In Nassim Taleb’s book, The Black Swan, the author confidently assures his readers that, to learn anything, one must “minimize time spent reading newspapers,” and “ignore the blogs.” He argues that these outlets always try to apply narratives to what simply may be disparate facts, usually report the same sets of facts, are prone to hyperbole, and seldom correct mistakes that they make with alarming regularity.

Similarly, Nate Silver’s new book, The Signal and the Noise, warns us against relying on experts, whose predictions come about with the same regularity as if foreseen by laypeople—and are often less accurate.

[pullquote]The media also fails spectacularly in its chief goal of … reporting news.[/pullquote]

It is not difficult to see that Taleb and Silver are correct. The news media pretends to know things that are essentially unknowable. We will never know Mitt Romney and Barack Obama on a personal level, no matter how many articles are written about them. Likewise, we cannot accurately predict how the polls will turn in the upcoming weeks. We do not know for sure if Justin Trudeau will eventually ascend to the head of the Liberal Party, and if he does so, how successful he will be. We must deal with the fact that our thoughts on these issues are hardly based in anything substantive, and are often nothing more than conjectures.

The media also fails spectacularly in its chief goal of actually reporting news: remember when Osama Bin Laden was reported killed in a firefight, or the Innocence of Muslims was reliably reported as the sole cause of the deaths in the American Embassy in Libya? When swine flu was posited as capable of decimating huge swaths of the population? When new sources reported that Candidate X committed (insert gaffe), only to state hours later that the gaffe was unreasonably exaggerated?

These news organizations can argue that they are doing the best with the information they have at the time. However, this limited defense is undercut by the fact that the media presupposes there is virtue in pretending to be authoritative with limited facts. In actuality, it is doing little service to the public with its presentation of wildly misleading views.

So how do we avoid falling into the trap of listening to news that is most likely wrong, and predictions that are apt to fail? Taleb suggests reading books and media that have stood the test of time, increasing the likelihood that the information we are consuming is largely accurate.

One should also be aware of the cognitive failings to which humans are prone, such as applying narratives to nearly every aspect of our lives. Silver suggests that we act on the basis of probabilistic hypotheses, and then revise them after the truth or falsity of our actions slowly become known.

We can also start to react to the news in a more measured manner, taking everything that commentators say with a grain of salt, knowing that what they say is probably not complete and may need to be amended later. None of these things in themselves are sufficient in providing us with clarity of knowledge. Ultimately though, these small steps—relying on established forms of media, expecting future revision of all facts, and seeking out bias in narrative—are the best tools we may ever have to separate hasty conclusions from prediction based in fact.