Opinion | ‘Effective Altruism’ Is Another Term for Media Bias

Is the news media manipulated? It’s been four years since I wrote that effective altruism is neither effective nor altruistic. The mangy movement, which went into remission when Sam Bankman-Fried went to the big house for fraud, is back. This time it’s placing journalists in newsrooms to tell us how artificial intelligence will kill us all. So much for media’s already fragile credibility.

According to Gallup, only a third of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in media. I’m convinced that started in 1975, when “Saturday Night Live” first appropriated the Walter Cronkite-like news desk, and jokes began to water down the perceived credibility of real news from TV news desks. It took until 1994 for an honest assessment from a Weekend Update newscaster: “I’m Norm Macdonald. And now, the fake news.”

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