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> Thanks. I’ve been following unfolding coverage at https://particle.news/share/lRL-d https://particle.news/share/lRL-d but hadn’t caught the Rolling Stone arti

by benzible 10mo ago

> Thanks. I’ve been following unfolding coverage at https://particle.news/share/lRL-d https://particle.news/share/lRL-d but hadn’t caught the Rolling Stone article. I've been following it on my own news app as well, just didn't share a link to it as I thought it might be a bit ghoulish to piggyback on an unspeakably tragic celebrity death for a bit of self-promotion. Also, frustrating that people have somehow landed in a place where they either trust nothing or trust everything, with no ability to calibrate based on the actual track record and incentive structure of the source. People magazine attributing something to "multiple sources" in a case where they, and their billionaire owner Barry Diller, would face massive defamation liability if wrong is categorically different from, say, an anonymous Reddit post or a tweet. The LAPD "no person of interest" thing is also just standard procedure. Cops don't publicly name suspects until charges are filed. Totally normal that the official process is slower than journalism.

eaurouge 10mo ago
What’s your news app?
- mcny 10mo ago
  tech meme and memeorandum for me
- benzible 10mo ago
  I don’t have a news app. That was a maybe too subtle bit of sarcasm aimed at the guy I was responding too who is apparently the creator of a news app called Particle, and who mentioned that he is following the news of these deaths on Particle without mentioning his connection to it. Update: Looks like the parent post has been flagged. I thought that might happen (or the author might edit it) which is why I quoted the original.
pjc50 10mo ago
Worse, people take "fairly reliable mainstream news source makes mistake or publishes propaganda op-ed" as a pretext to jump to sources that are way, way less reliable but publish things they want to hear.
MangoToupe 10mo ago
> People magazine attributing something to "multiple sources" in a case where they, and their billionaire owner Barry Diller, would face massive defamation liability if wrong is categorically different from, say, an anonymous Reddit post or a tweet. They could simply name their source(s) if they wanted to be taken as credible. I don't think a brand has any inherent value and hasn't for many decades. The nytimes helped cheney launder fraudulent evidence for the invasion of iraq for chrissake. Fwiw, maybe it is true. But reliable truth sailed a long time ago.
- cogman10 10mo ago
  It's absolutely defamation if they have no or unreliable sources and something Reiner's son could sue over. They are a big enough publication to know the risks here. They'll reveal those sources to a judge if it comes to it. They won't reveal them to the public because nobody wants to have their name attached to something like this. It could still be false, but I somewhat doubt it is.
  - sdenton4 10mo ago
    Meh. Information is often jumbled and wrong in the immediate aftermath of a newsworthy event, and it is tempting to accept tenuous claims which reinforce one's biases. Take the murder of Bob Lee, in which early reports were a bit off and convinced maaaaany people it was a street crime (confirming their biases about San Francsisco). There's no real advantage to accepting PEOPLE's claim at this point. It's possibly wrong, and we'll probably know the truth in good time.
    - benzible 10mo ago
      The Bob Lee comparison doesn't really hold up. The "random street crime" narrative there was driven primarily by right-wing tech executives on social media - Musk, Sacks, etc. - not by news outlets making factual claims. Fox amplified the SF crime angle but wasn't naming suspects (and I put Fox in it own category anyway, based on its track record). Meanwhile, actual newsrooms did reasonable work: the SF Standard put nine reporters on it and ultimately broke the real story. Other local outlets pushed back on whether SF crime was as "horrific" as tech execs claimed. Most importantly: speculating about the type of crime (random vs. targeted) isn't defamation. Naming a specific living person as a killer is. That's a categorically different level of legal exposure, which is why outlets don't do it unless they're confident in their sourcing. If this kind of reckless misattribution happened as often as people here seem to imply, defamation lawyers would be a lot busier and these outlets would be out of business.
z500 10mo ago
> Also, frustrating that people have somehow landed in a place where they either trust nothing or trust everything, with no ability to calibrate based on the actual track record and incentive structure of the source. I don't read celebrity news, how should I know People's track record?

eaurouge 10mo ago

What’s your news app?

mcny 10mo ago
tech meme and memeorandum for me
benzible 10mo ago
I don’t have a news app. That was a maybe too subtle bit of sarcasm aimed at the guy I was responding too who is apparently the creator of a news app called Particle, and who mentioned that he is following the news of these deaths on Particle without mentioning his connection to it. Update: Looks like the parent post has been flagged. I thought that might happen (or the author might edit it) which is why I quoted the original.

pjc50 10mo ago

Worse, people take "fairly reliable mainstream news source makes mistake or publishes propaganda op-ed" as a pretext to jump to sources that are way, way less reliable but publish things they want to hear.

MangoToupe 10mo ago

> People magazine attributing something to "multiple sources" in a case where they, and their billionaire owner Barry Diller, would face massive defamation liability if wrong is categorically different from, say, an anonymous Reddit post or a tweet. They could simply name their source(s) if they wanted to be taken as credible. I don't think a brand has any inherent value and hasn't for many decades. The nytimes helped cheney launder fraudulent evidence for the invasion of iraq for chrissake. Fwiw, maybe it is true. But reliable truth sailed a long time ago.

cogman10 10mo ago
It's absolutely defamation if they have no or unreliable sources and something Reiner's son could sue over. They are a big enough publication to know the risks here. They'll reveal those sources to a judge if it comes to it. They won't reveal them to the public because nobody wants to have their name attached to something like this. It could still be false, but I somewhat doubt it is.
- sdenton4 10mo ago
  Meh. Information is often jumbled and wrong in the immediate aftermath of a newsworthy event, and it is tempting to accept tenuous claims which reinforce one's biases. Take the murder of Bob Lee, in which early reports were a bit off and convinced maaaaany people it was a street crime (confirming their biases about San Francsisco). There's no real advantage to accepting PEOPLE's claim at this point. It's possibly wrong, and we'll probably know the truth in good time.
  - benzible 10mo ago
    The Bob Lee comparison doesn't really hold up. The "random street crime" narrative there was driven primarily by right-wing tech executives on social media - Musk, Sacks, etc. - not by news outlets making factual claims. Fox amplified the SF crime angle but wasn't naming suspects (and I put Fox in it own category anyway, based on its track record). Meanwhile, actual newsrooms did reasonable work: the SF Standard put nine reporters on it and ultimately broke the real story. Other local outlets pushed back on whether SF crime was as "horrific" as tech execs claimed. Most importantly: speculating about the type of crime (random vs. targeted) isn't defamation. Naming a specific living person as a killer is. That's a categorically different level of legal exposure, which is why outlets don't do it unless they're confident in their sourcing. If this kind of reckless misattribution happened as often as people here seem to imply, defamation lawyers would be a lot busier and these outlets would be out of business.

z500 10mo ago

> Also, frustrating that people have somehow landed in a place where they either trust nothing or trust everything, with no ability to calibrate based on the actual track record and incentive structure of the source. I don't read celebrity news, how should I know People's track record?