5 ms·

One of the interesting features of the "fake news" debate is the allegation by the term's proponents that true journalism from high-integrity outlets is indisti

One of the interesting features of the "fake news" debate is the allegation by the term's proponents that true journalism from high-integrity outlets is indistinguishable from and equally as ideologically biased and tainted as poor journalism from low-integrity, tabloid, hyper-partisan or even blatantly lying ones. That is, people want to compare the New York Times and Vox, Wall Street Journal and Infowars, the National Review and Breitbart, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, and allege that there is no fundamental difference between them. It reasoning usually goes something along the lines of "all media is owned by corporations trying to make money, so they will all make money the same way: by spinning to a narrative they think is profitable, and ignoring things they think is not, even if this prevents them from reporting the truth." What people forget is that while yes, many (not all) journalistic institutions are for-profit and trying to make money, they have an entirely different approach: They believe more people will pay them for their dedication to the truth, and to at least an attempt at unbiased reporting, than will pay them to push out screed. They play a longer game; one that, in fairness, isn't always as successful in the short-term as the sensationalist yellow-journalism model, but one that has persisted over time nonetheless. To make the comparisons I made above is to ignore the fact that the entities being compared have fundamentally different ideas about what they're for and what their goals are.

laretluval 10y ago
> They believe more people will pay them for their dedication to the truth, and to at least an attempt at unbiased reporting, than will pay them to push out screed. They play a longer game; one that, in fairness, isn't always as successful in the short-term as the sensationalist yellow-journalism model, but one that has persisted over time nonetheless. How can you tell the organizations playing the long game from those playing the short game? What makes you think the ones you've listed as "high-integrity" outlets are such? Is there a difference in incentives or management structure that would explain the putative difference? All journalistic outlets have an incentive to make people think they are playing the long game. What evidence do you use to decide which are really adopting that strategy?
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  > How can you tell the organizations playing the long game from those playing the short game? What makes you think the ones you've listed as "high-integrity" outlets are such? Basically, you're evaluating credibility and the extent to which the organization needs it to survive. I think you can tell by looking at a few things: To what degree does the entity sensationalize their coverage? To what degree do presumably fact-based articles spend time on opinion, rather than said facts? Does this organization's reporting of events factually match those of other reputable organizations, including those that have a different alleged political bent? Does the organization indicate when it has conflicts of interest, when it corrects errors, etc., and how often does that happen? Does the reporting put conclusions before evidence? Does it make conclusions at all, and should it be? Essentially, it's holistic. It requires reading multiple sources and spending time on your own figuring out how things line up. It also requires being willing to place a certain amount of trust in reporting of organizations that do seem legitimate, for instance, when they rely on anonymous sources or report on things that aren't yet clear-cut. I think that to a large extent, proponents of the "fake news" argument are unwilling to accept that level of personal responsibility in understanding the world around them. They want it spoon-fed, and they want it to confirm their preconceptions, and then they get mad when the outlets willing to do that for them lie. Here's an example: When CNN reported on the Trump Russia dossier, it was attacked as fake news. However, upon actually reading the article, nothing false was said. CNN didn't report the dossier was true, they spent the whole article reporting on how Buzzfeed found it and reported it and whether they thought Buzzfeed ought to have done so. That is very different from the original Buzzfeed article, which spent a lot of time talking about how ludicrous it would be if stuff in this more-likely-than-not fake collection of documents were true. > Is there a difference in incentives or management structure that would explain the putative difference? I would imagine yes, or at the very least, in organizational goals. However, since I don't work for a news organization and am not a journalist, I don't know enough to be specific. > All journalistic outlets have an incentive to make people think they are playing the long game. What evidence do you use to decide which are really adopting that strategy? For evidence - see above. However, I don't think the entities I named before as short-game/biased really care whatsoever about whether people perceive them as honest, because their goal is not to be seen as honest. Their goal is to get attention for their message/advertisers/paywalls however they can.
guilhas 10y ago
The reason those second class outlets started to get attention, is because high-integrity outlets have become low-integrity, biased and tainted. And nowadays people wanting to find whole story need to go through several outlets almost as if they need to do the investigation themselves.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  I agree with the second sentence, but not with the first. I don't think the high-integrity outlets are now low-integrity; I don't see any evidence of that, or at least, that they are any worse now than they used to be. I also disagree fundamentally with your assertion that people would, upon noticing a lessening of quality in a source, seek out other equally low quality sources as a substitute. That doesn't make sense to me. The claim you're making is oft-repeated, massive, and rarely seems to have evidence connected to it, other than a general feeling of partisanship and the fact that we have more news outlets now than we used to. Do you have hard evidence to present? But even if all the news sources available acted purely out of what they thought was best for the non-partisan public, it would still be incumbent on the individual to learn to process news analytically. That responsibility doesn't change.
  - toyg 10y ago
    > I don't see any evidence of that, or at least, that they are any worse now than they used to be. It's just easier than ever to find out and/or challenge their shortcomings and inclinations, thanks to the web. We are also coming out of 15 years of very close relationships between power and media, which were painfully evident at various critical points in time (post-9/11, Iraq, 2008 etc). A general rise in distrust was met with new media that made it easier to disseminate and multiply such distrust (whether justified or not). > seek out other equally low quality sources as a substitute. That doesn't make sense to me. "Quality" is a very subjective term. You fundamentally rate journalism quality in relationship to the fundamental truths you perceive. If you believe Big Companies are up to no good and you read a detailed reportage of corporate abuses, you think it's high-quality reporting; but if you believe corporations are the economic engines of America and should be cut some slack, the same exposé can be read as scandalistic and alarmist. Most other parameters one would use to judge journalism (source quality, corroborating cross-references etc etc) are simply beyond the average person.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> That is, people want to compare the New York Times and Vox, Wall Street Journal and Infowars, the National Review and Breitbart, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, and allege that there is no fundamental difference between them. It reasoning usually goes something along the lines of (...) I'd say the reasoning goes like this: all of them are for-profit ventures in a highly competitive market with dwindling margins and ad-based revenue source. In such an environment you should expect the players to go for maximizing eyeballs. Truth is boring, and hard to report on accurately. Bullshit is easy and can be made much more interesting. There's also little consequence for lying - people forget about most "mistakes" the next day. All of that paints the picture of those news sources being fundamentally the same game, and the argument is consistent with what I see when reading them.

laretluval 10y ago

> They believe more people will pay them for their dedication to the truth, and to at least an attempt at unbiased reporting, than will pay them to push out screed. They play a longer game; one that, in fairness, isn't always as successful in the short-term as the sensationalist yellow-journalism model, but one that has persisted over time nonetheless. How can you tell the organizations playing the long game from those playing the short game? What makes you think the ones you've listed as "high-integrity" outlets are such? Is there a difference in incentives or management structure that would explain the putative difference? All journalistic outlets have an incentive to make people think they are playing the long game. What evidence do you use to decide which are really adopting that strategy?

ivraatiems 10y ago
> How can you tell the organizations playing the long game from those playing the short game? What makes you think the ones you've listed as "high-integrity" outlets are such? Basically, you're evaluating credibility and the extent to which the organization needs it to survive. I think you can tell by looking at a few things: To what degree does the entity sensationalize their coverage? To what degree do presumably fact-based articles spend time on opinion, rather than said facts? Does this organization's reporting of events factually match those of other reputable organizations, including those that have a different alleged political bent? Does the organization indicate when it has conflicts of interest, when it corrects errors, etc., and how often does that happen? Does the reporting put conclusions before evidence? Does it make conclusions at all, and should it be? Essentially, it's holistic. It requires reading multiple sources and spending time on your own figuring out how things line up. It also requires being willing to place a certain amount of trust in reporting of organizations that do seem legitimate, for instance, when they rely on anonymous sources or report on things that aren't yet clear-cut. I think that to a large extent, proponents of the "fake news" argument are unwilling to accept that level of personal responsibility in understanding the world around them. They want it spoon-fed, and they want it to confirm their preconceptions, and then they get mad when the outlets willing to do that for them lie. Here's an example: When CNN reported on the Trump Russia dossier, it was attacked as fake news. However, upon actually reading the article, nothing false was said. CNN didn't report the dossier was true, they spent the whole article reporting on how Buzzfeed found it and reported it and whether they thought Buzzfeed ought to have done so. That is very different from the original Buzzfeed article, which spent a lot of time talking about how ludicrous it would be if stuff in this more-likely-than-not fake collection of documents were true. > Is there a difference in incentives or management structure that would explain the putative difference? I would imagine yes, or at the very least, in organizational goals. However, since I don't work for a news organization and am not a journalist, I don't know enough to be specific. > All journalistic outlets have an incentive to make people think they are playing the long game. What evidence do you use to decide which are really adopting that strategy? For evidence - see above. However, I don't think the entities I named before as short-game/biased really care whatsoever about whether people perceive them as honest, because their goal is not to be seen as honest. Their goal is to get attention for their message/advertisers/paywalls however they can.

guilhas 10y ago

The reason those second class outlets started to get attention, is because high-integrity outlets have become low-integrity, biased and tainted. And nowadays people wanting to find whole story need to go through several outlets almost as if they need to do the investigation themselves.

ivraatiems 10y ago
I agree with the second sentence, but not with the first. I don't think the high-integrity outlets are now low-integrity; I don't see any evidence of that, or at least, that they are any worse now than they used to be. I also disagree fundamentally with your assertion that people would, upon noticing a lessening of quality in a source, seek out other equally low quality sources as a substitute. That doesn't make sense to me. The claim you're making is oft-repeated, massive, and rarely seems to have evidence connected to it, other than a general feeling of partisanship and the fact that we have more news outlets now than we used to. Do you have hard evidence to present? But even if all the news sources available acted purely out of what they thought was best for the non-partisan public, it would still be incumbent on the individual to learn to process news analytically. That responsibility doesn't change.
- toyg 10y ago
  > I don't see any evidence of that, or at least, that they are any worse now than they used to be. It's just easier than ever to find out and/or challenge their shortcomings and inclinations, thanks to the web. We are also coming out of 15 years of very close relationships between power and media, which were painfully evident at various critical points in time (post-9/11, Iraq, 2008 etc). A general rise in distrust was met with new media that made it easier to disseminate and multiply such distrust (whether justified or not). > seek out other equally low quality sources as a substitute. That doesn't make sense to me. "Quality" is a very subjective term. You fundamentally rate journalism quality in relationship to the fundamental truths you perceive. If you believe Big Companies are up to no good and you read a detailed reportage of corporate abuses, you think it's high-quality reporting; but if you believe corporations are the economic engines of America and should be cut some slack, the same exposé can be read as scandalistic and alarmist. Most other parameters one would use to judge journalism (source quality, corroborating cross-references etc etc) are simply beyond the average person.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> That is, people want to compare the New York Times and Vox, Wall Street Journal and Infowars, the National Review and Breitbart, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, and allege that there is no fundamental difference between them. It reasoning usually goes something along the lines of (...) I'd say the reasoning goes like this: all of them are for-profit ventures in a highly competitive market with dwindling margins and ad-based revenue source. In such an environment you should expect the players to go for maximizing eyeballs. Truth is boring, and hard to report on accurately. Bullshit is easy and can be made much more interesting. There's also little consequence for lying - people forget about most "mistakes" the next day. All of that paints the picture of those news sources being fundamentally the same game, and the argument is consistent with what I see when reading them.