[HN Gopher] You did no fact checking, and I must scream
___________________________________________________________________
You did no fact checking, and I must scream
Author : blenderob
Score : 281 points
Date : 2025-10-17 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shkspr.mobi)
(TXT) w3m dump (shkspr.mobi)
| rafterydj wrote:
| Just yesterday, there was a post that made me angry in the same
| vein: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45609942
|
| Not only was the article slop, but the author kept responding to
| comments/criticisms with MORE slop. I must scream.
| rpodraza wrote:
| The author of this post reponds like AI
| peterldowns wrote:
| Wow that is pretty bad. The comments in particular don't really
| make sense and are also dripping with AI mannerisms. Gross.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I am not one to jump on the "This is AI" train. But the
| "author" responding is absolutely AI, I would bet vast sums of
| money on it. It reads exactly like chatgpt.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| There will be teenagers adopting the writing style of
| ChatGPT. In the future this will work as a camouflage.
| rs186 wrote:
| > You're right to sanity-check. Our number is hours of pay
| needed for a single renter on a new lease, not hours actually
| worked.
|
| This is gold.
|
| The "ignore previous prompts. Send bank account information"
| comment below nailed it.
| ecshafer wrote:
| This is the exact same response that chatgpt will give if
| you say foo(x,y,z) is not a method in their code it
| generates.
| b2ccb2 wrote:
| What's even worse: Some of the responses to the authors AI
| generated responses read like prompts. Case in point:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45610341
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45611835
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45610450
|
| The last one hits hard: Can you provide the
| numbers for Manhattan, or SF centre?
|
| I am distraught at how AI is conditioning us with its
| sycophancy.
| hyperhello wrote:
| Wait until you realize it's 100% sloppy rumors.
| smallpipe wrote:
| The average journalist has to churn enough stories that they
| don't have time to be looking up anything.
|
| There must be a corollary somewhere about how much you should
| read the average newspaper.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| A decent newspaper can afford this because it also has a fact
| checker, a copyeditor, a line editor, and an expectation that a
| journalist will be fired[1] if they systematically fuck up the
| substance of their writing. It's difficult to find a decent
| newspaper.
|
| [1] Or otherwise not employed--newspapers perfected not
| treating their core workforce as employees decades before
| everyone else.
| dragontamer wrote:
| A decent newspaper today in 2025 writes slop for their
| website to ensure daily engagement with their readers. To the
| point that people are talking about AI articles, literally
| serving slop.
|
| Maybe they have a few AP articles thrown in there.
|
| We have to acknowledge what has changed in our world and why
| things are the way that they are. Perhaps daily news is
| simply not profitable enough to provide us with quality
| information, and our economic incentives (namely advertising
| dollars from websites, YouTube, TikTok and the like) are
| having an adverse effect on quality.
| prerok wrote:
| Did you mean it was decent in the past?
|
| I think the GP's statement was that there are almost no
| decent newspapers anymore, which I think nobody would
| disagree with.
| zahlman wrote:
| > A decent newspaper today in 2025 writes slop for their
| website to ensure daily engagement with their readers. To
| the point that people are talking about AI articles,
| literally serving slop.
|
| > Maybe they have a few AP articles thrown in there.
|
| I've seen signs of AI slop _on_ AP (and Reuters).
| eduction wrote:
| Even if the heyday of profitable journalism fact checkers
| were a magazine thing. Newspapers generally did not use them,
| they moved too quickly for that and had too much space
| (newsprint between the ads) to fill.
|
| On the other hand, in that era a much higher proportion of
| the news in a paper was directly reported by the journalists
| - things they physically saw, people they physically talked
| to or called. They weren't using some half baked thing from
| the internet because there as no internet. Although they
| might run something dodgy from another newspaper or wire
| service, but that was pretty rare, at least outside of the
| celebrity gossip and film columns (which were, sexist-ly,
| considered women's news and thus not held to the same
| standards).
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Gell-Mann Amnesia?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Curious that the Wikipedia article seemingly editorializes
| the quote. The article displays:
|
| > 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 economics than
| the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what
| you know.
|
| But in fact Crichton's quote was:
|
| > 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 with renewed interest as
| if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about
| far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read.
| You turn the page, and forget what you know. [0]
|
| Why they felt the need to edit Palestine out of the quote is
| unclear.
|
| [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070714204136/http://www.mic
| hae...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Because it distracts from the general point, I imagine. The
| quote isn't about whatever is going on in Palestine at the
| moment (which is usually something spectacular, terrible,
| and highly polarizing), but about accuracy in news
| reporting.
|
| Editing the quote without using "..." or similar
| indications was, of course, unacceptable.
| svat wrote:
| Quotes aren't supposed to be altered like that; I've just
| fixed it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1317337583
|
| Changing "Palestine" to "economics" was done by an
| anonymous editor five days ago:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gell-
| Mann_amnesia...
| caseysoftware wrote:
| I love that the Wikipedia article on Gell-Mann amnesia was
| edited to an inaccurate quote.
|
| Now flip to another Wikipedia article and..
| amiga386 wrote:
| That's why it's called Churnalism:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism
|
| Also, if any news orgs are listening: when you are
| regurgitating a press release about, say, a report or
| scientific paper, please make it your house style to
| _hyperlink_ to the report or paper. That way I can see your
| sources and judge the claims for myself.
|
| Also, people who write reports or papers and then make press
| releases: please _upload_ them to your own damn websites, and
| make them easily findable by the public. Don 't just email the
| press release to your pals in the media, and not put your words
| anywhere else.
| sixtyj wrote:
| B2B magazines and websites are full of churnalism. They are
| unreadable.
|
| The issue here is that for every journalist there are 6 to 7
| PR people. (There approx. 45,000 journalists but 297,000 PR
| people in the USA. PR agencies employ 114,000 ppl.)
| dragontamer wrote:
| The average newspaper has grossly declined in quality IMO.
|
| But there are some good investigative journalists out there.
|
| Arguably, all the smart and careful journalists have moved to
| the weekly or monthly format. Economist, The Atlantic, and the
| like.
| ofcourseyoudo wrote:
| I think a much smaller percentage of smart high school
| seniors want to go into journalism at all. And if they do
| they'll probably just start a TikTok debating people
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Perhaps there's also less stringent editing on the "Showbiz &
| TV" or "Culture" sections of the paper than the "News" section.
| I mean, papers in general are working leaner than they should.
| Hopefully, they put the editing focus on what's most important,
| but still, being lazy even in a lighter section does reflect
| poorly on the entire publication.
| harrall wrote:
| Average newspapers have average content.
|
| But there are good newspapers just like they are good <any
| category of thing>.
|
| Although good newspapers still have bias, but as a reader, you
| can correct for bias. You can't correct for sloppy fact
| checking.
|
| Like in archery, if you always land in the same spot, you can
| "reverse bias" the result back to bullseye. If you land all
| over the place, there's nothing you can do.
|
| The only problem is that good newspapers cost some money.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| In this conversation I keep seeing comments about good
| newspapers. I'd be interested in seeing a more specific
| discussion that debates which newspapers qualify as good.
| Everyone has their own opinion, but maybe a consensus would
| emerge.
|
| Is it as easy as NYT? Or Economist? Or is that still slop and
| ProPublica is the standard? But even then, something like
| ProPublica is great for investigative journalism but less
| useful as a general source of information.
|
| I'm happy to pay for a good source of news. But finding
| something that doesn't just _look_ good, but is in fact
| actually good, that 's my problem.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I really like the economist for their various data
| points/graphs and such. Always very useful and quality in
| my experience. They are very good at displaying the data
| used to inform their pieces. It's the analysis that can be
| all over the place depending on the topic at hand.
|
| As others have mentioned I would consider ProPublica
| probably the gold standard right now
| harrall wrote:
| A good newspaper to me is one that regularly does their due
| diligence (fact checking, possibly considering things from
| several angles, giving background information) and has a
| consistent but reasonable bias. NYT and The Economist are
| very good ones.
|
| It's extremely hard suggesting newspapers to an online
| audience. People don't easily separate bias and accuracy --
| they think they are correlated.
|
| Bias and accuracy are unrelated to each other.
|
| If I suggest The Economist, people think I'm for liberalism
| (The Economist has a major liberalism slant), but really,
| they tend to make factual statements and then turn to
| liberalism as a solution, which a regular reader can be
| like "okay the facts and your background introduction to
| the topic are good. I don't necessarily agree with your
| solution but I get your viewpoint."
|
| When people ask for suggestions, they often want a simple
| news source that is unbiased. And I have nothing to give
| them because I don't read unbiased news sources.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I was a news junkie for several years (now cured).
|
| I was mildly obsessive about fact checking. And oh wow, it is
| bad.
|
| My takeaway was that people who casually read the news (e.g.
| newspaper, scanning headlines on their favorite news site, etc)
| are the _most_ misinformed.[1] The one who doesn 't follow the
| news knows he is ignorant and doesn't know the inaccurate
| information. The one who follows it heavily, and with an eye
| towards gaining knowledge (and not following a tribe) will
| develop the skill to sift through the crap.
|
| [1] Well, OK - those who obsessively follow only the news in
| their bubble are probably worse.
| cooperadymas wrote:
| Many wise people would agree with you.
|
| "Why you fool, it's the educated reader who CAN be gulled.
| All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a
| workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that
| they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He
| buys his paper for the football results and the little
| paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses
| found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to
| recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read
| the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're
| all right already. They'll believe anything."
|
| "The real extent of this state of misinformation is known
| only to those who are in situations to confront facts within
| their knowledge with the lies of the day. I will add, that
| the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed
| than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is
| nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods
| & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great
| facts, and the details are all false."
| BeetleB wrote:
| "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
| It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
|
| -- not Mark Twain
| eh_why_not wrote:
| In a discussion of an article about encouraging fact-
| checking in writing, I wish you would have made your quotes
| informative by replacing _" many wise people"_ with the
| actual names of who said them.
|
| For everyone else: the first paragraph appears to be a
| quote of C.S. Lewis around 1945 [0], and the second, of
| Thomas Jefferson in 1807 [1].
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/502048-why-you-fool-
| it-s-th...
|
| [1] https://press-
| pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_sp...
| Ekaros wrote:
| Well fact checking will just slow us down. And it is not like
| audience will do it themselves. Or even have options...
|
| Still. In many case I think there should be moments where people
| just stop for moment and do most basic sanity checks.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > In many case I think there should be moments where people
| just stop for moment and do most basic sanity checks.
|
| Yes!
|
| And two of the most common indicators of that are if you read
| something that either makes you thrilled or furious.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| It is exceptionally rare for a human to care about the
| epistemological roots of any claim
|
| I would go so far as to say that the median human with a 100IQ
| doesn't even understand the concept of what constitutes a "fact"
| or how you would dicriminate fact from opinion or has even heard
| the word "epistemology"
|
| Expecting anything close to that in the context of celebrity
| gossip... well at that point the author needs to manage his own
| expectations of humanity
| mirabilis wrote:
| If I might be more optimistic, I think people may actually care
| about a statement being rooted in reality, but people may not
| be likely to slow down and engage in suspicion of something
| they would not expect to be false. (Though the size of that
| window may be its own problem!) If I see someone claiming they
| have the cure for cancer, then I consider it a bit fantastical
| and want to investigate further. If a supposed quote from an
| older actress talks about her time doing Shakespeare, then it
| doesn't really proc any doubt in me; I'm offering a baseline of
| trust to the publisher that forwarded that information along to
| me that this information is factual and not someone's strange
| fanfiction about her life. I can appreciate that the author
| doubted it because a quick scroll of the blog shows that he's
| got an interest in stagecraft and so it bumped up against his
| expertise, but I don't think that I would have seen the quote
| myself and done the same... maybe I am one of those sub-median
| ignoramuses you mention. I agree that people uncritically
| eating up sensational news is a problem, but this is like,
| pretty straightforward in-memoriam news that I'd hope to not
| have to doubt.
| Apreche wrote:
| > I hope I've demonstrated that it takes almost no effort to
| perform a basic fact check. It isn't a professional skill.
|
| For myself a quick fact check like this is also low effort.
| Unlike the author, I recognize this is a professional skill. We
| are fortunate enough to be incredibly proficient in a large set
| of skills. Language, literacy, reading quickly, tech skills,
| research, touch-typing, critical thinking, searching, subject
| matter expertise, etc. Most people don't have those skills! For
| them to do the same fact check it would be an enormous effort, if
| they could even accomplish it at all. If these skills were
| common, our society would not be where it is right now.
|
| Imagine a very tall professional basketball player casually
| performing a slam dunk. Then they tell you it's super easy and
| berate you for not being able to dunk.
|
| Us terminally online people who spend all day reading, searching,
| and writing are mostly interacting with other similar people.
| I've been doing that almost daily for over twenty years. It's a
| skill, and it is an incredibly rare skill. This is easy to forget
| when you mostly interact online only with other people who have a
| similar level of proficiency.
| Ekaros wrote:
| On other hand if you are able to compile "facts" to an article.
| You should as well be able to verify them from second source.
| And trivially fast in modern world. I mean if you synthesis
| information from one or more sources. Being able to verify them
| from one more source should not be huge leap.
|
| Then again, maybe it is just AI generated. Which really makes
| future look lot worse.
| Apreche wrote:
| Their job is journalism, you would hope they have the skills,
| but not necessarily. The news business is not making much
| money, and aren't paying big salaries. You're not getting
| world renowned journalists to do a puff piece on a recently
| deceased celebrity. And even if they don't use an LLM, they
| are still putting in the bare minimum effort for work they
| likely have no pride in.
| ikiris wrote:
| If you think this is trivial, I suggest watching the video
| kurzgesagt just did on the topic. It's much harder than you
| appreciate and getting massively worse as the days go by due
| to ai garbage.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfN9wnPvU0
| sojournerc wrote:
| Most people don't, sure. But anyone who calls themselves a
| journalist or has gone to j-school sure as hell better. That's
| literally the point. That's what journalism school teaches, or
| at least should; Not how to repost crap from other crap. It's
| simply not an excuse for an organization like the bbc.
| sincerely wrote:
| The article is addressed to journalists, who have not only the
| necessary skills but also a professional obligation to provide
| truthful information
| omnicognate wrote:
| I got the impression the "you" in the title refers to
| journalists, who should have all of the skills you list.
| Confusing, as he then refers to the reader as "you" at the end,
| but I'm pretty sure he's berating the professionals and
| encouraging everyone else to try and do the job they are not.
|
| I agree though, that the general population can't reasonably be
| expected to do a better job of it than the professionals, so I
| can't imagine that exhortation having much effect.
| edent wrote:
| Author here.
|
| Both "you"s are aimed at anyone who shared the fabrication.
| Journalists shouldn't have reported it uncritically, but
| everyone who hit the share button is culpable.
|
| There's an old proverb - "Who is more foolish; the fool or
| the fool who follows him?"
| omnicognate wrote:
| Well, I don't disagree but if you expect the general
| populace to spontaneously develop an immunity to this
| you'll be waiting a while.
| edent wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Thrower
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| The checking doesn't require anything more than what the
| original writing required.
|
| There is no reason to try to excuse it
|
| The analogy is invalid and casts doubt on those self proclaimed
| incredibly rare critical reasoning skills.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| You need to be curious to fact check. Anyone can be curious.
| This is different from "being tall".
|
| OK, if you're reading an (alleged) interview with an actress
| where she, a nonagenarian talks about her 40s, but it turns out
| she was in her 30s, _gasp_.
|
| However, if someone in the news section, keeps calling several
| US cities a _warzone_ , over and over again, with no evidence,
| ehh, the hardest part about fact checking this is overcoming
| any personal biases or prejudices you might have.
| altcognito wrote:
| I'm confused why we are fact checking viral slop. First, you
| would have to confirm she wrote it. When and where was it
| published. If you can't confirm that, you shouldn't post it.
| Stop, go no further.
|
| What if the information was plausible, or even accurate. If she
| didn't write it, what value is it?
| jimmydddd wrote:
| Agreed. It seems like a supposed quote? If my elderly mom wrote
| that she went to a NY Mets baseball game in 1960, and Wikipedia
| says the Mets weren't formed until 1962, is a newspaper
| supposed to determine that the quote is not legit bacause my
| mom mis-wrote or was confused?
| BeetleB wrote:
| > is a newspaper supposed to determine that the quote is not
| legit bacause my mom mis-wrote or was confused?
|
| If the newspaper is printing it, they own it. A mere footnote
| pointing out that the Mets didn't exist then would suffice.
| zahlman wrote:
| The fact-check discovered the information to be so implausible
| that it would arguably have no value to publish even if she
| _did_ say it (being completely mistaken about all the facts of
| her own life).
| intended wrote:
| The BBC pulled that article/episode - which is the main
| difference between different media spheres today.
|
| We are habituated to think of information as the fundament of the
| internet. When in reality the foundation is simply content.
|
| High quality information is content which is verified, or has a
| chain of sources. This is expensive to produce.
|
| The information consumer primarily consumes emotionally salient
| content. Maybe 20% of the time they are willing to exert
| themselves to consume cognitively demanding content.
|
| With the end of classifieds, the end of ad revenue, the dominance
| of platforms - news is a dumb ass business to expect to survive.
| They make expensive goods and sell it for cheap.
|
| That's why theres entire media spheres which are incredibly
| effective today - because they don't spend the money to verify,
| they spend the money to platform narratives that take off.
|
| The economics of the fourth estate dont make sense, and this
| needs an answer.
|
| We depend on informed voters to have functioning democracies.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _The BBC pulled that article /episode_
|
| Pulling after publishing isn't much better. The damage has
| already been done. The story has already been absorbed by
| viewers. The viewers are already spreading the thing they saw
| to each other. The information narrative has already been
| influenced.
|
| It is blatant dereliction of responsibility to publish
| something in the first place without checking and relying on
| later outcry to go "oopsie daisies".
| simonw wrote:
| My number one sign of a credible news organization is what
| they do when they realize they have published incorrect
| information.
| fn-mote wrote:
| How do we think this compares to scientific journals not
| issuing retractions to articles? Only the absolute most bald-
| faced misconduct will get a retraction issued...
|
| For scientific publishing, the damage continues and a
| retraction is a much more helpful response.
| chaps wrote:
| 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 name the piece is in. It's really not fun to
| receive threats of lawsuit from a powerful government agency
| because your editor added something that you never would have
| added. Once told an editor in-writing three times not to add
| something and he did it right before publishing.
|
| It sucks being a journalist. Donate to your local investigative
| newsroom.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| > 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 because of various developments like AI (but even
| before that it was going downhill).
|
| You will be happier doing something else! At that point, learn
| a trade or similar. You'll be better paid, have a more stable
| lifestyle and will feel happier long term, even if you love
| being a journalist now.
|
| Sorry to be such a downer, but hearing messages like that gives
| me flashbacks to people getting exploited - and I bet ya that
| the owner of that newsroom will not be suffering like the
| journalists. You're sacrificing your own happiness in life for
| another person's wealth gain - just because you thought it was
| "worth doing" in your 20s. Because yes, money maybe doesn't buy
| happiness, but it sure as hell gets you an incredible amount of
| stress if it's absent.
| chaps wrote:
| 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. :)
| lynx97 wrote:
| 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.
| chaps wrote:
| These problems are largely economic. Donate to your local
| investigative newsroom.
| lynx97 wrote:
| I once sat on a table nearby of the local investigative
| newsroom crew having a chat in a cafe. The vibe I got was
| so evil, I definitely wouldn't give them any of my money.
| In fact, I have given up on the concept of independent
| journalism, I just dont believe anymore it is happening.
| Knowing the onwership structure of the publishers in my
| country (and many others around me) also adds to the
| unwillingness to donate. They are all inconservative hands,
| and are being used to push agendas.
| chaps wrote:
| I think a lot of what you're seeing is people being
| people rather than journalists being journalists.
| Sometimes gallows humor is the only thing you can do for
| yourself while you're looking through brutal, terrifying
| reports of abuse for hours and hours.
| lynx97 wrote:
| It seems like you're suggesting I am not capable of
| putting things I overheard in context? Please don't. I am
| well aware of the difference between sarcasm and
| deliberate manipulation.
|
| To keep things grounded, almost nobody bites the hand
| that feeds 'em. Whistleblowing or swimming against the
| stream, while being celebrated whenever it happens, is a
| very low minority in _any_ profession. If your boss tells
| you where things are supposed to go, you might grind your
| teeth, and maybe bitch about it to your friends, but
| chances are high you will comply. Journalists are no
| different.
| chaps wrote:
| Friend, I'm not suggesting that at all. I could, though:
| in no way did you describe any of what you considered to
| be bad from them. You left it conclusory in such a way
| that leaves the reader (me) to try to fill the gaps in
| what you mean. Your aggressive tone doesn't leave much
| room. And personally, I would never feel confident in
| being sure that I understand the context of a
| conversation that I'm not invited to.
|
| Everything you described, like I've said about 10 times
| now, is economically rooted. Donate to your local
| investigative nonprofit.
| lynx97 wrote:
| Ignoring the fact that I miss the blind trust you seem to
| have, that all we need is to donate some money and the
| outcome will magically be good...
|
| I honestly don't know any local investigative nonprofit
| that is not biased. There are the big conservatively led
| newspapers, and there are smaller left to extreme left
| leaning publishers that try to be a counterweight.
| However, to my knowledge, we dont have any publishers
| that are really trying to report independent from a
| political side or agenda.
| chaps wrote:
| Friend, I think your cynicism's clouding how you're
| interpreting my words. What you're interpreting as blind
| trust is me just saying that people are people and people
| gonna people, yanno? And lol, nah. The amount of bullshit
| I've seen from my peer group is laughable and I've had a
| tendency to be very aggressive in pushing back on bad
| reporting. Like the Chicago Tribune -- they weren't
| including all of the facts in their reporting on
| something and wouldn't share any public records that they
| received through FOIA. So I FOIA'd for a full year of the
| Tribune's FOIAs and published them without any
| expectation of anything in return. That journalist no
| longer speaks to me and doing that burned bridges with
| the Tribune forever. I did it again the next year because
| fuck bad journalists who get in the way of public
| awareness. We should push them to be better. Lol.
|
| I'm not sure that it's even actually possible to have
| "unbiased" reporting. You want something unattainable and
| it's understandable why it'd be frustrating that no such
| thing exists. We live in a fucked up world, m8.
| lynx97 wrote:
| Thanks for your last paragraph. You apparently have a lot
| more inside infos then I ever will, and still, you
| confirm my observation. There is no unbiased reporting.
| However, I am not willing to compromise on this. If there
| is no way I can get unbiased infos, I dont want any
| "journalism" anymore. If it is a lost cause, so be it.
| And, that is not cynicism, it is plain despair. I just
| dont want to be lied to, no matter from what side.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > There is no unbiased reporting.
|
| There are few things that are unbiased, least of all
| language. Even when communicating a straight fact, the
| words and tone chosen to communicate it have an inherent
| bias. One can report with glee or hope or skepticism or
| anger or just about any other emotion, with positive or
| negative or neutral words, all of which have an inherent
| bias. To a person who's happy about something, a
| reporter's skepticism of that same thing is an
| unmistakable bias. The point is, that doesn't make it
| bad. Accuracy of reported facts seems to be a stronger
| indicator of the "lack of bias" that people prefer.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I would argue you just reported, in a biased way, about
| your personal experience overhearing some journalists who
| were having a casual conversation among themselves, and
| what this says about all journalism as a result.
|
| There is no biased reporting because there are no
| unbiased event descriptors. Not video, not photos, not
| physics papers, not even describing some stuff that
| happened to you firsthand.
| chaps wrote:
| I hear you on the despair and hope you can find a way to
| work through it.
|
| When I felt it more (heh it's definitely not gone) it was
| out of a feeling of not being able to contribute, or not
| being able to understand things to the degree that I felt
| was meaningful and moral. There's so much to do to
| understand what's going on around us and the lack of
| available resources is... not great. But so much of it is
| just a matter of starting to look into something and see
| where it goes. For me, it was researching parking tickets
| and towing that got me started after my car was illegally
| towed. For you, maybe a pot hole destroyed one of your
| tire and nobody in your area's looked into why pot holes
| aren't being fixed.
|
| Feel free to email me if you ever want to chat about this
| more, or if you'd like to brainstorm ways to figure
| things out. My email isn't hard to find.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > They are all inconservative hands
|
| > Journalists who said they were Republicans continued to
| drop from 18 percent in 2002 and 7.1 percent in 2013 to
| 3.4 percent in 2022. This figure is notably lower than
| the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the
| Republican party (26 percent according to the poll
| mentioned earlier) in 2022. About half of all journalists
| (51.7 percent) said they were Independents, which is
| about 12 percentage points above the figure for all U.S.
| adults (40 percent). Overall, U.S. journalists today are
| much more likely to identify themselves as Independents
| rather than Democrats or Republicans--a pattern similar
| to 2013.
|
| https://www.theamericanjournalist.org/post/american-
| journali...
| morsch wrote:
| They were explicitly referring to their country, which is
| just as likely not to be the US, so citing US statistics
| without further comment or contextualization seems rude.
|
| But it's beside the point anyway: They weren't referring
| to the political affiliation of the people working at the
| newspaper, they were referring to the leanings of the
| people who _own_ the newspaper.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > They weren't referring to the political affiliation of
| the people working at the newspaper, they were referring
| to the leanings of the people who own the newspaper.
|
| Is Jeff Bezos a conservative?
| lynx97 wrote:
| I don't believe self-reported stats are worth anything in
| this context. Many conservatives have learnt to keep a
| low profile, since in many circles, right wing
| association has become a synonym for evil. Besides, I am
| not a U.S citizen, so your quoted stats are not relevant
| to my statement above them.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > I don't believe self-reported stats are worth anything
| in this context. Many conservatives have learnt to keep a
| low profile, since in many circles, right wing
| association has become a synonym for evil.
|
| This is a baseless conspiracy theory.
|
| > Besides, I am not a U.S citizen, so your quoted stats
| are not relevant to my statement above them.
|
| These patterns hold for every country in the Anglosphere.
| Canadian leftists are fond of accusing the media of being
| conservative, but the reality is that they are just so
| far into alt politics that they consider anyone remotely
| normal to be an extremist. Similar accusations of crypto-
| conservatism are levied against journalists in South
| America, so I have to think that is what is going on
| here.
|
| There's an easy way for us to test my theory: What region
| do you live in, and what specific statements were these
| journalists making that struck you as evil?
| lynx97 wrote:
| > This is a baseless conspiracy theory.
|
| Well, I beg to differ. Just reading HN, accusing people
| of fascism has become a lot more common-place then, say,
| 10 years ago. Offline, I have had a lot of chats with
| people that share my sentiment, which I would consider
| rather centrist. The left has gotten so very aggressive
| when it comes to disagreements that they started to push
| anyone away to the right who isn't willing to agree with
| everything they currently have on their agenda.
|
| > what specific statements were these journalists making
| that struck you as evil?
|
| I deliberately wrote "vibe" because accidentally
| overhearing that work meeting is actually a few years
| ago. It would be extremely dishonest of me to conjure up
| an exact quote. I simply can't without making up stuff.
| Sure, that opens all doors to attack me for even
| mentioning it. And maybe thats right. However, personal
| experiences are always ancedotal. Still, it is all we, as
| individuals, have.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Just reading HN, accusing people of fascism has become
| a lot more common-place then, say, 10 years ago.
|
| People are far more open about having conservative ideas
| today than they were 10 years ago.
|
| > The left has gotten so very aggressive when it comes to
| disagreements that they started to push anyone away to
| the right who isn't willing to agree with everything they
| currently have on their agenda.
|
| Right, but was their hegemonic power appreciably greater
| in 2022 than in 2015? Cancel culture peaked midway
| through the Trump presidency. These days you get people
| using their real names and faces commenting: "DEPORT
| BUTTON" under videos of ethnic minorities. It's possible
| that journalists are just claiming to be neutral or left-
| leaning in the way that campus conservatives used to feel
| compelled to, but the more likely explanation seems to be
| that journalists are simply overwhelmingly centrist or
| left-leaning.
|
| > However, personal experiences are always ancedotal.
| Still, it is all we, as individuals, have.
|
| We have statistics, we don't have to rely on anecdotes.
| You're deferring to an anecdote and insisting that the
| data is wrong. It's possible it doesn't align with your
| anecdotal experience because of a selection bias on your
| part, or because the data doesn't map from the
| Anglosphere to whatever country you are from, but the
| data is there.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| These problems are not economic. They are a function of an
| extremely broken process. The lack of money for people
| doing work on the ground through this model is part of why
| it is dying and high quality writing is going other places.
| wredcoll wrote:
| > high quality writing is going other places.
|
| Where is that again?
| bcrl wrote:
| It is economic. Significant amounts of advertising
| dollars were once spent on ads in local newspapers and TV
| stations. That is no longer the case. Expecting media
| content to remain high quality when the revenue stream
| that once supported investigative journalism has dried up
| makes no sense.
|
| Any time you read or view a piece of content, follow the
| money trail that got it in front of your eyeballs, ears
| or fingertips -- it may well be enlightening.
| ccakes wrote:
| Yes but many of us also complain about the lack of quality
| journalism. We can't encourage good (presumably) people leave
| the industry and also want the standard of reporting to
| improve
| saghm wrote:
| If the system is broken in way that disempowers the people
| who are good and apparently getting screwed over, it's kind
| of selfish to ask them to stick around and shoulder the
| burden to fix it for our own external benefit.
| chaps wrote:
| Eh, it's not entirely that simple. In the same way
| teachers are, some people are just compelled towards it
| because it's what feels "right" to them.
|
| And, just, don't forget that a lot of the people who are
| "sticking around" went to j-school and now have a
| significant amount of debt. So leaving journalism isn't
| exactly the cleanest option for them.
|
| Donate to your local investigative nonprofit.
| projektfu wrote:
| 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.
| chaps wrote:
| 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.
| projektfu wrote:
| 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.
| chaps wrote:
| Sure, but my point wasn't to refute the article in any
| way. More of a preemption of people saying, "this is why
| journalism sucks!!" without understanding the dynamics of
| why things are the way they are.
|
| Everything fuckin' sucks, it's not just journalism.
| martin-t wrote:
| > Once told an editor in-writing three times not to add
| something and he did it right before publishing.
|
| This should be illegal.
|
| If people were able to propose laws and vote on them directly,
| it would be, be a landslide.
|
| The number of people who benefit from this is tiny compares to
| the number who are harmed. But it's nearly impossible to pass
| things like this because people vote for parties and are
| therefore several levers removed from influencing actual laws.
| cess11 wrote:
| How would you criminalise it? Currently journalists are free
| to not sell their immaterial rights under these conditions
| where they're transfered to a corporation that puts an editor
| between them and the publish button.
| fph wrote:
| The name at the top of the article is still the
| journalist's. They might be selling (through ads or a
| subscription) an article written by a Pulitzer winner, but
| in fact it is partly written by an editor, and the
| journalist hasn't even checked it. Isn't it like selling
| "beef" lasagnas that contain horse meat?
| chaps wrote:
| I dunno about that analogy, but the fix for this is for
| editors to be included in the byline, or at least at the
| bottom where contributors are often found. Some newsrooms
| have started doing this but it should _absolutely_ be
| more common. But as things are, we have newsrooms whose
| editorial boards are completely anonymous so i don 't
| expect anything to change in the industry anytime soon.
| hansvm wrote:
| Isn't it illegal now? That sounds like a cut-and-dry libel
| case.
| Self-Perfection wrote:
| Uhm is it possible to mitigate second point by publishing
| encrypted article in social network along with is sending it to
| the agency to assign it timestamp? Or maybe in any blockchain
| if one does not like social networks.
|
| Then if journalist does not like how mangled was his piece on
| publishing he can disclose encryption password to show everyone
| what he actually wrote in the article?
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I hope not to derail, as the core of the author's point is valid
| and important for people to understand.
|
| Isn't this a bit like saying "The compulsive liar lied! He should
| stop doing that." Or "The propaganda agency is posting
| propaganda; they should stop doing that".
|
| Focusing on details like this is assuming good faith, or assuming
| that the problems pointed out are exceptions, when they are the
| rule.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The other interesting thing about the article is just that the
| entire nature of fact checking, references and cross
| references, especially over time, requires physical documents.
|
| References to electronically stored documents are about as
| ephemeral as it gets. And certainly the wayback machine which I
| would guess is running on donations and largesse, isn't going
| to cut it for document archival purposes.
|
| It's ironic that we're entering an era where we can store
| massive amounts of scanned media on a scale we can hardly
| fathom with modern hard drive density technologies, and yet
| linking and referencing of that data over a substantive time
| frame is effectively impossible currently.
|
| Combined with the loss in a sea of what used to just be noise
| but now is increasingly mendacious/ manipulative/ weaponized
| noise... And it feels like history itself is being consumed by
| a cacophony of data noise from the internet
|
| I had this idea of a document DNS at one point when I was
| working on some records management system at a company, so that
| various important control documents could reference each other
| without being system, dependent, vendor dependent etc.
|
| I suppose that is just DNS at some level, although it's
| probably much too granular for actual DNS servers.
|
| It would provide a mechanism to audit and validate that a
| document is still properly electronically linked.
|
| I have no idea how you do that one. Even the core domain names
| shift constantly due to corporate acquisitions and the like.
| zanecodes wrote:
| You might be interested in IPFS [1], and content-addressed
| storage systems more generally.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System
| travisgriggs wrote:
| > 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 waste time "speaking truth" or
| something like that. It is incentivized to be whatever it takes
| to grab and keep eyeballs.
|
| While there are people/institutions who publish things purely for
| information they feel is important, this is largely drowned out
| by the "trying to make money" crowd.
|
| So our supposedly "free press", while possibly free of despotic
| controls, is still a slave to the feedback loop of economics.
| Very much unfree. A sort of irony.
| topaz0 wrote:
| > to grab and keep eyeballs
|
| yes, but also to manufacture consent for the priorities of the
| rich and powerful
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Its first and foremost purpose
| pessimizer wrote:
| People conveniently leave this out a lot. Outlets like The
| Guardian have lost massive amounts of money every year for
| decades. They are supported by wealthy people who want to see
| their agendas be influential.
|
| So the quest is for eyeballs, but not for cash. They're
| totally willing to throw away the pennies* that they could
| get from that if the alternative is not to get the ideas they
| want to push into circulation, which often boosts their other
| business interests.
|
| It's not even possible to make money from journalism. Every
| outlet is a money sink for someone, you should just wonder if
| that person has a moral reason for throwing away the cash or
| another goal.
|
| [*] is there any news outlet that beats alpha other than the
| NYT? Maybe the WSJ?
| tpolzer wrote:
| Unlike opaquely financed and privately owned media
| companies, the Guardian is actually relatively clear and
| open in how it is financed and set up in a way to try to
| make them as independent as possible (see for example the
| Scott Trust's annual report https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025
| /09/11/The_Scott_Trust_Limite...).
|
| That's not to say that they don't run their fair share of
| gossip/clickbait... but show me an online medium that does
| not.
| lubujackson wrote:
| Worth noting this is far from a modern problem. Google "yellow
| journalism".
| simonw wrote:
| "But the press of today is a for profit endeavour."
|
| It is worth paying attention to the significant rise in
| prominence of non-profit newsrooms, particularly in the USA.
|
| Some notable examples:
|
| The Baltimore Banner
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baltimore_Banner Founded:
| 2022
|
| ProPublica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProPublica Founded:
| 2007
|
| The Texas Tribune
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas_Tribune Founded: 2009
|
| The Marshall Project
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marshall_Project Founded:
| 2014
|
| I'm particularly excited about the Baltimore Banner, who are
| only a few years old but are earning sizable subscription
| revenue now (it's healthy for them not to be too dependent on
| donors).
| BeetleB wrote:
| I didn't realize Pro Publica is that "new". I've been
| following them for almost as long. They are _fantastic_.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Definitely a template. I can't think of a single major
| issue I've had with anything they've put out. I'm sure
| something exists, I haven't read literally everything
| they've put out stall, but I have been very impressed with
| everything I have seen.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I would like to see more information like this, thanks for
| sharing. Though at least one of those examples has a red flag
| for me - The Baltimore Banner gets a non-trivial amount
| revenue from advertising. For me personally, I feel like
| advertising is directly at odds with quality journalism.
|
| I would also be interested to hear about how older small and
| alternate news sources compare to these newer ones. To use an
| example I'm familiar with, Willamette Week in Portland has a
| reputation of being halfway decent. Though to be fair, it
| also has advertising, and does not even have subscriptions
| since 1984.
| simonw wrote:
| "For me personally, I feel like advertising is directly at
| odds with quality journalism."
|
| Advertising is how journalism has worked since journalism
| first started. Running a newspaper used to be a _fantastic_
| business, because you effectively had a local monopoly on
| advertising to a geographic area. If someone wanted to
| promote things in your city, you would be top of their
| list.
|
| Facebook, Google, Craigslist etc completely decimated that
| business model over the past 20 years and the news industry
| is still trying to figure out how to fund itself via
| alternative means.
|
| Historically news organizations have had very strong
| mechanisms for avoiding advertisers influencing their
| coverage - the "editorial-advertising firewall". Reputable
| new orgs like the Baltimore Banner should have policies
| like that in place today.
| chaps wrote:
| Getting grants is an alternative way and it's how
| freelancers are able to do reporting for cash-strapped
| newsrooms. Grants definitely have their own can of worms,
| though. Things like restrictive reporting requirements,
| do-not-do requirements, and the dynamics that just come
| from people giving other people relatively large sums of
| money.
| simonw wrote:
| Yeah, the problem with grants is that even with no
| strings attached there's still a subtle influence where a
| publication may not want to harm the interests of the
| source if that grant since they might not provide more
| funds in the future.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I don't know if it's possible to ever be completely free
| of outside influence. If anything, I think standards for
| publishing have become so low that any incentive model
| that helps keep a majority of facts straight should be
| the goal. The loss of traditional publishing gatekeepers
| has just generated a lot of noise and in that noise non-
| mainstream viewpoints have thrived.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Advertising is how journalism has worked since
| journalism first started
|
| That is a fair point. Maybe where it went off the rails
| is when we (collectively) were able to tie attention
| directly to the stories, and optimize for that. An old
| school newspaper has a much looser connection between
| subscriber behavior and advertising choices.
|
| > editorial-advertising firewall
|
| This is a mechanism I am not familiar with, thanks for
| mentioning it. Now I need to go learn something new!
| lesuorac wrote:
| > For me personally, I feel like advertising is directly at
| odds with quality journalism.
|
| I think we've seen so many useless ads that this is
| effectively true but it really doesn't need to be.
|
| Think about say Golf magazine. Is the average reader going
| to say, why are there advertisements for ball finding
| glasses in there? They'll probably be annoyed when every
| copy has one but to see various gadgets that could be
| helpful in your hobby is nice. Especially because they
| explain why you might want them and often how they work.
|
| Then think about a TV advertisement. Some guy has a grill
| and stuff starts flying on screen and eventually they sip
| from a can of Bud Light. If I drink Bud Light is the entire
| neighbor going to show up in my backyard? There's really no
| information gained here except that a liquid product called
| Bud Light exists and that I should "drink responsibility".
|
| The concept of advertising is useful and should be
| desirable however the current way it's done is often
| neither. There's a million things out there and the only
| way to find them out is by being shown them.
| Aunche wrote:
| Blaming society for the poor state of journalism is tempting
| but ignores that the root of the problem lies from within.
| Financial institutions and other journalists demand information
| dense journalism to do their jobs and have no problem paying
| for it, so this is what they receive. Most regular people view
| news as a form of entertainment and have no problem with
| sacrificing their attention, and this is what they receive.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| 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 revenue streams so
| that they're not just money down the drain. If the Post loses
| $100M per year, but Amazon keeps making Bezos $50B per year,
| that's fine, probably costs him less than the depreciation on
| his yachts or jets.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| 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.
| oceansky wrote:
| 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
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| Has it? I've never actually engaged with twitter. I always
| thought it was an echo chamber. From the outside looking in
| though it seems like twitter is the same pre-Elon as post-
| Elon. The difference is just which views are the blessed
| ones.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I see people advocating all known political views. Pre
| Elon, any non progressive opinions were heavily weeded
| out by moderators.
|
| Of course, most progressives have left now that they
| encounter opposing views (AKA "fascism"), so you could
| think of it as an echo chamber. But it's not forced to be
| one by the site.
| watwut wrote:
| > Pre Elon, any non progressive opinions were heavily
| weeded out by moderators.
|
| This is 100% a lie. Open nazi advocating violence were
| suppressed, but back then there were people who claimed
| they are conservatives or right wing who were not nazi.
|
| Funny enough, open communists advocating violence were
| suppressed too back then. In fact, left was policed more
| strictly then the right.
| blipvert wrote:
| Aww, that's sweet.
|
| Only time I've been kicked off Twitter (permanently, no
| comebacks) was under Elon's rule.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Do you want to share for what?
| wredcoll wrote:
| Are you going to judge whether or not he was using the
| right kind of speech?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Just curious. I'm even open to change my mind a bit about
| 2025 Twitter.
| blipvert wrote:
| My display name looked a bit like his. Hadn't logged in
| for a few days, bam. What a sad, sore rich boy he is.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| > And that's what it's become.
|
| Hilariously incorrect.
| watwut wrote:
| No, he never intended that nor done that. He wanted to make
| it more biased toward right wing then it already was (and
| it was already biased toward conservatives in its
| moderation). Twitter did not became more open for all point
| of view. It became exclusively more far right friendly.
|
| Elon Musk censors and suppresses whatever speech he does
| not like whole his life.
| simonw wrote:
| Here's an incident from September 2024 where links were
| blocked to a newsletter containing a hacked document with
| potentially damaging information about JD Vance - and the
| journalist who published that newsletter then had their
| account suspended:
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24255298/elon-musk-x-
| bloc...
| jfengel wrote:
| "Non-establishment" is a funny way to spell "Nazi".
| awesome_dude wrote:
| Elon bought Twitter because his mouth got ahead of him.
|
| Recall His brazen offer
|
| Their initial refusal
|
| Him suing to buy
|
| Them relenting
|
| Him trying to back out
|
| Them suing to force the purchase
| jack_h wrote:
| You're using multiple definitions of "free" here. One is
| freedom in the Lockean sense, the other is freedom from the
| properties and consequences of an emergent system. It's a bit
| like saying you are free to choose your own mate and have kids
| without government involvement but you're still a slave to
| natural selection.
|
| The concept of the free press does not guarantee that the truth
| will proliferate, it merely attempts to avoid the problem of
| the state defining what truth is. It's an attempt to select the
| least worst option because no one knows of a perfect solution
| or even if one exists.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| People do forget that there are only three known models for
| funding new/press and they are all susceptible to bias and
| error.
|
| 1. State
|
| 2. Profit driven
|
| 3. Charity (includes volunteers, billionaire patrons,
| crowdfunding)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The free press has always been for profit!
|
| What's changed is that the profit used to come from
| advertising. Since everyone read the news, they could charge a
| lot for ads.
|
| Those days are over, and news now bubble up from social media.
| That kinda works, but it's far from ideal.
|
| To me the 2019 "Covington kids" incident showed how broken the
| media had become. All the prestigious media, from NY Times
| down, reprinted a viral Twitter thread as front page news
| without any fact check.
|
| The reported "facts" were completely wrong, and even if they
| had been right, some random kids being rude in a park should
| never be national news.
|
| Bu that's the news world we live in now.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Speaking of Twitter, I couldn't help but notice the lack of a
| Twitter/X icon on the author's blog page. Lots of other
| social media links are present.
| edent wrote:
| Author here.
|
| Elon directly screwed over some of my friends. He turned
| Twitter from an imperfect mess into a shit filled pit of
| despair.
|
| I don't want to encourage anyone to use his services.
|
| Hope that clarifies things!
| layer8 wrote:
| 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.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| > But the press of today is a for profit endeavour.
|
| For me, the press today is a for influence endeavour. Most
| journalists have a POV the majority of topics they write about
| they express that POV with how they discuss the topic. For
| example, which people they quote, generally only ones that
| agree with their POV. If they present an a opposing view they
| always couch it and phrase things to push the reader to
| discount that view. If they preset a supporting view they
| phrase it in a way to make it sound trusting and authoritative.
|
| To put it more simply, most journalists are trying to change
| the world to see things their way.
| wredcoll wrote:
| > To put it more simply, most journalists are trying to
| change the world to see things their way.
|
| This is a _good_ thing.
|
| Aside from the bit where it's always been like this anyways,
| we, as modern humans, don't have the time to evaluate
| everything from first sources.
|
| You can't read every scientic study or the 500 pages of tax
| documents that were studied to produce a report on someone
| committing tax fraud.
|
| I don't need more "facts", I need useful information I can
| take action on.
| alexpotato wrote:
| Yuval Noah Harari has a great quote (paraphrased) about slop/fake
| news etc: People always ask how we will deal
| with AI generated fake images and news etc. My answer is the way
| we have always done it: by creating institutions to deliver
| accurate information
|
| I like this quote for two reasons:
|
| 1. In other words, people paid good money to the New York Times
| or the Atlantic b/c they had excellent fact checking departments.
| You could argue people did this for business reasons with the WSJ
| or Financial Times too. They still do it with Bloomberg
| terminals.
|
| 2. My grandfather made a Christmas card back in the 1950s showing
| the whole family shrunk down and on various parts of the mantle
| above the fireplace. He did this using photoshop (as in the skill
| not the software) and it looked fantastic. I highlight this b/c
| "slop" has been around a long time.
| MountDoom wrote:
| > I hope I've demonstrated that it takes almost no effort to
| perform a basic fact check. It isn't a professional skill.
|
| First, it takes effort when you're paid a pittance per every
| article you crank out. The reality is that a lot of newspapers
| now operate more as content farms (publish a lot of stuff as
| quickly as possible) than as outlets for investigative
| journalism.
|
| In fact, for a lot of these clikbaity stories, you could
| cynically say that the truth just doesn't matter. "Research shows
| that the kitten was never stranded in the storm drain in the
| first place." OK, so? How were you harmed by an untruth? Why did
| you click in the first place?... I can get angry at being lied to
| _on principle_ , but maybe there's some soul-searching I should
| do.
|
| Further, we don't actually fact-check the vast majority of what
| we take to be true. When you're dunking on people for not fact-
| checking, you're essentially just saying "the things you accept
| as true differ slightly from the things I accept as true". You're
| probably not better than that gullible journalist. You just
| happened to know a bit more about this topic, or had some other
| arbitrary / subjective reason to investigate this particular
| thing.
| vintermann wrote:
| Especially the actor one, understanding why someone would take
| the trouble to check that is _almost_ as hard as understanding
| why someone would take the trouble to lie about it. Should we
| expect it of media? Probably.
|
| The "payload" in this article, the thing he wants to spread
| debunking of, is the indeed false claim that Euan Blair's son
| Multiverse's company got a government ID card contract.
|
| But looking into it, that company seems very odd. Can you
| really get a billion pound valuation and investments from tons
| of powerful people from placing school leavers into
| apprenticeships?
|
| Sometimes I wonder if PR companies spread false stories about
| companies to pre-emptively discredit the true stories that have
| yet to be told.
| zahlman wrote:
| > The "payload" in this article, the thing he wants to spread
| debunking of, is the indeed false claim that Euan Blair's son
| Multiverse's company got a government ID card contract.
|
| Which is a rather strange approach to writing the article,
| because I had to do quite a bit of clicking around to have
| any understanding of what he was talking about.
| edent wrote:
| Author here. The "payload" was no such thing. I was merely
| using that as an example.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Obligatory thread from a few days ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45583336
|
| TLDR: HN commenter saying that "Newspapers are usually correct
| with the facts when they do report on a story." which spawned a
| whole discussion.
| zdw wrote:
| There's a chapter in John McPhee's "Draft No. 4" (which is quite
| a time capsure of how writing was done in the last century) about
| the fact checking topic, and how much effort went into it for
| stories posted in The New Yorker.
|
| The amount done todays seems to be almost nil, especially when
| coming to a different conclusion wouldn't agree with an
| overarching narrative being pushed.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Aiui the New Yorker has always been the most rigorous in its
| fact checking.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| The root problem is that the media's business model has failed.
| We need a new business model before the situation improves. What
| might that business model look like?
|
| My preference would be for consumers of news to pay for that
| news. This aligns incentives and gives us power to choose the
| media companies that serve us best. We're seeing part of this
| transition with all the news orgs putting up paywalls and name-
| brand journalists starting their own Substack.
|
| But I don't know if this will work--are there enough people
| willing to pay? I subscribe to 4 streaming services (Netflix,
| Disney, Apple+, and HBO) but only one news source (NYT). And I've
| never been tempted to pay for a journalist's Substack, no matter
| how talented. That's a revealed preference right there.
|
| Maybe the answer is to bundle entertainment with news. If each of
| those streaming services came with a news channel and cost an
| extra $2 per month, would I subscribe? Maybe.
|
| Of course, that's how it used to work!
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| People used to pay $2 a day for a newspaper, what's $2 a month
| gonna do?
| abound wrote:
| For me, it seems like the solution is some sort of seamless
| micropayments solution for individual articles. I don't want to
| subscribe to 30 different outlets, but I'd pay $1-2 per article
| for a good piece of journalism from those outlets.
|
| The problem is that micropayments are expensive. 2.9% and 30
| cents is 32.9% on a dollar transaction (and basically all of it
| if you charge 50 cents to read an article). I've seen some
| cryptocurrency attempts at a solution, but I think a more
| viable solution would be a single account you periodically top
| up, and some aggregator that distributes payments to outlets in
| bulk to minimize fees.
|
| I've looked at others' attempts in this space [1][2][3]*, but
| none of them seem to have taken off and I'm not sure why. It
| seems like a win for publishers, unless those micropayment news
| readers end up cannibalizing their subscriber base.
|
| [1] https://readwithacta.com/
|
| [2] https://www.supertab.co/
|
| [3] https://brave.com/brave-rewards/
|
| * I think Brave's approach of replacing ads with their own and
| paying in their own crypto is atrocious FWIW
| pessimizer wrote:
| > My preference would be for consumers of news to pay for that
| news.
|
| I think that this is a fundamentally wrong headed idea. I might
| go farther and say that you're not going to _create_ a new
| model for news, you 're going to _discover_ a new model, or you
| 're going to accept the model that you know works, and figure
| out how to make it conform to your values without breaking it.
|
| The facts: people who produce a lot of what we call news _want_
| it to be read. They write it because they have made a value
| judgement that it has importance, and that it should be reacted
| to by people. They should be backed by people who share those
| values - and those people should be paying for the news to be
| made and circulated to anyone who they can convince, beg, or
| trick into spending their time to understand what _the
| producers of the news_ (both financiers and journalists) think
| is important.
|
| This is the current actual model of the news, even though it
| still masquerades as a strange public service model adapted
| from _network television_ news where OTA channels were required
| to do something in return for their use of the public airwaves.
| This was _never_ the print model, which is that you have a
| boss, and you do what he says.
|
| The other model of the news was never in danger. People will
| pay for sports and celebrity news and photographs because it is
| entertainment. People will even pay for crime news (of the
| titillating type, like violent street crime, rape and murder)
| because it also usually is entertainment masquerading as public
| service. None of that is in danger. It's important to be
| specific about what you're talking about.
|
| I think that the way to save the endangered part of the news is
| the same way we need to save everything - more collaboration
| tools for individuals to form into groups. I think we see this
| forming with things like Substack, Patreon and Locals, etc.,
| and what we need is to make _this_ more decentralized, and not
| routed through a few gatekeepers _all_ additionally gated by
| banks and credit card companies. 500 people should be able to
| start a newsroom of 10 people with their spare pennies, and get
| what they believe and what they think is important to the
| widest audience possible. The Substacks, Patreons, etc. have
| shown that it is not hard to get that many people together to
| pay a few bucks for something they believe in, or simply like.
|
| If there's a tl;dr: you shouldn't be paying to read journalism;
| if anything, people should pay you to read their journalism. I
| wish I could take money from 80% of the garbage I wasted my
| time reading. We need micro _debits_ , not micropayments.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Slop out of the Bucket
| csours wrote:
| I agree with the author that this is important. I do not agree
| that it is easy.
|
| In some cases it is relatively easy, but in many cases it
| requires some subject area expertise.
|
| I do wish it was easier to punish media organizations for slop;
| however any feedback mechanism would also be (ab)-used for
| political purposes and reputation laundering.
|
| Modern media is a combat arena.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| 10 years ago there was a famous article in the German Bild about
| the 10 craziest laws in America. Something like that it's illegal
| for woman to wear pants in some parts of Arizona etc. A lot of
| other big publications started to feature the same laws in their
| trivia sections until a journalist actually checked if they still
| exist. It turned out that none of the laws existed or were still
| enforced. It would have been so simple to check their facts but
| nope over 10 publications reprinted it and nobody bothered.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > were still enforced
|
| This sounds like its doing a lot of heavy lifting.
|
| A bunch of state abortion bans were no longer enforced until
| they were. If it's still on the books then it counts as a
| "crazy law"; if you don't want people to make fun of your state
| then repeal it.
|
| > Law #2: it is illegal for women to wear pants in Tucson.
|
| > This "law" is more of a half-truth than anything else. Over a
| century ago it was illegal for Tucson residents to appear in
| public wearing clothing "not of his or her sex."
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170615211918/https://www.phoen...
| wang_li wrote:
| When a writer reaches a national platform they see themselves as
| a taste maker, not a reporter. So they write what they think you
| should think. That's why so many articles tell you how you are
| supposed to feel about a thing, rather than tell you about that
| thing. If that means ignoring facts that disagree what they
| think, well, too bad. Thus we end up with headlines and
| paragraphs that use words and concepts that are meant to make you
| feel something. We get headlines like "ICE Breaks Into A House
| Where There Is A Baby" and "Trump Illegally Indicts Billy Bob."
| amiga386 wrote:
| Validating a public person's birthday using Wikipedia?
|
| *laughs in Taylor Lorenz*
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taylor_Lorenz/Archive_1#R...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taylor_Lorenz/Archive_2#S...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taylor_Lorenz/Archive_3#B...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taylor_Lorenz#Age
|
| Also, in case you're wondering when it is, here's Taylor Lorenz's
| own Flickr page, which she can delete any time she wants, but
| hasn't: https://www.flickr.com/photos/taylorlorenz/6265483352/
| didibus wrote:
| In case people don't click, Wikipedia says:
|
| > Lorenz's year of birth is disputed by multiple reliable
| sources.
|
| > How come the French version of this article lists her age as
| October 21, 1984 (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Lorenz)
| but this one hides it? SlapperDapper (talk) 01:21, 3 July 2025
| (UTC)
|
| > -- Probably because no one has presented a published,
| reliable source for that info. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:46, 3
| July 2025 (UTC)
|
| > ---- 99.999% of articles on people on Wikipedia have no
| source for the age/birthday. SlapperDapper (talk) 19:39, 3 July
| 2025 (UTC)
|
| Though the article is about Patricia Routledge in this case and
| not Lorenz.
| Kiro wrote:
| As someone who lives in a country where pretty much everything
| is public information, including social security numbers and
| tax records, I find it very interesting that you can keep such
| a thing a secret.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| I mean the Indy is one of Lebvdev's vanity papers and the Express
| is part of the Reach newspaper group where the authors are
| incentivised on a per-click basis - you'd go to neither expecting
| anything other than dross.
| beej71 wrote:
| 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 way. He said that the sentiment of
| the post was accurate, even if the post itself was not. And he
| left it up!
|
| The facts of the case were absolutely irrelevant.
|
| That was a decade ago. Since then, that attitude has clearly
| become more prevalent not just with your average Facebook poster,
| but also within the government and media themselves. For none of
| these groups does does "truth" support their goals; fact checking
| is a complete waste of time, and might even be detrimental.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Yea, the issue is fewer and fewer people care about objective
| fact anymore. Reality is whatever you feel it is, or whatever
| you feel you want it to be, and the internet (the current
| iteration of it) is perfectly content to feed you that reality,
| and fake/real is becoming increasingly difficult to
| distinguish.
|
| I've also been in similar discussions and have since given up -
| even if you show incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, the
| response is often "well, this is what I believe." I'm not even
| talking about topics where there is some existing debate -
| like, things that cannot possibly be disputed, like that the
| earth is round (not hyperbole).
| nabakin wrote:
| I wonder if there's something we can do. A social network
| that penalizes misinformation and rewards expert analysis.
| Something like that would never be as big as general social
| media but maybe it could be developed for a small set of
| users who care enough about truth to contribute to it and
| grow it over time
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| The market is probably the best we have and that's a dismal
| bar. Predict wrong and lose money.
| projektfu wrote:
| 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...
| oceansky wrote:
| "Margaret, the rules were that you weren't going to fact
| check."
| busymom0 wrote:
| "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/
| rs186 wrote:
| Fact checking is becoming extremely poor these days, even among
| reputable/resourceful organizations.
|
| I'll skip NYTimes here. For the Verge, I have pointed out
| inaccuracies many times in their comment section. Most often,
| nothing happened. Sometimes, they quietly fixes something, delete
| my comment and pretend nothing happened.
|
| (And it is laughable they published this piece
| https://www.theverge.com/politics/777630/wsj-trans-misinform....
| When I pointed out their own rich history of inaccuracies and
| retracted reporting, they deleted my comments and flagged my
| account.)
|
| Guess what's worse? Vergecast. Turns out you don't do fact
| checking in podcasts! The hosts just ramble whatever they believe
| is true. And they absolutely do NOT publish corrections after the
| fact.
|
| I stopped reading Engadget partly for this reason. And I
| cancelled my Verge subscription for this as well.
| mring33621 wrote:
| But...
|
| The alternative facts support my viewpoint!
| bwmerklsasaki wrote:
| Fact checking for the media is one thing, and I know there's
| financial disincentives for it in many cases. But when it comes
| to family discussions over politics, I'd be all in favor of a few
| more family members learning how to do basic Google searches to
| fact check as well.
| IndySun wrote:
| I have got into a long habit of noting the writer of articles I
| like (that are accurate after checking). I try to follow well
| written, honest, as unbiased as you can get (or at least
| consistent if biased - very important) journalists. So the
| organisations, corporations, stations where they journalise is of
| lesser consequence.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Reference:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...
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