6 ms·

Maybe people wouldn't believe fake news if there were any respectable legacy media outlets left. When the media does everything it can to slowly erode trust (ht

Maybe people wouldn't believe fake news if there were any respectable legacy media outlets left. When the media does everything it can to slowly erode trust (http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media...), it's no surprise that things like this will happen. And I find it funny how legacy media now turns the blame on Facebook instead of looking at itself and changing its behavior. This is such a bad move (as expected by people who don't know what they're doing) that will only empower alternative media even more and further diminish the legacy media's influence over people.

hartator 10y ago
Yes, it's new narrative that has been pushed. It's not like the NYTimes was saying wikileaks was a Russian cover up for the past month. Without any real proofs. Now, the issue is stupid people reading fake news, without anything to back it off. Next week will be something else, we get it. Probably for "fake news", they don't have to look far.
- Natsu 10y ago
  It's silly to say the emails are fake. Many of them can be corroborated and a lot of them are authenticated with DKIM from Google's servers. Donna Brazille embarrassed herself by saying that message was altered, the DKIM hash quite clearly covered the message body.
panic 10y ago
When people expect to get news for free on the web, it's hard to see how quality journalism can survive.
- brookside 10y ago
  Exactly, some people here start melting down when a lightly paywalled WSJ link is posted.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- visarga 10y ago
  Maybe it's better to learn to deal with fake news, in this hyperconnected society. The old days of paper news and TV are long gone. Every politician I know has a FB and Twitter accounts from where they emit their bullshit. They make videos and post them online. That's why we don't need press conferences and coverage any more. And news can't be paywalled any more because anyone can write about anything, including rewording articles from other sources. The problem with FaceBook is that it is built in such a way as to create a separate view into the network for each person. By contrast, on reddit, everyone sees everything and debates anyone in comments, not just their friends. So the bubbling effect is much more pronounced on FB. People form cliques that drink their own kool-aid. Maybe some basic journalistic notions should be taught in primary school and high school. How to separate BS from news and how to report on events. If we are to be self-styled journalists, then at least we should learn about it.
  - karmelapple 10y ago
    Every time we click Share or Post, we are a journalist. I think training in this new world to help everyone be a responsible social media journalist would greatly benefit society.
  - qznc 10y ago
    Angela Merkel does not have a Twitter account and you probably know her. You only get official news from the spokesman @RegSprecher. She does not write personally on any social media.
- lambertsimnel 10y ago
  I suppose there might be two problems with free news: insufficient funding and strings-attached funding. I'm not sure that free news is worse than news for a fee in these respects. I get my news from ad-funded, donor-funded and tax-funded sources. None of these is perfect, but is news provided to readers/listeners/viewers for an access-fee better, or does it tell people what they want to hear? It's also worth considering the respected print publications that get revenue both directly from readers and from advertising. My understanding is that they typically get more revenue from advertising, so are they really better than free news? All the ad-free news I know of is also free-of-charge.
karmelapple 10y ago
> When the media does everything it can to slowly erode trust Your link provides nothing to support that comment. Your link does clearly show people's trust in the media is extremely low, but it makes no claims as to why the trust has eroded. There have certainly been times when various media parties have not lived up to their ethical duties, but to say blanket that the media has "done everything it can to slowly erode trust" seems exaggerated. Do you think political party rhetoric can erode trust in the media? One presidential candidate regularly claimed reports about him from one specific media outlet were lies, although they have turned out to be usually true [1]. One presidential candidate made claims during the debates that he did not say things which, simply, he did. The claims he denied making were well-documented on the internet, frequently from his own social media account. Is it unreasonable to think this rhetoric had some effect on the big drop in mass media trust from supporters of that political party, documented in the gallup.com link you posted? And would you have recommendations for ways "the media" to gain back that trust? Note that I take issue with the phrase "the media", since it's another unhelpful blanket statement. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/donald-trumps-gripes-about-the-new-york-times-are-usually-about-stories-that-are-shown-to-be-accurate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/do...
- adnzzzzZ 10y ago
  >One presidential candidate The other presidential candidate has been shown to be colluding multiple times with various media outlets, while they don't fairly report on that collusion. I think things like that erode people's trust in media.
  - karmelapple 10y ago
    > The other presidential candidate has been shown to be colluding multiple times with various media outlets That appears to be true, too - I agree! So we've identified two causes of eroding media trust. I'd be curious if any research has been done on what erodes trust more: authority criticizing it, muckraking journalism (no pejorative implied there - muckraking is a good thing to expose corruption!), or other things yet. The huge amount of fake news in people's social media has certainly had some kind of impact on people's trust of news sources in general, too. I am most interested in how to combat that; simply doing good work won't necessarily bring a media outlet the attention it needs to stay in business these days. Incentives in journalism are currently pretty out of whack.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
goalieca 10y ago
There are still lots of good old fashioned reporting going on. I have no idea what you're getting at!?

hartator 10y ago

Yes, it's new narrative that has been pushed. It's not like the NYTimes was saying wikileaks was a Russian cover up for the past month. Without any real proofs. Now, the issue is stupid people reading fake news, without anything to back it off. Next week will be something else, we get it. Probably for "fake news", they don't have to look far.

Natsu 10y ago
It's silly to say the emails are fake. Many of them can be corroborated and a lot of them are authenticated with DKIM from Google's servers. Donna Brazille embarrassed herself by saying that message was altered, the DKIM hash quite clearly covered the message body.

panic 10y ago

When people expect to get news for free on the web, it's hard to see how quality journalism can survive.

brookside 10y ago
Exactly, some people here start melting down when a lightly paywalled WSJ link is posted.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
visarga 10y ago
Maybe it's better to learn to deal with fake news, in this hyperconnected society. The old days of paper news and TV are long gone. Every politician I know has a FB and Twitter accounts from where they emit their bullshit. They make videos and post them online. That's why we don't need press conferences and coverage any more. And news can't be paywalled any more because anyone can write about anything, including rewording articles from other sources. The problem with FaceBook is that it is built in such a way as to create a separate view into the network for each person. By contrast, on reddit, everyone sees everything and debates anyone in comments, not just their friends. So the bubbling effect is much more pronounced on FB. People form cliques that drink their own kool-aid. Maybe some basic journalistic notions should be taught in primary school and high school. How to separate BS from news and how to report on events. If we are to be self-styled journalists, then at least we should learn about it.
- karmelapple 10y ago
  Every time we click Share or Post, we are a journalist. I think training in this new world to help everyone be a responsible social media journalist would greatly benefit society.
- qznc 10y ago
  Angela Merkel does not have a Twitter account and you probably know her. You only get official news from the spokesman @RegSprecher. She does not write personally on any social media.
lambertsimnel 10y ago
I suppose there might be two problems with free news: insufficient funding and strings-attached funding. I'm not sure that free news is worse than news for a fee in these respects. I get my news from ad-funded, donor-funded and tax-funded sources. None of these is perfect, but is news provided to readers/listeners/viewers for an access-fee better, or does it tell people what they want to hear? It's also worth considering the respected print publications that get revenue both directly from readers and from advertising. My understanding is that they typically get more revenue from advertising, so are they really better than free news? All the ad-free news I know of is also free-of-charge.

karmelapple 10y ago

> When the media does everything it can to slowly erode trust Your link provides nothing to support that comment. Your link does clearly show people's trust in the media is extremely low, but it makes no claims as to why the trust has eroded. There have certainly been times when various media parties have not lived up to their ethical duties, but to say blanket that the media has "done everything it can to slowly erode trust" seems exaggerated. Do you think political party rhetoric can erode trust in the media? One presidential candidate regularly claimed reports about him from one specific media outlet were lies, although they have turned out to be usually true [1]. One presidential candidate made claims during the debates that he did not say things which, simply, he did. The claims he denied making were well-documented on the internet, frequently from his own social media account. Is it unreasonable to think this rhetoric had some effect on the big drop in mass media trust from supporters of that political party, documented in the gallup.com link you posted? And would you have recommendations for ways "the media" to gain back that trust? Note that I take issue with the phrase "the media", since it's another unhelpful blanket statement. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/donald-trumps-gripes-about-the-new-york-times-are-usually-about-stories-that-are-shown-to-be-accurate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/do...

adnzzzzZ 10y ago
>One presidential candidate The other presidential candidate has been shown to be colluding multiple times with various media outlets, while they don't fairly report on that collusion. I think things like that erode people's trust in media.
- karmelapple 10y ago
  > The other presidential candidate has been shown to be colluding multiple times with various media outlets That appears to be true, too - I agree! So we've identified two causes of eroding media trust. I'd be curious if any research has been done on what erodes trust more: authority criticizing it, muckraking journalism (no pejorative implied there - muckraking is a good thing to expose corruption!), or other things yet. The huge amount of fake news in people's social media has certainly had some kind of impact on people's trust of news sources in general, too. I am most interested in how to combat that; simply doing good work won't necessarily bring a media outlet the attention it needs to stay in business these days. Incentives in journalism are currently pretty out of whack.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

goalieca 10y ago

There are still lots of good old fashioned reporting going on. I have no idea what you're getting at!?