4 ms·

Media orgs will have a commercial deal with AP or Reuters that lets them more or less cut and paste whatever they want. Here the guy got lazy and started copyi

Media orgs will have a commercial deal with AP or Reuters that lets them more or less cut and paste whatever they want. Here the guy got lazy and started copying filler from media without any agreement I don’t see how it puts into question any fact checking though - the guy was just taking shortcuts to build articles, by plagiarising reliable journalists

ruined 5y ago
it puts it into question because plagiarism like this is generally seen as unethical, and if you can prove someone did a significantly unethical thing, everything else they do can be put under scrutiny
sbuttgereit 5y ago
Snopes is fundamentally trafficking in "trust". People refer to them with the question if something heard or seen should be trusted. Plagiarism is fundamentally a violation of trust: it represents work as original when it is not. If trust is violated in the production of the work, why would you believe that the facts presented are themselves trustworthy? Even if the plagiarist doesn't desire to mislead factually, they've already taken shady shortcuts to save some time... why wouldn't they also take shortcuts on diligence or verification? The problem is once trust is lost, you can't take for granted any measure of reliability given that trust verification is their product.
meowface 5y ago
It doesn't disprove any fact-checking articles, but, as a hypothetical example, imagine if you learned a fact-checker was convicted of writing lots of bad checks. They might be perfectly honest in other areas of their life, but it creates a lot more skepticism, since you know they're willing to be dishonest in that one case. Plagiarism isn't necessarily as dishonest as financial fraud, but it's still a form of dishonesty and likely also intellectual laziness. Dishonesty and intellectual laziness are the opposites of what you want in a credible debunker/verifier, no matter the relevance or severity.

ruined 5y ago

it puts it into question because plagiarism like this is generally seen as unethical, and if you can prove someone did a significantly unethical thing, everything else they do can be put under scrutiny

sbuttgereit 5y ago

Snopes is fundamentally trafficking in "trust". People refer to them with the question if something heard or seen should be trusted. Plagiarism is fundamentally a violation of trust: it represents work as original when it is not. If trust is violated in the production of the work, why would you believe that the facts presented are themselves trustworthy? Even if the plagiarist doesn't desire to mislead factually, they've already taken shady shortcuts to save some time... why wouldn't they also take shortcuts on diligence or verification? The problem is once trust is lost, you can't take for granted any measure of reliability given that trust verification is their product.

meowface 5y ago

It doesn't disprove any fact-checking articles, but, as a hypothetical example, imagine if you learned a fact-checker was convicted of writing lots of bad checks. They might be perfectly honest in other areas of their life, but it creates a lot more skepticism, since you know they're willing to be dishonest in that one case. Plagiarism isn't necessarily as dishonest as financial fraud, but it's still a form of dishonesty and likely also intellectual laziness. Dishonesty and intellectual laziness are the opposites of what you want in a credible debunker/verifier, no matter the relevance or severity.