If the quality of every part of the newspaper is similar to the quality of the headline, news, and editorials then it can't be particularly good.

I have no way of knowing if the editorial line of these newspapers accurately reflects the pre-existing views of the readership or not. If I were to take over any of these newspapers and replace the editorial staff with people with extensive technocratic competence as well as journalistic and writing skills, would the readers be any better off?

I don't know.

But there comes a point when the nastiness and unpleasantness reaches a level where it generates a genuine public hazard. Check out the latest of the baby P case, an open letter sent by the social services blog Community Care to the editor of The Sun Rebekah Wade.

Social workers do an incredibly necessary and unpleasant job. And when the tabloids aren't complaining that they're not doing their jobs properly they're complaining when they decide to take a child into care.

You can imagine an alternate universe where baby P was taken into care before he died and became the subject of tabloid ire because the child snatching social services were taking kids away from their parents.

As the letter says:

Informed public opinion is undoubtedly important. Unfortunately, your coverage misinformed your readers. And in considering their views ahead of the facts and the informed opinions of the social workers who struggle with the realities at the frontline everyday, you have risked more children's safety and maybe their lives.

So at what point will something be done? And is it even practical to do anything? Is the generation that reads this trash dying out?

How would you go about altering the sensational and dangerous reporting of British tabloids?

Damn you Taleb

Bearing in mind Nassim Nicholas Taleb's admonitions to stop reading newspapers, I have been making an effort to avoid doing so.

The problem is I am finding it extremely difficult. I can just about avoid watching TV, but I spend so much time online it become difficult to avoid looking at newssites. Even worse (when I do) reading articles like this:

Churnalism and all other forms of sponsored or assisted reporting are deplorably remote from Steer's ideal of the reporter as author of history's first draft. They are really little more than sordid compromises which famous newspapers and broadcasters feel forced to make in a plummeting market.

I believe that one day and somehow web-based news outlets will find a way to finance expensive, agenda-setting journalism. But that is a faith-based position, not an entirely rational one. The website does not yet exist that can afford to send correspondents on speculative foreign missions or to fund expensive long-term investigations.

As yet, despite the brilliance of sites such as this one, the best online journalism remains dependent on revenues earned by its paper and broadcast parents and upon journalists employed and paid primarily by old media outlets.

The problem with this is that I simply don't even buy newspapers. On the other hand I don't buy blogs, and there are some excellent weblogs that are completely free (The Yorkshire Ranter, Charlie's Diary, Stumbling and Mumbling etc).

The problem with blogs is that for every reasonable blog there are thousands of unreasonable ones. If people don't like what one blog says they can just go and find one that says stuff they like - I'm probably guilty of this myself in my blog selection.

This leads to what the one of the guests on Andrew Marr's Start the Week (in which he recaps some of the more profound biotechnological and computational stories of the past year) describes as counter knowledge.

Perhaps I should just go cold-turkey on all forms of media, including blogs and newspapers, TV news and so forth?

The problem is if I did that I wouldn't know what to think! I need to know more before I can make reasonable judgements, and the only way I can find out more is if I read more, and the only way I can read more educational stuff is if I read books (including textbooks).

One of the comments on this blog post on Overcoming Bias (another excellent blog) puts it rather well: the "opportunity cost" of reading newspapers is very high.

Knowledge and newspapers

After thinking about my previous post further I've realised that newspapers are fairly entertaining. They also help fulfil the basic human need for gossip and discussion, which is good.

The problem is they just provide you with information, no deep knowledge. I read loads of newspapers and news websites every day and I know what's happening, but (to quote Elliot Carver) I don't know "why" things are happening.

I don't know enough about the world to come to analyse what happens independently of journalistic blowhards, disingenuous politicians, lawyers, scientists, and experts of every stripe.

Chris Dillow (a journalist who has written this book, and can therefore be considered an agent of deep knowledge) says of opinion:

Opinion is over-rated. Sure, I like a neat turn of phrase or a new perspective. On a good day I even like the occasional fact. But mere opinions are like arseholes - everyone's got one, and I don't want to hear any of them.

Because I possess relatively little deep knowledge it would be a good idea for me to go somewhere and read lots of books about a wide variety of important things (economics, management, accountancy, psychology, engineering, physics, maths, electronics, computer science, literature, philosophy, politics etc) and get "up to speed" on Life, the Universe, and Everything and then I'll be able to make my own judgements.

I also think that "not reading the daily newspapers" would be a good New Years Resolution, particularly bearing in mind (the opinion of) Thomas Jefferson:

Avertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

...

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

...

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Quite right. An opinion, of course, but still.

So I guess I'll be reapplying to university...

Update:

Edited on the 27th of December, links and quotes added.