The authors use a probabilistic model to evaluate the extent of distortion in news media (illustrated). They focus on three types of misrepresentation: "One is hyperbole where curators exaggerate or sensationalize claims to garner attention. The second is extremity bias which involves cherry-picking surprising, novel, or extreme events to report. The last is fair reporting—the practice of presenting equally weighted evidence from two sides of some issue irrespective of where the preponderance of evidence lies." The perspective here is that journalism is at least to some extent a curation activity, and errors in the curation result in errors in how news media presents the world. As a sometime journalist I find these effects hard to avoid, but crucial to consider.
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