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You did no fact checking, and I must scream

shkspr.mobi

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Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#101

Post by chaps »

ffsm8 wrote: post #99
chaps wrote: post #28

I've done a fair amount of data-intensive fact checking for journalism articles and have had fact checking done on my own data-intensive reporting. Couple things: 1. Fact checkers are not paid enough to do what they do. They're usually freelancers and they're usually financially struggling. The dynamics of that are difficult to say the least. 2. Editors change things last minute without informing the journalist whose…

> It sucks being a journalist. Donate to your local investigative newsroom. That sounds like absolutely atrocious living conditions for the journalists employed by such a news room. Honestly, at that point - look for a different job! I'm not saying this to be mean, I am just picturing myself in such a working relationship of being employed by an organization working in an industry which is hemorrhaging valuation beca…

I'm no longer doing journalism as my main gig and I'm much healthier these days thankfully.

Use this energy to consider donating to a newsroom. :)

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#102

Post by projektfu »

chaps wrote: post #28

I've done a fair amount of data-intensive fact checking for journalism articles and have had fact checking done on my own data-intensive reporting. Couple things: 1. Fact checkers are not paid enough to do what they do. They're usually freelancers and they're usually financially struggling. The dynamics of that are difficult to say the least. 2. Editors change things last minute without informing the journalist whose…

How much does it cost to check one fact? If you check just one, and it's wrong, it's probably not worth treating the whole as an accurate piece of reporting. If BBC had checked just one fact in the slop, they could easily decide that it's not worth republishing.

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#103

Post by chaps »

lynx97 wrote: post #100
chaps wrote: post #28

I've done a fair amount of data-intensive fact checking for journalism articles and have had fact checking done on my own data-intensive reporting. Couple things: 1. Fact checkers are not paid enough to do what they do. They're usually freelancers and they're usually financially struggling. The dynamics of that are difficult to say the least. 2. Editors change things last minute without informing the journalist whose…

So you're saying the pay is poor, and your coworkers deliberately fuck you over for their own gains. That pretty much sounds like a job you should stay away from by any cost. Do something else, something productive that doesnt lead to a bunch of lies being sold as truths.

These problems are largely economic. Donate to your local investigative newsroom.

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#104

Post by oceansky »

BurningFrog wrote: post #90
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For-profit media is definitely a problem, but Jeff Bezos didn't buy the Washington Post and Elon Musk didn't buy Twitter because they thought they were more profitable than any other investments they could have made. I believe they did it because they wanted the power that owning a media outlet can provide in order to help protect their actually profitable businesses. It certainly helps that they have their own reven…

Elon was quite clear the he bought Twitter to make it a free speech forum where you could openly discuss things, even from non establishment standpoints. And that's what it's become.

Except if you post "cisgender" or if you track Elon Musk's jet.

Edit: oh, and if you want to block his account from your feed, you can't

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#105

Post by chaps »

projektfu wrote: post #102
chaps wrote: post #28

I've done a fair amount of data-intensive fact checking for journalism articles and have had fact checking done on my own data-intensive reporting. Couple things: 1. Fact checkers are not paid enough to do what they do. They're usually freelancers and they're usually financially struggling. The dynamics of that are difficult to say the least. 2. Editors change things last minute without informing the journalist whose…

How much does it cost to check one fact? If you check just one, and it's wrong, it's probably not worth treating the whole as an accurate piece of reporting. If BBC had checked just one fact in the slop, they could easily decide that it's not worth republishing.

Why do you focus on "one fact"? Reporting, fact checking, editing is a fluid project that changes as the piece progresses. What needs fact checking in one draft is very different from what needs fact checking in another draft. And like I said, editors make changes that the fact checkers never see.

Again, these are economic problems. Donate to your local investigative newsroom.

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#106

Post by busymom0 »

"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#107

Post by projektfu »

beej71 wrote: post #97

Good reading for the ever-dwindling group of people who like facts. I remember there was a friend of mine who was of the opposite political persuasion, generally, than myself. He posted something that was demonstrably wrong to Facebook. And I was embarrassed for him just as much as I be embarrassed for myself having posted something so inaccurate. So I offered a friendly correction, but he replied in an unexpected wa…

Sen. JD Vance stood by his false claim that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio — an unsupported story that former President Donald Trump has also echoed on the debate stage and on social media.

During a Sunday interview on CNN, the Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee said his evidence for this claim was "the first-hand accounts of my constituents." He then went on to defend the dissemination of this false story.

“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes," Sen. Vance said. "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do."

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/15/nx-s1-5113140/vance-false-cla...

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#108

Post by layer8 »

travisgriggs wrote: post #32

> The media have comprehensively failed us. Good. The author didn’t make the mistake of calling it the “news”. I have for a long time felt that there is nuance about our “press” that doesn’t have good words in the public dialog. I struggle to articulate it myself. Our modern “free press” is only free in that government is mostly not censoring it. But the press of today is a for profit endeavour. So it is not free to…

The press has always been for profit, it was never a charity. What I see today is a mix of trying to maximize profits (which is different from merely making a living from it), and it being more difficult nowadays to make money from diligent journalism, mostly due to how the internet works.

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#109

Post by projektfu »

chaps wrote: post #105
projektfu wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does it cost to check one fact? If you check just one, and it's wrong, it's probably not worth treating the whole as an accurate piece of reporting. If BBC had checked just one fact in the slop, they could easily decide that it's not worth republishing.

Why do you focus on "one fact"? Reporting, fact checking, editing is a fluid project that changes as the piece progresses. What needs fact checking in one draft is very different from what needs fact checking in another draft. And like I said, editors make changes that the fact checkers never see. Again, these are economic problems. Donate to your local investigative newsroom.

The OP is about a news org basically republishing a viral text its people didn't write. There is no particular need to check every most of the facts like the OP did when a quick glance tells you that it's unreliable.

Re: You did no fact checking, and I must scream

#110

Post by oceansky »

projektfu wrote: post #107
beej71 wrote: post #97

Good reading for the ever-dwindling group of people who like facts. I remember there was a friend of mine who was of the opposite political persuasion, generally, than myself. He posted something that was demonstrably wrong to Facebook. And I was embarrassed for him just as much as I be embarrassed for myself having posted something so inaccurate. So I offered a friendly correction, but he replied in an unexpected wa…

Sen. JD Vance stood by his false claim that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio — an unsupported story that former President Donald Trump has also echoed on the debate stage and on social media. During a Sunday interview on CNN, the Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee said his evidence for this claim was "the first-hand accounts of my constituents." He then went on to defend the d…

“Margaret, the rules were that you weren’t going to fact check.”
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