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I sometimes wonder what the value of lines like this are. Should't the reader be convinced of the magnitude of the find by the facts and the way they're present
by loufe 6y ago
I sometimes wonder what the value of lines like this are. Should't the reader be convinced of the magnitude of the find by the facts and the way they're presented, themselves, without having to throw some distant third party in for props?
> Ben Potter, an archaeologist from the Arctic Studies Center at Liaocheng University in China who’s not involved with the new study, said it’s a “very cool” discovery.
- goodcanadian 6y agoMy wife had one of her research projects get some media attention. For one interviewer, she wouldn't give the quote that they wanted (essentially a value judgment that her research couldn't possibly answer), so they got the quote from someone else who had nothing to do with the project. I can't say that is what happened here as the quote seems quite innocuous. Alternatively, they do sometimes want to get a view from someone unrelated to the project in order to get a feel for how important/interesting the result truly is.
- thgaway17 6y agoIt’s to demonstrate that other experts in the field, who don’t have a connection to this particular study, found the results significant. Seems useful to me.
- pjc50 6y agoJournalism, oddly, doesn't report or even attempt to determine "facts", it reports what people say about things.
- CryptoPunk 6y agoFollowing a 'we report, you decide' principle seems like it would invite the least bias.
- pjc50 6y agoYes, that's the theory, although anybody half competent can cherry-pick the interviewees and the quotes to match what they think the story "ought" to be.
- wtetzner 6y agoMaybe it's just filler to make the article longer.