“Experts” and old media

This Is the source of maybe the most asinine statement I’ve ever heard made by a so-called security “expert”. I won’t harp on it too much, but the explanation for why the Chinese have a competitive advantage in hacking is downright silly. IPv4 and IPv6 have nothing to do with it (at about 4:20 in, if you’re playing along).

It does illustrate the point that I’m about to make though. For all the hemming and hawing about how blogs, podcasts, and other “new media” are inaccurate and do not have the resources to properly fact check, traditional media gets it wrong too.

I’m not really bashing NPR here. I listen to NPR every day, and I consider them a reliable source for most news. The problem with it, like all media, is that i have to trust that the people they bring on as experts really know what they’re talking about.

Stephen Spoonamore here clearly doesn’t. He states that IPv6 is “powerful software” capable of carrying “4 times the code” that IPv4 does, and that’s just plain wrong. IPv4 and IPv6 are simple addressing structures. They are not in and of themselves capable of carrying anything. Instead they provide a structure to help data packets get where they’re going.

My point here is that Mr. Spoonamore really should know what he’s talking about, and he clearly doesn’t. The show (The Diane Rehm show) is a nationally syndicated show. It airs all across the country on various NPR stations, on a century old technology that is definitely considered old media. It’s a good show. I get a lot of good info from it. And in this case it’s very, very wrong.

Should I stop listening to the show? I don’t think so. I’ve heard a lot of interesting stories on the show that have a great deal of factual basis behind them. I consider it a gernally well-thought-out program that usually gets it right, and does a lot to educate it’s audience. This even is to my eyes an anomaly.

Where am I going with all this? You shouldn’t ever get all your news in one place. Leaving aside the biases of the various media outlets (NPR ranges from moderate to very liberal depeding on who’s on the air) they can always make simple mistakes. People like Mr. Spoonamore and to a greater extent Jack Thompson get invited into the media not because of any particulat bias, but because they ostensibly know something about the topic they are asked to speak on.

Does “new media” (blogs, podcasts, etc.) get it wrong too? Absolutely. Are they still worth reading? You bet. Should we distrust everything we hear and half of what we read, like my grandfather told me? Probably, but becoming a cynic doesn’t really make you any more impervious to bias.

If you want to avoid disinformation, there’s really only one way to go. Think like an investigator. Wherever possible get a corroborating story from somewhere else. Surf media aggregator sites like Yahoo Buzz, Digg, and Fark. Read the comments on stories that interest you to see how others are reacting. If there are rebuttals, check them out too. Listen to different news stations on your way to work. Download news podcasts from multiple sources and listen to them while on the subway. Any of these will make you more informed.

It’s going to take time. Maybe more than you have. I know it’s comfortable getting your news from the same reliable channel all the time. WIth the upcoming election however it is more and more important that you be informed, so that you can make informed choices about how you go about your life.