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Don’t believe everything you read

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Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#81

Post by adrockdust »

VonGuard wrote: post #60
te_platt wrote: post #20

How many of you laughed at how credulous news sites are before verifying that this blog post was accurate? Finding a reliable news source is hard, and not just in the games industry. Even here on Hacker News I usually read a headline, wonder if it's true, check the comments for contrarian views, then read the article.

Journalist here. FYI, the day someone I don't know emails me with a "hot inside tip" is a day I spend tracking down the emailer and calling my sources within the target company. Just so you know, even at the big news sites, good hot tips from unknown emailers just never happen. Great hot tips come from getting corporate employees drunk, then chasing down their leads from other directions when you're sober. Anonymous…

Never underestimate the value of a disgruntled employee.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#82

Post by ddunkin »

mikeleeorg wrote: post #66

A response from Rob Crossley: https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149670496768002 https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149784678322176 https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149862562353152 https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149937736847363

Rob did two great things: 1) He did not trust the source, and questioned the authenticity. 2) He actually called him out on BS when he continued

The first false message from Joe is interesting, but once Rob replies, and Joe continues trying to push the lie, that's a little dick'ish. The second Rob replied, with his first, and extremely professional response, I would have apologized/congratulated him, and explained what I was doing.

Continuing the charade invites deserved anger. I don't like being lied to either, especially when I know the person was lying and keeps pushing the lie.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#83

Post by stretchwithme »

VonGuard wrote: post #59
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #31

This is why reputation and reliability matter. While the example in this post is the equivalent of "I got major news outlets like TMZ to think that Paris Hilton was getting married" many types of news aren't so inconsequential. In the first few days after the Connecticut shooting, there were so many inaccuracies it made me reconsider other "facts" I heard which were never obviously wrong (e.g. it became obvious that…

In a way, there is already a system like this in your brain. Reputation is something you formulate yourself based on meta-information about the outlet you're reading. You do this already: ever read an article and look up at the URL to check and see if it's hosted at a reputable source, like nytimes.com or salon.com? What would help is more meta data available to the reader. So, instead of measuring an unmeasurable "t…

Your brain already has the ability to judge relevance too.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#84

Post by Dylan16807 »

kordless wrote: post #4

In summary, author blames gaming sites for lack of journalistic integrity at the same time he fails to notice he is a liar and a snark. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Uh.

Being a hypocrite does not invalidate someone's point. You're providing a 'summary' that's useless.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#85

Post by jpatokal »

mikeleeorg wrote: post #66

A response from Rob Crossley: https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149670496768002 https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149784678322176 https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149862562353152 https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149937736847363

Amazing -- and this is the person that "Joe" is calling "completely unprofessional, childish, insulting and downright ugly in his comments". Joe, did it even occur to you that maybe those adjectives better describe people like you who not only set up hoaxes, but get their panties in a twist when someone's smart enough not to fall for them?

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#86

Post by pippy »

There's a couple of problems with this post:

1) what if an employee really wanted to leak information anonymously?

2) rumors like these are fun, and let's face it, the subject matter isn't very important.

If it were someone embezzling millions in a company it would be a different story.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#87

Post by philwelch »

rayiner wrote: post #54

From TFA: "The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily publish guesswork as news." Yeah, it's not just the gaming media. The 4th estate is pretty much just a rotting corpse, and online media isn't any better (but at least it's free). There is an awesome insider book about media manipulation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-church/ryan-holiday-tru... .

I hope you were being wryly ironic posting a Huffington Post link. The best part of the review was this:

"The way the media is organized today is bad, he argues, because it no longer cares for quality journalism. Sources aren't checked. Facts are dubious guesses at best. Mistakes are never corrected. No, the media cares more for gossip and things that make readers emotionally charged -- as that's what makes us share stuff."

Describes HuffPo to a T.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#88

Post by mxxx »

gwright wrote: post #14

> The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily publish guesswork as news. Ha. Ha. Assessing the credibility of news sources is far from a solved problem. It doesn't matter if it is breaking news, business news (in any industry), public policy news, finance news, etc.

Yeah, I have to pretty strongly disagree with his statement there. All kinds of news outlets get caught with this kind of stuff time and time again.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#90

Post by koide »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #31

This is why reputation and reliability matter. While the example in this post is the equivalent of "I got major news outlets like TMZ to think that Paris Hilton was getting married" many types of news aren't so inconsequential. In the first few days after the Connecticut shooting, there were so many inaccuracies it made me reconsider other "facts" I heard which were never obviously wrong (e.g. it became obvious that…

http://hypothes.is/ is trying to solve that problem. It's an interesting take on it.
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