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>Overall, we expect the story will paint an inaccurate picture that lacks complete information and context, despite our best efforts to fact-check details of th

by ve55 6y ago

>Overall, we expect the story will paint an inaccurate picture that lacks complete information and context, despite our best efforts to fact-check details of the story with the reporter. Probably the most important line from this; those that have been through it before know it better than anyone. Likely best to apply healthy levels of skepticism to both parties.

lrae 6y ago
Only problem is that they don't offer that complete information or context either?
- ve55 6y ago
  Sure, I cannot claim to defend Coinbase when I know nothing of the matter. But since news is inherently cherry-picked (after all, one cannot report on literally everything), there will generally be an inherent slant to the information provided, and such an inherent slant will likely tend more towards an optimization of metrics (clicks, engagement, ad revenue, subscriptions, etc) rather than perfect statistical representation of the baseline (which it turns out people are not excited to read about!).
  - jolux 6y ago
    This is enormously unfair to the journalistic profession. There are quite a lot of leaps from "it's not possible to report every fact" to "all journalism is slanted for metrics." Journalists like getting a big scoop but the good ones do their due diligence and go to great pains to report fairly and accurately.
    - ve55 6y ago
      I think there may be a mis-understanding; what I mean is that in the very essence of reporting a scoop, they have already chosen to report that event above other events. So the reporting about the given scoop may be 100% fair and honest, but there is still, in the bigger picture, a large statistical bias, since only some types of things qualify as 'worthy of reporting' and get converted to scoops to begin with. e.g. imagine one news outlet that only reports about homicides, another than only reports about theft, and another that only reports about covid deaths. All three can be perfectly factual, but they still present radically different views of what is wrong with the world to their readers.
      - jolux 6y ago
        Sure, but I for one was not talking about this story as a marker of the general prevalence of racism, and whether or not it's a representative sample of such. I read you as impugning the integrity and consistency of individual stories in isolation, which is legitimate as well, it just requires more evidence than you presented.
        ve55 6y ago
        Yeah apologies if it seemed like it went too far, I definitely don't intend to claim anything about the story since it hasn't come out (and even when it does, I know little of the matter), thanks for the addition.
    - disown 6y ago
      Journalists exist to push a narrative. They don't exist to present facts. Only naive children believe in that fairy tale. Anyone paying attention realizes now that journalists are partisan political activists and should be treated as such. That's all they've ever been really. Just a quick overview of the history of the news industry would reveal as much.
- cle 6y ago
  They don’t need to. They just need to plant some doubt.
not_knuth 6y ago
The wording here seems particularily unfortunate. Actively "fact checking" a story that criticizes oneself sounds like a deep misunderstanding of conflicts of interest.
goldenManatee 6y ago
Hard to judge without the story published, but it also sounds like the company is frustrated it didn’t get line-editing power. This is in contrast to even showing gratefulness for being alerted about the story’s imminent publishing and probably being contacted for sources from all views. The company has invited more scrutiny; like a kid running up to parents saying, “Whatever my brother says, it’s not true.”
- ve55 6y ago
  I don't think any service was done as far as alerting them something would be published because it's generally obvious: anyone even slightly-relevant to the story is contacted by a journalist and asked to share information beforehand, and of course some fraction will share this occurrence with others. But it's also true that they'd like to do as you claim, I think it's only fair skepticism is applied equally to both sides.
  - jolux 6y ago
    Most of the time, it's considered unethical in journalism not to alert your subjects that you're going to be publishing about them.

by ve55 6y ago

lrae 6y ago

Only problem is that they don't offer that complete information or context either?

ve55 6y ago
Sure, I cannot claim to defend Coinbase when I know nothing of the matter. But since news is inherently cherry-picked (after all, one cannot report on literally everything), there will generally be an inherent slant to the information provided, and such an inherent slant will likely tend more towards an optimization of metrics (clicks, engagement, ad revenue, subscriptions, etc) rather than perfect statistical representation of the baseline (which it turns out people are not excited to read about!).
- jolux 6y ago
  This is enormously unfair to the journalistic profession. There are quite a lot of leaps from "it's not possible to report every fact" to "all journalism is slanted for metrics." Journalists like getting a big scoop but the good ones do their due diligence and go to great pains to report fairly and accurately.
  - ve55 6y ago
    I think there may be a mis-understanding; what I mean is that in the very essence of reporting a scoop, they have already chosen to report that event above other events. So the reporting about the given scoop may be 100% fair and honest, but there is still, in the bigger picture, a large statistical bias, since only some types of things qualify as 'worthy of reporting' and get converted to scoops to begin with. e.g. imagine one news outlet that only reports about homicides, another than only reports about theft, and another that only reports about covid deaths. All three can be perfectly factual, but they still present radically different views of what is wrong with the world to their readers.
    - jolux 6y ago
      Sure, but I for one was not talking about this story as a marker of the general prevalence of racism, and whether or not it's a representative sample of such. I read you as impugning the integrity and consistency of individual stories in isolation, which is legitimate as well, it just requires more evidence than you presented.
      - ve55 6y ago
        Yeah apologies if it seemed like it went too far, I definitely don't intend to claim anything about the story since it hasn't come out (and even when it does, I know little of the matter), thanks for the addition.
  - disown 6y ago
    Journalists exist to push a narrative. They don't exist to present facts. Only naive children believe in that fairy tale. Anyone paying attention realizes now that journalists are partisan political activists and should be treated as such. That's all they've ever been really. Just a quick overview of the history of the news industry would reveal as much.
cle 6y ago
They don’t need to. They just need to plant some doubt.

not_knuth 6y ago

The wording here seems particularily unfortunate. Actively "fact checking" a story that criticizes oneself sounds like a deep misunderstanding of conflicts of interest.

goldenManatee 6y ago

Hard to judge without the story published, but it also sounds like the company is frustrated it didn’t get line-editing power. This is in contrast to even showing gratefulness for being alerted about the story’s imminent publishing and probably being contacted for sources from all views. The company has invited more scrutiny; like a kid running up to parents saying, “Whatever my brother says, it’s not true.”

ve55 6y ago
I don't think any service was done as far as alerting them something would be published because it's generally obvious: anyone even slightly-relevant to the story is contacted by a journalist and asked to share information beforehand, and of course some fraction will share this occurrence with others. But it's also true that they'd like to do as you claim, I think it's only fair skepticism is applied equally to both sides.
- jolux 6y ago
  Most of the time, it's considered unethical in journalism not to alert your subjects that you're going to be publishing about them.