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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?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:51AM (2 children)
It's also important to correct the archive, which is something many news outlets don't do well, or at all. If a news website reports a given sequence of events incorrectly on one URL, then updates the story to present a completely different point of view on a different URL later, then they also need to go back and update the original as well. Many examples of Fake News cite "sources" that have already been debunked, but because the fake story is still available online in its original form it's still possible to use it to add an appearance of credibility to a bogus story. Going further, a Wiki-style update history of evolving stories might be useful too; having a change log of how additional facts coming to light caused the story to evolve would serve both as a validation for the change in position and a demonstration of openness.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:42PM
And in related fact-based news [cnn.com], apparently Jimmy Wales is thinking along similar lines [wikitribune.com], combining Wikipedia-style fact correction of articles written by professional journalists. There's still an annointed team of volunteer "fact checkers" curating the editing rather than the Wikipedia style free-for-all, but it might be a step in the right direction.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:42PM
That strikes me as trying to fix the problem after the fact. While there is a place for that, I think there is a much more fundamental problem with "news" reporting right now. Currently, too much of what passes for news is an on-air reading of a press release from some government agency. What we need to see much more of is investigative journalism like in the days of Woodward and Bernstein. But that means getting out there and pounding the pavement and chasing down leads--many of which will go nowhere or turn out to be dubious--followed by rigorous follow up and then more follow up after that. All of that takes time; I can only imagine that it would end up being a career killer for many so-called "reporters". Only then will we have actual news reporting again. Let's face reality here: too many of today's so-called "news reporters" don't want to do that kind of investigative journalism. It's hard work. Occasionally it can be downright dangerous. And they might get their hair messed up in the process. And we haven't even touched on the fact that their editors and employers are going to be continually on their asses to get that big break in the story. But big breaks don't happen on a 24-hour cycle. That is the real problem with journalism today.