I feel Kurt Eichenwald's frustration in this Twitter thread and share it. We are a willfully

[catbyte]

ignorant nation.

Link to tweet

From thread reader app:

1. Today I moved about a million pages of documents & notes. Just one box contained over 100 yellow pads, scribbled on both sides with interview notes. These are the documents I retained from my reporting - maybe 1/6 of the total. And seeing them made me sad for this country...

2...reporting, when done right, is hard work. You have to review every report, speak to every participant, check your own assumptions, argue against your own conclusion to find the weaknesses. Reading, calling, gathering. Finding the experts. Prying info out of participants....

3...there was a time when all of this work, done over weeks and months and sometimes years, would be published and Americans would say "Oh, I learned something." But too many people no longer have any concept of what knowledge is. They know what they believe - and belief trumps..

3....information. I have spent a month reporting something, written it, then heard people give their responses to the headline. We are an achingly ignorant nation, and it is across the board. Doctors study for many years, take exams, get credentialed, must have continuing....

4...medical education, but all of us have Google Medical School. I know many doctors and they now spend enormous amounts of time trying to persuade people that whatever nonsense they found on the internet is not medicine, that vaccines are essential, that raw cinnamon is not...

5....a miracle drug. And often, when they are unable to persuade the patient that maybe a doctor with years off education knows more than some guy who did a quick internet search of blogs, they must relent and let their patients engage in harmful behavior. Scientists, from....

6...climatolgists to biologists to geologists - have to confront people who couldn't pass high school chemistry saying they don't "believe" science they have never read, as if "belief" has any role in science whatsoever. You read the research, you find the flaws, and report....

7...them,. If you cant do that, your "opinion" has as much worth as people who scream "fake news" at well-reported stories simply because they dont like them, or scream "butter will cure diabetes." The internet has given us access to greatest knowledge available. But it has....

8...also given us access to "facts" - out of context, poorly understood pieces of information stacked in deceptive piles for the purpose of creating an outcome and convincing the very ignorant that they know more than people who have worked for knowledge. If what you do is...

9...watch networks or read magazines or websites because you KNOW that they will always feed you what you already believe, you are not informed. You are a moron. And if you dont have a million pages of documents from reporting, or medical research at your hand, or peer-reviewed..

10...literature on the non-medical sciences, and if you can't discuss all of those intelligently based on KNOWLEDGE, not cherry-picked facts and spin, then you are part of the problem of this country. I dont know more than a climatologist about climate. If you dont do the....

11...work on ANY speciality, you don't have the knowledge. And if you think you do, then look up Dunning Kruger. That is you, and you are destroying America in a cesspool of arrogant stupidity.

12....some people seem to be taking this to mean I am giving up. Nope. Never. Journalism is too important for the health of this country for reporters to abandon it - even if more than half the country has no idea why.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1015786049187049472.html

[beachbum bob]

1. It's not "we"....it's some...

[dalton99a]

2. Great thread.

[smirkymonkey]

3. K&R

Thanks for posting. I understand his frustration.

"A cesspool of arrogant stupidity."

[Wounded Bear]

4. K & R...for visibility...nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. The internet is a blessing and a curse.

I wish it had existed when I was in school because it makes so much knowledge available and it would have been awesome to have had access to it then. But at the same time there's so much useless and even dangerous stuff - rumors, lies, conspiracy theories and general bullshit - because anybody can throw stuff on there and people treat everything as having equal value: It's on the internet so it must be true. Doesn't matter whether it's a professional journal or some rando on Facebook.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

8. It's a blessing for people like you and a curse for the world at-large

What I mean by that is people who have good solid research skills honed by combing through books and periodicals and scholarly journals for information now have the world's greatest library at their fingertips. A few clicks of the mouse can get you what would have otherwise taken hours in a good college library. You have the ability to discern between what is relevant, what is not and what is substantive and what is trash. The vast majority of people never had to go through that kind of rigorous process and putting the internet in their hands is like handing a scalpel to someone who just watched a couple of episodes of Grey's Anatomy (or more like Scrubs) and letting them perform surgery. They have the power of access to information without the ability to understand how to use it or comprehend what is valuable and what is trash. Worse, trash is treasure when it supports their fact-free gut conclusions.

[uponit7771]

12. +1

[Phoenix61]

6. Pretty much sums it up

I explain it to people by the following when the start spouting beliefs that are in direct conflict with known facts. It doesn't matter if you believe in gravity or not, it's going to hurt like hell when you fall off the ladder either way.

[tblue37]

7. Gravity: It's not just a good idea--it's the LAW! nt

[area51]

9. "We are an achingly ignorant nation"

pretty much says it all. Helps explain why people put up with the insane patchwork of medical care we have here; people don't want to learn, don't want to do research that bursts their "America is the best" bubble.

[Doodley]

10. Bias and grievances have become the bedrock of Republican beliefs to replace facts.

[malaise]

11. Excellent OP

Rec

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Most deplorables think "reporting" consists of acting like a Fox News host. . . . nt

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

14. K & R...

The dumbing down of America is starting to reap the rewards.
My wife and I startied to notice it when our grown kids were in grade school. Late 70’s early 80’s. What was being taught was “surface” education no depth. We supplemented that basic education with “discoveries” at home.
Telling them that we were going to teach them wouldn’t have worked out well. So when asked a question we guided them to the answer, showing them how to research different strategies to get the answer that satisfied the question.

Two of three kids became teachers, one is the head manager of our local Restaurant Depot. They are passing those lessons on to their kids.

[calimary]

15. I like Kurt Eichenwald.

I trust his reporting. I remember during the campaign when he’d reported on seeking the opposition research on one candidate. I’d already read about a lot of that stuff even though it had not received much press attention. He detailed a lot of the same stuff. Said it was in a stack of papers and binders that was two feet tall.

[Blue_Tires]

16. Yes, and as a former reporter I've said as much here on countless occasions...

[world wide wally]

17. As The Rock always said, "It doesn't matter what you think"

[hurple]

18. Excellent!

Remarking on this so I can find it, follow the link, and post it later.