The novelty of the anecdote and the fellow distortion of fairness.

We all have confirmation bias. Let’s just get that out of the way.

We also have experience. And we have expertise. That means we all have a limited scope of the world in one way or another. Let’s get that out of the way.

Our limited scope and confirmation bias leave us open to to unavoidable natural distortions of the media. The normalization of the novelty, and everything being fair and equal. If we aren’t aware of these and don’t look at things critically we can get lost in information and our own desired outcomes. 

So let’s examine novelty and fairness and how they can be distorted. 

Few things spread as quickly as a novel news story. It’s what sells. Its what is most sensational. But ironically what can be known widespread may not be a commonplace occurrence. News stories are typically what's abnormal or sensational. They are not what's typical. What's typical wouldn't be news. It's that simple. 

I think it' s fairly easy to see how the news constantly reporting what's abnormal or potentially rare at a viral level can be problematic. If you see crimes on the news you may think they are on the rise even in municipalities where crimes are decreasing.

It's distorting and it can feed confirmation bias.

The second dangerous distortion is the idea of fairness in reporting. Opposing viewpoints typically get equal airtime. Experts may reach a consensus, but in a story with opposing ideas it may appear that there is an equal split. Less supported or less vetted ideas will often appear to have the same support or standing as ideas that are more proven. This is especially dangerous in stories involving medicine or science. Ideas that are more researched, have been replicated, and were given other controls like being double blinded may seem to be equivalent in standing to one off studies. Personally this distortion is even more dangerous. It feeds even more into confirmation bias by being a direct comparison of the competition. If the veracity and accuracy of the studies themselves is not referenced it will just drive an distorted comparison of the facts. And drive even more confirmation bias, as not enough people will look at original sources themselves.

Finally both fairness and novelty get amplified when things go viral. Social media both increases the circulation of ideas and then algorithms will specifically target users for interaction. The bubbles we interact in on social media are designed to be limiting and isolating. Further driving distortions in our media consumption and increasing our confirmation biases. 

There is a way to breakthrough. Read primary sources. That means looking at the data that is being reported on. The studies, reports, surveys, case reports, and others. If we read accounts first hand, look at actual data and conclusions ourselves two things will happen. We will exponentially increase our knowledge and understand, that's the first gift and the greatest. The second is the limiting of our confirmation bias as we see more complication and recognize what we do not know.

So please for the love of everything, read primary sources. We all can overcome our biases a little bit more.