6 ms·

I'd always assumed publishers _were_ doing this already. If not, whence the whining and chagrin over low rent "bloggers" somehow not being comparable to deal au

I'd always assumed publishers _were_ doing this already. If not, whence the whining and chagrin over low rent "bloggers" somehow not being comparable to deal authors and journalists? I realize this isn't as widely held a view as it was 10-20 years ago, but bloggers used to be looked at with disdain, untrustworthy because of the lack of reputability that came with published materials. This makes me further question whether there was much gatekeeping at all even before this fake news, post truth era.

carlmr 7y ago
>This makes me further question whether there was much gatekeeping at all even before this fake news, post truth era. It was much harder to comment on things and have an international audience for your outrage. Basically to criticize a piece of work was reserved to a few professional critics writing in newspapers. Now everyone who spots a mistake can write about it on Twitter, Amazon review or plenty of other channels.
- GrinningFool 7y ago
  > Basically to criticize a piece of work was reserved to a few professional critics writing in newspapers. It was common to write replies in long form and mail then into newspapers, which would then publish them.
  - NetToolKit 7y ago
    > which would then publish them Only if the newspapers themselves allowed it. Newspapers could suppress public criticism that came their way through this channel if they so chose.
    - jfengel 7y ago
      For a long time, there were multiple newspapers in each city. They would love to catch each other in mistakes. If one paper wouldn't publish criticism, the others would. These weren't just yellow-journalism tabloids, but two or even three genuine competing reporting organizations. They fought to be the first to publish, but couldn't afford to simply publish falsehoods, or fail to admit mistakes. Not that they were paragons of honor all the time. They're humans. But it did set up a pattern of keeping each other honest, which they maintained to a large degree after they could no longer sustain multiple papers. That has diminished substantially as they're competing against Internet-style "move fast, break things, nobody cares what you wrote yesterday" publishing (and before that, 24 hour TV that wants to present a constant crisis so that you must never turn it off). So there was less "suppressing public criticism" than you seem to be implying. It happened, to be sure, but it was very different from the current self-swallowing echo chambers you get today -- at least among the major newspapers. Modern journalism, even the comparatively mainstream stuff, has a lot more in common with those yellow journalism tabloids.
  - carlmr 7y ago
    That's a good point I didn't even think of, however it may have been subject to censorship and editing by the newspaper staff and would have limited reach for most newspapers, not a global audience. Also I don't think I ever wrote a response to any newspaper in pre internet times, that's a lot of work just to be heard.
    - GrinningFool 7y ago
      I did a couple of 'letter to the editor' that got published in those dark and dusty times. I don't recall any editing and there was no censoring, but they did get to determine which letters were published. It was fun, and I certainly _felt_ like I was being heard - first when I saw my words in print, and again when selected replies would get published a week later or so. Ultimately, I suppose not so different than posting to $platform_of_choice and waiting for replies/retweets/etc. Just slower.
dhosek 7y ago
Most (if not all) large magazines fact check their published material. The New Yorker even fact checks the poetry (seriously!)
- adolph 7y ago
  Fact checking sounds great in theory but maybe in practice maybe it is an exercise in confirmation bias. For example, in a case cited by the article an author did employ at least one fact checker[0] who was an ostensible expert and who describes a reasonable effort but who still got it wrong (maybe). In another example, the article alludes to "mistakes" which was actually plagiarism.[1] If the question really is a matter of trusting books or not, then maybe a reasonable heuristic is to identify the agenda of the author and weight more heavily the writings of authors with divergent priors, similar to Slate Star Codex' idea of adversarial collaboration.[2] An example is Kahneman and Klein's Conditions for intuitive expertise: a failure to disagree.[3] 0. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/naomi-wolf-outrages-gay-rights-book-error-a8979646.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/naomi-wolf-outrages-gay... 1. https://twitter.com/mcmoynihan/status/1093290016632115202 https://twitter.com/mcmoynihan/status/1093290016632115202 2. https://slatestarcodex.com/tag/adversarial-collaboration/ https://slatestarcodex.com/tag/adversarial-collaboration/ 3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19739881 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19739881
- Chris2048 7y ago
  Do "fact checks" include oversights and misleading premises? Would a fact check have caught the bias in a recent NYT article, for instance?
  - dhosek 7y ago
    Nope, it's generally a case of looking up things asserted as fact or otherwise independently verifying them. Quotations may also be verified with the interviewee. If I had known that such a job existed when I was in college, my career path would have been very different.
- hguant 7y ago
  >The New Yorker even fact checks the poetry (seriously!) After the debacle with Lehrer, I'd be amazed if the New Yorker wasn't fact checking everything the print, down to their ad copy.
magashna 7y ago
With the 24 hour news cycle, I've started regarding large popular news-o-tainment companies in the same vein. CNN/FOX are just as bad as assuming some egg on twitter is reporting unaltered truths.

carlmr 7y ago

>This makes me further question whether there was much gatekeeping at all even before this fake news, post truth era. It was much harder to comment on things and have an international audience for your outrage. Basically to criticize a piece of work was reserved to a few professional critics writing in newspapers. Now everyone who spots a mistake can write about it on Twitter, Amazon review or plenty of other channels.

GrinningFool 7y ago
> Basically to criticize a piece of work was reserved to a few professional critics writing in newspapers. It was common to write replies in long form and mail then into newspapers, which would then publish them.
- NetToolKit 7y ago
  > which would then publish them Only if the newspapers themselves allowed it. Newspapers could suppress public criticism that came their way through this channel if they so chose.
  - jfengel 7y ago
    For a long time, there were multiple newspapers in each city. They would love to catch each other in mistakes. If one paper wouldn't publish criticism, the others would. These weren't just yellow-journalism tabloids, but two or even three genuine competing reporting organizations. They fought to be the first to publish, but couldn't afford to simply publish falsehoods, or fail to admit mistakes. Not that they were paragons of honor all the time. They're humans. But it did set up a pattern of keeping each other honest, which they maintained to a large degree after they could no longer sustain multiple papers. That has diminished substantially as they're competing against Internet-style "move fast, break things, nobody cares what you wrote yesterday" publishing (and before that, 24 hour TV that wants to present a constant crisis so that you must never turn it off). So there was less "suppressing public criticism" than you seem to be implying. It happened, to be sure, but it was very different from the current self-swallowing echo chambers you get today -- at least among the major newspapers. Modern journalism, even the comparatively mainstream stuff, has a lot more in common with those yellow journalism tabloids.
- carlmr 7y ago
  That's a good point I didn't even think of, however it may have been subject to censorship and editing by the newspaper staff and would have limited reach for most newspapers, not a global audience. Also I don't think I ever wrote a response to any newspaper in pre internet times, that's a lot of work just to be heard.
  - GrinningFool 7y ago
    I did a couple of 'letter to the editor' that got published in those dark and dusty times. I don't recall any editing and there was no censoring, but they did get to determine which letters were published. It was fun, and I certainly _felt_ like I was being heard - first when I saw my words in print, and again when selected replies would get published a week later or so. Ultimately, I suppose not so different than posting to $platform_of_choice and waiting for replies/retweets/etc. Just slower.

dhosek 7y ago

Most (if not all) large magazines fact check their published material. The New Yorker even fact checks the poetry (seriously!)

adolph 7y ago
Fact checking sounds great in theory but maybe in practice maybe it is an exercise in confirmation bias. For example, in a case cited by the article an author did employ at least one fact checker[0] who was an ostensible expert and who describes a reasonable effort but who still got it wrong (maybe). In another example, the article alludes to "mistakes" which was actually plagiarism.[1] If the question really is a matter of trusting books or not, then maybe a reasonable heuristic is to identify the agenda of the author and weight more heavily the writings of authors with divergent priors, similar to Slate Star Codex' idea of adversarial collaboration.[2] An example is Kahneman and Klein's Conditions for intuitive expertise: a failure to disagree.[3] 0. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/naomi-wolf-outrages-gay-rights-book-error-a8979646.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/naomi-wolf-outrages-gay... 1. https://twitter.com/mcmoynihan/status/1093290016632115202 https://twitter.com/mcmoynihan/status/1093290016632115202 2. https://slatestarcodex.com/tag/adversarial-collaboration/ https://slatestarcodex.com/tag/adversarial-collaboration/ 3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19739881 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19739881
Chris2048 7y ago
Do "fact checks" include oversights and misleading premises? Would a fact check have caught the bias in a recent NYT article, for instance?
- dhosek 7y ago
  Nope, it's generally a case of looking up things asserted as fact or otherwise independently verifying them. Quotations may also be verified with the interviewee. If I had known that such a job existed when I was in college, my career path would have been very different.
hguant 7y ago
>The New Yorker even fact checks the poetry (seriously!) After the debacle with Lehrer, I'd be amazed if the New Yorker wasn't fact checking everything the print, down to their ad copy.

magashna 7y ago

With the 24 hour news cycle, I've started regarding large popular news-o-tainment companies in the same vein. CNN/FOX are just as bad as assuming some egg on twitter is reporting unaltered truths.