5 ms·

This presents an issue that we've seen a lot of this political season... Anonymous sources, how do you "fact check" them? This season has been full of supposed

This presents an issue that we've seen a lot of this political season... Anonymous sources, how do you "fact check" them? This season has been full of supposed leaks from the FBI, White House staffers, intelligence community, DOJ, and beyond. But a single publication claiming something with an anonymous source isn't fact check-able. Then what you see is second publications posting the same story (particularly dedicated political sites like Politico/The Hill) but their only source is the first publication. Then a third publication runs it only saying that X Y and Z reported the story, implying that it is true just by virtue of the level of attention. Everyone is talking about "alt news" (typically far right news) which is legitimately problematic, but few have been discussing the problematic way anonymous sources have been used and reported. It isn't too dissimilar from this XKCD except replace Wikipedia with third tier publications and broadcasters[0]. You can seemingly get a story verified just by repeating it enough, that's a problem. [0] https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> Anonymous sources, how do you "fact check" them? Reputation. Some journals, and some reporters, have earned my benefit of doubt. They tend to be--where I've been able to verify--direct to their anonymous sources and do everything in their power to verify what was said. This process takes effort, for the journalist and the reader.
- pluma 10y ago
  Except then nonsense like the "PewDiePie is a nazi" articles happens (originally WSJ but then propagated by other "reputable" newspapers) and it becomes obvious even "trustworthy" sources aren't reliable. All media is biased because all media is gathered and edited by biased people (or as I like to call them: people). The only thing fact checking can help cutting down on is actual fake news -- hoaxes and blatantly obvious lies. The "fake news" label however is applied so broadly now that you can have two contrasting reports standing side by side calling each other fake news when neither side is able to report on the full picture and both sides skew the few factoids they have in accordance with their biases or use inflammatory language. I have yet to see a journal or reporter who consistently reports facts as presented while checking for authenticity and motive. It seems like certain organisations have learned that they can bypass a lot of accountability by "leaking" information anonymously rather than using official press releases (e.g. the "intelligence" sources during the late stages of the presidential election campaigning, none of which any agency seems to consider worth hunting down as a security risk like any of the real "leakers" before). The closest I've seen is a constant chorus of "we don't know the specifics yet", which predictably doesn't perform well when competing with "news" sources that just forward unsubstantiated tweets and anonymous "eyewitness accounts".
  - dagw 10y ago
    Except then nonsense like the "PewDiePie is a nazi" articles happens At the risk of getting very meta here in a discussion about trustworthiness. I cannot find any article on the WSJ site where they claimed that "PewDiePie is a nazi". Could you please provide a link?
    - pluma 10y ago
      Since their original article is paywalled and has been edited since, I can't find a direct quote calling him a nazi and I'm sure they didn't literally use those three words like that. The oldest snapshot[0] on archive.org indicates the article's subheading as "Star with most subscribers posted videos in which he makes anti-Semitic jokes or content, testing media firm’s standards" which they later changed to "Move came after the Journal asked about videos in which he included anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery". The accompanying video[1] deliberately took a lot of sequences out of context and presented them as representative. Regardless of the validity of the Souther Poverty Law Center quotes[2] they deliberately suggest he is a nazi by association, especially by ending the video with the implication that The Daily Stormer (a nazi website) likes him. Ironically The Daily Stormer has since changed its tagline from "the world's #1 PewDiePie fan site" to "the world's #1 Wall Street Journal fan site", with a composite image of the three journalists that wrote the WSJ hit piece on PewDiePie. The WSJ presents the entire story as investigatory journalism (the WaPo[3] even calls it "investigatory") with all the characteristic window dressing like the haunting steel drum soundtrack and creepy transitions to soundbites. It includes an apology and follows it up with a SPLC quote suggesting the apology itself is just a nazi dogwhistle. I would be far more forgiving if the entire ordeal didn't give off such a strong "old media vs new media" vibe. PewDiePie became popular with probably the most mundane and inoffensive content (gameplay videos with quirky humour) before recently shifting into more daring content, much of which is built on him calling out his critics. A lot of the nazi/anti-semitism segments the WSJ cites are actually retorts to people accusing him of these exact things and can be summarised as "Look, this is what you say I am: <nazi segment>. This is ridiculous". I don't care much for PewDiePie's style of content, neither the old gameplay stuff nor the more recent videos. And his humour is definitely playing with societal sensibilities and at times in bad taste. But the anti-semitism accusations are willfully ignorant of the context and no more valid than the child abuse accusations against Louis CK. Regardless of whether PewDiePie is an anti-semite/nazi or not, the style of reporting by the WSJ, WaPo, Guardian et al is sensationalist and intellectually dishonest. It calls into question their credibility on topics that actually matter, which is a net negative to the credibility of the traditional press as a whole. [0]: http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533 http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.wsj.com/articles/di... [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFY7mGkmFxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFY7mGkmFxo [2]: While frequently cited because it's ostensibly "good people" the SPLC has also called Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz as "anti-Muslim extremist" (which almost everyone else seems to agree on being ridiculous and irresponsible). Appealing to their moral authority should thus be taken with a grain of salt. [3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/14/pewdiepie-youtubes-most-popular-star-dropped-by-disney-over-anti-semitic-jokes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/1...
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  What's interesting and problematic is that it is exactly that kind of faith based ("reputation") belief that is causing such a split between the "alt right" news and the other news. You might take it for granted that e.g. Washington Post, CNN, etc should be trusted but your primary reason for doing so is their age and historic pedigree. Their anonymously sourced stories sometimes don't pan out, and there's seemingly no consequence for them when that occurs. So what's stopping people at the far right from sitting around all day poking holes in these publications anonymously sourced stories that people believe based on faith, and then holding up their own drudge (Breitbart, Fox News, etc) as equivalent? That's what allows alt news to flourish. It is something a lot of people seem to miss. If you believe a specific piece of news based on Reputation, then that's no different from the "alt news" folks believing a different piece of news based on Reputation. Reputation is in the eye of the beholder after all.
  - scholia 10y ago
    Reputable news sources cross-check and criticize other reputable sources, and reputable sources publish corrections and retractions. They may be imperfect but they are trying to tell the truth. Reputable news sources generally don't bother with #fakenews sites (Brietbart, Infowars, Red State, Daily Caller, The Blaze etc) because they have no interest in telling the truth. Reputable news sources are sustained by a structure based on trained professional reporters and subeditors, fact-checkers, ombudsmen (who review complaints and publish corrections), codes of conduct etc. Fake news sites are not.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> Anonymous sources, how do you "fact check" them? Reputation. Some journals, and some reporters, have earned my benefit of doubt. They tend to be--where I've been able to verify--direct to their anonymous sources and do everything in their power to verify what was said. This process takes effort, for the journalist and the reader.

pluma 10y ago
Except then nonsense like the "PewDiePie is a nazi" articles happens (originally WSJ but then propagated by other "reputable" newspapers) and it becomes obvious even "trustworthy" sources aren't reliable. All media is biased because all media is gathered and edited by biased people (or as I like to call them: people). The only thing fact checking can help cutting down on is actual fake news -- hoaxes and blatantly obvious lies. The "fake news" label however is applied so broadly now that you can have two contrasting reports standing side by side calling each other fake news when neither side is able to report on the full picture and both sides skew the few factoids they have in accordance with their biases or use inflammatory language. I have yet to see a journal or reporter who consistently reports facts as presented while checking for authenticity and motive. It seems like certain organisations have learned that they can bypass a lot of accountability by "leaking" information anonymously rather than using official press releases (e.g. the "intelligence" sources during the late stages of the presidential election campaigning, none of which any agency seems to consider worth hunting down as a security risk like any of the real "leakers" before). The closest I've seen is a constant chorus of "we don't know the specifics yet", which predictably doesn't perform well when competing with "news" sources that just forward unsubstantiated tweets and anonymous "eyewitness accounts".
- dagw 10y ago
  Except then nonsense like the "PewDiePie is a nazi" articles happens At the risk of getting very meta here in a discussion about trustworthiness. I cannot find any article on the WSJ site where they claimed that "PewDiePie is a nazi". Could you please provide a link?
  - pluma 10y ago
    Since their original article is paywalled and has been edited since, I can't find a direct quote calling him a nazi and I'm sure they didn't literally use those three words like that. The oldest snapshot[0] on archive.org indicates the article's subheading as "Star with most subscribers posted videos in which he makes anti-Semitic jokes or content, testing media firm’s standards" which they later changed to "Move came after the Journal asked about videos in which he included anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery". The accompanying video[1] deliberately took a lot of sequences out of context and presented them as representative. Regardless of the validity of the Souther Poverty Law Center quotes[2] they deliberately suggest he is a nazi by association, especially by ending the video with the implication that The Daily Stormer (a nazi website) likes him. Ironically The Daily Stormer has since changed its tagline from "the world's #1 PewDiePie fan site" to "the world's #1 Wall Street Journal fan site", with a composite image of the three journalists that wrote the WSJ hit piece on PewDiePie. The WSJ presents the entire story as investigatory journalism (the WaPo[3] even calls it "investigatory") with all the characteristic window dressing like the haunting steel drum soundtrack and creepy transitions to soundbites. It includes an apology and follows it up with a SPLC quote suggesting the apology itself is just a nazi dogwhistle. I would be far more forgiving if the entire ordeal didn't give off such a strong "old media vs new media" vibe. PewDiePie became popular with probably the most mundane and inoffensive content (gameplay videos with quirky humour) before recently shifting into more daring content, much of which is built on him calling out his critics. A lot of the nazi/anti-semitism segments the WSJ cites are actually retorts to people accusing him of these exact things and can be summarised as "Look, this is what you say I am: <nazi segment>. This is ridiculous". I don't care much for PewDiePie's style of content, neither the old gameplay stuff nor the more recent videos. And his humour is definitely playing with societal sensibilities and at times in bad taste. But the anti-semitism accusations are willfully ignorant of the context and no more valid than the child abuse accusations against Louis CK. Regardless of whether PewDiePie is an anti-semite/nazi or not, the style of reporting by the WSJ, WaPo, Guardian et al is sensationalist and intellectually dishonest. It calls into question their credibility on topics that actually matter, which is a net negative to the credibility of the traditional press as a whole. [0]: http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533 http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.wsj.com/articles/di... [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFY7mGkmFxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFY7mGkmFxo [2]: While frequently cited because it's ostensibly "good people" the SPLC has also called Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz as "anti-Muslim extremist" (which almost everyone else seems to agree on being ridiculous and irresponsible). Appealing to their moral authority should thus be taken with a grain of salt. [3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/14/pewdiepie-youtubes-most-popular-star-dropped-by-disney-over-anti-semitic-jokes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/1...
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
What's interesting and problematic is that it is exactly that kind of faith based ("reputation") belief that is causing such a split between the "alt right" news and the other news. You might take it for granted that e.g. Washington Post, CNN, etc should be trusted but your primary reason for doing so is their age and historic pedigree. Their anonymously sourced stories sometimes don't pan out, and there's seemingly no consequence for them when that occurs. So what's stopping people at the far right from sitting around all day poking holes in these publications anonymously sourced stories that people believe based on faith, and then holding up their own drudge (Breitbart, Fox News, etc) as equivalent? That's what allows alt news to flourish. It is something a lot of people seem to miss. If you believe a specific piece of news based on Reputation, then that's no different from the "alt news" folks believing a different piece of news based on Reputation. Reputation is in the eye of the beholder after all.
- scholia 10y ago
  Reputable news sources cross-check and criticize other reputable sources, and reputable sources publish corrections and retractions. They may be imperfect but they are trying to tell the truth. Reputable news sources generally don't bother with #fakenews sites (Brietbart, Infowars, Red State, Daily Caller, The Blaze etc) because they have no interest in telling the truth. Reputable news sources are sustained by a structure based on trained professional reporters and subeditors, fact-checkers, ombudsmen (who review complaints and publish corrections), codes of conduct etc. Fake news sites are not.