Credibility II

“Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this. [...]

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. [...] You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. [...] You read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. [...] But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. [...] The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.”

-Michael Crichton

"Why Speculate?", speech at the International Leadership Forum, La Jolla, California (April 26, 2002)