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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: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:18PM (3 children)
You just proved the point. The 'fact checkers' begin with a presumption like yours, that Trump is Literally Hitler, a liar and too stupid to even know what a fact is. So the same basic claim is reversed from "mostly true" to "mostly false", mostly because Trump said it. Trump can say black youth unemployment is too damned high and be attacked for it. And you guys wonder why most Republicans long ago ceased to even try. This is not a new thing, it isn't rare and it isn't even limited to Trump. Every Republican back to Nixon is declared "Evil" or "Stupid" and usually both. People have caught on to this.
The first step in combating #FakeNews is admitting where the problem is. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NYT, Politico, HuffingPaint are all #FakeNews now. It isn't so much that they promote stories that are obvious fakes, it is in the selection of stories, the spin they put on them, etc. They are more clever than an Internet scammer and more politically motivated, but about as trustworthy. Because like the Internet scammer, they have zero interest in practicing journalism, both only pretend to do it in service to other goals. The scammer wants clicks, the media want to control the Narrative to get their team elected and kept in power. And for all the breathless reports in the #FakeNews about the scammers, the truth is that the legacy media get so many more eyeballs than the best scammers that it isn't even close determining who the worst problem is.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:57PM (2 children)
The 'fact checkers' begin with a presumption like yours, that Trump is Literally Hitler, a liar and too stupid to even know what a fact is.
Wow, that persecution complex is kicking in hard today!
Good reporters are skeptical of power, it doesn't matter who holds the power. Trump has exactly as much opportunity to inform them as anyone else being reported on. All legitimate reporters contact the people named in the stories for comment. Trump chooses not to comment. He can't complain when his side of the story isn't as well covered when he deliberately with-holds his side of the story. Well, he can complain, but anyone who isn't a fanboi can easily recognize the hypocrisy.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by jmorris on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:21PM (1 child)
Wow, some people have very short memories.... or hope others do. We just experienced eight straight years where the media were unquestioning in their throne sniffing. Obama abused pretty much every power available to abuse and the media adored him for it. They even loved him when he treated THEM like crap, like an abused lover excuses their abuser. You might have forgotten the Affirmative Action Mistake already but I certainly haven't. And no, reporters do not contact the people named in their attacks anymore. Far too many examples abound for you to be allowed to get away with that crap either.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:25PM
That persecution complex does not let up, does it?
Get over it. Trump won. Whatever happened before Trump has nothing to do with how Trump is reported on.
> Affirmative Action Mistake
That's trump right? The guy who has literally lost billions of dollars, bankrupted at least 7 times, couldn't get into college without family connections, didn't graduate with any honors. Doesn't even have more than a 4-year degree. He's the poster-boy of affirmative action for silver-spooned white male mediocrity.