81–90 of 266 posts
I wish the NYT would clarify or retract this piece/headline https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/russia-cyber-... > Widely Used Software Company May Be Entry Point for Huge U.S. Hacking > Russian hackers may have piggybacked on a tool developed by JetBrains, which is based in the Czech Republic, to gain access to federal government and private sector systems in the United States. My company has banned Jetbr…
Seems like it would be easy to have a change log at the bottom of every article that tracks edits. There’s probably three free widgets like this on GitHub that would work just fine.
It’s not just knowing the edit history, however. When journalists make mistakes their retractions and corrections must be given the same exposure as the original content, to correct the record meaningfully. Otherwise the damage has already been done and people will take the initial content with them forward, shaping their opinions accordingly.
Better to focus on something that’s actually actionable, like adding a change log.
One of the problems with trust is that people see corrections and admitting ignorance as signs of unreliability and confidence and stubbornness as signs of reliability. I can't count the number of times someone arguing with me has dug up a correction or retraction page on something unrelated as proof that a source is nonsense. If they did issue a pile of corrections and changes, this post would instead be "the thousa…
Instead of trying to engineer trust, why not actually be trustworthy, admit your mistakes and become better?
Superficially, they have a news agency with seemingly no errors in one hand and one with a thousand corrections in the other. Unless you are willing to consider that the errorless news agency is just not admitting it, one seems nice and consistent and reliable and one seems clumsy and stupid.
I wish the NYT would clarify or retract this piece/headline https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/russia-cyber-... > Widely Used Software Company May Be Entry Point for Huge U.S. Hacking > Russian hackers may have piggybacked on a tool developed by JetBrains, which is based in the Czech Republic, to gain access to federal government and private sector systems in the United States. My company has banned Jetbr…
If your company bases security decisions on articles in the NYT then they’re beyond helping. Frankly that’s both laughable and incompetent. No professional (in any field) should base a decision solely on something written in any secondary source. Even if it was a specialist publication, a competent professional should do their own research, and look at the primary sources. Imagine if a doctor or civil engineer based…
The problem is that many companies have lots of clients that don’t have this reasoning capability. The reputation damage is much worse than the actual harm if you’re a “known contractor compromised by Russia” or whatever the dumb narrative is. It’s literally easier to drop it immediately “pending investigation”.
For most news organizations in our new world order it's not an error if it's intentional bias. Those are called lies. Lies have a purpose. We need to ask, "Why lie?". And then use the answer to fix the news.
Like most humans journalists have opinions, and they are more likely to listen to things that confirm their opinions.
Most people are not likely to ask "Is this really true?" of things that align with what they believe is probably true.
Professional journalists are supposed to know about these kinds of biases - because if they do not they are professional only in name.
Further, if someone was repeatedly making these kinds of mistakes in their job, you'd be right to call them incompetent, because they literally are.
For some reason it appears to be taboo to say these journalists are bad at their job. However that isn't very helpful because it doesn't encourage them to change their behavior. Even the article here appears to dance around the bush.
So here it is:
The NYT and The New Yorker are unprofessional, incompetent, and their reputation is in no way justified. They should be ashamed, apologize, and vow to do better. Where they stand in relation to other outlets doesn't even factor into it.
And the above goes for any group of journalists who played their part in the inversion of the profession's reputation in recent years.
Anyways, that's my take on the matter. I don't think the vast majority of journalists who make these kinds of errors are intentionally lying - they are just bad at their job.
What happens when substacks make mistakes?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This makes me wonder, 3 branches of government exist to balance each other out. Journalism stands on its own, what’s the counter balance to journalism?
Social media
One of the problems with trust is that people see corrections and admitting ignorance as signs of unreliability and confidence and stubbornness as signs of reliability. I can't count the number of times someone arguing with me has dug up a correction or retraction page on something unrelated as proof that a source is nonsense. If they did issue a pile of corrections and changes, this post would instead be "the thousa…
Which would still be valid, because making tons of mistakes is still a sign of unreliability regardless of whether or not you admit to them.
Nobody is infallible but a larger number of mistakes is worse than a smaller number. And it is by no means impossible for a publication to have higher standards or a better record.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Instead of trying to engineer trust, why not actually be trustworthy, admit your mistakes and become better?
Because for many people, the making of mistakes is what makes you unreliable and untrustworthy. Superficially, they have a news agency with seemingly no errors in one hand and one with a thousand corrections in the other. Unless you are willing to consider that the errorless news agency is just not admitting it, one seems nice and consistent and reliable and one seems clumsy and stupid.