I mean, yeah.
Also probably extremely unqualified to be one.
We really should get way more research methodology stuff into school curriculums from much earlier.
Or maybe we require large newspapers and other single owner/large audience influencers to cite sources if they make claims and make them liable if it turns out to be false… because we‘re unable to read our medications instructions or the terms of the products we use.
I‘m not against education. But i would like to hold people who make claims accountable additionally to enabling the public to do research.
to cite sources if they make claims
Problematic.
If we begin divulging our sources to the companies and governments we report on, we can no longer credibly offer vulnerable sources protection and those sources would understandably not trust us and would not be willing to talk to us.
Or maybe we require large newspapers and other single owner/large audience influencers to cite sources if they make claims and make them liable if it turns out to be false… […]
Well, defamation laws do exist [1]. Other than things like that, I think one should be very careful with such times of laws as, imo, they begin encroaching rather rapidly on freedom of speech.
References
- “Defamation”. Wikipedia. Published: 2024-12-09T15:41Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T07:02Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Laws_by_jurisdiction.
- §“Laws by jurisdiction”.
Defamation is very far away from our current situation. Europe is on the correct path imo in holding those who profit from disinformation accountable.
There should be no right to abuse others verbally or spread disinformation. Of course you can always use this in bad faith as a government but that is what we have assasins for.
[…] that is what we have assasins for.
Imo, this isn’t sustainable in a stable, and civil society.
[…] Europe is on the correct path imo in holding those who profit from disinformation accountable. […]
I’m unfamiliar with those specific laws. Could you cite what your referring to for my reference?
[…] There should be no right to abuse others verbally or spread disinformation. Of course you can always use this in bad faith as a government […]
For clarity, are you referring to the government abusing the judicial system to silence someone with opinions they don’t like?
- “Defamation”. Wikipedia. Published: 2024-12-09T15:41Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T07:02Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Laws_by_jurisdiction.
Well, that works if the only vector of misinformation is broadcast-based, but it’s not. There are far fewer gatekeepers now than there were last century, you don’t just have to fact check what comes up the traditional media pipe, also social media claims and claims from marginal sources. Both of which look pretty much identical to traditional media in the forms that most people consume them, which is a big part of the issue.
And, of course, anonymous sourcing and source protection still has a place, it’s not as trivial as that.
In any case, there are no silver bullets here. This is the world we live in. We’re in mitigation mode now.
[…] anonymous sourcing and source protection still has a place […]
I agree. Though, anecdotally, I’m not exactly fond of how some news outlets that I’ve come across use such types of sources — they use some adulterated quote snipped buried within their article; I think it would be better if they, for example, post explicitly the entire unadulterated (within good reason) transcript of the anonymous source with all relevant metadata cited along with it, and then cite that in whatever article.
Yeah, it’s a problematic tool, for sure. In politics in particular it can be used to present interested or partisan information as factual or to manufacture a story. Happens all the time.
That’s why loopholes are loopholes and controlling misinformation is so hard. Perfectly legitimate tools can be used maliciously or unethically and there are very valuable babies in that bathwater that shouldn’t be sacrificed in pursuit of easy solutions.
Well, that works if the only vector of misinformation is broadcast-based, but it’s not. […]
Could you elaborate on what you mean?
I’m saying that holding a news outlet accountable for accuracy could work in a news landscape where people get their information from a handful of outlets that all reach a broad audience. In a world where a lot of people get small pieces of misinformation from thousands or millions of tiny sources spread across social media it is much harder to keep a centralized control on accuracy for all those communications, even discounting all the issues with free speech and opinion.
I’m saying that holding a news outlet accountable for accuracy could work in a news landscape where people get their information from a handful of outlets that all reach a broad audience. In a world where a lot of people get small pieces of misinformation from thousands or millions of tiny sources spread across social media it is much harder to keep a centralized control on accuracy for all those communications
Hm, I do agree that many outlets/sources may make things “messier”, but I don’t think that it would mean that the laws could no longer apply — for example, I think, defamation laws could still apply to anyone.
As I think someone else already pointed out, defamation is not a major part of the issue and it’s already in place quite strictly in many places without making a dent on the issue.
And yes, it’s absolutely defeated by scale. You can’t start a legal process against every single tweet and facebook post (let alone every message in a Whatsapp group you can’t even see in the first place). As with paywalls, the aggregate effect ends up being that large outlets are held to a high standard while misinformation spread through social media is not just cheaper to make but less accountable.
[…] without making a dent on the issue.
“the issue” being misinformation and disinformation that’s not defamation?
[…] You can’t start a legal process against every single tweet and facebook post (let alone every message in a Whatsapp group you can’t even see in the first place). […]
Imo, theoretically one could, but I think that it would be impractical, or at least prohibitively expensive.
Of course not. My point stands though.
The eu is doing a somewhat decent job pushing for platform liability although I would say we need more and harder measures in that case.
Of course all your points apply too so the skill of fact checking needs to be honed. But keeping potential drivers of misinformation accountable is paramount.
Sure, it’s a hard line to walk against free speech, though.
I am more concerned about access. Reliable, high quality information is increasingly paywalled, while disinformation is very much not. That is a big problem and, again, one with no easy solutions. If people with the skillset and the disposition need to charge to keep their jobs while meme farmss keep pumping out bad faith narratives funded by hostile actors it’s going to be hard to reverse course.
I alsmost wonder if accuntability takes the shape of public funding for information access on outlets meeting certain oversight standards, but that is a very hard sell in a political landscape where some political groups benefit from the current situation.
Yes indeed.
Free speech or freeze peach as I call the populist american approach is no right. It is just a way for people to manipulate the lesser privileged.
The european way of free speech is you are allowed to say whatever you want as long as you harm noone with it. Knowingly spreading lies is the latter. If thats anti free speech to you, then tough luck.
Europe’s approach to free speech (in general, there are tons of countries with different takes) is that it’s a right along with a bunch of others and it gets limitations like all others. I agree, the US view of rights as places where you do whatever you want and everybody else has to deal with the fallout is fundamentally different to the social democracy approach.
But free speech remains a fundamental right for democracy. If you allow governments to have too much control over resources, private speech or news reporting you end up on the other end of the spectrum, where public resources are spent reinforcing the position of whatever the current government is.
This is and has always been one of the hardest balancing acts of healthy democracies, and it’s borderline impossible in a world dominated by for-profit social media and hostile actors deliberately using communication as a weapon.
Also probably extremely unqualified to be one.
Are you saying that I’m unqualified to be a journalist?
Well, I don’t know you personally. I’m saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job.
Which explains a lot of how the 21st century is going, honestly.
is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job
Wait wait… are you saying I’m unqualified to be a journalist? Because yeah you are probably right.
Also Bayes and stat pilled.
[…] are you saying I’m unqualified to be a journalist? Because yeah you are probably right. […]
What makes you think that you are unqualified?
What makes you think that you are unqualified?
A more than cursory knowledge of statistics.
Which explains a lot of how the 21st century is going, honestly.
I agree with the conclusion, but not the premise, or at least not if used as an explicit argument — I think your premise is itself an example for your conclusion. I believe your premise is more an example of why there is, arguably, such a problem with misinformation and disinformation right now: I think it serves to increase the risk to appeals to authority; though, it’s a double edged sword as, imo, unchecked skepticism erodes one’s trust in reality.
I don’t think I know what you’re trying to say there. Can you rephrase that more straightforwardly for me?
I’m of the belief that anyone is capable of being a journalist regardless of their qualifications. I think that restricting that through elitism directly leads to appeals to authority (I’ve seen examples of that itt [1][2][3][4]) — appeals to authority, I think, is one of the root causes for why, anecdotally, news outlets have become so lazy in citing their sources — why cite sources if people will believe what you say regardless? Whether or not something is good journalism, by definition, imo, is self-evident — it doesn’t matter who did the work, so long as it is accurate.
References
- @Hikermick@lemmy.world [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-11T05:03:33Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:01Z. https://lemmy.world/comment/13908617.
When reading hard news from an outlet that actually hires journalists I consider that to be the source. […]
- @OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml. [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-11T08:06:53Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:06Z. https://lemmy.ml/comment/15451608.
News outlets are generally graded by their historical reputabilitiy. If you find yourself continuously fact checking it, maybe consider following a better news outlet […]
- @JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-10T14:54:41Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:11Z. https://lemmy.world/comment/13896551.
[…] Professional journalists are like doctors in that they’ve committed themselves to a code of ethics. As citizens we are called on to trust them to not make sh*t up. […]
- @jeffw@lemmy.world [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-10T08:37:58Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:16Z. https://lemmy.world/comment/13892346.
Legitimate news outlets do pretty thorough fact-checking, if only to avoid litigation
Everybody is capable of being a journalist, but not everybody knows how. Qualifications are just some confirmation that someone has gone through some training. The training is to get the required skills. Capacity to get there doesn’t mean everybody is born with the right skillset or this would not be an issue in the first place.
Hence the education angle. You train kids earlier while the subjects they study are universal and prevent a scenario where a lot of people can’t fact check their own information or aren’t aware of their own biases.
Which is to say, no, good journalism isn’t self-evident. If it was, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation because the free market would lift up good journalism, presumably.
Confirmation bias is universal, however, so it takes a lot of work to learn to bypass it.
[…] good journalism isn’t self-evident. If it was, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation because the free market would lift up good journalism, presumably.
Hm, perhaps my usage of “self-evident” isn’t super accurate here — I agree that one needs to be taught/be in possession of the knowledge for how to determine if a sample of journalism is “good”. What I mean to say is that I think articles contain within themselves all that is required to determine if are examples of good or bad journalism — all that’s required is for someone to know what to look for in the article to determine that for themself.
- @Hikermick@lemmy.world [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-11T05:03:33Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:01Z. https://lemmy.world/comment/13908617.
[…] I’m saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job. […]
What, in your opinion, would determine if someone is qualified to fact check a news article? Do you have criteria?
Like I said, we should get research methods taught in school from very early on. For one thing, understanding what even counts as a source is not a trivial problem, let alone an independent source, let alone a credible independent source.
There’s the mechanics of sourcing things (from home and on a computer, I presume we don’t want every private citizen to be making phone calls to verify every claim they come across in social media), a basic understanding of archival and how to get access to it and either a light understanding of the subject matter or how to get access to somebody who has it.
There’s a reason it’s supposed to be a full time job, but you can definitely teach kids enough of the basics to both assess the quality of what they come across and how to mitigate the worst of it. In all seriousness.
[…] understanding what even counts as a source is not a trivial problem, let alone an independent source, let alone a credible independent source. […]
I agree.
[…] I presume we don’t want every private citizen to be making phone calls to verify every claim they come across in social media […]
Can you clarify exactly what you are referring to here?
Well, a journalist would often be expected to get in touch with a source directly, which is not feasible if we’re all doing it.
I’ll grant you, it very often doesn’t happen, but still.
Well, a journalist would often be expected to get in touch with a source directly, which is not feasible if we’re all doing it.
Are you saying that journalism only deals in novel information?
[…] we should get research methods taught in school from very early on. […]
I agree.
[…] There’s a reason it’s supposed to be a full time job […]
For clarity, by “it” are you referring to journalism?
I’m assuming you’re in a microblogging flavor of federation and that’s why this is broken down into a bunch of posts?
Yes, I’m referring to journalism.
Yes, I’m referring to journalism.
Okay, well I don’t exactly follow the relevance of your claim that journalism can be practiced full-time. I also don’t exactly follow the usage of your language “supposed to”. Imo, one needn’t be a full-time journalist to practice journalism.
I’m assuming you’re in a microblogging flavor of federation and that’s why this is broken down into a bunch of posts?
No, I’m not on a microblogging platform. I personally prefer to post atomic comments. I believe that threads should be restricted in scope so that they are clearer and easier to follow. I think that it also helps prevent miscommunications.
I think you might have missed the subtle point @mudman was making about marginal probabilities. Its not about their thresholds; any reasonable threshold would exclude the vast majority of people, mostly because the vast majority of people aren’t journalists / don’t have that training.
I wish there were a fact checking website that allowed checking any article and calculating scores e.g how many claims are linked, where do the links point to (available or not), are the linked pages trust-worthy themselves, detecting link circles ( A -> B -> C -> A), and so on. Or at least something that provided us the tools to do community fact-checking in the open.
yeah sorta. journalism was supposed to be more about fact checking back in that day rather than first to post. The rumor mill filled that niche. Does seem like news nowadays is more like the rumor mill.
most towns used to have more than one newspaper and they used to display their political bias happily on the front page.
all the sides were represented by five or six different people discussing an issue with maybe each person bringing a different side from a different paper to the discussion.
tv and cable and internet tore apart that public dialectic.
and it forced fewer papers to try to portray more sides “equally”.
now a city is lucky if it has one newspaper. and they can’t possibly cover every angle any longer because if you have been in a newsroom in the past 15 years for most small to medium town they are like four people now when 30 was required for reporting, photography, editing, and classified section. And the big towns now might have two that both bend towards the middle from the left and right with a stripped down, skinny and pissed workers.
So sorry conversation amongst a varied and well read public is required for that to work.
and no one reads anymore we all just write and move on.
It makes you a rational human.
There have been journalists publishing accidentally and maliciously false articles since the dawn of the press.
It’s healthy to engage in appropriate scepticism of all that you read, particularly that of the press. Fact check everything that doesn’t feel right (or anything that feels too reductive or simplified), over time you get a feel for who the serial liars are and who are generally reporting faithfully
News outlets are generally graded by their historical reputabilitiy. If you find yourself continuously fact checking it, maybe consider following a better news outlet (even if they publish more “boring” stories that aren’t as “up to date”): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources
I would also love to see a better place for keeping news outlets accountable for their bad publishing actions. Wikipedia does, but it happens on discussion pages and it relies on human editors who know where those discussions happened to string it together
LoL. I guess manufacturing consent for wars does absolutely nothing to harm their credibility. This list is dogshit.
The New York Times has been a full-throated government mouthpiece since at least 9/11. At this point, Teen Vogue has more credibility.
If you have evidence of them lying, you’re more than welcome to submit that on the discussion pages. I don’t know which articles you’re referring to, but given my historical knowledge of wars in the Middle-East, they likely sourced US mouthpieces or analysts, rather than making the claims themself
LoL. Are people unaware of the NYT’s culpability?
Acting as a stenographer for the state isn’t “journalism.”
He asked for sources and you just act superior and yet didn’t provide sources.
The sources
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_controversies
Take those with necessary salt and tequila if wanted. One of them is literally “nyt is mean to apartheid musk”
If I tell him the sky is blue, and he asked for a source, am I obligated to provide that as well?
I’m not going to play along with bad faith questioning of common knowledge.
[…] I’m not going to play along with bad faith questioning of common knowledge.
Leaving aside the “bad faith questioning” component, how would you handle requests for proof of what you are calling “common knowledge” in general?
You’ll find “common knowledge” is surprisingly hard to prove when you’re wrong. Wikipedia is a big place, if you can find concrete evidence of NYT lying, you can do a lot of reputational damage to them (even as so far as getting them removed as an acceptable source)
Seeing a lot of bots defend Wikipedia the past couple months. Is that because it’s so easily manipulated by y’all?
If I tell him the sky is blue, and he asked for a source, am I obligated to provide that as well? […]
Imo, while not exactly proper science, a quick source for such a claim would be a simple color photo of the sky.
This person thinks that Ukraine invaded Russia, FYI.
Yeah, but that doesn’t make them wrong and the NYT
NAFO bot has arrived to defend the military industrial complex with lies. Right on schedule.
I don’t even know what a NAFO is but sure. Everyone but you is a robot. Is reality even real? Do the snozberries taste like snozberries? Are we really breathing or is the air forcing us to live?
Yes, everyone who’s on here defending western imperialism is either a bot or propagandized to hell. Either one is fair to write off.
Beep boop
That is a good recipe for sneaking lies into the newspaper. Journalists should just be doing their job.
Journalists have one job: produce revenue one way or another. Informing the public of factual or fictional events is a byproduct of running this business.
Some definitely do that
[…] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources […]
Thank you for sharing that link! 😊
[…] I would also love to see a better place for keeping news outlets accountable for their bad publishing actions. […]
It’s not immediately clear to me what you mean. Are you referring to increased transparency when a news outlet makes a mistake? Are you referring to legal action? Are you referring to something else?
Just a place where people can call out and crowdsource lies that news outlets publish
Hard to believe that when I’ve seen many of the “historically reputable” sources on that list flagrantly lying and spreading pro genocide props over the past 13 months
Being pro genocide is an opinion technically. If you have a “flagrant lie”, however, please post it. There was another wanker in the thread who claimed equal grand claims of lies but failed to come up with a link showing an actual lie
So I read through this, and unfortunately there’s nothing concrete. Every error has been corrected, and the errors that remain are opinion pieces which can’t be listed as a source on Wikipedia. Due to WP:RECENT, this means no place where Wikipedia refers to the New York Times as a source will be asserting incorrect information.
This probably isn’t the response you want, but that’s the truth about their reporting.
Edit: If you still want to try and bring it up, this is what I had written in my draft:
The following article has been brought to my attention: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537121.2024.2394292#abstract While the issues raised in this paper tend to focus on bias, and factual errors were later corrected in many cases (which should be suffice due to WP:RECENT), the section of "Misquoting Israeli leaders" refers to multiple errors in reporting from the New York Times that remain uncorrected. ~~~~(This is before I noticed the uncorrected parts are Opinion pieces, so I stopped)
You can post it here, but you will probably be shut down for the same reasons I mentioned above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard
I see your sources. I will check Wikipedia to see if there has been discussion on it, if not, I will bring it up and get back to you.
(On phone right now so I can’t)
Well good. Luck with that, but my experience trying to get changes through on Wikipedia is that it just takes one person with an agenda to stubbornly go “nuh-uh” and there nothing you can do about it
I used to edit Wikipedia for a long time, so I know what you’re saying - but if you’re actually correct, you’ll generally win (may require pinging some other people who know you to come in to mediate)
It’s a balance to hit in article sharing communities too.
Too much leniency, and you just end up with people posting DMG articles, and tiny un-sourced blogs with snazzy titles.
Too tough, and you end up spending your entire life justifying why various borderline sources are not suitable.DMG articles?
News outlets are generally graded by their historical reputabilitiy. […]
While that’s good data to have, I think that any claims should be immediately verifiable. I think it’s a disservice to the truth and public discourse to rely on appeals to authority for trust in one’s published news. Imo, an argument is either sound or unsound — an atomic claim is either accurate or inaccurate.
Well I’m something of a
scientistJournalist myselfImo, yes you are!
No. Because a) you don’t have to and b) no one is paying you
[…] no one is paying you […]
Is that necessary…?
