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OP here. Happy to answer direct questions as you have them. It's a self-funded project. As for trust, I pay bounties for corrections for a reason. And I keep a

OP here. Happy to answer direct questions as you have them. It's a self-funded project. As for trust, I pay bounties for corrections for a reason. And I keep a public list of all past bounties paid. Readers can review and decide how much to trust accordingly.

wolverine876 5y ago
Welcome! Thanks for dropping in. Sorry to grill you when we just met, but what is your background, if you are willing to share publicly (I understand if not)? I just like to know who I am reading, especially on the Internets!
- jeremy_arnold 5y ago
  Grilling is cool. TLDR is I'm a copywriter turned comms consultant. I work mostly with tech companies. My interest in journalism review came just from years of diving into stories on topics I knew and finding them grotesquely misrepresented. This then kicked up a gear when I wrote about Elon Musk and the Thai cave rescue in 2018 and had a bunch of newspapers/journalists shit on my work. I wrote an exhaustive rebuttal to all their points (and offered them money for any mistakes they could find) and they just didn't read it. I came to realize that they have the privilege of just never having to engage with criticism no matter how rendered. So I started my substack to effectively pre-publish chapters of a book I'm writing with a list of examples of really bad journalism from top outlets. Then going to segue from that to my own journalism-esque platform to put my money where my mouth is a far as building a news org with better incentives and more accountability.
  - dky45 5y ago
    They didn’t engage with your criticism. Resist the temptation to extrapolate that to conclusions beyond yourself. The idea that as a profession journalists don’t engage with criticism is so demonstrably false it’s absurd. The entire editorial process is engaging with criticism, and it very often comes from outside the newsroom. On a story of this magnitude, that criticism is invited as a matter of policy before publishing (it’s called red teaming). Quite often, that process leads to rereporting, sometimes by another group. You seem to have emotionally reacted to criticism of your own work (which is par for journalism) by declaring that journalism doesn’t get it and needs to be “saved” (from who?). I’m concerned by your personification of a bad experience and the malevolence you’re ascribing to an entire profession as a result, while on the way to sticking your fingers in the same pie. You are coming across as an unreliable narrator in several ways. Even beyond that, you’re going up against ProPublica, not Daily Mail, and it’s very clear from your piece (which I read end to end) that you dove into it in bad faith looking for your intended outcome. It is this comment alone that convinces me you will fail, because you don’t understand why you weren’t engaged and why a lengthy rebuttal to incoming was a waste of your time. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder based on writing about Elon and the Thai thing and not having it go as you’d like which, in the grand scheme of things, matters precisely zero. That you offered money to those journalists as part of that process simply reassures me that you were blocked in their email because that is a fucking stupid thing to do, and I wish that were more apparent to you. You did dumb things by your own account. That almost certainly wasn’t personal — it’s just that money and its involvement in journalism is extremely sensitive for very, very obvious reasons. Source: Journalist.
    - jeremy_arnold 5y ago
      Thank you for this amazing screencap!
      - dky45 5y ago
        Thank you for being marked legitimate by dang and using that privilege to level content-free, snarky replies that address absolutely none of the feedback you directly asked for in this thread! Now who isn’t engaging with criticism, again? Literally a journalist showed up to engage with you while you’re banging on that we don’t, so, your reaction here kinda speaks for itself and explains a lot more than you think. Good luck with your news startup.
        jeremy_arnold 5y ago
        If you actually have substantive criticisms (that don't devolve to "I can clairvoyantly intuit your intent and thus know you to be an unreliable narrator even though I'm not going to be concrete/specific anywhere"), I'm happy to hear them! I've written extensively on this topic. My archive is full of specific examples you can adjudicate (many of which were brought to journalists by people who were not me). Earn yourself some correction bucks if you spot any overstatements! But your argument here was abstract, meanspirited, and not a meaningful attempt to take any specifics in my argument seriously. Hence why I screencapped it and intend to use it in my collection of journalists doing exactly that (i.e., reflexively dismissing concerns without any demonstrated curiosity or engagement with the meat of any of my proffered examples). EDIT: Fixed two typos. (Also note what edit marks are what people use to avoid changing what they wrote after the fact!)
        dky45 5y ago
        The best part is that I made up that I’m a journalist just to screw with you but you’re ready to publish it in your book as more evidence of journalists out to get you. I’m a product manager at a FAANG, dude, and I screw around on this forum for fun. Nice fact checking just believing what people say. It’s almost like in a little over half an hour I showed you by force that you have no idea what journalism actually is. (Also, showdead folks, flagging this in under a minute just means he won’t know the truth because he doesn’t know where the showdead button is. A TRUE MORAL DILEMMA! Do you vouch me or do you let him publish a falsehood?! DECISIONS DECISIONS! It’s up to you, HN!)
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Thanks for such a frank response. > building a news org with better incentives and more accountability Interesting. How do you envision changing incentives and accountability? > I came to realize that they have the privilege of just never having to engage with criticism no matter how rendered. I think the journalists and news publications receive and address enormous amounts of criticism. I see it all the time. Realistically, they can't address all of it, and yes it's very annoying to be ignored. (But if they wrote about me in particular, got it wrong, and ignored my response, that would be especially infuriating.) > I wrote about Elon Musk and the Thai cave rescue in 2018 I notice the OP article effectively, if not explicitly, sides with Musk (and others) against ProPublica. Is there a connection?
    - jeremy_arnold 5y ago
      > How do you envision changing incentives and accountability? I'm writing a piece about that on Thursday actually. TLDR is a mix of paying for corrections (really just "more correct information flow") and maintaining a super readable changelog. Also a different reader premise. We'll try to present stories almost in the form of Wikipedia, if each page were managed by a really engaging writer with a good grasp of the subject, who was being fed high-quality feedback. > Realistically, they can't address all of it, and yes it's very annoying to be ignored. I've written about this pretty extensively, and IMO while I'm sympathetic about all the Twitter hate that some of them get, journalism let go of its public editors for a reason. And it's next to impossible to get a staff editor to seriously review anything no matter how you approach. Their whole culture is "ship and move on" at a deep level. And that kinda-maybe made sense in the paper distro days. But it doesn't really serve the reader now compared to what a truly native digital solution could look like. > I notice the OP article effectively, if not explicitly, sides with Musk (and others) against ProPublica. I side with him sometimes, and sometimes I don't. And sometimes where I do I still have a lot to criticize. I ultimately just try to call balls and strikes (with the correction policy keeping me honest). But as a rule, I think tech journalism is pretty poisoned against rich entrepreneurs now, and that the major corrective work in the info market is explaining how they're getting misrepresented, and why.
      - 5y ago
  - md_ 5y ago
    > TLDR is I'm a copywriter turned comms consultant. I work mostly with tech companies. Heh. Cui bono, am I right?

wolverine876 5y ago

Welcome! Thanks for dropping in. Sorry to grill you when we just met, but what is your background, if you are willing to share publicly (I understand if not)? I just like to know who I am reading, especially on the Internets!

jeremy_arnold 5y ago
Grilling is cool. TLDR is I'm a copywriter turned comms consultant. I work mostly with tech companies. My interest in journalism review came just from years of diving into stories on topics I knew and finding them grotesquely misrepresented. This then kicked up a gear when I wrote about Elon Musk and the Thai cave rescue in 2018 and had a bunch of newspapers/journalists shit on my work. I wrote an exhaustive rebuttal to all their points (and offered them money for any mistakes they could find) and they just didn't read it. I came to realize that they have the privilege of just never having to engage with criticism no matter how rendered. So I started my substack to effectively pre-publish chapters of a book I'm writing with a list of examples of really bad journalism from top outlets. Then going to segue from that to my own journalism-esque platform to put my money where my mouth is a far as building a news org with better incentives and more accountability.
- dky45 5y ago
  They didn’t engage with your criticism. Resist the temptation to extrapolate that to conclusions beyond yourself. The idea that as a profession journalists don’t engage with criticism is so demonstrably false it’s absurd. The entire editorial process is engaging with criticism, and it very often comes from outside the newsroom. On a story of this magnitude, that criticism is invited as a matter of policy before publishing (it’s called red teaming). Quite often, that process leads to rereporting, sometimes by another group. You seem to have emotionally reacted to criticism of your own work (which is par for journalism) by declaring that journalism doesn’t get it and needs to be “saved” (from who?). I’m concerned by your personification of a bad experience and the malevolence you’re ascribing to an entire profession as a result, while on the way to sticking your fingers in the same pie. You are coming across as an unreliable narrator in several ways. Even beyond that, you’re going up against ProPublica, not Daily Mail, and it’s very clear from your piece (which I read end to end) that you dove into it in bad faith looking for your intended outcome. It is this comment alone that convinces me you will fail, because you don’t understand why you weren’t engaged and why a lengthy rebuttal to incoming was a waste of your time. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder based on writing about Elon and the Thai thing and not having it go as you’d like which, in the grand scheme of things, matters precisely zero. That you offered money to those journalists as part of that process simply reassures me that you were blocked in their email because that is a fucking stupid thing to do, and I wish that were more apparent to you. You did dumb things by your own account. That almost certainly wasn’t personal — it’s just that money and its involvement in journalism is extremely sensitive for very, very obvious reasons. Source: Journalist.
  - jeremy_arnold 5y ago
    Thank you for this amazing screencap!
    - dky45 5y ago
      Thank you for being marked legitimate by dang and using that privilege to level content-free, snarky replies that address absolutely none of the feedback you directly asked for in this thread! Now who isn’t engaging with criticism, again? Literally a journalist showed up to engage with you while you’re banging on that we don’t, so, your reaction here kinda speaks for itself and explains a lot more than you think. Good luck with your news startup.
      - jeremy_arnold 5y ago
        If you actually have substantive criticisms (that don't devolve to "I can clairvoyantly intuit your intent and thus know you to be an unreliable narrator even though I'm not going to be concrete/specific anywhere"), I'm happy to hear them! I've written extensively on this topic. My archive is full of specific examples you can adjudicate (many of which were brought to journalists by people who were not me). Earn yourself some correction bucks if you spot any overstatements! But your argument here was abstract, meanspirited, and not a meaningful attempt to take any specifics in my argument seriously. Hence why I screencapped it and intend to use it in my collection of journalists doing exactly that (i.e., reflexively dismissing concerns without any demonstrated curiosity or engagement with the meat of any of my proffered examples). EDIT: Fixed two typos. (Also note what edit marks are what people use to avoid changing what they wrote after the fact!)
        dky45 5y ago
        The best part is that I made up that I’m a journalist just to screw with you but you’re ready to publish it in your book as more evidence of journalists out to get you. I’m a product manager at a FAANG, dude, and I screw around on this forum for fun. Nice fact checking just believing what people say. It’s almost like in a little over half an hour I showed you by force that you have no idea what journalism actually is. (Also, showdead folks, flagging this in under a minute just means he won’t know the truth because he doesn’t know where the showdead button is. A TRUE MORAL DILEMMA! Do you vouch me or do you let him publish a falsehood?! DECISIONS DECISIONS! It’s up to you, HN!)
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Thanks for such a frank response. > building a news org with better incentives and more accountability Interesting. How do you envision changing incentives and accountability? > I came to realize that they have the privilege of just never having to engage with criticism no matter how rendered. I think the journalists and news publications receive and address enormous amounts of criticism. I see it all the time. Realistically, they can't address all of it, and yes it's very annoying to be ignored. (But if they wrote about me in particular, got it wrong, and ignored my response, that would be especially infuriating.) > I wrote about Elon Musk and the Thai cave rescue in 2018 I notice the OP article effectively, if not explicitly, sides with Musk (and others) against ProPublica. Is there a connection?
  - jeremy_arnold 5y ago
    > How do you envision changing incentives and accountability? I'm writing a piece about that on Thursday actually. TLDR is a mix of paying for corrections (really just "more correct information flow") and maintaining a super readable changelog. Also a different reader premise. We'll try to present stories almost in the form of Wikipedia, if each page were managed by a really engaging writer with a good grasp of the subject, who was being fed high-quality feedback. > Realistically, they can't address all of it, and yes it's very annoying to be ignored. I've written about this pretty extensively, and IMO while I'm sympathetic about all the Twitter hate that some of them get, journalism let go of its public editors for a reason. And it's next to impossible to get a staff editor to seriously review anything no matter how you approach. Their whole culture is "ship and move on" at a deep level. And that kinda-maybe made sense in the paper distro days. But it doesn't really serve the reader now compared to what a truly native digital solution could look like. > I notice the OP article effectively, if not explicitly, sides with Musk (and others) against ProPublica. I side with him sometimes, and sometimes I don't. And sometimes where I do I still have a lot to criticize. I ultimately just try to call balls and strikes (with the correction policy keeping me honest). But as a rule, I think tech journalism is pretty poisoned against rich entrepreneurs now, and that the major corrective work in the info market is explaining how they're getting misrepresented, and why.
    - 5y ago
- md_ 5y ago
  > TLDR is I'm a copywriter turned comms consultant. I work mostly with tech companies. Heh. Cui bono, am I right?