The credit of the report was closely linked to the reputation of the teller

From The Invention of News: How The World Came to Know About Itself by Andrew Pettegree.

Very occasionally, through a diary or family chronicle, we have a window into the process by which early news readers weighed and evaluated these news reports. One such was Herman Weinsberg, who lived in the great German city of Cologne in the later sixteenth century. Weinsberg, it must be said, was a very odd man. It was only after his death that his appalled family discovered that he had memorialized all their doings in an expansive chronicle of their lives and times. Weinsberg, who lived a comfortable existence on the rents from inherited property, took a close interest in contemporary events. Living outside the circles of the city elite, he was forced to rely on what he picked up from friends, or read in purchased pamphlets. Happily a news hub like Cologne was drenched in information, but not all sources could be relied upon. Weinsberg’s technique was to weigh conflicting reports to discern the ‘general opinion’ or consensus. In this he unconsciously imitated precisely the process followed by the city’s magistrates, or at Europe’s princely courts. But sometimes it was simply impossible to discern the true state of affairs. When in 1585 the nearby town of Neuss was surprisingly captured by forces of the Protestant Archbishop Gerhard von Truchsess, Weinsberg heard no fewer than twelve different accounts of how the archbishop’s soldiers had slipped into the town undetected. He interviewed eyewitnesses who told their own story. The city council sent messenger after messenger to find out what had happened, but they were prevented from entering the town. Weinsberg had eventually to conclude that the true facts might never be known: ‘Each person cannot truly say and know more than what he had seen and heard at the place where he was at that hour. But if he heard about it from others, the story may be faulty; he cannot truly know it.’

The exponential growth of news reporting did not necessarily make things easier; many believed it made things worse. In fact, for those traditionally in the know, the industrialization of news, the creation of a news industry where news was traded for profit, threatened to undermine the whole process by which news had traditionally been verified – where the credit of the report was closely linked to the reputation of the teller. In the burgeoning mass market this vital link – the personal integrity of those who passed on the news – was broken.

Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, idle bellies

Epimenides of Knossos (in Crete) circa 600 BC is credited with saying that "All Cretans are liars." A statement appearing to be nullified by the fact of Epimenides being a Cretan. This is known as Epimenides' Paradox. I was looking this up to confirm my memory. In reading the Wikipedia entry, I came across a fact that I am not sure I ever registered. Not only do we know of Epimenides' Paradox from Greek literature but also from The Bible.

From Epistle to Titus, 1:12–13

One of Crete's own prophets has said it: 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, idle bellies'.

He has surely told the truth. For this reason correct them sternly, that they may be sound in faith instead of paying attention to Jewish fables and to commandments of people who turn their backs on the truth.

I wonder how many other instances there are where something Greek is captured in The Bible in this fashion.

How could one tell the signal from the noise?

From The Invention of News: How The World Came to Know About Itself by Andrew Pettegree.

Not all news concerned events of such momentous or immediate relevance. Even before the publication of the first weekly newspapers in the seventeenth century, enormous quantities of news were available for those prepared to pay for it, or even just to follow the talk in the market square. To Defoe this abundance was a great miracle of modern society. To others it was deeply troubling. From this great mass of swirling information how could one extract what was truly significant? How could one tell the signal from the noise?

Those who followed the news had to devise their own methods of making their way through the mass of rumor, exaggeration and breathlessly shared confidences to construct a reasonable version of the truth. First they tended to exclude the purely personal and parochial. Our ancestors certainly delighted in the tales of the ambitions, schemes and misfortunes of their families, neighbors and friends: who was to marry whom, which merchants and tradesmen faced ruin, whose reputation had been compromised by a liaison with a servant or apprentice. When in 1561 a citizen of Memmlingen in southern Germany rather unwisely decided to get to the bottom of who had spread a rumor that his daughter had fled town to conceal an unwanted pregnancy, fifty citizens could offer precise recollections of how they first heard this delicious gossip. But however eagerly consumed and passed on, this sort of scuttlebutt was not generally what people thought of as news. When men and women asked friends, business partners or neighbors, ‘What news?’, they meant news of great events: of developments at court, wars, battles, pestilence or the fall of the great. This was the news that they shared in correspondence and conversation, and this was the news that fueled the first commercial market in current affairs.

The issue of over abundance of raw data and a dearth of verified data is clearly of long standing, even back when there simply wasn't all that much data in the first place.

We have no time to stand and stare

Leisure
by William Henry Davies

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

The search for corroboration

From The Invention of News: How The World Came to Know About Itself by Andrew Pettegree.

Even as news became more plentiful in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the problem of establishing the veracity of news reports remained acute. The news market – and by the sixteenth century it was a real market – was humming with conflicting reports, some incredible, some all too plausible: lives, fortunes, even the fate of kingdoms could depend on acting on the right information. The great events of history that pepper these pages were often initially mis-reported.

In 1588 it was originally thought throughout much of continental Europe that the Spanish Armada had inflicted a crushing defeat on the English fleet; as in this case, the first definitive news was frequently outrun by rumor or wishful thinking, spreading panic or misjudged celebration. It was important to be first with the news, but only if it was true. This troubling paradox initiated a second phase in the history of news analysis: the search for corroboration. As we will see, by the sixteenth century professional news men had become quite sophisticated in their handling of sensitive information. The first intimation of tumultuous events was reported, but with the cautious reflection ‘this report is not yet confirmed’. Europe’s rulers would pay richly for the earliest report of a crucial event, but they often waited for the second or third report before acting upon it. But this was not a luxury all could afford: for the French Protestants hearing news of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in August 1572, only immediate action might save them from becoming one of the next victims. In these troubled times news could be a matter of life and death.

Nevermore

Very interesting. From Wikipedia regard Edgar Allan Poe's composition of The Raven.

"The Raven"

In the essay, Poe traces the logical progression of his creation of "The Raven" as an attempt to compose "a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste." He claims that he considered every aspect of the poem. For example, he purposely set the poem on a tempestuous evening, causing the raven to seek shelter. He purposefully chose a pallid bust to contrast with the dark plume of the bird. The bust was of Pallas in order to evoke the notion of scholar, to match with the presumed student narrator poring over his "volume[s] of forgotten lore." No aspect of the poem was an accident, he claims, but is based on total control by the author.

Even the term "Nevermore," he says, is based on logic following the "unity of effect." The sounds in the vowels in particular, he writes, have more meaning than the definition of the word itself. He had previously used words like "Lenore" for the same effect.

The raven itself, Poe says, is meant to symbolize Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. This may imply an autobiographical significance to the poem, alluding to the many people in Poe's life who had died.

Authenticity

It is uncertain if Poe really followed the method he describes in "The Philosophy of Composition." T. S. Eliot said: "It is difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting that if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it: the result hardly does credit to the method." Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the essay as, "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization than literary criticism."

It is apparent, however, that many French literary figures and composers believed that Poe composed "The Raven" in the manner depicted in "The Philosophy of Composition." Maurice Ravel, in a July 1931 interview, stated that "the finest treatise on composition, in my opinion, and the one which in any case had the greatest influence upon me was [Poe's] "Philosophy of Composition... I am convinced that Poe indeed wrote his poem "The Raven" in the way that he indicated." Charles Baudelaire believed that the "unity of impression, the totality of effect" described by Poe endowed a composition with "a very special superiority."

I can't call them to mind, but I have come across other examples where Continental cultural icons have a dramatically different assessment of something than their counterparts in the Anglosphere. Well, actually, I can think of one, the theatrical relevance and assessment of Jerry Lewis.

I can speculate, but I have no good explanation for these instances of diametrical assessment between the two schools of thought.

Reptiles of the mind

From The marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake.

Without contraries there is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate are necessary to human existence.

[snip]

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

[snip]

Opposition is true Friendship.

At this time regular access to news was the prerogative of those in circles of power

From The Invention of News: How The World Came to Know About Itself by Andrew Pettegree.

Bernard of Clairvaux, architect of the Cistercian order, sat at the centre of one of medieval Europe’s greatest news networks. Those who visited Clairvaux in eastern France would bring him news of their travels; sometimes they would carry his letters away with them when they departed. We are unusually well informed about Bernard’s news network, because over five hundred of his letters survive. But in some respects Bernard is utterly characteristic of the news world of the medieval period. At this time regular access to news was the prerogative of those in circles of power. Only they could afford it; only they had the means to gather it. But even for these privileged individuals at the apex of society, news gathering was not unproblematic. They were fully aware that those who brought them news were likely to be interested parties. The traveling cleric who brought Bernard news of a distant episcopal election might be supporting one candidate; the ambassador writing home from abroad might be seeking to influence policy; merchants hoped to gain from a fluctuating market. Merchants, in particular, had a keen awareness of the value of information, and the dangers of acting on a false rumor. For the first two centuries of the period covered by this book merchants were both the principal consumers of news and its most reliable suppliers.

Empirical measurement trumps gut instinct in hiring.

Well, Ouch!

From Mechanical Versus Clinical Data Combination in Selection and Admissions Decisions: A Meta-Analysis by Nathan R. Kuncel, David M. Klieger, Brian S. Connelly, and Deniz S. Ones.

In employee selection and academic admission decisions, holistic (clinical) data combination methods continue to be relied upon and preferred by practitioners in our field. This meta-analysis examined and compared the relative predictive power of mechanical methods versus holistic methods in predicting multiple work (advancement, supervisory ratings of performance, and training performance) and academic (grade point average) criteria. There was consistent and substantial loss of validity when data were combined holistically— even by experts who are knowledgeable about the jobs and organizations in question—across multiple criteria in work and academic settings. In predicting job performance, the difference between the validity of mechanical and holistic data combination methods translated into an improvement in prediction of more than 50%. Implications for evidence-based practice are discussed.

I need to read this later when I am less tired. My initial read is that IQ tests and similar mechanistic means are substantially better at forecasting future performance than more holistic approaches that seek to incorporate human interpretation.

An elaboration on the abstract:

The results of this meta-analysis demonstrate a sizable predictive validity difference between mechanical and clinical data combination methods in employee selection and admission decision making. For predicting job performance, mechanical approaches substantially outperform clinical combination methods. In Lens Model language, the Achievement Index (clinical validity) is substantially lower than the Ecological Validity.

This finding is particularly striking because in the studies included, experts were familiar with the job and organizations in question and had access to extensive information about applicants. Further, in many cases, the expert had access to more information about the applicant than was included in the mechanical combination. Yet, the lower predictive validity of clinical combination can result in a 25% reduction of correct hiring decisions across base rates for a moderately selective hiring scenario (SR .30; Taylor & Russell, 1939).

A 25% reduction in forecasting accuracy is very substantial. In high turnover industries this could be the difference between a profitable year and a loss.

This goes against much of the received wisdom of the academy. Received wisdom is often wrong. Worth waiting and seeing but this is an interesting finding.

Red legged chicken stands ready to strike

Working late with Spotify playing Cat Stevens' Into White in the background. I have this CD and must have heard it approaching a hundred times or more. In the middle of work, suddenly the line leaps out:

Red legged chicken stands ready to strike

Red legged chicken stands ready to strike? I can't say that I have ever registered that before. What on earth does it mean? The lyrics for the whole song:

I built my house from barley rice
Green pepper walls and water ice
Tables of paper wood, windows of light
And everything emptying into white.

A simple garden, with acres of sky
A Brown-haired dogmouse
If one dropped by
Yellow Delanie would sleep well at night
With everything emptying into white.

A sad Blue eyed drummer rehearses outside
A Black spider dancing on top of his eye
Red legged chicken stands ready to strike
And everything emptying into white.

I built my house from barley rice
Green pepper walls and water ice
And everything emptying into white

Well, that doesn't help. Its late. I don't understand. Perhaps there is a metaphor or allegory I am missing. Perhaps I will investigate when I am less pressed. Perhaps it is just one of those beautiful mysteries. It is, in a way, wonderful how how much we don't understand.