[HN Gopher] "An independent journalist" who won't remain nameless
___________________________________________________________________
"An independent journalist" who won't remain nameless
Author : mooreds
Score : 251 points
Date : 2025-05-03 18:53 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thehandbasket.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thehandbasket.co)
| ty6853 wrote:
| At $100k / resettlement it might be the world's cheapest
| citizenship by investment program. The closest I can think of is
| the Comoros program which I believe Saudi or another Arab country
| used to get rid of a bunch of immigrants.
| salomonk_mur wrote:
| You don't get citizenship. Just jail time.
| rurban wrote:
| Esp. without due process. "A judge ordered his release".
| Which triggered Trump to send him to Guantanamo 2.0 Because
| who is some rogue judge vs the executive.
| xyst wrote:
| It shocks me to this day that news articles and journalists
| barely cite their sources. The best I have seen is shitty
| hyperlinked sources l, which are subject to link rot over time.
| Thus losing the context/source if underlying paper goes under or
| company decides to overhaul content system.
|
| What's the point of learning APA or MLA citation in high school
| and college but journalists don't even bother with it? Insane to
| me.
|
| Would address the complaints of the author _and_ help readers
| "trust but verify" the claims. Of course, some sources can't be
| cited properly (ie, "source close to inner circle of the family")
| but at least we can discern whether "journalist" did their DD or
| copied the source from another journalist (or just pulled it out
| of their ass)
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Open source journalism is the only kind of open source I can
| stand behind. Completely. Anything else isn't really
| journalism.
| kurthr wrote:
| Um, No True Journalist?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Jornalists who hide their sources are usually also
| manipulated by those sources. How do you make sure as a
| journalist to get access to high ranking sources within the
| powers that be? You write the stories they want, or they're
| not talking to you anymore.
|
| Every journalist will experience politicians and other
| powerful people wanting to tell them things "off the
| record". If they enter into those kind of agreements they
| are also betraying their profession and their audience.
| orev wrote:
| > are usually also manipulated by those sources
|
| Citation needed.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Agreed. This person has never been a journalist.
|
| / Former journalist
| carlosjobim wrote:
| 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.
| quesera wrote:
| > _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.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| 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.
| simonw wrote:
| If you are a journalist working with a source who asks to
| stay anonymous your number one job is to ensure that they
| aren't lying to you in order to to advance their own
| agenda.
|
| Obviously they have an agenda, and want to advance it, so
| you need to figure out what that agenda is.
|
| The next challenge is confirming that what they are
| telling you is true, to an appropriate level of
| confidence at least. Your professional ethics and your
| editor (and your legal team at larger publications) won't
| let you publish if you can't do that.
|
| There are many ways you can do that - ask them to show
| you supporting evidence (usually documents) for example -
| but the most common is to try and find a _different_
| source who can confirm what they are telling you is true.
|
| If you can get two sources - anonymous or not - to
| confirm the same detail and you're reasonably confident
| that those sources don't know about each other that's
| often good enough to get to something you can publish.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Unless the source is a whistleblower, their agenda will
| usually be dirty if they want to be anonymous. And then
| you're at their whim, because they control the flow of
| information. If they're showing supporting documents,
| those documents should be open sourced* to the public or
| they shouldn't be seen by the journalist.
|
| * As much as needed for the public to be able to verify.
| t-3 wrote:
| 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.
| Retric wrote:
| > next time you might just check the sources instead of them
|
| That's really not the point of journalism.
|
| Not every story makes it to HN's front page let alone every
| document. That kind of filtering for interesting info has
| real value as I don't want to read every court document,
| press release, etc for relevant information.
| nailer wrote:
| It seems you think most journalists are benevolent. The
| parent poster is making the point that some journalists
| seek power by filtering and manipulating the conversation.
| That also seems reasonable. You can look at some cases of
| hoaxes perpetuated by the media that were clearly designed
| to create controversy and enhance the writer's profile at
| the expense of what actually happened.
| Retric wrote:
| Not benevolent, the goal is generally somewhere between
| entertainment, advertising, and propaganda.
|
| My point was nobody comes back if it's not generally
| interesting, that's the baseline for the industry.
| t-3 wrote:
| Providing summaries of stuff that happened for people who
| don't have time to actually look at original sources or
| sort the wheat from the chaff but still want to pay
| attention is a useful service, but an awful lot of what
| passes for journalism these days is just a train of people
| summarizing or rewriting another person's summary of a
| rewriting of a summary. If you check multiple news sites on
| a regular basis, it's easy to find nearly-identical
| articles popping up with little-to-no difference in content
| that masquerade as original or at best obliquely name drop
| another outlet or journalist in the middle of a sentence in
| the middle of a paragraph near the end of the article.
| Retric wrote:
| Sure, and well before LLM's computer programs were
| writing junk articles on what happened in a football game
| and such. But how companies fill a 24/7 news cycle is
| only vaguely related to journalism. The AP news wire has
| done wonders to these companies bottom line by minimizing
| the need for actual reporting vs simply repackaging
| existing content.
|
| Still someone needed to find the underlying interesting
| bit of information before everyone else could add their
| own spin to it.
| jowea wrote:
| I think they just don't want those precious eyeballs leaving
| their site.
| a_bonobo wrote:
| 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.
| jameshart wrote:
| 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..."
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What's the point of learning APA or MLA citation in high
| school and college but journalists don't even bother with it?_
|
| Because journalism doesn't use the same type of citation as an
| academic paper. It's an entirely different type of writing, for
| a different purpose, and a different audience.
|
| If you want to know why journalists use anonymous sources, you
| could just Google it: https://www.nytimes.com/article/why-new-
| york-times-anonymous...
|
| But I suppose complaining on the internet and making up false
| equivalencies is better for feeding one's righteous
| indignation.
| jowea wrote:
| I'm not 100% sure if previous poster is annoyed at the same
| thing as me, but if that is the case, we're not annoyed at
| the newspapers not giving names to their anonymous sources.
|
| It's when they do science reporting and say "a new study says
| blah" without linking to the study. Or they paraphrase a law
| proposal submitted by some lawmaker without linking to the
| original text. Or they repeat something they got from another
| news source without pointing it out. And even if they do, as
| the previous poster mention, it is subject to link rot.
| Frankly I think they do that because of the attention
| economy. Less eyeballs leaving their site.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Journalists protect their sources all the time. This is common
| practice in journalism and it actually helps to keep things
| neutral. It also helps to protect the innocent.
|
| If a journalist protects her sources then she can rely on a
| steady stream of information from them. If she divulges or
| betrays those sources, they could be reluctant to feed her
| further information. A source may be at political or legal risk
| for leaking to the press. The journalist therefore acknowledges
| those risks by protecting the identities of the sources.
|
| It is the editorial board of the news outlet who is responsible
| for vetting sources and fact-checking. Another very important
| function of journalism is analysis. The editorial board and the
| reporters are collating various sources of information and
| providing their expertise by analyzing these facts, distilling
| them and presenting them to the public with a unified front.
|
| It is true that an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia has different
| standards, and generally citations on an encyclopedia must be
| transparent and open. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources, not
| journalism, and they rely on that analysis and presentation by
| journalistic sources in order to present comprehensive
| information on a topic.
|
| Now with all that being said, TFA seems to be about an
| independent journalist who is the victim of widespread
| plagiarism. That isn't nearly the same thing. If this
| journalist is getting ripped off by major news outlets, that is
| certainly a problem. Every journalist deserves a byline and
| credit for writing those stories. This journalist is not a
| source, in herself, but rather producing print-ready material
| that should not be ripped off, willy-nilly, by any outlet that
| thinks they can get away with it. If these allegations are
| true, then that is quite unjust.
| triceratops wrote:
| They're talking about source documents, not people who are
| sources.
| jameshart wrote:
| Sadly I think people are confusing 'citing sources' with
| 'journalistic sources' which are two different things.
|
| Journalists are generally very good at attributing information
| to _journalistic sources_. That is, when they relay a claim
| someone has made, they state who made that claim - ideally by
| naming them, but if the person making the claim wishes to
| remain anonymous and the journalist chooses to respect that
| anonymity, by attributing the information to e.g. 'sources
| familiar with the matter'; in such a case the journalist is
| asserting 'I know this person is in a position to know this
| information, but I can't tell you who that is'.
|
| That's all _fine_. And has nothing to do with APA or MLA
| citation standards though.
|
| When it comes to citing reporting from other media, there's
| definitely some sloppiness. In general the instinct is to use
| the same 'journalistic sourcing' standard as above, but caveat
| it with a sort of hearsay warning: 'according to reporting in
| the Washington Post, sources familiar with the meeting said
| "..."'. And that's where Marisa Kabas's complaints lie: she
| wants to get that level of attribution which print journalists
| typically accord one another, and not be relegated to 'an
| independent journalist'.
|
| But when it comes to citations, the thing you're most right
| about where journalists often do not cite their sources is in
| the form of linking to primary material they used in
| preparation of the report. Academic papers, government reports,
| court judgements, official transcripts of speeches... there's a
| lot of primary documents it would be great to be able to get
| hold of if you want to dig further into a story.
| monkeyelite wrote:
| > What's the point of learning APA or MLA citation
|
| To give teachers an objective criteria to grade with - in an
| otherwise subjective assignment.
| globalnode wrote:
| Isn't it for journalists' protection that they try to remain semi
| anonymous or at least out of the limelight? You just have to look
| at Assange for an example of what happens when you try to become
| a well known person representing certain topics.
| mooreds wrote:
| In this case, the journalist wants credit ("first reported by")
| from other news organizations for doing the reporting work
| first. She has a public blog, I don't think she's worried about
| being known.
|
| It's different than a journalist doing work where their
| identity could be problematic.
| simonw wrote:
| The vast majority of journalists are proud to put their name to
| their reporting. Cases where a journalist tries to stay semi-
| anonymous are rare, outside of reporting on despotic regimes,
| organized crime or other scenarios where there is a legitimate
| high-risk safety threat.
| mullingitover wrote:
| It's funny that universities will throw you out immediately for
| plagiarism (some will throw you out if you're _aware of it but
| don 't report it_), but major publications will do it (this isn't
| the same as scholastic plagiarism, but it's the journalistic
| equivalent) out in the open and shamelessly with no
| repercussions.
| robocat wrote:
| > 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.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| It is indeed worthwhile to point out that universities care
| less about the actual idea of taking someone else's work, but
| rather more about the idea of doing so without credit. In the
| charitable sense, this is what science is built on. In the
| less charitable sense, this is what science is built on
| TheCowboy wrote:
| > (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.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| 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.
| JohnKemeny wrote:
| The main issue is that students don't have original ideas, at
| least not way into their master's project.
|
| This means that every single thing they write throughout
| their studies is some regurgitation of stuff they find
| elsewhere.
|
| To avoid having a reference after every single sentence, we
| need to allow them to pretend that some of the stuff they
| read is common knowledge, and can thus be passed on as such,
| without reference.
|
| But if someone else actually wrote the sentence, that would
| be plagiarism, hence writing it in your own words.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| 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.
| robocat wrote:
| 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.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| There's really very little objectivity in the study of English
| writing. It would make sense that teachers would gravitate to
| the only real objective part of their discipline - citations -
| in a desperate attempt to be able to reliably test students. No
| surprise the profession has embraced citations to the point of
| absurdity.
|
| Granted, teaching soft skills _is_ hard but English teachers
| seem to have universally given up trying at all.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| There used to be. There once was a host of rules one had to
| follow, from spelling to sentence structure. Students were
| tested on thier objective ability to recognize and correct
| grammar. That is now dead. Schools accept junk so long as it
| nails the citation format. Students are taught that they can
| rely on culture and common knowedge rather than bother with
| proper language.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Testing grammar is objective but it's hardly any better.
| It's a waste of advanced education time.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| The whole point of the humanities is to deal with topics that
| are more subjective by nature. That's what makes them
| beautiful. It's a feature not a bug. If you want some
| objective facts about language study Linguistics.
| xyzal wrote:
| You don't pay for your news? Well, you get what you pay for.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I pay for my news and one of the sources I pay is one of the
| sources she complains about
| emmelaich wrote:
| Site seems to be down or overloaded so here's an archive link:
| https://archive.is/ziyRe
| compuser0503 wrote:
| I can clearly understand why this journalist is mad - she broke
| the story but she isn't getting the benefits (readership, money)
| from it. That would feel unfair for sure.
|
| But the complaint that bigger outlets didn't immediately follow
| her story by crediting her seems like an understandable situation
| from the other outlets' point of view. Who will take the heat if
| it's wrong? A popular outlet that runs with it will get shit on
| if it's wrong, even if it's citing the independent journalist as
| the source (in a way they won't if they were just following
| another popular outlet).
|
| So these outlets need to either 1) verify it on their own, or 2)
| cite another popular outlet.
|
| It'd still be courteous to name the original reporter, but until
| she's built enough clout and reputation to stand on her own as a
| credible source, it seems structural that this will keep
| happening.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| It's not understandable, it's abusive. These large outlets have
| the resource to both verify, credit the original work, and deal
| with the fallout. That they choose not to comes from avarice
| that should be regulated or litigable.
| djoldman wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Modern news sites refer to other new sites frequently. "as
| reported by _____" is seen frequently. links to other sites'
| Twitt..er, X feeds are also common.
| padolsey wrote:
| > That's just an advertisement for their competitor.
|
| I think the simpler explanation is just laziness and no
| positive incentive or obligation, as opposed to proactive
| competitive practices..
| permo-w wrote:
| newspapers have semi-regularly updated style guides. I don't
| see how its much of a stretch that some would decide to
| include this. let's remember who we're talking about here
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| 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 organisations are
| being forced to write stories that have no integrity under an
| editorial policy that is designed to promote a partisan point
| of view.
|
| 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. Nothing else does.
|
| Independent journalists can make this happen, but how do we
| recognise a "real" independent journalist doing real
| investigative journalism from an activist blogger with an axe
| to grind?
|
| [0] I'm not saying that the author is not a journalist, or
| inferring that they're a blogger.
| psychoslave wrote:
| The difference between the casual blogger and the
| professional journalist are not of nature, but degrees on
| different axes.
|
| The main difference from a societal point of view are
| obviously all the privileges and duties given to a pro in a
| field, be it writing or anything else actually.
|
| Independence is ever denial or lie when it comes to social
| interaction. No one is an island, or if you prefer, under the
| sea even island are connected on solid grounds and all kinds
| of life forms are able to travel from one island to an other.
| There is nothing as an absolutely isolated zone.
|
| Also you can be trappist, but simultaneously claiming to be
| the president of the universe won't hold much attention.
| monkeyelite wrote:
| The divide is almost entirely in status - not in actions or
| morals. It's important to remember they are competitors and
| both have an interest in guarding their audience.
|
| More cynically, almost all news these days is PR. There is
| very little new information entering the system from
| journalists - just synthesis of information provided to them.
| So traditional journalists are not unlike bloggers in this
| way either.
| danihh wrote:
| I'm sure that opinions vary widely on this, but I follow
| people and not companies.
|
| With platforms like substack, X, and LinkedIn it seems easier
| than ever for an independent journalist to cultivate an
| audience.
|
| As long as they create quality content, I'm more than happy
| to subscribe to whatever platform they choose to use.
|
| True quality (especially once you get into the niches) is
| extremely valuable/interesting and to paraphrase Van Gogh,
| wheat is wheat, even if townsfolk see it as grass at first.
| pell wrote:
| > 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 of course but it isn't really filling the need for
| investigative journalism too well at the moment.
| pastage wrote:
| 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.
| smcin wrote:
| "audience drift" or "subscriber drift"
| starspangled wrote:
| If qualification, accreditation, integrity is overseen and
| regulated and handed out by multinational corporations and
| organizations, owned by and run for billionaires with shady
| connections and hidden backroom deals among governments,
| bureaucrats, corporations, the rich, etc., then that really
| does not "qualify" them to report on very much at all except
| what maintains the status quo and advances the interests of
| the ruling class.
|
| A least with independent journalists there is a _chance_ they
| might not be compromised. Not so, corporate journalists.
| somenameforme wrote:
| There are obviously some extremely high profile incidents of
| journalists being forced to promote an ostensibly partisan
| view in recent times, but that's generally only when the
| ownership flip flops on their views. And the reason for this
| is quite insidious. Knowing somebody's partisanship, biases,
| and other interests in pretty easy in modern times for people
| who like to be visible which is, more or less by definition,
| always true for journalists. So if you want bias [x] or
| partisanship [y], you simply only hire people of such
| partisanship or bias. So there's only a problem when you
| change your mind about the 'right' biases.
|
| And I don't think there's any legacy media outlet that's
| really independent now a days. They've all gone hardcore
| partisan one way or the other, and all frame things in strong
| accordance with US geopolitical policy. For instance imagine
| how absurdly different the coverage would look if what was
| happening between Israel and Gaza was instead, otherwise
| identically, happening between China and Xinjiang (Uyghurs).
| vintermann wrote:
| As Chomsky famously told Andrew Marr, he may have been
| perfectly sincere in his beliefs, but he wouldn't be
| sitting where he was if he believed anything else.
|
| A while back, a semi-independent journalist, Nate Silver,
| said that Disney (who had bought his site) "almost never
| interfered in our editorial policy".
|
| Apparently oblivious to what that means: that Disney were
| perfectly willing to interfere with his editorial policy,
| but rarely had reason to.
| jachee wrote:
| > There's also a professional divide between "journalists"
| and "bloggers" [0].
|
| There doesn't have to be. No reason to gatekeep it. Anyone
| doing investigative work, and publishing their findings in a
| structured way qualifies as a journalist. In fact, the more
| journalists there are speaking truth to power, the more we
| _all_ benefit.
| skinkestek wrote:
| > Meanwhile, (some) journalists at (some) news organisations
| are being forced to write stories that have no integrity
| under an editorial policy that is designed to promote a
| partisan point of view.
|
| Let's not forget the credentialed journalists, backed by
| well-funded media orgs, fully equipped with narratives--and
| not shy about targeting everyday people they simply don't
| like.
| aa-jv wrote:
| > 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.
|
| So? Why should this be considered a special case? Its no
| different than programming, for example.
|
| The idea that only authorities should be able to report as
| journalists is anathema to a free and open, democratic
| society.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| >> I'm not saying that the author is not a journalist, or
| inferring that they're a blogger.
|
| I think you mean to say that you're not _implying_ they 're a
| blogger.
| miki123211 wrote:
| > There's no working business model for real investigative
| journalism
|
| Shortselling and prediction markets.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| 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 quite hard to
| obtain, and are almost never stable.)
| dagw wrote:
| There's an outfit called Hunterbrook Media that has exactly
| this as their business model.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Hindenburg Research used to do this, too.
| adolph wrote:
| > without getting any kind of qualification or accreditation
| . . . and still get credited with a story, then journalism
| itself has an identity crisis.
|
| A subplot of @patio11's podcast has been how to bootstrap the
| social conventions of "qualification or accreditation" in
| order to bring one's findings to a broader audience through
| journalistic enterprises.
|
| Example: _By the way if you get written about once by any
| paper ever, every time that you do a reach out to your
| favorite local assessor 's officer, similar in the first
| paragraph you know, as you might have seen in blah, blah,
| blah we are the blah, blah, blah. Like, you don't have to be
| officially constituted or blessed initiative for anything._
|
| https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/tax-the-
| dirt-...
| IAmBroom wrote:
| > how do we recognise a "real" independent journalist doing
| real investigative journalism from an activist blogger with
| an axe to grind?
|
| 100% the wrong take.
|
| Why shouldn't reporting be traceable as far as is both
| practical, and safe for the people involved? "The 'I HATE
| BIBI' blog reported that the Israeli Prime Minister admitted
| he like dressing up like a kangaroo and hopping around his
| office" allows people more (potentially) useful information
| than merely reporting the PM is a furry.
|
| There doesn't need to be a distinct line between "reporter"
| and "person reporting news". At least, not in general; some
| measure of impact (followers, audience size, etc) is
| practical and necessary for allowing people to attend White
| House press briefings, but that's another subject altogether.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> 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.
| 6510 wrote:
| You are looking for a historian.
| jancsika wrote:
| > No wonder that newspapers don't cite others... That's just an
| advertisement for their competitor.
|
| Just read the CBS article linked by the author. As she mentions
| it always cited WaPo. And it now it properly cites her, too:
|
| "The Rwanda arrangements were first reported by the Washington
| Post, which also cited work by independent journalist Marisa
| Kabas, who had uncovered the recent deportation from the U.S.
| of an Iraqi national to Rwanda."
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Just read the CBS article linked by the author. As she
| mentions it always cited WaPo. And it now it properly cites
| her, too:
|
| I wouldn't say it _properly_ cites her. It says that the
| Washington Post reported it first, which is nonsensical
| because in the very same sentence it says that Washington
| Post cited Kabas.
| grumbel wrote:
| I'd be more impressed if they'd used a hyperlink. But that's
| apparently forbidden in modern journalism.
| pastage wrote:
| It is not worth the bother. I really wish I had a source
| for this because it stills feels important, and I value
| links more than most.
|
| Links would be nice but it does not add enough value to be
| worth it, it actually costs too much and is easy to mess
| up. The ones who care will search for it, and the great
| majority can not be bothered. Source: internal statistic
| from a webbserver, with fact heavy articles.
|
| There were some types of articles that needed source
| material. But these kinds not so much. I say this because I
| was involved in a project that worked on QA and maintaining
| links. We wasted money on that project.
| dannyobrien wrote:
| Costs too much in what way? In time?
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| a lot of sites don't add hyperlinks. that seems to be a
| new trend. don't think that is reason to criticize this
| particular article, for not doing what a lot of sites are
| also not doing.
|
| and yes, it does take time.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > And it now it properly cites her, too
|
| No, it doesn't. It doesn't cite her work, it cites her.
| ab5tract wrote:
| This is totally ahistorical. Regional newspapers would "break"
| stories that would then get picked up by national outlets.
|
| In that system it was the standard to reference the paper that
| first reported the story.
|
| People understandably have a hard time conceptualizing a highly
| dynamic and diverse news media landscape these days, but back
| when it was working like it was supposed to --- before Clinton-
| era reforms destroyed the laws protecting against consolidation
| --- it was not as simple to suppress a story because you had
| actual competition who would profit if you didn't.
|
| In other words, news wasn't always so distinctly
| "entertainment" and the rules which govern news items in a
| landscape of less than a handful of media conglomerates are
| nothing like what used to govern in a less starkly dystopian
| version of the same.
| pastage wrote:
| It is not the first time I have heard a local issue in the US
| by cited as a source of a global problem. I am fairly certain
| that Clinton had nothing to do with this global problem, he
| was president during a time were lots of things changed.
| lysace wrote:
| I believe you refer to this?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
| snthpy wrote:
| Thanks, that's a really interesting perspective. None of the
| parts were new to me but the framing has got me thinking about
| it in a new way. I am now wondering what different incentives
| would align it more with my values or orient it towards
| societal outcomes that I care about?
| christkv wrote:
| More and more is opinion which is cheap and in many cases can
| be outsourced for no money down. Then you have sponsored
| articles that are just ads disguised as news.
| ricksunny wrote:
| I love the quote of one of the comments, the odd mix of wistful
| promise yet shuddering, which sent me down a context-sourcing
| rabbit hole:
|
| Quote: This is very much a "the new world struggles to be born,
| now is the time of monsters" moment, but you are weathering it as
| well as anyone I've seen. (Commenter L.O.)
| Max-Ganz-II wrote:
| 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.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's a tricky one; one _wants_ to trust the media because they
| _should_ have integrity and checks and balances and the like -
| which you don 't know if unafilliated independent bloggers
| have.
|
| But the bloggers are also great, but you need to do some more
| homework to decide if they are trustworthy - no editorial team,
| no journalistic ethical codes (if those actually exist), etc.
|
| The other factor is that a lot of the conspiracy thinkers based
| their beliefs on blogs or the equivalent thereof (FB posts,
| youtube videos, etc), stuff you wouldn't see in the mainstream
| media - because it's nonsense, but the fact the mainstream
| media doesn't cover it actually draws the attention to the
| conspiracy bloggers.
| davidsainez wrote:
| Direct link to her profile:
| https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social
| sam345 wrote:
| Any type of journalism that actually talks to people and gets the
| facts straight is rare these days. Most news reports and
| journalism these days just repeat hearsay. You have to read print
| sources that actually make money off this stuff through paid
| subscriptions such as the New York times or the Wall Street
| journal. And even then you have to wade through the poor
| reporting and agenda driven journalism. Having said that I'm not
| sure if the author of this piece could be called a journalist
| except in her own world, her articles are rife with presumption
| and opinion which is fine but it's not factual journalism it's
| writing with an overt agenda to persuade to her political
| viewpoint. Can we just have a required statement on every news
| source stating what its overall values and political agenda are?
| Regulators love disclosures why not a viewpoint disclosure? You
| could argue it's unnecessary but you have too many news sources
| running around claiming they are objective. Witness the recent
| PBS executives sounding shocked they are being accused of
| political bias.
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