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“An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

thehandbasket.co

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Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#91

Post by 9rx »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #38
djoldman wrote: post #34

The news industry makes a lot of sense when viewed as a category of entertainment. Reporters write stories and people read them to be entertained. Newspapers make money when more people read the stories. No wonder that newspapers don't cite others... That's just an advertisement for their competitor. This isn't the only way to view the news industry but it certainly explains a lot.

There's also a professional divide between "journalists" and "bloggers" [0]. If anyone can start their own website and write stuff, without getting any kind of qualification or accreditation, and without following any editorial policy or maintaining any kind of journalistic integrity, and still get credited with a story, then journalism itself has an identity crisis. Meanwhile, (some) journalists at (some) news organ…

> There's no working business model for real investigative journalism, but our democratic systems need real investigative journalism in order to function properly and hold politicians to account.

You just described the perfect business model. A democratic society would be all over that. Who wouldn't pay a small sum to ensure that their employees are kept in line?

The only problem is that most people don't really want democracy. They want replaceable dictators who can do as they please during their stay as long as they step down after the allotted time. That's why said business struggles to find any customers.

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#92

Post by jsmith45 »

TheCowboy wrote: post #40
robocat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> throw you out immediately for plagiarism Only by twisting the meaning of plagiarism to be defined as word-for-word. Universities intensively train students to accept plagiarism so long as the copy is sufficiently reworded (and hopefully referenced). That sick and pointless system is ironically being exposed by student usage of LLMs.

> (and hopefully referenced) If it's cited, it's usually by definition not plagiarism. Omitting the reference is passing the work off as your own, but providing that information is giving credit to where it is due.

That can vary. A fair number of institutions would consider an undergrad paper that consisted mostly of cited quotations, with only a small amount of original analysis and conclusion drawing to be a form of plagiarism, even while a similar paper that paraphrases many of the cited works might be more acceptable, especially if the paraphrasing was adding value, like standardizing equivalent terminology between the sources (ideally including footnotes about what each author originally called each concept).

Other institutions do hold more of a view that plagiarism is not possible with credit, but they will then consider the first mentioned paper as some other form of academic violation.

Even the narrow definition institutions don't view plagiarism purely as misrepresenting sources of ideas as yourself, or self-plagiarism would not be a thing. It ends up as something more like: passing off original ideas from another work as having originated in this current work.

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#93

Post by quesera »

carlosjobim wrote: post #33
orev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are usually also manipulated by those sources Citation needed.

Why are you asking questions whose answers you are not capable of understanding? An anonymous source has the power to decide what information she lets the journalist have, and thus she controls the exchange. If the journalist does something to displease the source, then the journalist is cut off from the information.

> An anonymous source has the power

A non-anonymous source can also practice intentionally-controlled, agenda-servicing, and pleasure-contingent disclosure.

I would estimate that most do.

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#94

Post by carlosjobim »

quesera wrote: post #93
carlosjobim wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you asking questions whose answers you are not capable of understanding? An anonymous source has the power to decide what information she lets the journalist have, and thus she controls the exchange. If the journalist does something to displease the source, then the journalist is cut off from the information.

> An anonymous source has the power A non-anonymous source can also practice intentionally-controlled, agenda-servicing, and pleasure-contingent disclosure. I would estimate that most do.

Yes the will always, the difference is that the public will be able to judge for themselves. And people with a different view have somebody to respond to in public discourse.

And it will be a lot different for a named source to defend why she is making public some things and hiding other things.

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#95

Post by smcin »

pastage wrote: post #65
pell wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With platforms like substack, X, and LinkedIn it seems easier than ever for an independent journalist to cultivate an audience. Cultivating an audience is one thing but serious investigative journalism often takes considerable amount of time and money. Most journalists I’ve seen on Substack and similar platforms seem to mainly do commentary, summaries of topics, interviews, and the like. There is a place for that o…

And it is also easy to waste time on multi year projects that does not fit you current audience. If you present the result you need to slant it in the correct way to sell subscription. This is very visible with journalist that live on the whim donations. You see people become more and more extreme because that is what get them donations. This might just be what works with humans.

"audience drift" or "subscriber drift"

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#96

Post by jameshart »

a_bonobo wrote: post #44
t-3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they cite their sources, next time you might just check the sources instead of them, or be able to tell when they're making shit up, or be able to see what they're careful not to say. Hiding the sources and being the middleman for truth gives journalists continued employment and increases their value.

I think this is the reason why articles about recent research in 99% of cases don't cite the research itself past something vague like 'Researchers from Harvard University have discovered..'. It's maddening when you then have to look for the paper using the article's few hints, but usually turns out that the paper's claims are far more careful/'smaller scale' than the news article's claims.

If researchers in a university lab in China do something, the attribution might just be ‘China has invented…’

The next time you roll your eyes at the nonsense a White House press secretary says at a podium, remember that overseas it might just get reported as “The United States today announced…”

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#97

Post by davidsainez »

Max-Ganz-II wrote: post #76

She's on BlueSky, which is where I came to know of her. She has been essential to keeping up to date with developments in the USA regarding Donald. I subscribed to her newsletter last month. It seems to me mainstream media doesn't really cut the mustard. I get most of my information these days from specialist blogs, run by individuals.

Direct link to her profile: https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#98

Post by robocat »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #72
robocat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> throw you out immediately for plagiarism Only by twisting the meaning of plagiarism to be defined as word-for-word. Universities intensively train students to accept plagiarism so long as the copy is sufficiently reworded (and hopefully referenced). That sick and pointless system is ironically being exposed by student usage of LLMs.

Not sure what kind of university you went to but at mine it was always about ideas. If you get an idea from somewhere else, you had to cite the original work, no matter how much you rewrote it. It's not just direct quotes that need to be cited. That of course doesn't mean that every instance of plagiarism is actually detected but the principles are there.

Perhaps paraphrasing is specific to New Zealand? Students are very strongly encouraged here to rewrite everything into "their own words" and they are penalised if they don't (plagiarism detection software has been used for years to detect sentences that were not paraphrased by students).

Auckland University https://learningessentials.auckland.ac.nz/writing-effectivel... says:

  Direct quotes from other sources should only be used when absolutely necessary. It is best to paraphrase the quote or summarise the ideas when you use other people’s writing.
Massey University https://owll.massey.ac.nz/referencing/paraphrasing-and-summa... says:

  in your assignment, you need to ensure that there is enough difference in form between the original [words] and your own summarised version. This may be achieved by simplifying the ideas, as well as using a different sentence structure or sentence order to present those ideas.
Equivalent examples from all NZ universities: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Aac.nz+paraphrase

Students are forced to do it here in NZ. I find it dishonest and pointless. Although generally I'm rather cynical about the value of university education here.

Searching for "paraphrase" comes up with other suggestions which demonstrate that students are searching for tools to do it for them. That isn't a recent development with LLMs.

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#99

Post by 6510 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #38
djoldman wrote: post #34

The news industry makes a lot of sense when viewed as a category of entertainment. Reporters write stories and people read them to be entertained. Newspapers make money when more people read the stories. No wonder that newspapers don't cite others... That's just an advertisement for their competitor. This isn't the only way to view the news industry but it certainly explains a lot.

There's also a professional divide between "journalists" and "bloggers" [0]. If anyone can start their own website and write stuff, without getting any kind of qualification or accreditation, and without following any editorial policy or maintaining any kind of journalistic integrity, and still get credited with a story, then journalism itself has an identity crisis. Meanwhile, (some) journalists at (some) news organ…

You are looking for a historian.

Re: “An independent journalist” who won't remain nameless

#100

Post by genewitch »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #88
miki123211 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no working business model for real investigative journalism Shortselling and prediction markets.

But if we treat prediction markets as a source of truth, then those with wealth can spend it to distort the prediction market. Lots of arbitrage opportunity, there: you might even be able to turn a profit! This is the sort of thing that only works if hardly anyone is doing it, and hardly anyone takes it seriously. (It's like most "free market" solutions, in that regard: the conditions for a free market are actually q…

I'm hard pressed to not see an undertone of the GameStop saga in your last paragraph.
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