4 ms·

Most workplaces operate on a high amount of trust though, especially in Western Europe. If you’ve achieved star-reporter status at der Spiegel, as such that you

by jaabe 8y ago

Most workplaces operate on a high amount of trust though, especially in Western Europe. If you’ve achieved star-reporter status at der Spiegel, as such that you’re sent 3 weeks to America to do investigative journalism, it goes to reason, that you also meet a high amount of trust. So I think it’s easy to see how the editorial staff might have missed the problem. I work in the public sector of Scandinavia, we do a lot of internal reviewing of employee behaviour. When things go wrong, it’s possible to steal 111 million danish kroner after all[0]. Despite our best efforts, things still do go wrong though, and that’s because, even in the heart of bureaucracy, we still rely on trust, and when people intentionally abuse it, shit happens. It’s unfortunate, but things aren’t perfect. Everyone is pressed for financial resources and then everything from financial security to editorial journalism becomes patch-work “good enough” type systems. Because the perfect system simply doesn’t exist. One of my user accounts has a lot of privileges for instance, more than it rightly should. It’s like that because I need access to so many different things, that our IT-department would need a half-time hire if they were to keep my user rights for our 500 different IT systems up to speed. It’s an imperfect solution that only works as long as I don’t misbehave, and while we do a lot of internal reviewing, the truth is I could abuse those rights. At least Der Spiegel fired the fraudster when they found out. [0] https://www.information.dk/debat/2018/10/111-millioner-kroner-senere https://www.information.dk/debat/2018/10/111-millioner-krone...

belorn 8y ago
If we are relying on a system of trust then it is important that overseeing bodies are unbiased and unconnected to those those they oversee. More often than not, a failure in a trust model happens because of a unseen relationship that biased the overseeing body to either miss the problem, ignore the problem, or explicitly being blocked from doing anything about it. I would like to ask what caused der spiegel system to fail, and I would guess that given the context of this article with the 2016 election and trump, a portrait of rural America that is this extreme would have raised alarm bells if their internal fact checking group had a more diverse mix of political views. The story is way to clean and fit too nicely the political narrative that now in the after match it seems almost silly.
dan00 8y ago
And you really do not want to work in an environment without any kind of trust, because that is damaging in its own way. So having a certain degree of trust and accepting the few cases of misbehaviour might at the end be the best possible system.
danso 8y ago
I agree, and journalism is definitely a profession that is reliant on trust. A reporter can get all the facts correct but still be completely wrong in judging their importance or interpretation. But that doesn't mean fact-checkers can't catch them when they are materially wrong about confirmable facts. Presumably, if a reporter completely misread/fabricated what a town's sign said, then they likely misjudged/fabricated the basis for describing the town as being close-minded and ignorant. Here's a good article about the New Yorker's process: https://www.cjr.org/the_delacorte_lectures/new-yorkers-fact-checker-post-truth-facts-fake-news-trump.php https://www.cjr.org/the_delacorte_lectures/new-yorkers-fact-... As a personal anecdote, the only time I've ever been published in the New York Times was in the NYT Magazine. A staffer had seen a comment I posted on HN (in a HN thread about a NYTM article) and asked if it'd be OK to print it as a letter to the editor. When I agreed, I had to email back and forth with a fact-checker for a couple of days to clarify the content of my HN comment -- she even went so far as to point out, to my embarrassment, how I had misremembered the plot of "Dumb and Dumber". If they put in that much time for a letter to the editor, I imagine that their actual staffer articles put under the same amount of scrutiny.
ergothus 8y ago
> If you’ve achieved star-reporter status at der Spiegel, as such that you’re sent 3 weeks to America to do investigative journalism, it goes to reason, that you also meet a high amount of trust Every place I've worked at for the last decade expected that everyone would have a vod ed review before merging. Not because they didn't trust us, either, but because the risk is high. I can accept your argument as "what happened", but not that it was a reasonable result.
JPKab 8y ago
Just want to say this: The fact that European readers even believed half of the fabrications in this story is telling of how ignorant they really are about the USA. Just because you have seen movies which are the product of LA and NYC doesn't mean you know anything about the USA. Let me be clear: people in NYC and LA themselves know nothing of their country. This is blatantly obvious when you watch ANY Hollywood creation set in rural America. It is frustrating to deal with self righteous assumptions of my culture like this based on movies and TV shows.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  this reminds me of the truly uncanny "three billboards outside billing missouri."
- jjeaff 8y ago
  The strange thing is, that plenty of actors and writers in NYC and LA are from the south and Midwest. They could easily (and probably do) write scripts that accurately portray the "flyover states". But accuracy is not what sells movies and the powers that be seem quite set in their opinions that the innacurate, stereotypical views they hold are what people want to see. Just like the writer of the article in question.
- mips_avatar 8y ago
  I have had a bunch of experiences in Europe where I get told what’s wrong with America. I like how America is so self critical and wants to improve itself. But most of these Europeans have no idea what they’re talking about. I had a Brit tell me how sickened he was that 40% of Americans were Christians that literally only support Israel in order to create a holy land that will survive the apocalypse. He was so convinced that when I returned home I asked my religious friends what they thought. I can’t find a single person who believes anything remotely close to that. And definitely not a part of the calculus for supporting Israel.

by jaabe 8y ago

belorn 8y ago

If we are relying on a system of trust then it is important that overseeing bodies are unbiased and unconnected to those those they oversee. More often than not, a failure in a trust model happens because of a unseen relationship that biased the overseeing body to either miss the problem, ignore the problem, or explicitly being blocked from doing anything about it. I would like to ask what caused der spiegel system to fail, and I would guess that given the context of this article with the 2016 election and trump, a portrait of rural America that is this extreme would have raised alarm bells if their internal fact checking group had a more diverse mix of political views. The story is way to clean and fit too nicely the political narrative that now in the after match it seems almost silly.

dan00 8y ago

And you really do not want to work in an environment without any kind of trust, because that is damaging in its own way. So having a certain degree of trust and accepting the few cases of misbehaviour might at the end be the best possible system.

danso 8y ago

I agree, and journalism is definitely a profession that is reliant on trust. A reporter can get all the facts correct but still be completely wrong in judging their importance or interpretation. But that doesn't mean fact-checkers can't catch them when they are materially wrong about confirmable facts. Presumably, if a reporter completely misread/fabricated what a town's sign said, then they likely misjudged/fabricated the basis for describing the town as being close-minded and ignorant. Here's a good article about the New Yorker's process: https://www.cjr.org/the_delacorte_lectures/new-yorkers-fact-checker-post-truth-facts-fake-news-trump.php https://www.cjr.org/the_delacorte_lectures/new-yorkers-fact-... As a personal anecdote, the only time I've ever been published in the New York Times was in the NYT Magazine. A staffer had seen a comment I posted on HN (in a HN thread about a NYTM article) and asked if it'd be OK to print it as a letter to the editor. When I agreed, I had to email back and forth with a fact-checker for a couple of days to clarify the content of my HN comment -- she even went so far as to point out, to my embarrassment, how I had misremembered the plot of "Dumb and Dumber". If they put in that much time for a letter to the editor, I imagine that their actual staffer articles put under the same amount of scrutiny.

ergothus 8y ago

> If you’ve achieved star-reporter status at der Spiegel, as such that you’re sent 3 weeks to America to do investigative journalism, it goes to reason, that you also meet a high amount of trust Every place I've worked at for the last decade expected that everyone would have a vod ed review before merging. Not because they didn't trust us, either, but because the risk is high. I can accept your argument as "what happened", but not that it was a reasonable result.

JPKab 8y ago

Just want to say this: The fact that European readers even believed half of the fabrications in this story is telling of how ignorant they really are about the USA. Just because you have seen movies which are the product of LA and NYC doesn't mean you know anything about the USA. Let me be clear: people in NYC and LA themselves know nothing of their country. This is blatantly obvious when you watch ANY Hollywood creation set in rural America. It is frustrating to deal with self righteous assumptions of my culture like this based on movies and TV shows.

nyolfen 8y ago
this reminds me of the truly uncanny "three billboards outside billing missouri."
jjeaff 8y ago
The strange thing is, that plenty of actors and writers in NYC and LA are from the south and Midwest. They could easily (and probably do) write scripts that accurately portray the "flyover states". But accuracy is not what sells movies and the powers that be seem quite set in their opinions that the innacurate, stereotypical views they hold are what people want to see. Just like the writer of the article in question.
mips_avatar 8y ago
I have had a bunch of experiences in Europe where I get told what’s wrong with America. I like how America is so self critical and wants to improve itself. But most of these Europeans have no idea what they’re talking about. I had a Brit tell me how sickened he was that 40% of Americans were Christians that literally only support Israel in order to create a holy land that will survive the apocalypse. He was so convinced that when I returned home I asked my religious friends what they thought. I can’t find a single person who believes anything remotely close to that. And definitely not a part of the calculus for supporting Israel.