Posts by Rob Stowell
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Irrelevant to who is legally president. But very relevant to the stories that we tell about this election. Which is why it’s being peddled.
-
Yeah sorry. Or worse, suggest you become a case study ;) Easy to forget how information and information skills are a luxury.
-
You read it somewhere? Its so obviously wrong to anyone who has followed the *actual* news or has a clue about how the electoral college works and the final vote there came out or paid any attention at all to how the states were voting or has any ability to tell a fake "news" site from one whose agenda includes actual reporting ... it's not worth starting on the process of getting you informed until you've shown some iniative of your own. Try Wikipedia :)
-
'Next News Network" - apparently funded - according to another crazy right-wing website - by 'radical zionist' Gary Franchi.
There's a world of craziness/horror out there. Not even hiding. -
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Russell Brown,
this almost unwatchable exercise in blather
Which is dressed up in the clothes (scrolling bottom third, picture in picture, moving background, etc etc) of a real news organisation. On the one hand, it's pretty cheap and relatively easy to do that stuff nowdays. OTOH, 'next news network' are selling ads but almost certainly have some other $$$ k-ching behind them.
-
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
In the case of tech journalism, and going back to the print era, I would put it at over 50%, whether it’s driven by lack of understanding, sources with an agenda (selling something, often) or desire to create a good story where none exists. I’d say tech is probably about average.
Fair enough, that’s your reckon. I reckon a careful analysis would find a far lower percentage of stories with any factual errors – and even with those stories, there might be errors, but the overall thrust of the story would be more-or-less accurate.
If you’ve worked as a journalist and made mistakes, you probably get a better sense of how this plays out. People don’t just roll over and shut up …
That’s not in any way dismissing the extent journalism is under pressure. Re-cycling press releases is one major consequence. There’s been so much more money (and, increasingly, numbers of jobs) in PR/’Comms’ than in journalism for so long. We’re losing the battle.
You need decent general knowledge and a sceptical nose to read the news – sort out what’s real, important, valuable, trivia, trash – but then you probably always did. Dismissing the whole enterprise is no way forward. -
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
In general, I tend to regard any information not evidenced by my own eyes, by the eyes of somebody I know personally or properly evidenced research as ‘for entertainment only’.
Yeah? We know journalism is under great threat - more and more to be done by fewer and fewer people (and resources ...) And mistakes have and will always happen. Similarly, there will always be a few journalists who don't care or take short-cuts.
We can point to stories where we have detailed knowledge, and see the short-comings and/or outright errors - often unacknowledged. But what percentage of what is in the major outlets is in this category? 10% would be a high estimate - and it leaves 90% more-or-less fair and accurate.
How have so many people been conned into believing in either a grand MSM conspiracy or some version of 'it's all spin and fabrication anyway so don't believe any of it'?
It may not be the goal of such disinformation campaigns to spread distrust and uncertainty (far harder to fight, as the tobacco lobby found) rather than actual lies. But it has that pernicious effect. -
The 'fake news' issue is scary. I went through the process of following links and unpicking sources a few times - almost always ending with some tiny morsel of opinion that ballooned into (usually) the most ridiculous attacks on Hillary.
But pointing it out - even meticulously, piece by piece - just meant I was one of the brainwashed.
A couple of people must have blocked me on facebook, because the worst offender just disappeared. To be fair, I'd contemplated doing the same to him, but I was genuinely intrigued at what he was believing and promulgating. -
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Russell Brown,
regarding polls taken when the only information about him was positive as a guarantee is pretty perilous.
For sure. Might have been is funny territory. Sanders did remarkably and unexpectedly well in Michigan, though - it's possible he'd have done well up there. Not an election where any predictions seem cast iron.
-
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Russell Brown,
But mostly:
Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook:
This is probably all true, but ... who can know? Sanders had a genuine palpable anger about where the US is, and a prescription to change things. This wasn't the year facts and old scandals and 'baggage' necessarily destroyed a candidate - however likely that was on past experience.