Journalistic Integrity in the Digital Age?

MrMann asks: "Should online news agencies like Slashdot be held accountable for tabloid news stories much like paper mediums are? I know the arguments of 'Slashdot is Rob's baby and he does it for fun' that has popped up, but since Andover bought Slashdot, it has stopped being Rob's pet project and has become in the very real sense, a business entity. Since it is no longer a private endeavor (VA Linux is a publicly traded company) shouldn't Slashdot be held to the same standards as other 'news' agencies?" I've always considered Slashdot to be more of a discussion site than a news site, but the news portion is important. I'll be the first to admit that we aren't perfect when it comes to that part, but we do the best we can when it comes to corrections. Just out of curiosity, how do you all feel about how the real online news sites handle their reporting?

Comments

What /. is to me

[DoomHaven]

To me, /. is a place that I use primarily as a discussion site on current news. Despite the often low SNR (having it on Raw and Uncut because one of every 50 trolls is actually humorous), some of the comments are very interesting (like the comments on the possibility of flight on Titan in a recently posted article).

As well /. does help most real posters real as part of a community. It is less as a *news* paper, and more of a meeting place, where people can read an article, comment on it, and read the comments.

And besides, how many newspapers let you comment on the stories, and give you the chance to *moderate* the comments (arguements aside about the elegance of the moderating system), and even meta-moderate the moderations? Or how about kuroshin (sp?), which allows you to pick the stories they post? How many newspapers have that level of accountability?

Most newspapers have obvious political agendas that are unstated. At least the /. are honest about there slants - here we are, take it or leave it. That is *part* of /., why we come back to read it. To change those slants would remove most of the heart and soul of /.

As for the fact that /. is part of VA Linux machine, how does this change anything? I have noticed no serious differences in the news since I first started reading /. in May 1998 (except for the trolls, but they are the price to pay for success). I have not noticed a "boy, ain't VA great" slant. The people the frequent /. (except the trolls; I would like proof that they are people before calling them that) are generally smart enough to say, "Hey, this isn't the /. I started reading!" The niche /. fills is an ugly one for many companies to fill: catering to a minor of intelligent people who won't put about with garbage". It is easier for a company to mass produce garbage and appeal to the lowest common denominator of the masses (Microsoft, anyone?) than it is to appeal to the intelligent minority - besides the fact that the intelligent minority are just that - a minority.

And why should /. change? The formula that Cmdr Taco and the rest have used has made them (and, now, VA Linux) a good chunk of $$$ and a great site for most of us. Why change that?

Who's doing the reporting?

[Mad Hughagi]

Most of the stories on slashdot are sent in by it's own readers. While they are screened it isn't like Slashdot is pretending to be a corporate news agency - it works based on the principle that someone else has allready documented the news! Why should something that works fine be subjected to stringencies that don't apply to it's nature in the first place? As far as I'm concerned Slashdot isn't a news website - it's a way for people to inform one another of news that appears in other venues - so in this case Slashdot isn't reporting anything, it's only providing a means for a lot of people with common interests to become aware of news that other people have done.

Re:Which ethics of old media would those be?

[nharmon]

Jon, I don't know what newspapers you subscribe to, but perhaps you should find out who the local employee-owned papers are and read a few of them.

But to be perfectly honest, yourself, and Slashdot as a whole are not perfect. In fact, I would say /. is far from it. You yourself overstate things a tad too much. It's less often we see real news, instead seeing the sorry excuses for editorial content on this site.

If I had it my way, when news was posted in order to inject a topic of discussion, it would be kept to "simply the facts". If the poster wanted to put in an opinion, he can put it in as a comment, and see how it's moderated.

Mr. Katz, you've always been against the mass stereotyping of geeks, such that I find it rude that you would do the same to real news outlets

/. = News AND Opinion

[sulli]

My view is that Slashdot, and many other sites like it, are a mixture of news and opinion that have their own distinctive viewpoint. It's very important to be accurate and check facts, but it's not necessary to try too hard to be "objective," like a daily newspaper might. /. and friends are much more like the tabloids, or the free weeklies, that have a distinct point of view and still are respected as being accurate and useful.

Comments are owned by the poster, so the posters then collectively share responsibility, through answers and moderation, for making sure that meaningful viewpoints are aired and responded to. This works exceedingly well at Slashdot, not so well in other online forums.

Several points

[OlympicSponsor]

1) You are exactly right. The argument "It's Rob's baby, he can do what he want" is (no longer) no more valid than "It's Rupert Murdoch's baby, he can do what he want".

2) Slashdot SHOULD be held to the standards of other news orgs. For those cynically saying "what standards?" I agree that some orgs do a better job than others. However, ALL orgs print retractions and corrections (something /. rarely does, unless their noses are rubbed in it, despite what Cliff says). Furthermore, some orgs are very good at being objective and accurate. For instance, NPR.

3) Specifically what improvements could Slashdot make?

a) Have someone (else) read your post before you submit it. For that matter, create a Kuro5hin-style "posting queue" but accessible only to /. editors. Hemos puts an article in there, but it only reaches the front page if someone else signs off on it. In order to sign off on a posting, force a spellcheck and an archive search. If there was a way to force a fact check, I'd mention that as well.

b) From snippets picked up here and there (including the fact that this story was posted on the front page), I can tell some of the /. editors are getting kind of tired of the shoddier aspects of Slashdot. Listen to their ideas

c) Take a journalism class.

d) But the biggest thing that Taco/Hemos could do to improve the site is: Get involved. You two used to spend a lot of "quality time" with the site--posting comments, responding to questions, etc. You used to listen to us, use our ideas or tell us why we were dumb. But the last 2-3 years you've been sticking us in virtual daycare and rarely if ever talking to us. No wonder a lot of us are turning out to be Anonymous Delinquents.
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