On Fake News, Clickbait & Hoaxes: Verified by Snopes to be True

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > On Fake News, Clickbait & Hoaxes: Verified by Snopes to be True

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

It's not just about the ability to recognize bias. It's about a basic understanding of the mechanisms of good journalism. There are standards that you can apply regardless of what side you're on, or what side you think the news is on. Is it verifiable? Does the reporter do their own research and cite it to confirm or deny what a source says? Is it even a reported story, or just an unedited interview or live interview? Who is on a panel - and does a panel discussion even add value to the story?

A lot of what's out there is bad journalism not because it's biased, but because it's lazy, ill-considered reporting. Or worse, it's not reporting at all, and instead it just puts sources on the air directly without the research and writing portion of a story - increasingly common because it's much cheaper and faster.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 17:49

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:10

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

People tend to focus really hard on whether the news is liberal or conservative, and that's putting the cart before the horse. You're just looking at the end product and saying "does this take a side" rather than applying consistent principles. In other words, it's a search for objectivity that isn't based on objective standards. That's how you end up with the "two people who disagreed with each other were on TV, therefore it was objective" idea.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 17:50

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Potato Salad posted:

I haven't thought of this before and now feel like snuffing it (not really but drat).

I don't know what this means.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 19:18

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

sitchensis posted:

This is a fantastic point and really offers up the closest I've seen to a solution to this problem.

Media literacy in schools from elementary up. And when I say "media literacy," I don't mean "being able to understand the news." I mean that people today deal with an insane amount of information on a daily basis. Information meaning ALL the information they process, both consciously and subconsciously, from traffic signals to food labels to conversations to TV shows. Children need the tools to handle that. We actually already have the framework in place for media literacy. We teach literacy in schools. We teach literature in schools. We teach kids how to understand plot, and characters, and perspective, and subtext, and context, and all these incredibly complex ideas. We just aren't teaching them how to apply those skills to the rest of the media they consume, both fiction and nonfiction.

It's shortsighted to just talk about news media, because fiction is even more influential. The things that form someone's worldview isn't just the news, it's the cultural ideas they get from movies and television and music. I like to remind people that Antonin Scalia cited Jack Bauer in a case on enhanced interrogation. We need to show children how to take the skills they learn in English class and apply those skills to the rest of their lives. This isn't to say we shouldn't teach literature, because literature has lots of value (although we can argue about what literature gets taught).

Studying the written word is hugely important. But we need to expand English classes beyond just that. We're teaching children how to understand their language and communicate with others who share it. It's called English for a reason. So all the other places in which the English language is being used to convey cultural and political ideas need to also be part of the curriculum. History classes as well. It's absurd to me that English and History are two different subjects, because in both cases you're studying the cultural and linguistic products of the English-speaking world. Even studies of foreign nations and languages are filtered through that understanding.

Potato Salad posted:

I read a lot of international state news outlets. Like, I'm familiar now with what to expect from Hurriyet vs Sozcu vs BBC vs RT (and thus r/the_donald, not making GBS threads you) regarding [paste Syrian development of the day here]. On reflection, I'm finding that I read unfamiliar sources by first scanning for slant.

It's pretty normal. Reading a lot of different news sources means you're actively engaging with the news, and taking the time to think about it. It's a very good practice, and "consume diverse news" is the first thing I tell people when they ask me how to be more news-literate. People can't be expected to know the standards of good journalism. Why would they? It takes training. Most people don't know the standards of good medicine or engineering or architecture, either. I know plenty of people in the media who don't know good journalism either, because they aren't reporters and don't come from a reporting background.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 19:53

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

This sounds good until it turns out that all these fake news sites DO have sources and the sources have sources and the link has links to very important sounding websites and this has all gone on long enough that it's not as simple as one website acting alone to make fake stuff. It's one fake site siteing another fake site citing a book that maybe discredited but if you don't look that up right you'd not notice.

Like want some fake news that climate change is fake? I can point to quotes from the president of united states agreeing with it. I can point to entire scientific journals that sure look real. I can point to hundreds of websites with hundreds of thousands of users. etc.

Like fake stuff is pretty deeply embedded. It isn't hard for one site to verify the other side and then that site to be verified by something else. Way back to the point it is hard for people to know if they don't already know.

Except that part of good journalistic practice is understanding the difference between a good or bad source, and one of the ways you can tell is if there's a preponderance of experts in a field saying otherwise. Cherry-picking sources to get a conclusion is bad journalistic practice, which is what lovely and fake news sites do. That's an objective standard you can use to say "this is not good reporting." Reporting that fails to put something into context, for instance by ignoring the overwhelming number of scientists who agree that climate change exists, is bad reporting. People need to be able to recognize it not just through the conclusions a story reaches, but by pointing to specific practices and standards and saying "this failed to do this" or "this used this bad practice" the same as you would in evaluating, say, a peer-reviewed study. And news reports are a lot less complex than peer-reviewed studies. People can be given the knowledge they need to do this. But if your only definition of bad reporting is "it reaches the wrong conclusions," well, people are just going to keep looking for journalism that reinforces their worldview. Not shockingly, places like Breitbart are really bad at basic elements of journalism. They've just turned that into a good thing, by saying "but look, these good standards of journalism produce conclusions you don't agree with, so they must be the evil tools of the mainstream media" They aren't trying to hide behind objective reporting. They're just dismissing it entirely.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 20:41

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Yeah, but I mean, it's brain in the jar matrix stuff. If you want to spread a lie just tell the reader the scientists all agree with you. If you want articles to point to specific statistics and practices the article can write they did that just as much as a real one did.

The core of an article being fake is that it is fake. It can lie. Historically fake websites lie poorly. But that isn't a rule of nature and we are moving away from fake news that is lovely geocities pages to fake news that is on websites that look as professional as CNN and write as professionally as anything, and make up facts that support their conclusion and then lie and say they didn't make those facts up!

This only works if people don't choose to consume other news sources. This is why media literacy matters. To give people the ability to recognize that what they are consuming is not good, based on objective standards of how they report, not what they report. Right now lovely news sources can get away with it because their audience does not know how to tell that what they are doing is bad. They can't see it. You can't turn all of them away from it, but if you have a generation that grows up understanding good journalism, they won't read it in the first place. You can attack the economic basis for fake news by removing their future audience.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 20:54

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Okay, but how do you know how they report? If you ask them they will lie.

Do you actually think it's impossible to look at or listen to a piece of news and analyze it the way you would any other piece of professional work? You don't tell what good reporting is by asking the reporters if it's good. Do you have any idea at all what you're talking about? Like do you actually know anything about journalism?

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 00:42

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

It's very important to be able to articulate what makes journalism good or bad, because otherwise you fall into the reputation trap. That's when you say "I trust the New York Times, it has a very good reputation," and they say "I don't trust it" and you say "You should" and they say "Why?" and you say "Because it has a very good reputation." Which is why media literacy should be taught in schools. Reporting isn't the only field where this happens - at all - but it matters.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 00:48

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Rexicon1 posted:

I'm starting to doubt that the reason people distrust media is because of media literacy. I think the reason for distrust media is because of strong propaganda forces that hardwire people into feeling a certain way. To put to much onus on the individual who is influenced by crap might be blaming the egg for the chicken.

I didn't say it was the sole cause. And greater media literacy won't make people trust the media, it just will help to address the problem of people being unable to differentiate between real news and fake. It will also help hold a lot of "mainstream" media outlets accountable for really bad journalism.

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Like if I wanted to claim 18% of pork shoulder contains hook worm cysts. I could make a dozen very professional news websites, write extremely long and detailed articles that mention that, quote the USDA saying it's true

Oh my god you're so dumb. You do not understand the news at all. Let's examine: The USDA puts out press releases about food safety all the time. They would also very publicly dispute this claim. Other news sources would also contact the USDA before they just ran your story verbatim.

quote:

with dozens of websites I also hosted saying the USDA confirmed it

The USDA has a website, and spokespeople, and a media team. Again, they would publicly say this is not true.

quote:

said that and all link it to a bunch of scientific journals I also wrote and submitted to poor quality publishing farm fake scientific journals that most people wouldn't know were fake.

This is my point about good journalistic practice. Good news sources would point out that those aren't respected journals, and say why. You aren't sort of media mastermind capable of running an unbeatable con. People have tried this poo poo, with the fake sources. They always get caught. Stephen Glass is a great example. And if people understood the basics of good reporting, like I'm arguing, it would fall apart even faster.

quote:

At that point I could add that fact to wikipedia and a dozen other sites would use that number because they checked wikipedia and wikipedia seemed to have some good sources.

Your plan is built on the entire media apparatus all just throwing their hands up and not doing their jobs.

quote:

And maybe someday CNN would just say in some throw away cooking safety throw away segment, then I got cites from CNN saying it's true.

CNN would always just defer to official USDA food safety guidelines, as would basically any journalist, because that's a safe and reliable source.

quote:

And none of this would ever trick someone who actually knew for even a second, but it's a huge web of apparently good journalism eventually built on the bones of bad journalism because the original was just lies.

No, because as I pointed out a bunch of times, this all fell apart immediately. Again, you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't understand how the news works. You have no experience with it. You do not get it, at all, and you're trying to make arguments that are based on an understanding of the media that you simply don't have. Yes, hoaxes can be perpetuated in the media. Yes, reporters fail to do their jobs - or never have a chance in the first place. But what I'm saying, over and over, is that an audience with a better understanding of the standards of news reporting will be able to make more informed decisions and hold the media accountable.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 01:40

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Like, I am not a super experienced or talented reporter. I do not have awards. I do not report full time. But the basics of journalism just aren't that complex, and we absolutely can help people better understand them. This isn't a hopeless situation. I'm not offering a magical panacea here, I'm just saying an effort can be made to improve the situation, and one way to do that is to make it harder for people to make money on bad reporting, by reducing the demand for bad reporting.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 01:45

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

My fake news sites say they contacted the USDA and they said it was true.

That's not how it works, I don't know what you aren't getting about this.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 02:06

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

You're like a little kid shouting "I HAVE A LASER SHIELD."

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 02:06

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

It's not how what works? It's exactly how anti vaccine and anti global warming stuff works. It's false information so if someone digs enough they can find that the lies are lies, but they are lies that are apparently well supported as other liars say them, including quotes from experts that don't exist and quotes from people that seem like they would be experts but are not.

Your position is that media literacy is either pointless or impossible because people can just fake good journalism. I'm telling you that isn't possible. As your hypothetical demonstrates, you don't have enough media experience to understand that. The official position of organizations like the Associated Press is that vaccines are safe and effective and global warming is real. They didn't start at these conclusions and work backwards. The basics of research and investigation that make for good reporting led them to it. That's my point. There is no situation of "good journalism disguising false facts" because good journalism will, very quickly, turn up that those facts are false. Teaching people to recognize the difference between good and bad journalism allows them to better evaluate the news and recognize when a news organization - or fake news organization - is failing at it.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 02:32

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

"People should be taught to better recognize good and bad journalism."

"That's impossible, because what if bad journalism?"

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 02:36

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Call Me Charlie posted:

I think what he's trying to say is that an established organization can potentially discredit themselves in certain circles by overstepping their bounds while a fake news site can come up with an endless amount of false sources that the average person can't navigate while being presented in a fashion that matches 'legitimate' sources (see: infowars' extremely high production value)

So it's less of media literacy = bad and more like it's a deep dark grey area that most people can't handle. We all understand that the Cato Institute is a bullshit source of information but when it's 'findings' are being presented generations away from the source, that's more difficult.

Yes, but what I'm saying is that people can be taught to tell the difference between the shallow appearance of legitimacy, as in your infowars example, and real journalism. That doesn't mean that the media will become impossible to manipulate. But the standards of good journalism make it more difficult to do so - right now, a lot of the media is failing at the basics of reporting. One reason is that there's a lot of economic incentive toward bad practices. For example, the live unedited interview with a controversial subject, or having campaign surrogates on live panel shows. Those things happen because they're cheap to produce and get good ratings. But if you have generations growing up that will choose not to support these things, in much the same way they wouldn't go to a doctor who wanted to use leeches to cure a cold, a lot of that incentive goes away. Obviously problems will still exist, and it isn't the sole solution that fixes every problem. You just can't fix the problems in the news reporting without giving the audience the tools to make better decisions about what media they consume.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 03:26

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

It's also about more than just the sources and facts presented. Again, it's not just about the end result, or even just "is the story true." It's about how it's reported, because true things can be reported in ways that are misleading. Let's take a look at a random Fox News story.

quote:

Hampshire College returns US flag to full staff; president denies playing politics

The headline is already a problem, because it uses implication to suggest a particular narrative. "President denies playing politics" implies that the president was playing politics. Every fact in here is true, but you already have one bad practice: a misleading headline. Headlines really matter, and journalists can often be bad at them. They're deceptively tricky.

quote:

Hampshire College in Massachusetts raised the American flag back to full staff Friday after outraged veterans protested the school's decision to stop flying all flags across campus.

This lede is mostly fine, except it wasn't just veterans who protested.

quote:

The college in Amherst had lowered the U.S. flag to half-staff after Election Day. The flag was found burned on Veterans Day, and the school chose to stop flying it � and any other flags � a week later.

The conjunction in the second sentence implies that the school chose to stop flying it because it was burned. Again, bad practice: the reporter is misleading through implication.

quote:

"We understand that many who hold the flag as a powerful symbol of national ideals and their highest aspirations for the country -- including members of our own community -- felt hurt by our decisions, and that we deeply regret," the college's president, Jonathan Lash, stated Friday. He added, "We did not lower the flag to make a political statement. ... We acted solely to facilitate much-needed dialogue on our campus about how to dismantle the bigotry that is prevalent in our society."

This is fine. It's pretty standard in a story like this to run the statement of apology.

quote:

The school's choice to stop flying the flag triggered widespread condemnation and a protest by veterans groups and their supporters outside campus. Last weekend, dozens of vets and other activists held American flags and chanted, "U.S.A.," in a rally that organizers called a "peaceful demonstration of freedom."

This is a mess. The first sentence is okay - it's all accurate, and it's a fair way to present the situation. The second sentence is a disaster. Why does it matter that they chanted "U.S.A?" Was that the only thing they chanted? Worse still is the last part. Of course the organizers called it that, that's their job. Why are they just uncritically quoting that? Again, you can apply this standard to any piece of reporting: if a reporter does a story on a group that did something, and they characterize the event using a quote from that group's organizers, that's bad reporting.

quote:

Mayor Domenic Sarno of nearby Springfield and others at the rally said the school's decision disrespected veterans and current military members.

Did they? Did "others" say that? Did they all say the same thing? Quoting unspecified "others" or "many say that" or "some feel" is an objectively bad practice. Again, this can be applied widely.

quote:

In video that aired Wednesday on "The O'Reilly Factor," Fox News' Jesse Watters confronted Lash, who refused to comment on the controversy at that time.

This is garbage. It does not matter what happened on another Fox show. The report is being used to promote a show owned by the organization for which the reporter works. This is an objectively bad practice. Additionally, they don't provide a link to the video so the viewer can see and judge whether their account of what happened is true.

quote:

"Hampshire staff and faculty have led facilitated discussions, I have held multiple focus group sessions, and all of our students, faculty, and staff have been invited to contribute their opinions, questions, and perspectives about the U.S. flag. This is what free speech looks like," Lash said Friday.

This is fine, although it should appear higher up in the story. It's also implied that Lash said this on The O'Reilly factor, because this is a garbage story.

But every criticism in here isn't of the factual content of the story, which may or may not be accurate. It's of the manner in which it was presented. There are best practices, in terms of reporting and ethics and writing and so forth, that have been discussed and agreed upon based on objective standards of good reporting. You can look for them in any story, just like you would look at any other profession. It's just that journalists aren't licensed like interior designers or lawyers. There's no bar exam. There's no board of journalistic ethics that will take away your reporter's license if you breach them. That's entirely up to the audience, and that's why the audience needs to know these things.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 03:41

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

ewe2 posted:

FAU, I found your proposition of teaching media literacy very appealing, but would never happen here, the right wing are on to such plans and fight their culture wars more successfully on the curriculum than the US Midwest - which is the very place that needs that literacy most and will never get it anyway. So, great idea, shame about the execution. Unless civilization itself recognizes the danger, I fail to see why any ideologue would permit such a limitation.

It depends a lot on fixing public education in the U.S., yeah. I'm arguing for what should happen, not for what is likely to happen. But the goal overall is to disseminate a set of objective standards for reporting into the public consciousness, so if that doesn't happen through the schools, cool, whatever. I'm a lefty type, so I'm always going to argue for more and better public education.

Makrond posted:

Would teaching people media literacy actually fix the problems we see with mainstream journalism though? I'm genuinely curious, because people seem to have decided that good journalism isn't profitable, in a world driven increasingly by Jobs And Growth. Breaking the back of 'fake news' and their funding model doesn't necessarily mean people will take their money to institutions that practice good journalism more often than not, right? At that point what do you do? If your job as a journalist rests on your employer deciding you make them enough money to justify your pay, how do you advocate for things that directly affect their bottom line? How do you hold the powerful to account when they stop talking to you because you think human rights aren't just an inconvenience to ignore? How do you shed light on government wrongdoing when breaking the story lands you in jail?

1. It doesn't solve the problems on its own, but it helps. The goal is to make good journalism profitable, and bad journalism unprofitable, by getting people to a. recognize good and bad journalism and b. be willing to support it.
2. If it becomes an embarrassment to a company that their journalists can't report on their parent company or a major advertiser, that becomes less common. But you're right, it can be very difficult for reporters to avoid the pressure to report favorably on things their organization is connected to. It will remain important to consume news from many sources. Ideally, journalists would all act ethically and their audience would hold them accountable to those standards, but that's an "in a perfect world" argument.
3. If free press protections collapse and the government starts jailing journalists, this is all a moot point because regardless of media literacy, journalism is hosed in that country. You would need a strong public movement in favor of a free press, with consistent public outcry and protest when journalists are jailed. So... good luck with that one, Australia.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 14:14

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Zipperelli. posted:

So they're free to write whatever they want, knowing full well that if it came to litigation, they'd just drag their feet, cost the plaintiff more money than it's worth, then dispute everything until the end of time?

What a garbage state of affairs.

America's strong protections for the press against libel allow the press to investigate public figures in a way that wasn't possible before those protections were put into place, and isn't possible in countries like Australia. And I don't just mean on the national level, either. Tabloids take advantage of that situation, but that doesn't make those libel protections a bad thing. They're just an unintended consequence of the free press.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 12:46

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

botany posted:

I'd be interested in more info on this, if you're up for it. Or if you have some links to read, that'd be nice as well.

Wikipedia lays it out pretty well, but the key case is New York Times v. Sullivan, if you want a different source. It established a precedent that public figures can't sue for libel simply because something is false. They have to demonstrate "actual malice." So public figures can't just go through stories to find any minor inaccuracy ("Oh, it was actually five attack dogs, not six") and use it as the basis for a suit.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 13:08

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Times v. Sullivan is also a footnote to the Civil Rights movement.

quote:

On March 29, 1960, The New York Times carried a full-page advertisement titled "Heed Their Rising Voices", paid for by the "Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South".[5][6] In the advertisement, the Committee solicited funds to defend Martin Luther King, Jr. against an Alabama perjury indictment. The advertisement described actions against civil rights protesters, some of them inaccurately, some of which involved the police force of Montgomery, Alabama. Referring to the Alabama State Police, the advertisement stated: "They have arrested [King] seven times..."[7] However, at that point he had been arrested four times.[7] Although African-American students staged a demonstration on the State Capitol steps, they sang the National Anthem and not My Country, 'Tis of Thee.[7] Although the Montgomery Public Safety commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, was not named in the advertisement, the inaccurate criticism of actions by the police was considered defamatory to Sullivan as well, due to his duty to supervise the police department.[7]

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 13:10

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Potato Salad posted:

I made a mistake here. I read this and assumed that, between libel policy abroad that favors the plaintiff and the protections citizens enjoy in the States, you'd have been informed about the one that is a component of your rights -- assuming you live in the US.

My apologies for reading your post with the prejudice that you even knew the extent of protection we enjoy on free speech in the states, nonetheless on how it's actually something of a novel idea that free speech is so strictly protected even in a democratic society. That's my bad, I'll make sure to avoid assuming you know more than what's explicitly in your posts.

If you want some breadcrumbs on the Australia tangent I included by mistake anyway, read up on free speech issues in superficially more progressive nations like Germany, the UK, and Australia. My (unprompted, unwanted) hot take is that progress isn't a sliding bar -- you can be a nation like Germany that's experimenting with progressive economic ideas like basic income yet be somewhat regressive on topics like free speech. In the UK, and you may or may not agree with this if you look into it yourself, what essentially amounts to burden of proof is placed on the reporter as opposed to the plaintiff in libel cases. That stands in contrast with what happens here in the US, where a plaintiff has a steep burden to prove falsehood, intent, and damage to silence libelous speech / collect damages from a defendant.

It's very much worth being aware of the free speech situation in places like the UK and Australia, because the U.S. shares a lot of things with them, politically, and it's worth being reminded that free speech can disappear at any moment unless you continue to fight for it.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 15:27

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

All those headlines are fine. They lay out clearly that this is a fringe conspiracy theory that led an armed man to assault a pizza place.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 00:02

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:10

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

botany posted:

Yeah how did you get from that to "his family is covering up child abuse", like what the gently caress. I wasn't sure if you were trying to be extremely meta by coming up with your own idiotic conspiracy theory in the fake news thread.

EugeneJ is an idiot.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 17:49

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