6 ms·

I wanted to clarify. Are you saying that drowning out reliable journalism with intentional disinformation on social media is a GOOD thing? If so... why?

nailer 9y ago
Who determines reliable journalism? I'm liberal but CNN's had issued a massive amount of retractions for their Russia stories, still has the fake fish feeding article up, the Guardian had to retract their 'unarmed' front page story about the drug dealer with the gun in his car. Making shit up is commonplace, yet media censors inevitably only want to target Breitbart and right sources. It's a plain as day transparent power grab by the hard left.
- bovermyer 9y ago
  That's an existing problem, and not an easy one to solve. It will have to rely on independent review. But relying on social networks for news drops both careful research AND independent review, which is a step backward, not forward.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  I really love VICE news on HBO even though it definitely comes from the Hard Left perspective. Basically all news should be taken skeptically, but as much as possible they just go with first person video interviews of the people involved. I don't trust what CNN says about Steve Bannon or Roy Moore, but just hearing what they say about themselves in their own words is enough for me to know I don't belong in their camp.
- rgbrenner 9y ago
  Journalists are just people. Reliable journalism occurs when those people try their best to provide accurate information, and when they make a mistake they correct it. That's it. You can't expect perfection from people.
  - laretluval 9y ago
    > when those people try their best to provide accurate information It is not enough to trust them to do their best. Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property.
    - IronKettle 9y ago
      > Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property. Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helicopter_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helico... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_scandal_and_termination_from_The_Intercept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_sca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fabrication_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apo... https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-cost-wiser-dream-job-at-chicago-sun-times https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic
  - nailer 9y ago
    I don't think anyone is looking for perfection, simply not creating a narrative one knows to be false. The CNN fish feeding story was deliberately created by zooming film at the point the Japanese leader dumped their fish food, then zooming out again to show Trump dumping his, then writing text to support the fake narrative. The Mark Duggan 'unarmed' headline was immediately followed by a story which revealed the suspect was armed. The retracted CNN Russia stuff might have simply have been gross incompetence though so your point does apply there.
- IIIr3228 9y ago
  The Guardian isn't perfect, but you can't seriously compare it to Breitbart, which intentionally distorts facts on a regular basis, and goes out of it's way to sensationalize and offend. Would the guardian be caught dead printing these? https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/17/breitbart-news-worst-headlines/212467 https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/17/breitbart-news-... Or have they peddled lies as big as these ones? https://www.snopes.com/climatology-fraud-global-warming/ https://www.snopes.com/climatology-fraud-global-warming/ https://www.snopes.com/immigrants-california-wildfires/ https://www.snopes.com/immigrants-california-wildfires/ https://www.snopes.com/planned-parenthood-satanists/ https://www.snopes.com/planned-parenthood-satanists/ Look, maybe the media has a left bias. And it's plausible that right-leaning sources face more skepticism. That's not fair. But the reason Breitbart gets flack is because they really are that terrible.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - nailer 9y ago
    Well yes, the cited Mark Duggan example is pretty damning, but there's Olivia Solon'a recent White Helmet article (which simply presents other secondary sources as if it was primary evidence) and the bizarre 'no such thing as false rape allegations' editorial, which as we've seen is false twice in merely the last two weeks.
benchaney 9y ago
He’s saying there is to reliable journalism, and that shattering the illusion that there is is a good thing.
- IIIr3228 9y ago
  It's not a good thing. You risk committing a false equivalence. Saying there is no 100% reliable journalism is technically accurate, as all news organizations make mistakes and are subject to biases. But some news is more reliable than others: Reuters is not Breitbart.
  - fixermark 9y ago
    Exactly. There are news outlets that will hold themselves to a standard and issue corrections and there are news outlets that care more about clicks than truth. These are not equivalent.
  - unknown_apostle 9y ago
    True, a news agency like Reuters aims to be a neutral observer whereas a polemical site like Breitbart wants to influence politics. Reuters succeeds to the extent that it sticks to transmitting basic facts to newsrooms around the world. Which is already very hard to get right. But a lot of what also passes for quality journalism involves not news agencies but newspapers and magazines. I consider a lot of these to be just more sneaky versions of Breitbart. They are more subtle, use more sophisticated language, have specific formatting and typesetting, have a longer history and they mix up their activism with a broad spectrum of neutral news. (I'm mostly familiar with the press in my own country so it's hard to give widely recognizable examples.) And of course, then there's publications like The Economist. In my very personal opinion, even though they may be "honest" in their intentions, they still end up giving their readers an illusion of understanding. You don't really know what happens in Iraq or Syria or China from reading the Economist. But it's so well written that you might end up believing you do. Anyhow, I see enough reasons not to trust anyone who wants to use this fake news scare to punish their competition or to herd the population to the "proper" sources of information. The untamed internet, when used properly as a source of information, will just give a snapshot of bewilderingly diverse points of view. Which is still not much, but so much better than the best polished story written by the best journalists.
unknown_apostle 9y ago
No, it's worse: I doubt the existence of reliable journalism :) Reading 20-year old "quality" news magazines makes me think so. Numerous personal experiences make me think so. Ads in quality newspapers and their subtle or not so subtle political affiliations make me think so. Reality is extremely complex. Journalists, even when they are honest, neutral, capable and of good will, struggle with it. Especially when they try to come up with a polished story. I know this is the case for unimportant events happening nearby, so I assume it's especially true for complex, confusing situations in very different parts of the world. Getting confused by reading totally different accounts of the same event, is what makes me smarter. Because this confusion accurately reflects reality. Getting confused happens to me way more often while reading the internet (or when talking to real people) than when reading The Economist. For the record: I'm not condoning intentional disinformation. And I do want to know about important events.

nailer 9y ago

Who determines reliable journalism? I'm liberal but CNN's had issued a massive amount of retractions for their Russia stories, still has the fake fish feeding article up, the Guardian had to retract their 'unarmed' front page story about the drug dealer with the gun in his car. Making shit up is commonplace, yet media censors inevitably only want to target Breitbart and right sources. It's a plain as day transparent power grab by the hard left.

bovermyer 9y ago
That's an existing problem, and not an easy one to solve. It will have to rely on independent review. But relying on social networks for news drops both careful research AND independent review, which is a step backward, not forward.
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
I really love VICE news on HBO even though it definitely comes from the Hard Left perspective. Basically all news should be taken skeptically, but as much as possible they just go with first person video interviews of the people involved. I don't trust what CNN says about Steve Bannon or Roy Moore, but just hearing what they say about themselves in their own words is enough for me to know I don't belong in their camp.
rgbrenner 9y ago
Journalists are just people. Reliable journalism occurs when those people try their best to provide accurate information, and when they make a mistake they correct it. That's it. You can't expect perfection from people.
- laretluval 9y ago
  > when those people try their best to provide accurate information It is not enough to trust them to do their best. Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property.
  - IronKettle 9y ago
    > Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property. Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helicopter_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helico... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_scandal_and_termination_from_The_Intercept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_sca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fabrication_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apo... https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-cost-wiser-dream-job-at-chicago-sun-times https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic
- nailer 9y ago
  I don't think anyone is looking for perfection, simply not creating a narrative one knows to be false. The CNN fish feeding story was deliberately created by zooming film at the point the Japanese leader dumped their fish food, then zooming out again to show Trump dumping his, then writing text to support the fake narrative. The Mark Duggan 'unarmed' headline was immediately followed by a story which revealed the suspect was armed. The retracted CNN Russia stuff might have simply have been gross incompetence though so your point does apply there.
IIIr3228 9y ago
The Guardian isn't perfect, but you can't seriously compare it to Breitbart, which intentionally distorts facts on a regular basis, and goes out of it's way to sensationalize and offend. Would the guardian be caught dead printing these? https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/17/breitbart-news-worst-headlines/212467 https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/17/breitbart-news-... Or have they peddled lies as big as these ones? https://www.snopes.com/climatology-fraud-global-warming/ https://www.snopes.com/climatology-fraud-global-warming/ https://www.snopes.com/immigrants-california-wildfires/ https://www.snopes.com/immigrants-california-wildfires/ https://www.snopes.com/planned-parenthood-satanists/ https://www.snopes.com/planned-parenthood-satanists/ Look, maybe the media has a left bias. And it's plausible that right-leaning sources face more skepticism. That's not fair. But the reason Breitbart gets flack is because they really are that terrible.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- nailer 9y ago
  Well yes, the cited Mark Duggan example is pretty damning, but there's Olivia Solon'a recent White Helmet article (which simply presents other secondary sources as if it was primary evidence) and the bizarre 'no such thing as false rape allegations' editorial, which as we've seen is false twice in merely the last two weeks.

benchaney 9y ago

He’s saying there is to reliable journalism, and that shattering the illusion that there is is a good thing.

IIIr3228 9y ago
It's not a good thing. You risk committing a false equivalence. Saying there is no 100% reliable journalism is technically accurate, as all news organizations make mistakes and are subject to biases. But some news is more reliable than others: Reuters is not Breitbart.
- fixermark 9y ago
  Exactly. There are news outlets that will hold themselves to a standard and issue corrections and there are news outlets that care more about clicks than truth. These are not equivalent.
- unknown_apostle 9y ago
  True, a news agency like Reuters aims to be a neutral observer whereas a polemical site like Breitbart wants to influence politics. Reuters succeeds to the extent that it sticks to transmitting basic facts to newsrooms around the world. Which is already very hard to get right. But a lot of what also passes for quality journalism involves not news agencies but newspapers and magazines. I consider a lot of these to be just more sneaky versions of Breitbart. They are more subtle, use more sophisticated language, have specific formatting and typesetting, have a longer history and they mix up their activism with a broad spectrum of neutral news. (I'm mostly familiar with the press in my own country so it's hard to give widely recognizable examples.) And of course, then there's publications like The Economist. In my very personal opinion, even though they may be "honest" in their intentions, they still end up giving their readers an illusion of understanding. You don't really know what happens in Iraq or Syria or China from reading the Economist. But it's so well written that you might end up believing you do. Anyhow, I see enough reasons not to trust anyone who wants to use this fake news scare to punish their competition or to herd the population to the "proper" sources of information. The untamed internet, when used properly as a source of information, will just give a snapshot of bewilderingly diverse points of view. Which is still not much, but so much better than the best polished story written by the best journalists.

unknown_apostle 9y ago

No, it's worse: I doubt the existence of reliable journalism :) Reading 20-year old "quality" news magazines makes me think so. Numerous personal experiences make me think so. Ads in quality newspapers and their subtle or not so subtle political affiliations make me think so. Reality is extremely complex. Journalists, even when they are honest, neutral, capable and of good will, struggle with it. Especially when they try to come up with a polished story. I know this is the case for unimportant events happening nearby, so I assume it's especially true for complex, confusing situations in very different parts of the world. Getting confused by reading totally different accounts of the same event, is what makes me smarter. Because this confusion accurately reflects reality. Getting confused happens to me way more often while reading the internet (or when talking to real people) than when reading The Economist. For the record: I'm not condoning intentional disinformation. And I do want to know about important events.