Nate Fischer on Twitter - "“Fact checkers” perform a valuable service by bringing to attention claims that are easy to miss but worth consideration. Look past their nitpicking to the narrative they’re trying to suppress."
Fact check: COVID-19 transmission, death risk isn't easily calculated - "Based on our research, we rate PARTLY FALSE the claim that a given person has a 2.4% chance of getting COVID and a 0.05% chance of dying from it. These figures are roughly correct on a global scale, but at an individual level the risk varies hugely, experts say. The chances of getting sick or dying from COVID-19 vary based on individual factors like age, health history and location."
The Meme Policeman - Posts | Facebook - "I don't identify as a fact checker now because of how bad that field has become. Also, I never use the term "partly false" in a breakdown. It's either false or something else (misleading, non-sequitur, fallacy, etc.) False means something in the claim is false (rarely is anything completely false). The job of a fact checker should be to point out what is false and let the reader determine the severity of it. Often one lie among several truths can be more malicious than several errors. Partly true/false verdicts are simply ways to insert bias into a fact check. In this case, the rating should be misleading (or shouldn't be done at all). If someone quotes a correct statistic, that's not "partly false." Saying there's an X chance of dying from Covid is sort of misleading as a blanket statement, since the elderly are hundreds of times more likely to die than a child. The aggregate average is often useless in regards to a particular individual. But it's not false."
Is 'fact-check' journalism doing more harm than good for media outlets? - The Hub - "The election of Donald Trump in 2016 took a burgeoning media innovation, the journalistic “fact-check” story, and made it a staple of just about every major outlet in North America... The growth of global fact-checking operations grew by nearly 100 percent from 2014 to 2019, according to a recent census by the Duke University Reporters’ Lab. The census found 342 global fact-checkers in the world this year, compared to 277 in 2018 and, despite a slow-down in the last two years, the numbers are still growing... And all this in a media industry that appears to be contracting in just about every other way. But amid this steady global growth, it’s worth asking the obvious question: is fact-check journalism accomplishing its goal to better educate the public?... fact-check journalism seems to be effective at correcting people’s mistaken beliefs, but that it can also make them more hostile to the media organization and the journalist publishing the story. Other research has shown that it rarely changes readers’ perception of a candidate... Do fact-checks miss the forest for the trees?... The Chicago gun laws fact-check story used by the researchers is also a good illustration of the more nebulous issues with this kind of journalism. The fact-check piece corrects several incorrect statements by Trump, but fails to tackle the substance of what he was arguing. Trump said Chicago has the strongest gun laws in the nation and the highest crime rate: both inarguably false statements. But, it’s also true that Chicago has a high crime rate (ranked seventh in murder rate) and has strong gun laws (Illinois gets an A- and is ranked 8th in this scorecard)."
Considering that much "fact checking" is just a political cudgel to spin the truth, the results are no surprise
Fact Check: Was Teacher Fired for Not Meowing Back at Student Who 'Identifies as Cat'? - "The video's creator does appear to be a high school teacher, according to her past videos, but the story is entirely made up—ironically, as an exercise to "create awareness" of what kids are going through at school, according to other videos posted several days later by the same account... "I'm grateful for the people who reached out and asked me about it, but I'm disappointed ... how fake news is made. I was not fired," she concludes... Curiously, this is the second piece of misinformation purporting that students are identifying as animals this week. Earlier, a Michigan school superintendent was forced to debunk a rumor, which stemmed from a video from a December school board meeting, where an attendee claimed that the school is installing litter boxes for students that "identify as cats." "It is unconscionable that this afternoon I am sending this communication," the superintendent of Midland Public Schools, Michael Sharrow, wrote"
Skepticism Beats Snopes as an Antidote to Fake News - WSJ - "When oligopolistic producers ruled, they provided reliability to the extent their readers wanted it. At one end supermarket tabloids published stories and grainy pictures of extraterrestrial landings and improbable celebrity shenanigans. At the other end were publications like the New Yorker and—surprisingly to me—Inc. magazine. They catered to different subscribers, ranging from literary lefties to conservative small-business owners. What they covered (and how) naturally reflected the interest of their readers. In my experience, both magazines checked the accuracy of the articles they published with more rigor and ferocity than prestigious scholarly journals do. Technology made this model hard to sustain. Google and Facebook sucked away the advertising that supported news reporting—and the fact checking. More competition for fewer readers and advertisers tempted traditionally staid news outlets toward tabloid sensationalism and fantasy, albeit in a more political and (usually) less salacious vein. And what is now called “fact checking” is a competitive gotcha effort, not an exercise in controlling the reliability of a news organization’s own product. Technology has also brought into the fray ideological amateurs who have no reporting costs—or reputations to worry about. Anyone with a mobile phone—that is to say, anyone—can tweet or post on Facebook and with modestly more effort hold forth on a blog. Cameras in mobile phones give everyone the capabilities of photojournalists and documentarians. Even amateurs who don’t expect payment often hope for attention, swelling a race to the bottom in sensationalism. And while mobile phones have made photography and videography cheap and easy, software has enabled the doctoring of images. Faking still pictures is already within nearly anyone’s reach; doing the same with movies will soon be as well. Citizen-reporters, those whose political convictions self-justify their means, thus add to the inaccuracies of professional journalism. And while some freelancers may expose media falsehoods rather than produce their own, how are we to know which ones? Independent policing of the news has a natural appeal, but it raises the question posed in Juvenal’s Satires: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? “Who will guard the guards themselves?” Snopes’s myth busting can’t stop fantasy masquerading as fact either. It’s a for-profit business whose complete reliance on advertising exposes it to the same forces that stoke fakery: Survival requires more web traffic than debunking true urban legends can easily attract. And according to critics, Snopes is biased to the left... we should treat skepticism as a vital civic virtue. Rather than obsess about ferreting out falsehoods and punishing liars, we can avoid much harm by asking: What if widely reported facts are wrong? Better to acknowledge how little we know than to persist in believing what just ain’t so."
How Political Fact-Checkers Distort the Truth - "Senator Bernie Sanders said, “Three people [in this country] own more wealth than the bottom half of America.” And Glenn Kessler, who leads The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” blog, wrote, “This snappy talking point is based on numbers that add up.” But Kessler, having checked the fact and confirmed that it was true, for some reason continued checking. “People in the bottom half have essentially no wealth,” he helpfully pointed out. “So the comparison is not especially meaningful.” That seems like a judgment call best left to, say, a “meaning-checker,” but Kessler, a former business section editor who happens to be a descendant of Royal Dutch Shell and Procter & Gamble executives—an actual member of the American elite and a likely member of the one percent—makes Sanders the regular target of his attempts to police the bounds of acceptable political realities from his perch at The Washington Post... Because Kessler is particularly bad at his job—or, rather, because he is doing a different job, that of a centrist columnist disguised as a fact-checker—he has deflected attention from his competitors, most of whom also routinely mistake elite conventional wisdom for truth. In September, PolitiFact, the venerable fact-checking operation run by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, waded into a fight between Julian Castro and Joe Biden over their health care plans, and found a disputable but eminently supportable claim Castro has made—that there is a “big difference” between a plan people are automatically enrolled in and one they opt into—to be “mostly false.” When Elizabeth Warren blamed trade policy for American job losses, an Associated Press fact check said, “Economists mostly blame those job losses on automation and robots, not trade deals.” Some economists have indeed made that claim, but others vehemently disagree—pointing out that very little, if any, evidence exists to support the automation thesis. What may look like the unquestioned assumptions of centrist economists appear to these organizations, somehow, as cold, hard facts. Fact-checkers did not always have such an expansive bailiwick. Prior to its establishment as a public-facing industry, there was already a job with that title, but primarily in magazines, not newspapers. People holding that job were not responsible for determining whether a magazine story was true (i.e., is campus political correctness a threat to liberal democracy?) but whether the discrete statements of fact within it were true (i.e., did the College Republicans event with Tommy Robinson happen on this date?). As for determining “truth,” at least for the purposes of feature writing, Aristotle nailed it: “To say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.” When our current titans of fact-checking were founded, they seemed determined to practice their craft with Aristotelian restraint. The industry was born in the George W. Bush era—FactCheck.org dates back to 2003, PolitiFact to 2007—and their style (including the cutesy lingo) reflects an era in which the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center’s official version of reality suddenly had to compete with Glenn Beck’s. Like their magazine counterparts, these fact-checkers would only check that a statement was technically true... Ironically, had fact-checkers kept to this narrow interpretation of the facts, they might actually be useful today... The trouble is, fact-checkers have expanded their purview from checking strictly empirical statements to “checking” contestable political statements... It is odd that fact-checking was so narrowly defined when a narrow mandate served the interests of power, and that its brief has now expanded considerably at a time when an overly broad mandate serves those interests. Perhaps the endless appetite for eyeballs and engagement that now distorts the entire media industry led these projects to drift away from their original mission, causing them to create an endless supply of “facts” to be “checked” for the sake of feeding the content maw" A relatively rare criticism of "fact checking" from a leftist
The Breaking News Consumer's Handbook - "This is our Breaking News Consumer's Handbook. Rather than counting on news outlets to get it right, we're looking at the other end. Below are some tips for how, in the wake of a big, tragic story, you can sort good information from bad. We've even made a handy, printable PDF that you can tape to your wall the next time you encounter a big news event.
1. In the immediate aftermath, news outlets will get it wrong.
2. Don't trust anonymous sources.
3. Don't trust stories that cite another news outlet as the source of the information.
4. There's almost never a second shooter.
5. Pay attention to the language the media uses.
Whether you realize it or not, the language the media uses tells you how reliable it is. Here's a helpful glossary:
"We are receiving reports" - sources are claiming something has happened, but it has not been confirmed.
"We are seeking confirmation" - the news outlet is confident, but still can't confirm.
"We can confirm" - information has come from multiple sources, and the news outlet feels confident that it can claim something as an actual fact.
"We have learned" - how a news outlet declares it has a scoop. As Andy Carvin says "on the one hand, it could mean that they’re the first ones to confirm something. Or they’re going out on a limb and reporting something that no one else has felt comfortable reporting yet."
6. Look for news outlets close to the incident.
7. Compare multiple sources.
8. Big news brings out the fakers. And Photoshoppers.
9. Beware reflexive retweeting. Some of this is on you."
Far easier to attribute all wrong reports to "psy ops"
Meme - Brian Stelter @brianstelter: "GOP's ante streak summarized: Governor of one of the biggest states in the USA says citizens should "assume" news outlets are lying to them"
Nicholas Sandmann @N1ckSandmann: "Howdy"
Rod Dreher on Twitter - "Just heard NPR report about funeral for Bronx fire victims. Reporter quoted local activist blaming white supremacy for fire. One leader said this like Emmitt Till murder. No pushback from journo. Then came NPR segment on why ppl distrust media. These ppl are clueless."
MSNBC's Joy Reid Smears DeSantis Without Evidence Over Alleged Sex Trafficking Investigation - "Joy Reid and Glenn Kirschner at MSNBC baselessly speculated about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis being involved in the DOJ investigation of Rep. Matt Gaetz... CBS’ “60 Minutes” produced a deceptively edited report on DeSantis, claiming he was involved in a pay-to-play Publix grocery store conspiracy that has been debunked on a bipartisan level. The network notably left out several minutes of footage of DeSantis denying the reporter’s narrative. They also failed to request some interviews with key figures, while intentionally leaving other interviews out. CBS’ Sharyn Alfonsi doubled down on the reporting and mocked readers last week for having objections to the conspiracy."
Why Is U.S. Media So Negative? - Freakonomics - "You know, the music that C.N.N. and other cable-news networks play to make sure you know that their “Breaking News” alert is really important...
These are real examples from C.N.N.; the “breaking news” text is being read aloud by our producers.
ANNOUNCER: Breaking news: No winner yet in America’s historic election.
ANNOUNCER: Breaking news: Titanic Sunk 102 Years Ago Tonight...
Yes, every writer and editor and producer wants their work to get attention, and they want to be paid. But the argument being made by Bruce Sacerdote goes beyond that. He says that the major American media outlets are primarily driven by profit-maximizing, and that the best way to profit-maximize is by accentuating the negative...
DUBNER: Do you know anything about how American the taste for negativity is, and assuming it is an anomaly, why that’s the case?
SACERDOTE: We take the opposite view on this, which is that it’s not actually the people that are different. And I’ll give you some data on that. If you look at the most Facebook-shared and the most-liked stories on, say, The New York Times or the B.B.C., the most-liked things from the B.B.C. are also super-neg. It’s just that the B.B.C. is not supplying nearly as much of those super-negative stories. What we, my co-authors and I, think is going on is it’s not that Americans are fundamentally different than the British or the French or the Italians. We think what’s going on is the structure of the industry is different in these different places. The U.S. major media outlets explicitly focus on the negative because, we believe, that’s what drives viewership and clicks and keeps people staying on the page or on the show.
DUBNER: Okay, but why would that not be the case in France or England or Australia?
SACERDOTE: In most of those other countries, you have a big public player like the B.B.C. or the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. As a libertarian-leaning person, you think I wouldn’t be pounding the table for public interference in this industry. But I think in this industry, they have less of a profit motive. They are somewhat less motivated by driving clicks and engagement and somewhat more motivated by the truth...
Rathje, like Bruce Sacerdote, embarked on a big study. He and two co-authors — Sander van der Linden and Jay Van Bavel — analyzed nearly three million social media posts to learn what makes a post more likely to attract other users. Their analysis covered the years 2016 to 2020; they focused on posts from conservative and liberal media platforms and Republican and Democratic members of Congress. So, what’d they find?
RATHJE: What we found is that each additional word referring to the outgroup increased the number of retweets or shares of that post by 67 percent.
The “outgroup” meaning someone on the other side of the political aisle."
Meme - Vice then: "I WILL GO TO THE MOST WAR TORN PLACES ON EARTH TO EXPOSE THE DIRTY POLITICS
Vice now: 10 REASON WHY SPONGEBOB IS HOMOPHOBIC"
Chinese Propaganda Outlet Paid Millions to Washington Post, Wall Street Journal - "A Chinese propaganda outlet paid millions of dollars to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to run advertisements that look to some like news reports. China Daily paid more than $4.6 million to the Post and nearly $6 million to the Journal since November 2016,... Over the past few years, it has spent millions running supplements—called “China Watch”—containing propaganda disguised as news, in major U.S. newspapers including the Journal, The New York Times, and the Post."
Biden To Introduce New Medal Of Honor For Bravery In Journalism | The Babylon Bee - "Joe Biden says he is introducing a new award: The Medal of Honor for Bravery in Journalism, a new Medal of Honor that is given to reporters who do really brave things like say that President Trump is bad. The award will be presented to journalists who bravely endured the Trump years. Biden called these journalists "braver than D-Day soldiers, fighting off an even worse Hitler.""
Alex Marlow: 'Breaking the News' Reveals Media Corruption Beyond Bias - "Ownership of America’s largest news media companies by complex conglomerates creates conflicts of interest in news media reporting"
Snowflakes at Politico freaked out and even held an emergency meeting after Ben Shapiro was allowed to guest-write a "heavily edited" piece for Politico Playbook
Ben Shapiro on Twitter - "My point: conservatives believe that Leftists want to ostracize them as evil, and then shut them down
Politico staff: conservatives ought to be ostracized as evil and then shut down"
When you're terrified of intellectual diversity
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "I’ve been critical of the press’s coverage of the Steele dossier for nearly five years. It seems that the latest criminal charges against those involved has opened up some eyes in the liberal-leaning press. In a refreshing move, the liberal Axios Media is acknowledging the massive failure of the press to not properly vet the Russian dossier. The Washington Post has recognized some of their errors and has removed and editing several stories. Meanwhile, others in the media have hunkered down knowing this will blow over with most readers being none the wiser. No doubt they will continue publishing essays lamenting the public’s loss of faith in news organizations."
The Media’s Hypocrisy Is On Full Display After U.S. Soccer Team Is Pelted With Debris By Fans Of Mexico - "There was immediate outrage from the media — and rightfully so— after NBA players were on the receiving end of attacks from fans. However, they used the opportunity to make it a conversation on race — highlighting the fact that the instigators were white and the players black... Disrespectful and uncalled for actions by white fans toward black athletes are viewed as racist acts — always. So, what do we call the actions of non-white fans showering USMNT players with garbage? Nothing apparently... We quickly forget that the word “fan” is short for “fanatic.” Fans aren’t rational. The love for their team — mixed with copious amounts of alcohol — drives them to do incredibly stupid things. Like dumping popcorn on a players head, throwing a water bottle as an athlete departs the court, and flinging debris at the opposing team after a game-winning goal. The media can’t have it both ways. Either every time a fan throws something at a player, it’s racist, or it isn’t. You don’t get to pick and choose based on the race of the offenders. Additionally, categorizing every bad interaction between fans and players as “racist” cheapens the word and diminishes acts of real racism"
Establishment reporters praise LA Times column decrying balanced news coverage | The Post Millennial - "After a columnist denounced reporting on Democrats with a critical eye, left-wing journalists from multiple outlets supported partisan calls to end "both-siderism" in media coverage and advocated for even harsher treatment of Republican subjects. Los Angeles Times columnist Jackie Calmes published an opinion piece entitled "Why journalists are failing the public with 'both-siderism' in political coverage." In the op-ed dated Oct. 15, the LA Times opinion columnist lambasted the "journalistic pressure" placed on reporters to produce balanced stories that prevents journalists from reporting what she dubbed "the new truth."... She went on to claim that numerous news reports suggest that President Joe Biden is "politically liable" for the persistence of COVID-19, when the establishment media has lobbed the septuagenarian soft balls since Inauguration Day yet continues to cast blame upon the previous Trump presidency. After four hate-filled years attacking former President Donald Trump for even the most minute misgivings, the hard-hitting muckrakers have transformed into Biden's public relations team, fawning over the commander-in-chief's love for ice cream while allowing him to walk away from the podium without taking questions. Calmes even claimed that the mainstream media is silent on the GOP's opposition to Biden's efforts promoting vaccines and masks. When in actuality, the left-wing outlets have pounced to publish fear-mongering rhetoric that conjures images of packed emergency rooms and a tsunami of ivermectin-related poison control calls... Calmes and her left-wing colleagues are trashing objectivity in pursuit of "the new truth," labelling viewpoints right of center "misinformation" and "conspiratorial.""
What Is ‘Dune’ About? What Is ‘Dune’ Even? - "A hero’s tale set simultaneously in space and the desert; is Dune actually Star Wars? Though I have seen neither film, I do not think Dune is Star Wars. I know it is not Mad Max: Fury Road because I have seen Mad Max: Fury Road, and le petit Monsieur Chalamet never showed his finely chiseled face. But suffice to say, Dune combines the dustiness of the latter with the spaciness of the former. Apparently, Dune had some influence on Star Wars, so you will be forgiven for believing the two franchises are one and the same; if it helps you to think of them this way, that is fine with me."
"Journalism"
California's population exodus is intensifying - Los Angeles Times (January 2021)
The California exodus is a myth. But that doesn't stop the haters - Los Angeles Times (April 2021)
David Hines on Twitter - "How a closeted media feedback loop works:
Patriots say viral New York Times White House photo was misleading - "The Patriots say a viral New York Times photo of their trip to the White House on Wednesday was misleading. The photo compared New England's turnout to the White House this year to its trip in 2015. The tweet was shared over 44,000 times and had 65,000 likes."
Ben Shapiro on Twitter - "Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer used an outmoded word to refer to developmentally disabled children during a recent podcast appearance"
Meme - "Kyle Becker ia kylenabecker It looks like we've pivoted from gaslighting to an entirely new phenomenon: Gasless-lighting. The media doesn't report the news, therefore you're crazy for thinking it's news."
Andrew Sullivan on Twitter - "The name “Pulitzer” now means activism and narratives not journalism and the search for objective truth."
Seamus (FreedomToons) on Twitter - "In high school I tried using anonymous sources instead of real citations, but this was not allowed because I was a 9th grader and not a journalist"
Trust In Media Hits Record Low… New Study Blames Readers For Lack Of Confidence - "The reason U.S. trust in the media reached an all-time low this year has nothing to do with the quality of the coverage, according to a recent study. Instead, the problem is that “not all Americans universally embrace core journalism values.” The “major study,” co-sponsored by the world’s largest news organization found that most Americans want the facts — they just don’t want reporters’ spin. And they disagree with the legacy media’s insistence on showcasing the nation’s problems... the vast majority of U.S. citizens agree with only one of the five pillars it considers foundational for journalists: 67% of Americans endorsed “factualism,” the “idea that the more facts people have, the closer they will get to the truth.” Only one other value – “giving voice to the less powerful” — received support from 50% of the American people. The other half said that journalists’ skewing stories to “amplify the voices of people who aren’t ordinarily heard” is “overdone” and that their news coverage “doesn’t help” the people featured. Readers overwhelmingly rejected the media’s single-minded focus on America’s alleged faults, defects, and deficiencies. “There is least support for the idea that a good way to make society better is to spotlight its problems,” the survey found. “Only 29% agree.” The study labeled this coverage “social criticism.” Readers also said the media spend too much time attacking those in authority, and they should put national security ahead of transparency. “Sometimes all of the information” — such as classified information — “cannot be released.” And “without the right context,” these stories can “hinder progress and leave room for gross misinterpretation,” readers said. Only about one in 10 Americans support these values, which guide the story selection and framing of the Associated Press, which co-sponsored the study. “While journalists may consider the five journalism values we identified as universal,” the study said, only 11% of the American people share the reporters’ worldview. And the legacy media’s least critical consumers tended to be overwhelmingly on the Left... The largest group of Americans “consumed a lot of news, but at the same time they were fairly suspicious of the news media.” They make up 35% of the population, and “only half of these people were Republicans.”... The Media Project’s survey is a tortured way of refusing to state the obvious: The legacy media are out of step with the vast majority of the American people. Their reporters’ values align with fewer than one out of every five readers — and they are almost exclusively on the Left of the political spectrum. Instead of changing the way they cover the news, legacy media outlets blame the fact-starved public for lacking the sophistication to understand what journalism is."
New York Times employees feel they can't speak freely: survey - "About half of New York Times employees said in a recent internal survey that they don’t believe they can speak freely at the paper. In response to the statement, “There is a free exchange of views in this company; people are not afraid to say what they really think,” only 51% of Times employees responded in the affirmative. In company comments that accompanied the December poll’s findings, which were viewed by The Post, the 51 percent was noted as being 10% lower than the “benchmark.” One insider said the benchmark likely refers to the average among similar companies surveyed on that statement... the former paper of record is embroiled in a seemingly endless parade of scandals. Most recently, a decision to oust veteran science reporter Donald McNeil over his non-derogatory use of a racial slur during a Times-sponsored trip with students has divided the newsroom. A column from their in-house conservative columnist Bret Stephens criticizing the McNeil dismissal was personally spiked by publisher A.G. Sulzberger... In June, The New York Times suffered another woke revolt after the paper’s opinion section published an op-ed from Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton urging that federal soldiers be sent to US cities to quell antifa and BLM violence during the summer. Dozens of employees publicly protested the piece’s publication, saying it put “Black @nytimes staff in danger.” The fallout led to the resignation of Op-Ed editor James Bennet. Other leading opinion staffers, including Bari Weiss, left in the months after Bennet’s departure... “There is a group of younger reporters and a fair number of tech people and people on the audio side who do not come out of the tradition of journalism at the Times. … They see their role as to be more active,” Alex Berenson, a former NYT business reporter, told The Post. “There’s a lot of anguish among older people” about younger, woke staff"
Slate Star Codex: New York Times Reporter Threatens to Dox Blogger Scott Alexander - "The popular pseudonymous blogger behind Slate Star Codex claims that he’s been forced to delete the blog after a New York Times reporter threatened to reveal his identity. It is the latest example of the paper’s willingness to grant anonymity according to inconsistent, ideologically self-serving criteria... Alexander explains that he wished to remain anonymous because his day job as a psychiatrist and his personal safety — he claims to have received many death threats — demanded it... “After considering my options, I decided on the one you see now. If there’s no blog, there’s no story. Or at least the story will have to include some discussion of NYT’s strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks”... A February 2015 story about renovations to the Port Authority’s Bus Terminal quoted a woman “who asked not to be identified because she has always wanted to be an anonymous source... Indeed, in a profile published earlier this year of “Chapo Trap House,” a popular socialist podcast hosted by unofficial Bernie Sanders surrogates, the Times identified one of the podcast’s co-hosts as “Virgil Texas,” explaining that “he lives and works under that pseudonym.”Why the Times denied “Scott Alexander” the same right it granted to “Virgil Texas” is unclear. But since Donald Trump’s election, anonymous sourcing has come roaring back at the Times, with Baquet admitting that the 2016 had changed the way the paper would cover and write about the president.It appears the exceptions made for Trump-related coverage have bled into the coverage of a pseudonymous blogger."
Justin Kan ❄️ on Twitter - ".@nytimes threatens to dox @slatestarcodex. This is despicable. I've cancelled my subscription."
Facebook - "As someone pointed out, the New York Times has published 1,500+ articles on Banksy while respecting his pseudonymity. Yet they cannot do the same for 1 article about Slate Star Codex? Of course, they can!Look at it this way. Nobody at the New York Times would be capable of writing articles of such outstanding quality as Scott Alexander. Doxxing him was the easiest way to eliminate another increasingly popular competitor who was endangering their interpretational sovereignty."
The death of the private citizen - The Spectator - "The fact that news outlets are using their investigative skills and public reach to out individuals for no good reason should be chilling to anyone currently maintaining some semblance of privacy on the internet. And the New York Times isn’t the only media outlet drunk on its own power. The Washington Post recently reported on a two-year-old staff Halloween party in which a graphic designer was accused of wearing a racist costume. The woman was not a public figure and apologized to the hosts of the party shortly after the incident for her mistake. Even so, the Washington Post named her in its story and reached out to her employer about the incident, ultimately resulting in her firing.CNN has a similar track record of thrusting private individuals into the spotlight because of their internet activities. In 2017, the outlet dug into a Redditor who created a meme shared by the President, and a CNN editor said the only reason they did not reveal the man’s identity was that he apologized for the meme and promised not to do it again. The admission was akin to political blackmail. Similarly, in 2018, a CNN reporter showed up with a cameraman on a woman’s lawn to scold her for sharing a pro-Trump Facebook account that was allegedly set up by Russians. The exposing of random internet users is not just a sign of the media’s narcissism. It also has dire consequences for online discourse. Some warn that granting internet users a cloak of anonymity leads to extremism. It also leads to progress. Good ideas that are nonetheless considered controversial by society’s standards can never gain traction if people are too scared of cancellation to post and debate them. The Times and its brethren are doing society a great disservice by becoming the gatekeepers of internet anonymity."
Blocks Take the Lead in Fight Against Disinformation - "NYT Blocked
‘We Spent The Day Hearing From Quite A Few Old College Classmates’: Tucker Says WaPo Looking For Dirt On Him - "Fox News’ Tucker Carlson blasted Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and the paper’s media columnist, Erik Wemple, claiming that Wemple had contacted people who had known Carlson when he attended college and asked them for information that could damage Carlson... “Fox News generally, and Carlson specifically, have been frequent subjects of Wemple’s columns. He has referenced the host in the headlines of five columns this year,” The Hill noted. As far back as 2017, Wemple was targeting Carlson; he wrote an opinion piece in November 2017 in which he noted a long exchange he had with Carlson in which Wemple asked Carlson about a reporter whom The Daily Caller, which Carlson had founded, had hired back in 2014 who had previously posted racist tracts... “People are very complicated and they do bad things, then they get better and they change their mind, and you know what I mean?” Carlson asserted. “This is real life. This is not some pretend thing where you’re the sum total of the dumbest thing you ever wrote on the Internet. I hope that’s not the world you live in.”"
1. Someone writes an insane easily debunked column like Milbank
2. But people like Jong-Fast at The Atlantic or Margaret Sullivan at Wash Post retweet or take it seriously
3. Media's janitor amplifies it because these are friends."
"This is how a lot of Hard Lefty journos amplify their stuff — one of them covers it, then one of their friends at another publication writes about their having written about it, etc., but the process also works for stories get newsified by more mainstream journos."
It's only fake news if Fox or the Daily Mail do it. The liberal media get a free pass
"Interesting how it's just "outmoded" when a Democrat says it"
"There are societal structures that uplift and empower certain groups based on their intersecting identities and experiences, while at the same time marginalizing and erasing others; we acknowledge that these inequities were developed over time and have continuing, lasting impact."
Clearly the people are ignorant
No problem with the media today, no
Blocks Take The Lead in Fight Against Disinformation
New App Blocks 800 NYT Reporters In Seconds"
Lots of good stories on the New York Time's failings here too
