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The goal is to capture the fact checking process and enable any reader to review it for themselves. Certainly some publications currently have an excellent fact

by YazIAm 8y ago

The goal is to capture the fact checking process and enable any reader to review it for themselves. Certainly some publications currently have an excellent fact checking process, but very few make their fact checking open and transparent. As for "how do you replicate work like calling sources to verify statements before publication?" Good question. Currently this is only designed to open up the fact checking which involves public primary sources. I think that a platform that focuses on doing that subset of fact checking really really well can add a lot of value to the public discourse.

jessaustin 8y ago
Congratulations on this; it looks great. Currently this is only designed to open up the fact checking which involves public primary sources. Limiting the scope to this is wise. It's a tractable problem and it's better journalism. The types of journalists who write "this unnamed source implied that this other unnamed source had implied to another unnamed source..." articles won't like this sort of tool, but those journalists should be encouraged to change careers. Some might not realize that articles like that are fairly common. For an example, I went to NYT homepage and this was the first article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/william-barr-mueller-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/william-barr-... First sentence: "Some of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations." This sort of crap gets swept under the rug within a couple of weeks, but we're certainly paying attention to it now.
- beat 8y ago
  What's the problem with that sentence? People speak to the press off the record all the time; it's part of the process. Unless the NYT doesn't actually have these sources, there's nothing wrong with it. Of course, all we have for proof is their reputation as a newspaper for integrity, and the word of any reporters involved, but reporters have often gone to jail rather than reveal anonymous sources.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    1) I've never heard of Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt, or Mark Mazzetti. I don't suspect them of anything horrible, but neither do they have "reputations" on which I can rely. Taibbi in his recent essay observed that reporters without established reputations get lower-quality anonymous tips (i.e., "lies") from insiders than better-known reporters get. In this case multiple no-name authors are actually less reputable than one no-name author would be, because we don't know which of the authors received the anonymous tip at the heart of this article. 2) The basic proposition addressed by that sentence is that "investigators are uncomfortable with Barr's summary", but the implication is that there is a problem with that summary. The rest of the article addresses the potential meaning of this "big, if true" implication but gets no closer to the question of whether that implication is true. The alleged feelings of randoms are not interesting to the average reader. If investigators or anyone else has specific knowledge of wrongdoing that should be made known to the public, they should contact reporters directly. 3) Even if the basic proposition were firmer, we're approaching it through too many layers of indirection. The reporter didn't talk to the investigators. He didn't talk to associates of the investigators. He talked rather to "government officials and others familiar", and not about what those officials and others had heard from the investigators but rather about what associates of the investigators had heard from the investigators. How the government officials and others heard about it is not specified. We're at least four layers deep here, and nothing believable is four layers deep. These reporters are under no threat of "going to jail", because even if the basic question were important no judge could decide that the reporters are close enough to the truth to justify contempt. 4) The basic question is not important. Eventually politicians of both parties will read the entire un-redacted report. The public will not, because grand jury testimony will be redacted to protect the reputations of Republican operatives whose transgressions were not judged to merit indictments while "sources and methods" will be redacted to protect Democratic FBI (and possibly NSA?) agents whose transgressions were under color of law. It's not surprising that Barr's report had a political slant. Everything in DC has a political slant. Maybe if they found the Lindbergh baby, this tottering tower of misdirection could be justified. Nobody here found the Lindbergh baby. 5) That this happens "all the time" is actually a serious problem. Every day, well-placed people insert self-interested opinions into the public discourse not as self-interested opinions but rather as journalistic fact. This has terrible effects on our society and on our military victims around the world. Soi-disant journalists should stop aiding this terrible process, and this tool could help them do that.

by YazIAm 8y ago

jessaustin 8y ago

Congratulations on this; it looks great. Currently this is only designed to open up the fact checking which involves public primary sources. Limiting the scope to this is wise. It's a tractable problem and it's better journalism. The types of journalists who write "this unnamed source implied that this other unnamed source had implied to another unnamed source..." articles won't like this sort of tool, but those journalists should be encouraged to change careers. Some might not realize that articles like that are fairly common. For an example, I went to NYT homepage and this was the first article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/william-barr-mueller-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/william-barr-... First sentence: "Some of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations." This sort of crap gets swept under the rug within a couple of weeks, but we're certainly paying attention to it now.

beat 8y ago
What's the problem with that sentence? People speak to the press off the record all the time; it's part of the process. Unless the NYT doesn't actually have these sources, there's nothing wrong with it. Of course, all we have for proof is their reputation as a newspaper for integrity, and the word of any reporters involved, but reporters have often gone to jail rather than reveal anonymous sources.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  1) I've never heard of Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt, or Mark Mazzetti. I don't suspect them of anything horrible, but neither do they have "reputations" on which I can rely. Taibbi in his recent essay observed that reporters without established reputations get lower-quality anonymous tips (i.e., "lies") from insiders than better-known reporters get. In this case multiple no-name authors are actually less reputable than one no-name author would be, because we don't know which of the authors received the anonymous tip at the heart of this article. 2) The basic proposition addressed by that sentence is that "investigators are uncomfortable with Barr's summary", but the implication is that there is a problem with that summary. The rest of the article addresses the potential meaning of this "big, if true" implication but gets no closer to the question of whether that implication is true. The alleged feelings of randoms are not interesting to the average reader. If investigators or anyone else has specific knowledge of wrongdoing that should be made known to the public, they should contact reporters directly. 3) Even if the basic proposition were firmer, we're approaching it through too many layers of indirection. The reporter didn't talk to the investigators. He didn't talk to associates of the investigators. He talked rather to "government officials and others familiar", and not about what those officials and others had heard from the investigators but rather about what associates of the investigators had heard from the investigators. How the government officials and others heard about it is not specified. We're at least four layers deep here, and nothing believable is four layers deep. These reporters are under no threat of "going to jail", because even if the basic question were important no judge could decide that the reporters are close enough to the truth to justify contempt. 4) The basic question is not important. Eventually politicians of both parties will read the entire un-redacted report. The public will not, because grand jury testimony will be redacted to protect the reputations of Republican operatives whose transgressions were not judged to merit indictments while "sources and methods" will be redacted to protect Democratic FBI (and possibly NSA?) agents whose transgressions were under color of law. It's not surprising that Barr's report had a political slant. Everything in DC has a political slant. Maybe if they found the Lindbergh baby, this tottering tower of misdirection could be justified. Nobody here found the Lindbergh baby. 5) That this happens "all the time" is actually a serious problem. Every day, well-placed people insert self-interested opinions into the public discourse not as self-interested opinions but rather as journalistic fact. This has terrible effects on our society and on our military victims around the world. Soi-disant journalists should stop aiding this terrible process, and this tool could help them do that.