4 ms·

> Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the left wing newspapers were reporting wild unsubstantiated rumors of a full-on Moscow piss orgy? Well, that's act

by untog 10y ago

> Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the left wing newspapers were reporting wild unsubstantiated rumors of a full-on Moscow piss orgy? Well, that's actually a pretty interesting example to look at. For one, the dossier concerned contained a lot of accusations to do with members of Trump's team travelling to Eastern Europe to meet with Russian contacts, suspect financial transactions and the like - you yourself are doing it a disservice by describing it only as rumours of a "piss orgy". But irrespective of that, the dossier had been known about for months. But the media organisations didn't report on it, specifically because they couldn't verify the information contained within it. But then Buzzfeed decided to publish it anyway, and at that point any responsible news organisation is left in a pretty impossible position - either don't report on the thing everyone is talking about, or report unsubstantiated accusations.

dalbasal 10y ago
If any story includes a presidential piss-orgy everything else is filler. The journalists who ran that story did a lot of damage by running it the way they did.
- untog 10y ago
  I think it is at least more complicated than you are painting it. If it's something that is widely known in media circles as well as political ones (at least one Democratic senator alluded to it on one of the many occasions Hillary's e-mails were brought up), the media holding it back from the public isn't really a fantastic look either. Sometimes it feels like the media is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't. Report unsubstantiated rumour? You're biased! Hold back information because it isn't verified? You're biased!
imron 10y ago
If you apply the same standard you have displayed here to fake news on the other side of the political spectrum, then almost none of it would be fake news either.
- untog 10y ago
  That's not true. The dossier exists. It was prepared by a respected former intelligence officer. It was ordered by Jeb Bush's campaign. None of these facts are in disrepute. And the vast majority of news reports accurately stated that the contents of the dossier cannot be verified. It's miles more credible than the stories found on fake news sites.
  - imron 10y ago
    > It's miles more credible than the stories found on fake news sites. 1000 * 0 is still 0. If the Trump campaign had ordered a dossier of dirt on Hillary Clinton, and paid a respected former intelligence officer to provide it, would the claims made in it be credible? Let's take one of the big 'fake news' items from the recent election, the one regarding Hillary's health. What do you make of this article by a former secret service agent on Hillary Clinton's health: http://ijr.com/opinion/2016/09/260018-protected-hillary-clinton-secret-service-heres-noticed-fainting-video/ http://ijr.com/opinion/2016/09/260018-protected-hillary-clin... None of the facts in that article are in disrepute either, and it's also from a respected secret service agent. So are the questions it poses about Hillary's health more or less credible than the Trump dossier, and is it fake news or not?
    - intended 10y ago
      No it's not? The definition of fake news is getting stretched to include controversial news. "Fake news" is fiction being sold as news on websites that look credible. Flat out making stuff up, and polluting the media stream with it in order to manipulate people. This is the easy case to solve. As people actually try to grapple with this, "fake news" will evolve, it will add parts of the truth to it dodge this 0th level definition. A dossier actually compiled but unverified is still not fake news - it's a shady bad practice circa 1990. Unfortunately we're dealing with much worse problems today.
      - imron 10y ago
        Ok, so if I compile a dossier of unverified stories regarding Hillary, and package them up then it suddenly makes otherwise fake claims not fake news? I mean that's the whole sub-prime mortgage problem all over again. Take a shitty product and wrap it in layers of respectability until people don't know any better. When there is also evidence to suggest much of the contents of the dossier came from a 4-chan prank, it's hard to see where the difference is.

by untog 10y ago

dalbasal 10y ago

If any story includes a presidential piss-orgy everything else is filler. The journalists who ran that story did a lot of damage by running it the way they did.

untog 10y ago
I think it is at least more complicated than you are painting it. If it's something that is widely known in media circles as well as political ones (at least one Democratic senator alluded to it on one of the many occasions Hillary's e-mails were brought up), the media holding it back from the public isn't really a fantastic look either. Sometimes it feels like the media is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't. Report unsubstantiated rumour? You're biased! Hold back information because it isn't verified? You're biased!

imron 10y ago

If you apply the same standard you have displayed here to fake news on the other side of the political spectrum, then almost none of it would be fake news either.

untog 10y ago
That's not true. The dossier exists. It was prepared by a respected former intelligence officer. It was ordered by Jeb Bush's campaign. None of these facts are in disrepute. And the vast majority of news reports accurately stated that the contents of the dossier cannot be verified. It's miles more credible than the stories found on fake news sites.
- imron 10y ago
  > It's miles more credible than the stories found on fake news sites. 1000 * 0 is still 0. If the Trump campaign had ordered a dossier of dirt on Hillary Clinton, and paid a respected former intelligence officer to provide it, would the claims made in it be credible? Let's take one of the big 'fake news' items from the recent election, the one regarding Hillary's health. What do you make of this article by a former secret service agent on Hillary Clinton's health: http://ijr.com/opinion/2016/09/260018-protected-hillary-clinton-secret-service-heres-noticed-fainting-video/ http://ijr.com/opinion/2016/09/260018-protected-hillary-clin... None of the facts in that article are in disrepute either, and it's also from a respected secret service agent. So are the questions it poses about Hillary's health more or less credible than the Trump dossier, and is it fake news or not?
  - intended 10y ago
    No it's not? The definition of fake news is getting stretched to include controversial news. "Fake news" is fiction being sold as news on websites that look credible. Flat out making stuff up, and polluting the media stream with it in order to manipulate people. This is the easy case to solve. As people actually try to grapple with this, "fake news" will evolve, it will add parts of the truth to it dodge this 0th level definition. A dossier actually compiled but unverified is still not fake news - it's a shady bad practice circa 1990. Unfortunately we're dealing with much worse problems today.
    - imron 10y ago
      Ok, so if I compile a dossier of unverified stories regarding Hillary, and package them up then it suddenly makes otherwise fake claims not fake news? I mean that's the whole sub-prime mortgage problem all over again. Take a shitty product and wrap it in layers of respectability until people don't know any better. When there is also evidence to suggest much of the contents of the dossier came from a 4-chan prank, it's hard to see where the difference is.