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France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

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Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#3
In today's world of race to the finish (/ bottom) journalism, I think it should be mandatory for all publications to have an addendum to each article, which contains:

* list of sources of information and original research conducted ( including names of interviewees, only anonymized with a justification, links, etc )

* a sign-off by a journalist (note: not supposed to imply responsibility or liability for accuracy of information, only that the addendum is representative of the research done)

* A hash of a archive file containing all collected information (including interview transcripts/notes, etc) with a responsibility to keep this archive for X years and to provide it to regulators on request; info can be anonymized/redacted as deemed necessary

Combine this with a fine for the publication if they failed to verify information with a reasonable effort, and it could do a lot of good for the world of news.

Of course all regulation comes with pitfalls, and there are many with this idea, especially with the fine aspect. Probably enough to make it undesirable.

But it is the only one I have to improve things.

Edit:

Since this has been mentioned: it's possible to allow anonymous sources, but eg with the rule that anonymization has to be justified and may not be abused.

But this feeds into the biggest problem with the whole idea: a fine can give regulators too much power to punish publications arbitrarily.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#7
post #3

In today's world of race to the finish (/ bottom) journalism, I think it should be mandatory for all publications to have an addendum to each article, which contains: * list of sources of information and original research conducted ( including names of interviewees, only anonymized with a justification, links, etc ) * a sign-off by a journalist (note: not supposed to imply responsibility or liability for accuracy of…

Only because there doesn't seem any way to fuck this up right now, doesn't mean there, in fact, isn't. The ongoing pattern is that "at the time it seemed like the right thing to publish", when in fact it's just about spinning the spin. You can't prove how certain the publishers were about their spin at the time of publishing, not even with your suggested solution, that I guess, would only get more journalists fired, and last time I checked there's already plenty of that.

Like how Snopes' fact checker seemed like a good idea, before they started getting things wrong too now and then. I mean, of course, it's not likely there's a holy grail solution and we're stuck in having to evaluate every day anew, which sources we trust and which we don't.

Regarding the part where spinning the spin is at least followed up by corrections and apologies - which few people read, anyway, after the damage is done, but there's NewsGuard, which does fairly technical editorial rating, which i find a very good idea.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#8
Here's an article from 2016 that seems to contemporaneously describe the incident at hand:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161123142234/https://www.bloom...

> Vinci SA fell victim to a fake release claiming the French builder had fired its finance chief amid accounting irregularities, prompting the stock to plunge before the company denied the report.

> Bloomberg News was among the few news organizations to report from the false statement.

> “We are a victim of a hoax,” spokesman Paul-Alexis Bouquet said on Tuesday, denying that the Paris-based company had released any statement. Although the company’s website hadn’t been hacked, technically speaking, fake statements had been sent in the company’s name, he said.

> Investors were caught off guard after the publication of a release saying that Vinci had discovered an accounting error and had fired Chief Financial Officer Christian Labeyrie. The shares plunged 18 percent, the most in more than 17 years, before Bouquet said the report was false. Vinci will file a complaint about the incident, the spokesman said.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#9
post #3

In today's world of race to the finish (/ bottom) journalism, I think it should be mandatory for all publications to have an addendum to each article, which contains: * list of sources of information and original research conducted ( including names of interviewees, only anonymized with a justification, links, etc ) * a sign-off by a journalist (note: not supposed to imply responsibility or liability for accuracy of…

All that sounds well, but it also has some nasty side effects. Anonymous sources and whistle blowers would not be possible anymore while very much needed.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#10
post #3

In today's world of race to the finish (/ bottom) journalism, I think it should be mandatory for all publications to have an addendum to each article, which contains: * list of sources of information and original research conducted ( including names of interviewees, only anonymized with a justification, links, etc ) * a sign-off by a journalist (note: not supposed to imply responsibility or liability for accuracy of…

As you already mentioned, there are many pitfalls. I think the biggest one is that the journalism source protection would not work if sources have to be public and all the information available to regulators on demand.
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