I mean, yeah.
Also probably extremely unqualified to be one.
We really should get way more research methodology stuff into school curriculums from much earlier.
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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Showerthoughts
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Or maybe we require large newspapers and other single owner/large audience influencers to cite sources if they make claims and make them liable if it turns out to be false… because we‘re unable to read our medications instructions or the terms of the products we use.
I‘m not against education. But i would like to hold people who make claims accountable additionally to enabling the public to do research.
Well, that works if the only vector of misinformation is broadcast-based, but it's not. There are far fewer gatekeepers now than there were last century, you don't just have to fact check what comes up the traditional media pipe, also social media claims and claims from marginal sources. Both of which look pretty much identical to traditional media in the forms that most people consume them, which is a big part of the issue.
And, of course, anonymous sourcing and source protection still has a place, it's not as trivial as that.
In any case, there are no silver bullets here. This is the world we live in. We're in mitigation mode now.
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With respect, this shows an ignorance of the historical role of journalism in democracy.
to cite sources
Sources may have valuable information to get out, but not be willing to go on the record. Professional journalists are like doctors in that they've committed themselves to a code of ethics. As citizens we are called on to trust them to not make sh*t up.
For publicly available written sources, it's only a bit different. Yes, they could cite every sentence they write, and indeed some do, but it still comes down to institutional trust. If you don't trust where you're getting your news from, this is a problem that's probably not gonna get fixed with citations.
make them liable if it turns out to be false
A terrible no-good idea. Legislating for truth is a slippery slope that ends in authoritarian dystopia. The kind of law you are advocating exists in a ton of countries ("spreading dangerous falsehoods", abuse of defamation laws when the subject involves an individual, etc). You would not want to live in any of these places.
[…] As citizens we are called on to trust them to not make sh*t up. […]
Imo, that's an appeal to authority.
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Also probably extremely unqualified to be one.
Are you saying that I'm unqualified to be a journalist?
Well, I don't know you personally. I'm saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job.
Which explains a lot of how the 21st century is going, honestly.
is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job
Wait wait.. are you saying I'm unqualified to be a journalist? Because yeah you are probably right.
Also Bayes and stat pilled.
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[…] I’m saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job. […]
What, in your opinion, would determine if someone is qualified to fact check a news article? Do you have criteria?
I think you might have missed the subtle point @mudman was making about marginal probabilities. Its not about their thresholds; any reasonable threshold would exclude the vast majority of people, mostly because the vast majority of people aren't journalists / don't have that training.
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Like I said, we should get research methods taught in school from very early on. For one thing, understanding what even counts as a source is not a trivial problem, let alone an independent source, let alone a credible independent source.
There's the mechanics of sourcing things (from home and on a computer, I presume we don't want every private citizen to be making phone calls to verify every claim they come across in social media), a basic understanding of archival and how to get access to it and either a light understanding of the subject matter or how to get access to somebody who has it.
There's a reason it's supposed to be a full time job, but you can definitely teach kids enough of the basics to both assess the quality of what they come across and how to mitigate the worst of it. In all seriousness.
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So I just got out of a conference talk from a guy that ran newsrooms for about 20 years and has moved on to other things. The last few years have been basically "get it written, get it out the door and fact check later if time allows". These people working in these rooms have been cut back 90%+ but are still expected to get the same volumes of articles published as were when there were 10X the staff.
He said it's completely impossible to do any verification with what they have to work with, and chances are the stories are written before the people involved are interviewed. That's why he got out.
[…] The last few years have been basically “get it written, get it out the door and fact check later if time allows”. […]
If true, that's terrible, imo. Anecdotally, it would explain a great deal.
Yes it would. As would the almost certain fact that you personally choose not to actually pay for journalism, despite criticizing it liberally.
While I don't think the lack of quality journalism is all due to OP not paying for it (I have no clue if they do or don't) but there is a lot of complaining on Lemmy and Reddit about paywalls which is annoying. The idea that people want quality journalism but get pissed off when those journalist and news organizations asked to get paid for it is ridiculous.
The hypocrisy and entitlement is infuriating.
The internet has destroyed journalism's business model. A respected profession has been pauperized. Salaries in freefall, hardly any job security left.
And people who pay nothing (let's be real, OP is paying nothing) add insult to injury by demanding a higher quality product.
And when we do pay for it (magazines, physical newspapers) it's over half ads.
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yeah sorta. journalism was supposed to be more about fact checking back in that day rather than first to post. The rumor mill filled that niche. Does seem like news nowadays is more like the rumor mill.
News stopped being news when the 24 hour news cycle started. Now it’s just entertainment.
Legitimate news outlets do pretty thorough fact-checking, if only to avoid litigation
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most towns used to have more than one newspaper and they used to display their political bias happily on the front page.
all the sides were represented by five or six different people discussing an issue with maybe each person bringing a different side from a different paper to the discussion.
tv and cable and internet tore apart that public dialectic.
and it forced fewer papers to try to portray more sides "equally".
now a city is lucky if it has one newspaper. and they can't possibly cover every angle any longer because if you have been in a newsroom in the past 15 years for most small to medium town they are like four people now when 30 was required for reporting, photography, editing, and classified section. And the big towns now might have two that both bend towards the middle from the left and right with a stripped down, skinny and pissed workers.
So sorry conversation amongst a varied and well read public is required for that to work.
and no one reads anymore we all just write and move on.
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When reading hard news from an outlet that actually hires journalists I consider that to be the source.
When reading opinion I definitely do a bit more digging, keeping an eye out for half truths. I wouldn't consider this to be journalism
When reading hard news from an outlet that actually hires journalists I consider that to be the source. […]
For clarity, do you mean that you don't care if they cite their claims?
Hell, it doesn't even need to be lies. You can paint whatever story you want with the truth.
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I wish there were a fact checking website that allowed checking any article and calculating scores e.g how many claims are linked, where do the links point to (available or not), are the linked pages trust-worthy themselves, detecting link circles ( A -> B -> C -> A), and so on. Or at least something that provided us the tools to do community fact-checking in the open.
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It makes you a rational human.
There have been journalists publishing accidentally and maliciously false articles since the dawn of the press.
It's healthy to engage in appropriate scepticism of all that you read, particularly that of the press. Fact check everything that doesn't feel right (or anything that feels too reductive or simplified), over time you get a feel for who the serial liars are and who are generally reporting faithfully
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