Katherine Maher TED Talk

[sekker]

She is now head of NPR

If she practices this philosophy, what and how NPR covers the 'news' and what and how it defines 'truth' will definitely be different in 2024 than in 2020.

I will let you watch and listen to her explanation here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/katherine_mahe...nd_beliefs

As I noted in the earlier thread, I expect NPR to evolve just like the rest of the world!

[Ted King]

The philosophy major in me struggled with how she uses "truth". I mean "minimum viable truth"? I get it. She tries to shift from objective truth to subjective perception of truth as a kind of way to avoid the language of value disagreements. But that's really essentially what she is advocating - finding the most common agreements when can on values and act on those. Unfortunately, disagreements about objective facts (e.g., that vaccinations are dangerous for the majority of people or not) far, far too often keep us from getting the point of engaging in trying to find some common values to work with. I guess that was kind of her point, but I don't think she presents a viable way to address it as much as highlight the nature of the problem - which is worth doing but highlighting the problem is the easy part.

I'm not sure how this relates to her taking the position at NPR. NPR should be about journalism - which is not the pursuit of common ground to solve problems, but rather more like science in trying to get as close to objective truth as possible. I love Wikipedia as a great source to start an investigation but I don't treat it as a robustly reliable source of information. I don't think that is what the listeners of NPR generally want. I'm not saying that that is what she is going to try to do but I'm not convinced that her TED talk gives us much of a concrete sense of what she will do at NPR.

[pdq]

I’’m not sure where you’re going with this, sekker.

First, she’s been there all of 2 months. And yet, the Right already seems to hate her:

Katherine Maher Is a Drone (National Review) “She has no empathy”.

NPR boss once called the First Amendment a 'challenge' and 'reverence for the truth' a distraction (Fox News) (The 1A certainly can be a challenge that has to be balanced with public interest, just like every other amendment (oh, except the Second, which is sacrosanct, as we’re often told here).

The Right hates NPR. (In my personal experience, conservatives complain about NPR, but they frequently listen to it, when they’re taking a breather from the echo chamber). They hate Wikipedia, because it’s full of facts that they don’t like. So they made their own fake-Wikipedia, Conservapedia, which no serious person ever cites (and for good reason - for example, here’s their “Age of the Earth” page).

So, Maher’s talk tries to describe the process at Wikipedia, which sounds remarkably small-d-democratic.

But two months in, Berliner blasts his diatribe without warning, against long-standing guidelines/rules. (I think he did so hoping she would fire him. But she didn’t.) So he quit:

NPR editor Uri Berliner resigns with blast at new CEO

"I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years," Berliner wrote in an email to CEO Katherine Maher. "I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay."

:S

The article mentions…

…an email he had sent to newsroom leaders after Trump's 2016 win. He wrote then: "Primarily for the sake of our journalism, we can't align ourselves with a tribe. So we don't exist in a cocoon that blinds us to the views and experience of tens of millions of our fellow citizens."

That’s exactly what I heard (well, read) from the transcript of Maher’s TED talk.

Maybe that’s your point, and I’m just missing it.

[Ted King]

As I reflect on it more, it seems like she may be using the guise of "your truth and my truth" as a friendly way of acknowledging each other person's feelings on the idea. If so, I guess there could be value in using that as a way to lessen the emotional gap. Kind of kumbaya-ish but it may work with the less committed where the emotional "leap" isn't too great.

Like I said, though, the philosophy side of me shudders a tiny bit at the idea of "personal truth".

[sekker]

pdq -

'Yet some (NPR) colleagues privately said Berliner's critique carried some truth.'

I find K Maher's words troubling. There are 'facts' - a mile is 5280 feet - and then there is 'truth' which I would argue is 'facts in a fuller context.'

Image - 'man breaks into house' = fact.

'Truth' would be whether that is a crime. Burgler trying to steal? Crime. Car driver in Feb in a snowstorm in MN who enters a cabin for warmth? Not normally a crime. Editorially restricting which of the facts to represent so that we come to a 'truth' conclusion - not interested in that for my 'news' sources.

My hope has always been that the BBC and NPC would represent a place where I could get 'facts'. I would look for 'truth' elsewhere.

Just my individual views.

[pdq]

I still don’t understand your original point.

In the TED talk she said that the process at Wikipedia led to

Minimum viable truth mean[ing] getting it right enough of the time to be useful enough to enough people.

This is of some concern to me - it sounds slippery, or lowest-common-denominator - but she says this seems be have been successful at Wikipedia, which otherwise might devolve and collapse into an every-day-edit-battle by opposing sides.

It seems to me that Berliner claims that NPR has gone way left, period (and so now must move right). I disagree, and between those two viewpoints/directions, I prefer hers.

Are you saying you’re more in line with Berliner, or Maher? I think we’d both be happier with a strict adherence to scientific fact, but while that should be a guiding star, if we have to live with one of the two former choices in the real world of “news” today, I prefer Maher.

[sekker]

I am a scientist. I dislike both options you list.

Maher world - facts are heavily masked based on editorial criteria in service of 'truth'.

Berliner world - is actually based in the past and never existed. NPR was still masking facts, just using a more 'centrist' circle.

I am sharing the info here, you can make your own decisions!

I will still continue to use NPR as one of my news 'sources'. But I will continue to augment with BBC, Al Jezeera and others that share facts/data.

My goal is to integrate so I can make the best decisions I can based on my personal values.

YMMV.