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USA Edition | Today Is Wednesday, June 19, 2013 |
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Socratic Warning
Newsroom Magazine
May Challenge
Or Demand
Critical Thinking
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The intellectual roots of critical thinking date back to the Greek philosophers.
Socrates discovered, by means of probing questions, that in the exchange of competing ideas, people sometimes make confident claims based on unreliable assumptions or failed logic.
Such arguments, he discovered, were either erroneous in fact, absent sufficient foundation, or failing in logic. Instead, most arguments were based on confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or contradictory beliefs.
Socrates' contributions to critical thinking were many -- for he established new ways to think about contentious issues in terms of the quality of assumptions, facts and logic.
Thus Socrates demonstrated that persons may have passion, or power or high position but yet be deeply confused and irrational.
Good journalism, like compelling debate, is based on a clear understanding of facts and the logical construction of one's argument. And that is what the Socratic Method and The Sophist Tradition is all about.
Evidentiary Approach
The Socratic Method is the preferred way to examine issues.In the Socratic mode of questioning, postulations, ideas or arguments are examined for their clarity and logical consistency by systematic analysis of facts, assumptions and logical methodology to support a conclusion.
Socratic analysis is accomplished by means of a series of probing questions that systematically examine the quality of an argument or conclusion.
Understanding the quality of information, argument or one's conclusions, is fundamental to critical thinking -- and the goal of critical editing.
Historical Foundation
Socrates’ practice was followed by the critical thinking of Plato (who recorded Socrates’ thought), Aristotle, and the Greek skeptics, all of whom emphasized that things are often very different from what they appear to be.Only the trained mind is prepared to see through the way things look to us on the surface (delusive appearances) to the way they really are beneath the surface (the deeper realities of life.)
From this ancient Greek tradition emerged the need, for anyone who aspired to understand the deeper realities, to think systematically, to trace implications broadly and deeply; for only thinking that is comprehensive, well-reasoned, and responsive to objections can take us beyond the surface.
Means Of Analysis
The common denominators of Critical Thinking requires, for example, the systematic monitoring of thought; that thinking, to be critical, must not be accepted at face value, but must be analyzed and assessed for its clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logical validity. All reasoning occurs within points of view and frames of reference.All reasoning proceeds from some goals, objectives, and has an informational base. All data, when used in reasoning, must be interpreted. That interpretation involves concepts, that concepts entail assumptions, and that all basic inferences in thought have implications, and each of these dimensions of thinking need to be monitored where problems of thinking can occur.
Questioning Chain
The result of the collective contribution of the history of critical thought is that the basic questions of Socrates can now be much more powerfully and focally framed.In every domain of human thought, and within every use of reasoning within any domain, it is now possible to question:
• ends and objectives
• the status and wording of questions
• the sources of information and fact
• the method and quality of information collection
• the mode of judgment and reasoning used
• the concepts that make that reasoning possible
• the assumptions that underlie concepts in use
• the implications that follow from their use
• the point of view or frame of reference within which reasoning takes place
Jeffrey Slee
Logician
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For some newspapers the era of non adversarial content has come to an end.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment To The Constitution Of The United States
Newsroom Magazine
Is Non Adversarial News Publishing A New Idea?
Q For an on-line publication, Newsroom Magazine contains an unusually wide range of subject matter. Some of your content is clearly adversarial, while nearly all of your government related coverage is not. How come?
AThe short answer is that Newsroom Magazine’s governmental hard news content model is inherently non adversarial. Even so, the governmental news we choose to publish is selected based on the same skeptical-fidelity terms as our other content. In January 2011 something less than 2% of government content delivered to our incoming newswire was published.
What we bring to the governmental content we publish is neither independent reporting or research, but responsible editorial judgment about what’s newsworthy, what’s credible, what’s relevant and what’s probative. Our editorial purpose continues to be to publish what readers need to know, not what’s entertaining.
Adversarial journalism, the model behind the New York Times and other responsible news sources, is deeply rooted in American culture and politics. Its origins are rooted in the inherent imbalance between the rights and responsibilities of citizens and the immense power of government.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution believed that adversarial journalism practiced by responsible citizens was a necessary predicate for democracy. To protect the right of non governmental institutions and persons to question or challenge government the U.S. Constitution was amended to specifically protect freedom of the press — the only means of information dissemination at the time — from governmental interference.
Freedom of the press is the foundation for adversarial news collection and dissemination. The right to challenge government does not require that all information be derived by adversarial means. Since the civil war era American newspapers and other news outlets have published a wide spectrum of news content that ranges from totally adversarial to totally passive.
In general, the closer content is to a newspaper’s front page the more likely it is to be substantively adversarial. Big news, the important stories about governmental actions and policies is often the result of questioning, interviews and research. Non policy stories about governmental decisions, actions or data tend to be non-adversarial to the degree that the information was voluntarily released by government.
For example when the FDA approves a new drug the announcement is treated as news even though it was not the product of reportorial diligence or questioning. So, while a report on whether or not the drug ought to have been approved might be adversarial in origin, the news that the drug was released to market falls into a non-adversarial area of news often described as realities.
The economic dislocation that has adversely impacted the newspaper business in the last decade has resulted in a substantial reduction in non adversarial content of every type. Both hard news and features content has been sharply curtailed in an effort to contain costs and focus resources. The days of leisurely thumbing through a 125 page daily newspaper to explore a large daily dose of non adversarial news is all but gone.
Given that today’s Internet and broadcast news is largely published for its entertainment value, Newsroom magazine management consciously decided to enlarge our hard news content to accommodate national non adversarial news content produced for and by governmental departments, agencies and other bodies.
What’s in this content is not always true, may be incomplete for undisclosed reasons, or may be fabricated and made to look like news when it is puffery, filler or embarrassingly self-serving. Some government generated new is well prepared, documented and written. Most is not.
