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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the honesty-is-the-absence-of-the-intent-to-deceive dept.

[...] what exactly is "fake news" and what effect is it having globally?

"I think there is a fundamental problem that fake news became a catch-all term to mean anything that we don't particularly like to read," explained Alexios Mantzarlis, who heads the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute.

[...] Renate Schroeder, director of the European Federation of Journalists, said countries "should be extremely prudent" and seek to balance freedom of expression and freedom of the press with combating hate speech and fake news.

Any effort to regulate social media should not go too far, either, since it can lead to censorship, she said.

"Our view is [that] to fight such propaganda, to fight such fake news, we need to invest in journalism. We need to invest in media pluralism. We need to invest in media literacy," Schroeder told Al Jazeera.

[...] Only 32 percent of people in the US said they had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" in 2016, according to a Gallup poll. That is the lowest level recorded in Gallup polling history – the question has been asked annually since 1997 – and eight points lower than in 2015.

Trust in media declined overall across all EU countries in 2015, a European Broadcasting Union survey also reported.

Mantzarlis of the Poynter Institute said that to fight the fake news phenomenon, journalists should promote greater transparency in their work, and develop a robust corrections policy when mistakes do occur.

That may include "making [corrections] more detailed, explaining why the error was made, who made it within the newsroom, and how exactly the existing procedures failed," he said.

Schroeder added that the focus on fake news could potentially serve as a catalyst to reinvigorate the field of journalism.

Idea #3: Stop helping politicians cheat at debates. Idea #4: Stop reprinting corporate press releases as 'news.' Idea #5: Stop shilling.

Your ideas, Soylent?


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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:49AM (3 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:49AM (#499228) Journal

    director of the European Federation of Journalists [..] we need to invest in journalism

    Yes, we.. ie you and all others that aren't tax exempt needs to give away your salary so we (journalists) can stuff propaganda in your face and well.. make you pay for it.

    Countries should be extremely prudent but they are not, and will not be. Seeking balance don't line any coffer quickly so it will all be biased towards what will fill them. Journalists should but won't do transparency nor a robust corrections policy because that is not how powers operate. There are journalists that are worthy of their title but they also are less likely to work at a large corporation. To keep a lot of customers around, the product has to fit all of them, thus it becomes grey mud. Not bad to anyone, not god for much.

    If you have a harddisk going bad this is how it will be handled:

    Fake news: "The disk sounds bad and we need to do something about it"
    Hate speech: "The disk needs to be replaced by ordering a new one at Newdisk Inc"

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by driven on Tuesday April 25 2017, @02:54PM (1 child)

    by driven (6295) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @02:54PM (#499316)

    "I've been saying all along the hard disk is bad."

    "Why is X focusing on bad hard disk when we could have faulty RAM?"

    "If we didn't spend so much on X we could have good hard disks for everyone."

    With so many variables to consider, I'm surprised that after centuries of governing someone hasn't come up with a spreadsheet to balance the variables appropriately. Then you just need to manage the weights assigned to each variable. Too many variables? Maybe machine learning can help.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:16AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:16AM (#499742) Journal

      Fake news: "The server isn't working and we should try to find the problem"

      Whenever people speak up about actual problems. It becomes fake news because it hurts someones agenda or safe space.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:26PM (#499325)

    Fake news: "The disk sounds bad, so we need to do something about the sound card"
    Hate speech: "Western Digital disks all suck and kill puppies. The disk needs to be replaced by a Seagate"

    FTFY