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NYTimes is not fake news in that sense because there are still editorial standards the paper must adhere to. Taking the most cynical stance possible, NYT news a

NYTimes is not fake news in that sense because there are still editorial standards the paper must adhere to. Taking the most cynical stance possible, NYT news articles are like Cylons-- they mix lies with the truth, where in this case individual truths are situated in a context than implies a larger lie. Fake news proper are paid-for advertisements masquerading as news, with zero editorial standards. There's no way to verify whether particular statements are true or not. That difference has consequences. For example, if you read a handful of newspapers you can glean the larger truth by understanding the national/corporate/journalistic biases of each paper. For a simple example, read both Barton Gellman and Glenn Greenwald's articles based on the Snowden leaks. Comparing/contrasting various Facebook fake news posts is unlikely to reveal any more truth than what you started with.

CodeWriter23 9y ago
The reality is the NYT and all mainstream "news" outlets are beholden to their advertisers. Notice how Mylan is always in the news getting negative press but you rarely hear about the Billions in fines/settlements paid by Merck and GlaxoSmithKline arising from product liability (the result of junk science, but that's a different topic). Merck and GSK account for 70% of ad revenues for news outlets. Contrary to common beliefs, reporters are no longer journalists but spokespeople.
- jancsika 9y ago
  Failure to cover certain news topics and journalistic conflicts of interest are orthogonal to my point. Even if you assume all news outlets are literally employing spokespeople for advertisers-- NYT, WaPo, Der Spiegel, etc.-- those spokespeople still have to do actual hard, daily work of producing actual news content within professional constraints. That work includes an adherence to journalistic standards of evidence (i.e., multiple sources), building and maintaining source contacts, being subject to an ombudsman, gaining notoriety through a track record, etc. They can't just spout gross inaccuracies all day or they'd be fired. Thus you can check multiple independent news articles against each other and use context clues to get some better sense of the truth. Having a weak and mostly commercial press makes that more of a burden than it ought to be, but it's possible. Facebook-style "fake news" is literally stuff like "the word covfefe is an Antidiluvian term for 'in the end we win'". You can peruse 1,000s of such gems like that on Facebook all day, from different fake news publishers. And you would have learned absolutely nothing of substance after you are done. If a critical mass of Americans believe mainstream news outlets are as substance-free as that, then we've got a very expense national civics lesson in store for us. edit: typo and clarification
  - qb45 9y ago
    Well, I just posted in another thread an article about Russian propaganda which contains a big exaggeration that is trivially disproved by damn Wikipedia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 I have no idea what their sources were but they clearly trusted them a little bit too easily. I immediately went to fact-check this because it just didn't even seem possible to me to simply fabricate a historic province or move it to a "different geographic space" like that. Too many textbooks to amend, too many people who remember. The first article I linked in that post also is fishy, though in this case at least they had their multiple sources: apparently these were a pair of elderly people and a bureaucrat, analyzing alleged hacking attempt. I don't really believe this story either.
    - jancsika 9y ago
      I fail to see the relevance to my post, which is essentially: Read news by different journalists, and judge their veracity over time. You can't use that process with fake news. If a critical mass of people don't understand that distinction, it's bad news. A gross inaccuracy from 2014 and shoddy reasoning in WaPo's "PowerPost" by the author of a book on progressive rock music in 2017 doesn't change that truth. Edit: change "pundit" to "author"
      - qb45 9y ago
        I just reacted to your claim about standards of evidence, both of the examples I quoted are things I would really be ashamed to publish myself regardless of any political leanings. It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. But sure, Facebook fake news farms are worse.
        jancsika 9y ago
        > It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. Perhaps it seems that way to you, but that theory isn't fleshed out by the two pieces of evidence you provided (or any evidence I'm aware of). I can't use your theory to explain or predict the veracity of stories on, say, the front page, op-ed page, and back page of a widely read newspaper. I can explain and predict that with a theory like Chomsky and Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" (even if I don't agree with every single case study and argument in their book). However, I can explain and predict the veracity of Facebook fake news links by pointing out they aren't news because don't adhere to journalistic standards.

CodeWriter23 9y ago

The reality is the NYT and all mainstream "news" outlets are beholden to their advertisers. Notice how Mylan is always in the news getting negative press but you rarely hear about the Billions in fines/settlements paid by Merck and GlaxoSmithKline arising from product liability (the result of junk science, but that's a different topic). Merck and GSK account for 70% of ad revenues for news outlets. Contrary to common beliefs, reporters are no longer journalists but spokespeople.

jancsika 9y ago
Failure to cover certain news topics and journalistic conflicts of interest are orthogonal to my point. Even if you assume all news outlets are literally employing spokespeople for advertisers-- NYT, WaPo, Der Spiegel, etc.-- those spokespeople still have to do actual hard, daily work of producing actual news content within professional constraints. That work includes an adherence to journalistic standards of evidence (i.e., multiple sources), building and maintaining source contacts, being subject to an ombudsman, gaining notoriety through a track record, etc. They can't just spout gross inaccuracies all day or they'd be fired. Thus you can check multiple independent news articles against each other and use context clues to get some better sense of the truth. Having a weak and mostly commercial press makes that more of a burden than it ought to be, but it's possible. Facebook-style "fake news" is literally stuff like "the word covfefe is an Antidiluvian term for 'in the end we win'". You can peruse 1,000s of such gems like that on Facebook all day, from different fake news publishers. And you would have learned absolutely nothing of substance after you are done. If a critical mass of Americans believe mainstream news outlets are as substance-free as that, then we've got a very expense national civics lesson in store for us. edit: typo and clarification
- qb45 9y ago
  Well, I just posted in another thread an article about Russian propaganda which contains a big exaggeration that is trivially disproved by damn Wikipedia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555953 I have no idea what their sources were but they clearly trusted them a little bit too easily. I immediately went to fact-check this because it just didn't even seem possible to me to simply fabricate a historic province or move it to a "different geographic space" like that. Too many textbooks to amend, too many people who remember. The first article I linked in that post also is fishy, though in this case at least they had their multiple sources: apparently these were a pair of elderly people and a bureaucrat, analyzing alleged hacking attempt. I don't really believe this story either.
  - jancsika 9y ago
    I fail to see the relevance to my post, which is essentially: Read news by different journalists, and judge their veracity over time. You can't use that process with fake news. If a critical mass of people don't understand that distinction, it's bad news. A gross inaccuracy from 2014 and shoddy reasoning in WaPo's "PowerPost" by the author of a book on progressive rock music in 2017 doesn't change that truth. Edit: change "pundit" to "author"
    - qb45 9y ago
      I just reacted to your claim about standards of evidence, both of the examples I quoted are things I would really be ashamed to publish myself regardless of any political leanings. It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. But sure, Facebook fake news farms are worse.
      - jancsika 9y ago
        > It seems that when there is an agenda to advance, all reason and skepticism go out the window. Perhaps it seems that way to you, but that theory isn't fleshed out by the two pieces of evidence you provided (or any evidence I'm aware of). I can't use your theory to explain or predict the veracity of stories on, say, the front page, op-ed page, and back page of a widely read newspaper. I can explain and predict that with a theory like Chomsky and Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" (even if I don't agree with every single case study and argument in their book). However, I can explain and predict the veracity of Facebook fake news links by pointing out they aren't news because don't adhere to journalistic standards.