Pulp Fiction, Epsilon Theory, and The News Isn’t The News. Really.

“Zed?  Zed’s dead, Baby.” – Pulp Fiction

So if the Internet is a motorcycle and Bruce Willis is original thought, at some point . . . we should just go drinking and stop thinking.

How much of your news . . . isn’t news?  Turns out, a lot.

It starts out, for me, with a video on fiction writing:

The international-selling author Rob Kroese (buy his stuff, it’s awesome LINK) published a link to a YouTube (more about them later) video on Twitter®.  This video is below; it’s exceptional advice for writers of fiction.  In it, Trey and Matt point out that there simply must be causation in a story to make it pay off for the reader.  A story isn’t just a sequence of events that happen and are randomly connected via the conjunction “and” – no.  A story is a sequence where one event leads to the next, and there is causality.  It’s not “and” it’s “because.”  That’s the reason that Pulp Fiction is so awesome.  Tarantino sets up a sequence of well thought-out stories and makes you, the movie goer, unjumble them to discern the real causality that underlies the plot.  The genius is making you find the “because” and “therefore” of the film.  The best part is that it only becomes clear at the end of the film how it all works together.  Sure, it’s a one-trick pony thing to do, but it was masterfully done in Pulp Fiction, enough so Tarantino can still coast off that genius for decades.

Trey and Matt, please go back and watch early episodes of South Park©.  It’s not too late to Make South Park™ Funny Again:  #MSPFA.  Check out the guys from the Venture Brothers® – they manage to do it.  Especially all the Rusty Venture stuff.

Pulp Fiction is a movie where we were looking for causality to bring it all together for us.  However, Rusty Guinn, writer extraordinaire from the excellent site Epsilon Theory (LINK) made an outstanding connection.  He has for some time been talking about Fiat News.  Here it is in his own words (emphasis in the original):

The Washington Post is in the fiat news business. They are trying to influence our political process to their institutional benefit, just like the Wall Street Journal and every other mainstream media institution is in the fiat news business. The Washington Post is never a foe to a status quo American regime, regardless of which party is in the White House, as the regime bestows on them the authority to issue fiat news. Still, if you trust the Washington Post, you are no less a fool.

The fiat news business is booming. As a result, the counterfeit news business is booming, too. And if the history of fiat money and counterfeit money is any guide, we ain’t seen nothing yet. (LINK)

 

So the short version of this is:  a good story is poor news.  What makes Pulp Fiction great, what makes spy stories exciting is that narrative.  I don’t need that narrative with my news.  I don’t want to hear the newscaster come on the radio and say, “It’s 38°F outside (291°C) because global warming is FAKE NEWS.”  I also don’t want the newscaster to say, “It’s a scorching 102°F (-391°C) because TRUMP WANTS YOU TO DIE OF GLOBAL WARMING!”  Yet I hear similar stories about the weather all of the time.  “Hurricanes increasing because of global warming,” when I heard nothing of the sort about hurricanes declining because of not global warming in the relatively hurricane-free recent years.   Even weather events are co-opted for Fiat News.  Every story that can be remotely part of the narrative is brought in.

And before you complain about my temperature conversions, the metric system is for countries that haven’t put people on the Moon.  Nanner-nanner.

Oh, that’s where Fiat News comes from.

It’s especially stark where I live.  On my morning drive, I have the option of a radio station playing music from when Nixon was president, a station with programming from the American Family Network™ (Radio Free Jesus), and NPR™ (National Progressive Radio).  I opt for silence most days.  The bias in the reporting is like chewing on aluminum foil covered fingernails that just screeched on a chalkboard.  At least American Family Network© is open and upfront about their bias:  they are right leaning, and hate abortion, communism, Nancy Pelosi and any book written since Eisenhower was president.  There is zero pretense of a bias-free story.

NPR® is worse.  Whereas the American Family Network™ is open and honest about their bias, NPR© pretends that it is actual journalism.  A case in point:  on an NPR© segment during the program All Things (Leftists Agree With) Considered from a while back, there were two stories that ran in sequence.  The first one was a blatant attempt to drum up sympathy for people who had broken the law and were continuing to break the law to be in this country.  The second story was about how horrible a certain group was because there needed to be a law to stop their behavior (it involved guns, I think, and no one was hurt).  NPR™ was consistent in its narrative – an adherence to liberal principles, even in what were framed as news stories.  What was a crime, shouldn’t have been.  What isn’t a crime, should be.  In news segments.  NPR© won’t say it, but they hate Trump, also Trump, Republicans that aren’t the Most Recent Republican To Do Something Trump Didn’t Like, and also Trump.

Bonnie thinks NPR® is news.  Don’t be like Bonnie.

And NPR© will interview right-wing politicians, and will ask them blazingly tough questions about their policies and positions and any inconsistency is ruthlessly followed up.  As it should be in an honest news organization.  But a left-wing politician?  The questions are all sympathetic, and the occasional vague answer to the equally occasional probing question is accepted without follow up.

NPR:  “But Senator, didn’t your bill allow a million deaths a year due to the unforeseen consequences of unlicensed PEZ® operations?”

Liberal Senator:  “Well, no, people die all the time.  PEZ™ deaths are a thing that happens.  But smokers, oh, my, and look at that shiny object!”

NPR:  “Very shiny, Senator.  Tell us, how is your cat doing?”

And ever notice that anything Trump says is “unfounded” whereas anything that a liberal says is, well, not burdened by an adjective?  It’s like when The Mrs. indicates that I smoked a cigar in the basement.  I reply “That’s an unfounded assertion!” while I make sure my cigar butt is safely thrown away.

Yeah.

And I see this in print, too.  Especially now.  The hallmarks of this Fiat News are obvious now that they’re pointed out.  Like the Gimp, you can’t unsee them.

But you can count them.  And Rusty Guinn did.

Rusty (who I believe is no relation to the Venture family) started with a variety of news sites.  As a control, he selected several sites that aren’t news sites to use as a comparison.  Vox.com™, for instance, has a mission to explain the news.  It’s partisan.  And that’s okay.  It’s not a news site.  Neither is the National Review®.  Or the New Yorker©.  The biggest use of the “Fiat News” words (the list of words like but, because, therefore, is at Epsilon) was from Vox.  So Rusty set the Vox as a unit of measure.  One day, I hope, the Wilder will be a unit of measure.  A fundamental intrinsic value of the universe – it’s the measure of smugness that is so great that the ego cannot escape.  What kind of hole would that be called?  Hmmm.  Oh.  Please don’t say that in the comments.

But back to Rusty.  His amazing graph speaks for itself:

Why?  (And I can ask that because this isn’t a news site, and never has been, unless you’re as addled as an abacus adding algebra alumna from Alabama.)

Bias sells.  The Washington Post® and New York Times™ are published to serve highly liberal people in highly liberal environments – so liberal that every morning they have a privilege review and spank the person with the most privilege, unless that person likes spanking.  And then they don’t spank them.  The Post® and Times™ are abetted by a journalistic corps that is 95% or more left-wing and comprised of the children of liberals that weren’t smart enough to make it into law school.  The readers and journalists want to hate Trump.  They want to write and read how awful he is doing.  They want to hope that he’ll be impeached and then sent off to that hell that they feel he so richly deserves next week.  This week would be better, but they’d be willing to wait until next week.

Fox News® and Breitbart™ rely on the same principle, but to a different audience, namely the right-wing.  They want to hope that Hillary will be indicted next week and sent off to that hell that they feel she so richly deserves.  But they have jobs, so they can wait a month or so for the show, as long as it’s on YouTube®.

And all of it pulls in viewers on the Internet and television, and causes newspapers to be purchased.  Eyes and money flow to the business.  In short?

It sells.

It sells because people like to see that others mirror their bias.  They like feeling like part of that group (liberals more than conservatives, but that’s an r/K thing (LINK)).  And the more biased?  The better.  They want that emotion.  They want to feel that they are just, and someone will right the wrongs.  They want . . . to feel hate for the other side.  My journalism teacher from high school would punch me straight in the face if I were to write news stories with such bias.  And she likes me, even though she’s a liberal and knows that I have all of the sympathy of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun all rolled up into one.

I watch YouTube® videos while I work out climbing stairs on an unending staircase that Robert Plant assured me would lead to Heaven.  I’ll watch videos that pertain to my political interests some days when those stupid cats have stopped doing cute things because it’s a holiday.

But I noticed a trend.  If I was watching a right-wing video, pretty soon I was seeing that the next video up was further right-wing.  Further biased.  If I watched that, the list would pretty soon be in amazingly right-wing territory.  On the other side of the aisle, I imagine that someone who was watching a video on how free health care was good would, after a few iterations, be looking at YouTube© videos that supported Antifa™ as the neatest thing since Venezuelan Stalinism® and looking to create camps to re-educate corn farmers from Iowa into progressive Marxism® and collective farming.

Huh?

Yeah, YouTube® knows that emotions drive viewing.  And emotions are driven by extremes.  So its algorithm, purposefully or not, drives viewers to extreme viewpoints to get more video views.  The Pugh study on political views supports this (LINK).

The media is purposefully encouraging the split in our country.  Mainly for revenue and to sell papers, but also partially because they believe it’s the right thing to do.  Thankfully this always ends well, and as a commenter, GSS, on a previous post has noted, this division isn’t new – it’s occurred many times and may be the norm during the life of our Republic.

It’s not like a newspaper could take us to war, is it?

And if you liked today’s selection here are some more posts along the same theme.

Enjoy, even with dinner!

• The Coming Civil War (United States), Cool Maps, and Uncomfortable Truths
• The Coming Civil War Part II, and a (Possible) American Caesar
• Immigration, Freedom, Wealth, Corruption, and More Cool Maps
• Civil War, Cool Maps, Censorship, and is Fort Sumter . . . Happening Now?
• Show Me the Man, I’ll Show You the Crime: Justice, Civil War, and Game of Thrones