Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#71

Post by ihsw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 6:56 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #60

ihsw wrote: post #28

It still doesn't change the fact that news orgs universally lack the time to conduct real journalism -- fake news is a direct result of reducing the time that journalists have to vet and verify content. Frankly I'm quite happy about "fake news" proliferating, it makes obvious how hopeless and useless news orgs are. They peddle claptrap and tripe with reckless abandon. Facebook could throw ten thousand engineers at th…

> Conduct real journalism with well-paid staff that have the time to do their job I can guarantee you that every single editor in the country would like to have well-paid staff who have the time to do their job well. And if you can come up with a business model to make it happen, well then I am willing to dub you the savior of the news industry. But absent any suggestions about how news organizations can actually acc…

I don't mind kicking them when they're down, news org editors are some of the most vile scum of the earth. They have no shame about peddling garbage.

Unless they make a sincere effort to restore trust by reporting the news instead of trying to shape society by controlling the narrative then I will happily dig their grave. At this point there is no news org I rank higher than Reddit comments -- it's all a stream of piss coming from partisan hacks.

As for business model suggestions, my only suggestion is cut the crap. They can either subject themselves to the indignity of peddling garbage to make money thereby destroying their credibility or they can procure a staff of well-read and well-written folks that have a history of neutrality.

Partnering with FB is a one-way trip to the former while the latter is a logical impossibility, news orgs inevitably stoop to partisan nonsense. Either report the news and don't get scared about alienating your ad sponsors/viewers or you peddle garbage to make money.

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#72

Post by Spellman » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 6:56 PM UTC

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #55

ihsw wrote: post #28

It still doesn't change the fact that news orgs universally lack the time to conduct real journalism -- fake news is a direct result of reducing the time that journalists have to vet and verify content. Frankly I'm quite happy about "fake news" proliferating, it makes obvious how hopeless and useless news orgs are. They peddle claptrap and tripe with reckless abandon. Facebook could throw ten thousand engineers at th…

What do you mean by fake news? It seems to have started out as actual made up news by organisations/people/websites pretending to be news organisations, but actually just making things up - eg. The pope endorsing Trump story and I'm sure loads more on both sides. Then some professor published his list of fake news sites, and included a bunch of conservative media sites as well as satire as well as obvious fake news,…

Personally, I'd argue the following to be "fake news"

* Completely made-up

* Kernel of truth with context completely removed (see far-Right, far-Left, and sensationalist papers)

That leaves quite a bit of partisan news in the gray-but-OK zone, including several partisan sites that seem to solely exist to signal boost the most embarrassing and negative news of their opponents.

Perhaps the most clever thing, that you note, is the far-fringe groups are now calling the center Mainstream Media "fake news" as well. Which is the height of clever co-opting to me.

EDIT: formatting

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#73

Post by ljk » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 6:59 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #48

Ghostium wrote: post #20

Introducing: The Facebook Censoring Project

Fine line between censorship and moderation.

pretty clear line:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/technology/facebook-censo...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38073949

http://www.forbes.com/sites/xiangwang/2016/11/24/doing-busin...

list goes on

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#74

Post by niftich » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 6:59 PM UTC

ihsw wrote: post #71

jawns wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Conduct real journalism with well-paid staff that have the time to do their job I can guarantee you that every single editor in the country would like to have well-paid staff who have the time to do their job well. And if you can come up with a business model to make it happen, well then I am willing to dub you the savior of the news industry. But absent any suggestions about how news organizations can actually acc…

I don't mind kicking them when they're down, news org editors are some of the most vile scum of the earth. They have no shame about peddling garbage. Unless they make a sincere effort to restore trust by reporting the news instead of trying to shape society by controlling the narrative then I will happily dig their grave. At this point there is no news org I rank higher than Reddit comments -- it's all a stream of pi…

I have a difficult time envisioning what sort of journalism you expect. Is investigative reporting okay? Are opinion pieces off limits? Are government sources acceptable, or should they be excluded? What about business owners speaking on matters about which they're likely to have conflicts of interest?

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#75

Post by NoGravitas » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #64

NoGravitas wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite an oversimplification. Your characterization of the alternative media is sometimes right (except that they're usually not making up stories -- they're usually summarizing stories produced by regular journalists, often with an editorial overlay). But there are also alternative media sources doing real research and investigative journalism, like Democracy Now! and the Intercept. On the other hand, the bigg…

The Iraq War happened well over a decade ago. And the New York Times et al all did internal reviews of their behaviour and made substantive changes. From Morning Joe, this morning, you can already see that the New York Times has learnt lessons from that era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaI0u0ZdpMg So the idea that they should still after all this time be permanently tainted is ridiculous and frankly is just an ex…

Maybe a decade seems like a long time to you; not to me. I may just be old. But I also never saw any documentation about those internal reviews and substantive changes -- I would like to see them. From an outsider's perspective, however, it doesn't look like anything has changed.

Cokie Roberts is still employed, for example /snark

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#76

Post by threeseed » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

niftich wrote: post #74

ihsw wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind kicking them when they're down, news org editors are some of the most vile scum of the earth. They have no shame about peddling garbage. Unless they make a sincere effort to restore trust by reporting the news instead of trying to shape society by controlling the narrative then I will happily dig their grave. At this point there is no news org I rank higher than Reddit comments -- it's all a stream of pi…

I have a difficult time envisioning what sort of journalism you expect. Is investigative reporting okay? Are opinion pieces off limits? Are government sources acceptable, or should they be excluded? What about business owners speaking on matters about which they're likely to have conflicts of interest?

Don't bother. It's pure confirmation bias.

People like this are just looking for an excuse to ignore all of the mainstream media so that they can plot their own path. Nothing respected organisations can do would change their mind. Unfortunately this path is how we ended up with PizzaGate.

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#77

Post by bobcostas55 » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #41

collias wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Yesterday was a great example of mainstream sources losing credibility. They were all over the (as far as I know) totally unverified document that an intelligence agency decided to leak to Buzzfeed for some reason. They wonder why no one trusts them anymore...

The mainstream media did a fine job. Your criticism is completely misplaced. The New York Times, CNN, Guardian etc all reported the verified facts. Which is that a report was produced by an ex-MI6 spy looking into allegations that Russia had amongst others compromising video involving prostitutes/golden showers and President Elect Trump. This report was obtained by John McCain and passed to the FBI for verification.…

>They didn't publish the report. They didn't publish the allegations.

That just makes it worse, doesn't it? The actual allegations are so insane it's obvious they're fake. By hiding them, they make it appear credible.

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#78

Post by gdulli » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #67

threeseed wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake news should only really refer to the type of news that was generated from the kids in Eastern Europe i.e. completely made up with zero truth behind it. Unfortunately fake news has come to mean "news that I disagree with". Like today when Trump tweeted that the BuzzFeed story was fake news even though there was nothing fake about it. Just that the claims were as yet unverified.

There's plenty of fake news on both sides. It's amazing to me that people can be so far up their ass to no not notice that.

> Coler's company, Disinfomedia, owns many faux news sites — he won't say how many. But he says his is one of the biggest fake-news businesses out there, which makes him a sort of godfather of the industry.

> Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait.

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#79

Post by serge2k » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #62

jawns wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Conduct real journalism with well-paid staff that have the time to do their job I can guarantee you that every single editor in the country would like to have well-paid staff who have the time to do their job well. And if you can come up with a business model to make it happen, well then I am willing to dub you the savior of the news industry. But absent any suggestions about how news organizations can actually acc…

Hilariously enough one company has a business model that is working: BuzzFeed. They have been using the money raised from their clickbait business to operate BuzzFeed News. Which actually is a very distinct unit containing highly respected, award winning journalists who work on old school, long form journalism. Example: https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/super-court

and in exchange they have turned their name to trash. I know they do are doing some quality work and I still feel a bit dirty clicking on an article from buzzfeed.

Re: Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project

#80

Post by devoply » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 7:13 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #47

jawns wrote: post #16

This is sort of like Amazon announcing that it wants to strengthen its partnership with mom-and-pop shops, and help those mom-and-pop shops sell products in new and innovative ways. I'm a former journalist who used to work for a metro daily newspaper that has long suffered, as most newspapers have, from declining ad revenue. For these papers, the only reason to partner with Facebook is because they feel they have lit…

This. I'm a back end dev at a small non-profit news org and it blows my mind how fast my employer wants us to integrate with FB instant articles and AMP without considering the consequences (AMP traffic staying in Google's network, etc.) Coming from a startup where our data was proprietary and execution meant everything, it feels weird sometimes that I get paid to make it as easy as possible for Google, FB, and other…

Content is free, not just from the amateurs, from the pros too. Laughing all the way to the bank. One of the reasons why MySpace was bought, but at the time it was already dying.