2 ms·

Because articles should provide their sources, not simply claim things. It is not the readers job.

runarberg 3y ago
This article is based off of interviews with climate scientists. If you want their sources, look up the scientists on your favorite search engine, Twitter, or Mastodon. Al Jazeera is a news journal, not a science journal, usually news journal don’t publish sources in the same way as science journals do. If you are lucky, and the news is about one study in particular, they might link to the study, but most of the time they simply publish the story and it is up to the reader to seek out more details.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  I think we are disagreeing about how they should work. I understand that they currently don’t do this. My point is that they should be doing it. It costs the news agencies 5 seconds of their time. But it saved the readers and independent fact-checkers many multiples of that.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    I guess that is the point—as well as the value—of posting news articles like these to forums like HN. An ancestor of yours posted a few studies by the ADL which back up a similar point. Perhaps it is not ideal, but this way the writers of Al Jazeera can focus on their most obvious target audience—people who just want the story—while the more curious among us can find the sources and share on these forums.
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      I saw that. But I don’t want similar points. I what the exact points put forth by the article. But again, they already have the sources. They know exactly what reference they are using for facts they bring up. The extra work involved is Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V. The exact same argument could be said about scientific papers. The benefit of the community is that they will do the detective work of finding the references. I don’t know about you, but I would see this as a serious step backward. Business documents also have to back up their statements. Even 15 year olds in school are expected to include references. Let’s look at what they do include links for: > In another analysis, prominent climatologist Katharine Hayhoe monitored responses to a tweet on climate change that she published twice, as an experiment, on separate dates before and after Musk’s takeover. The italics are mine and they are a hyperlink in the article. Reading that sentence I, and I suspect many others, would expect the hyperlink to take us to something related to Katharine Hayhoe‘a work. But it doesn’t. It takes us to [1], which is talking about Musk making himself the sole director. That link is basically irrelevant as a reference for that paragraph. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/11/1/elon-musk-fires-twitter-board-making-himself-sole-director https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/11/1/elon-musk-fires-...
      - runarberg 3y ago
        I’m actually not sure the Al Jazeera writer has the sources, as this piece is done by interviewing the scientists. The journalist simply asked the scientists and reported on what they said. Surely the journalist could ask the scientists for sources, and maybe they should have, and maybe they did but the scientist didn’t have them at hand at that exact moment. But if you are interested, here is the tweet in question: https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1640915926152298497 https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1640915926152298497 In journalism it is often more important to find sources which back each other up, rather then finding original research. In this case the journalist interviews a few scientists that all tell a similar story. I think the journalist here is simply doing what they have been trained to do.
        _aavaa_ 3y ago
        The link you provide unfortunately cannot be the source. The article discusses an A/B test on an identical tweet that they put out. The tweet is talking about follower changes (research that was done by Ketan Joshi "and a few other climate folks", which based on Katharine's wording of the tweet it doesn't look like she had a part in).
Dudelander 3y ago
I would agree with you, but articles almost never cite their sources directly, and never really did.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  Poor past practices are not an argument for continuing to do them. They also used to be written on actual paper which doesn’t support hyperlinking, but the Internet thankfully does.

This article is based off of interviews with climate scientists. If you want their sources, look up the scientists on your favorite search engine, Twitter, or Mastodon. Al Jazeera is a news journal, not a science journal, usually news journal don’t publish sources in the same way as science journals do. If you are lucky, and the news is about one study in particular, they might link to the study, but most of the time they simply publish the story and it is up to the reader to seek out more details.

_aavaa_ 3y ago
I think we are disagreeing about how they should work. I understand that they currently don’t do this. My point is that they should be doing it. It costs the news agencies 5 seconds of their time. But it saved the readers and independent fact-checkers many multiples of that.
- runarberg 3y ago
  I guess that is the point—as well as the value—of posting news articles like these to forums like HN. An ancestor of yours posted a few studies by the ADL which back up a similar point. Perhaps it is not ideal, but this way the writers of Al Jazeera can focus on their most obvious target audience—people who just want the story—while the more curious among us can find the sources and share on these forums.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    I saw that. But I don’t want similar points. I what the exact points put forth by the article. But again, they already have the sources. They know exactly what reference they are using for facts they bring up. The extra work involved is Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V. The exact same argument could be said about scientific papers. The benefit of the community is that they will do the detective work of finding the references. I don’t know about you, but I would see this as a serious step backward. Business documents also have to back up their statements. Even 15 year olds in school are expected to include references. Let’s look at what they do include links for: > In another analysis, prominent climatologist Katharine Hayhoe monitored responses to a tweet on climate change that she published twice, as an experiment, on separate dates before and after Musk’s takeover. The italics are mine and they are a hyperlink in the article. Reading that sentence I, and I suspect many others, would expect the hyperlink to take us to something related to Katharine Hayhoe‘a work. But it doesn’t. It takes us to [1], which is talking about Musk making himself the sole director. That link is basically irrelevant as a reference for that paragraph. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/11/1/elon-musk-fires-twitter-board-making-himself-sole-director https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/11/1/elon-musk-fires-...
    - runarberg 3y ago
      I’m actually not sure the Al Jazeera writer has the sources, as this piece is done by interviewing the scientists. The journalist simply asked the scientists and reported on what they said. Surely the journalist could ask the scientists for sources, and maybe they should have, and maybe they did but the scientist didn’t have them at hand at that exact moment. But if you are interested, here is the tweet in question: https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1640915926152298497 https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1640915926152298497 In journalism it is often more important to find sources which back each other up, rather then finding original research. In this case the journalist interviews a few scientists that all tell a similar story. I think the journalist here is simply doing what they have been trained to do.
      - _aavaa_ 3y ago
        The link you provide unfortunately cannot be the source. The article discusses an A/B test on an identical tweet that they put out. The tweet is talking about follower changes (research that was done by Ketan Joshi "and a few other climate folks", which based on Katharine's wording of the tweet it doesn't look like she had a part in).

Dudelander 3y ago

I would agree with you, but articles almost never cite their sources directly, and never really did.

_aavaa_ 3y ago
Poor past practices are not an argument for continuing to do them. They also used to be written on actual paper which doesn’t support hyperlinking, but the Internet thankfully does.