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WashPo: How to protect against fake 'facts'

Lafayette

Lafayette

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NEWS-OBESITY

How to protect against fake ‘facts’

Excerpt:
Amid the slithering mess of problems that emerged in 2017, the one that bothers me most is that people don’t seem to know what’s true anymore. “Facts” this year got put in quotation marks.

All the other political difficulties of the Donald Trump era are subsumed in this one. If we aren’t sure what’s true, how can we act to make things better? If we don’t know where we are on the map, how do we know which way to move? Democracy assumes a well-informed citizenry that argues about solutions — not about facts.

We can all choose our favorite examples of America’s increasing difficulty in agreeing about evidence: the disdain for science among climate-change skeptics; the refusal to believe allegations about people we like, and the overeagerness to denounce those we don’t like; the way in which political polarization has spread into every area of our common life — including sports.

What should thoughtful people do about this overarching problem? Part of the answer lies with my profession, the news business. We need to work harder to make sure that we’re unbiased truth-tellers, not a series of echo chambers. When every story in a newspaper or on a website or cable channel seems to be going in the same direction, that’s a sign that something’s wrong. That’s one reason I’d like to see a return of ombudsmen, to hold news organizations more accountable.

Journalists also need new tools. We can’t always vet every fact. We rely on certain trusted sources, news services such as the Associated Press or Reuters. Still, even those superbly professional fact-gatherers sometimes have trouble verifying information. Social media can help — people can upload video from their cellphones of events as they happen. But we’re learning that social media can be tools of deception as well as truth.

So here’s an offbeat proposal: Just as the provenance of a work of art is established by art historians and auction houses, we need technological tools that will help confirm the provenance of facts.
Click to expand...

Read the rest. It's worth it in this day and age when "political news-facts" are a dime-a-dozen every hour. Tantamount to yet another breach in journalism's precious wall-of-veracity that should be protecting The Truth from sensationalism that attracts interest.

Every time, every day that we breach that wall, information credibility suffers. And mostly for the sake of Sensationalism Now! in a nation avidly watching TV every day, every minute of the day.

Some call it News Obesity ...
 
Fact checking and being honest only works if the consumers of that information actually value truth and facts. We get a daily stream of easily verifiable, objective lies from the president and no amount of pointing out the inaccuracies will convince people who don't want to be convinced. This isn't a problem we can just push off as "the big bad media", we the people bear the brunt of the blame.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Fact checking and being honest only works if the consumers of that information actually value truth and facts. We get a daily stream of easily verifiable, objective lies from the president and no amount of pointing out the inaccuracies will convince people who don't want to be convinced. This isn't a problem we can just push off as "the big bad media", we the people bear the brunt of the blame.
Click to expand...

Ah. Hmm.

"Fact checking and being honest only works if the consumers of that information actually value truth and facts."
When the media types stop interviewing other media types and all dressed up as news and call it 'news', that'd be a start. Gotta fill the air time on a 24x7 news channel somehow.

"the big bad media"? Well, who does the described above?

"We get a daily stream of easily verifiable, objective lies from the president and no amount of pointing out the inaccuracies will convince people who don't want to be convinced."

I think this more so a reaction to the level of discredit the 'news' (political propaganda) media have brought on themselves all by themselves. Just have to revisit the Japanese Fish Story for a stellar example of the 'news' media's dishonesty and bias in covering this president and this administration.

Is it really any wonder that some, many or most distrust the news media? Would seem to be rather reasonably justified if you ask me.
 
Being in the middle of Sharyl Attkisson's book The Smear, it's pretty clear that my cynical views regarding the manipulation of the public perception have been validated.

WaPo and NYT are really nothing but government propaganda outlets, under the control of corporate interests and their agenda. Above all else, maintaining the status quo seems to be their agenda.

Certainly there are good and conscientious individuals working within the industry, but they are soon made to do and write as they are told.

The "provenance of facts" is rather easier said than done.
 
Lafayette said:
NEWS-OBESITY

How to protect against fake ‘facts’

Excerpt:


Read the rest. It's worth it in this day and age when "political news-facts" are a dime-a-dozen every hour. Tantamount to yet another breach in journalism's precious wall-of-veracity that should be protecting The Truth from sensationalism that attracts interest.

Every time, every day that we breach that wall, information credibility suffers. And mostly for the sake of Sensationalism Now! in a nation avidly watching TV every day, every minute of the day.

Some call it News Obesity ...
Click to expand...

Step 1: Don't read the WaPo for factual reporting.
 
Fishking said:
Step 1: Don't read the WaPo for factual reporting.
Click to expand...

Blah, blah, blah.

This is a debate-forum. Look up the word "debate".

You might be happier on a Message Board where empty one-liners are the rule ... ?
 
Lafayette said:
NEWS-OBESITY

How to protect against fake ‘facts’

Excerpt:


Read the rest. It's worth it in this day and age when "political news-facts" are a dime-a-dozen every hour. Tantamount to yet another breach in journalism's precious wall-of-veracity that should be protecting The Truth from sensationalism that attracts interest.

Every time, every day that we breach that wall, information credibility suffers. And mostly for the sake of Sensationalism Now! in a nation avidly watching TV every day, every minute of the day.

Some call it News Obesity ...
Click to expand...

I see the pot is lecturing the kettle about avoiding getting black...
 
Lafayette said:
Blah, blah, blah.

This is a debate-forum. Look up the word "debate".

You might be happier on a Message Board where empty one-liners are the rule ... ?
Click to expand...

Says the person who wrote something that doesn't even address their own OP or the response. And that's what we call irony.
 
Fishking said:
Step 1: Don't read the WaPo for factual reporting.
Click to expand...
Lol i was thinkng that myself. The irony of them complaining about fake news was not lost on me.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
 
Thoreau72 said:
Being in the middle of Sharyl Attkisson's book The Smear, it's pretty clear that my cynical views regarding the manipulation of the public perception have been validated.

WaPo and NYT are really nothing but government propaganda outlets, under the control of corporate interests and their agenda. Above all else, maintaining the status quo seems to be their agenda.

Certainly there are good and conscientious individuals working within the industry, but they are soon made to do and write as they are told.

The "provenance of facts" is rather easier said than done.
Click to expand...
Um, the government is run by Republicans and Trump is the head of the government. The above papers are not tools of the government.

These papers do an admirable job of providing news and don't print material that doesn't meet long held journalist standards.

What you are doing is falling into the fascist trap of questioning news so that the official "government propaganda outlets", e.g. the White House are the only source of news.
 
MTAtech said:
Um, the government is run by Republicans and Trump is the head of the government. The above papers are not tools of the government.

These papers do an admirable job of providing news and don't print material that doesn't meet long held journalist standards.

What you are doing is falling into the fascist trap of questioning news so that the official "government propaganda outlets", e.g. the White House are the only source of news.
Click to expand...

Long before Donald became POTUS I was very much aware of the propaganda function of mainstream media. There are so many examples of that over so many years that I can't remember them all. That you are (apparently) unaware of that relationship suggests you are fairly young.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Being in the middle of Sharyl Attkisson's book The Smear, it's pretty clear that my cynical views regarding the manipulation of the public perception have been validated.

WaPo and NYT are really nothing but government propaganda outlets, under the control of corporate interests and their agenda. Above all else, maintaining the status quo seems to be their agenda.

Certainly there are good and conscientious individuals working within the industry, but they are soon made to do and write as they are told.

The "provenance of facts" is rather easier said than done.
Click to expand...

You have shown over and over that you only believe fake news.
Truth, logic and reason are foreign concepts to you
 
Thoreau72 said:
Long before Donald became POTUS I was very much aware of the propaganda function of mainstream media. There are so many examples of that over so many years that I can't remember them all. That you are (apparently) unaware of that relationship suggests you are fairly young.
Click to expand...

And we are well aware of your disconnect from reality
 
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Moved to more appropriate location
 
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