5 ms·

It's funny how much flak Facebook (and almost no one else) got for "fake news" when the vast majority of today's journalism is so saccharine. Is there a way co

It's funny how much flak Facebook (and almost no one else) got for "fake news" when the vast majority of today's journalism is so saccharine. Is there a way contemporary journalism can be fixed?

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> Is there a way contemporary journalism can be fixed? The Post is being called out by The Intercept, a publication launched in 2014 [1]. That looks an awful lot like a system reacting to itself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept
Mikeb85 10y ago
Journalism has never been as impartial as people like to believe, bias and opinion always infects every piece. This in itself isn't necessarily a problem, except when society and the media becomes an echo chamber, and difference of opinion is marginalized. Edit - should add, journalism is being fixed. The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, social media and independent journalists who are on Twitter and various blogs are becoming more relevant.
- vectorpush 10y ago
  > The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, social media and independent journalists who are on Twitter and various blogs are becoming more relevant. I would hardly call this a fix. The MSM is certainly unreliable, but "twitter and various blogs" are even less so.
  - Mikeb85 10y ago
    As a medium, Twitter is unreliable. When you take the entirety of social media, the fact pictures and video can be taken in real time, you can then come to a conclusion that is close to the truth.
    - darpa_escapee 10y ago
      On the other hand, Sunil Tripathi and Pizzagate.
      - Mikeb85 10y ago
        Twitter has also been instrumental in coverage of various conflicts around the world. And even though Pizzagate is firmly in conspiracy theory territory, you've got to admit - some of Podesta's emails were fucking weird.
        vectorpush 10y ago
        > some of Podesta's emails were fucking weird I don't think that necessarily qualifies as newsworthy. A "real journalist" would have read those e-mails, found them to be pretty weird, then did an investigation to determine if anything of merit could be uncovered before printing a story. If there were any journalists involved, the pizzagate story would have been a perfect example of "irresponsible journalism", i.e. projecting unfounded claims based on rabid speculation and "gut instincts", yet being unable to prove anything definitively.
    - vectorpush 10y ago
      > the fact pictures and video can be taken in real time, you can then come to a conclusion that is close to the truth. Sure, but a live video stream of newsworthy events represents a minuscule fraction of social media "reporting" and isn't even really representative of journalism in general since it's usually just an ad-hoc video from a citizen who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Even then, the conclusions drawn from citizen videos are often extremely contentious either because they are incomplete or just poorly shot (perhaps with the videographer leaving their own hysterical or biased commentary as a narration of events)
    - makomk 10y ago
      I have seen an endless stream of fakes and lies spread virally through social media for the last few months, and no refutation or correction ever reaches the same kind of viral spread that the original claim did - not even ones from the original person making the claim. The refutations don't support people's existing worldview, so they don't spread.
zuminator 10y ago
Part of the problem is intrinsic to the velocity of news in a hyperconnected world. If a breaking story comes out and your paper delays in covering it, it will lose out to another paper that is quicker to publish. If no other paper has the information yet, then your paper will be inevitably accused of deliberately sitting on the story. It's a no win situation. Even here we see that errors in just one or two stories has led to commenters accusing WaPo of being a worthless propaganda arm. Furthermore, decreasing ad revenue and increasing competition means that newsrooms are financially strapped compared with earlier days. Back then, even big newspapers published just a few print editions a day. But now there's a constant 24-hour news cycle. It's impossible to check every story 100%; nothing would ever get published. So the editor has to settle for a sub-certain level of confirmation, with fewer fact checkers on staff to boot. To a certain extent, it's better to issue the retraction later. You get eyeballs on your page for the initial story, then more attention for the fallout and retraction. I've now clicked on that WaPo article thrice instead of just once -- cha-ching. Obviously too much of that damages the reputation, but there are a number of tremendously successful organizations that unapologetically and routinely dispense fake news and still prosper as a result. People have been successfully conditioned to care less about accuracy and more about "tell me good stuff about my team and bad stuff about the other team."

It's funny how much flak Facebook (and almost no one else) got for "fake news" when the vast majority of today's journalism is so saccharine. Is there a way contemporary journalism can be fixed?

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> Is there a way contemporary journalism can be fixed? The Post is being called out by The Intercept, a publication launched in 2014 [1]. That looks an awful lot like a system reacting to itself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept

Mikeb85 10y ago

Journalism has never been as impartial as people like to believe, bias and opinion always infects every piece. This in itself isn't necessarily a problem, except when society and the media becomes an echo chamber, and difference of opinion is marginalized. Edit - should add, journalism is being fixed. The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, social media and independent journalists who are on Twitter and various blogs are becoming more relevant.

vectorpush 10y ago
> The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, social media and independent journalists who are on Twitter and various blogs are becoming more relevant. I would hardly call this a fix. The MSM is certainly unreliable, but "twitter and various blogs" are even less so.
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  As a medium, Twitter is unreliable. When you take the entirety of social media, the fact pictures and video can be taken in real time, you can then come to a conclusion that is close to the truth.
  - darpa_escapee 10y ago
    On the other hand, Sunil Tripathi and Pizzagate.
    - Mikeb85 10y ago
      Twitter has also been instrumental in coverage of various conflicts around the world. And even though Pizzagate is firmly in conspiracy theory territory, you've got to admit - some of Podesta's emails were fucking weird.
      - vectorpush 10y ago
        > some of Podesta's emails were fucking weird I don't think that necessarily qualifies as newsworthy. A "real journalist" would have read those e-mails, found them to be pretty weird, then did an investigation to determine if anything of merit could be uncovered before printing a story. If there were any journalists involved, the pizzagate story would have been a perfect example of "irresponsible journalism", i.e. projecting unfounded claims based on rabid speculation and "gut instincts", yet being unable to prove anything definitively.
  - vectorpush 10y ago
    > the fact pictures and video can be taken in real time, you can then come to a conclusion that is close to the truth. Sure, but a live video stream of newsworthy events represents a minuscule fraction of social media "reporting" and isn't even really representative of journalism in general since it's usually just an ad-hoc video from a citizen who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Even then, the conclusions drawn from citizen videos are often extremely contentious either because they are incomplete or just poorly shot (perhaps with the videographer leaving their own hysterical or biased commentary as a narration of events)
  - makomk 10y ago
    I have seen an endless stream of fakes and lies spread virally through social media for the last few months, and no refutation or correction ever reaches the same kind of viral spread that the original claim did - not even ones from the original person making the claim. The refutations don't support people's existing worldview, so they don't spread.

zuminator 10y ago

Part of the problem is intrinsic to the velocity of news in a hyperconnected world. If a breaking story comes out and your paper delays in covering it, it will lose out to another paper that is quicker to publish. If no other paper has the information yet, then your paper will be inevitably accused of deliberately sitting on the story. It's a no win situation. Even here we see that errors in just one or two stories has led to commenters accusing WaPo of being a worthless propaganda arm. Furthermore, decreasing ad revenue and increasing competition means that newsrooms are financially strapped compared with earlier days. Back then, even big newspapers published just a few print editions a day. But now there's a constant 24-hour news cycle. It's impossible to check every story 100%; nothing would ever get published. So the editor has to settle for a sub-certain level of confirmation, with fewer fact checkers on staff to boot. To a certain extent, it's better to issue the retraction later. You get eyeballs on your page for the initial story, then more attention for the fallout and retraction. I've now clicked on that WaPo article thrice instead of just once -- cha-ching. Obviously too much of that damages the reputation, but there are a number of tremendously successful organizations that unapologetically and routinely dispense fake news and still prosper as a result. People have been successfully conditioned to care less about accuracy and more about "tell me good stuff about my team and bad stuff about the other team."