Slashdot Mirror
Wonkette and the Ethics of Online Journalism
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "The New York Times offers up a thought-provoking article ('First With the Scoop, if Not the Truth' - free reg. req.) on Ana Marie Cox, proprietor of the popular inside-the-beltway gossip blog Wonkette. Known for her site's 'gossipy, raunchy, potty-mouthed' coverage of Washington politics, site owner Nick Denton is quoted in the article as saying, 'I think it's implicit in the way that a Web site is produced that our standards of accuracy are lower. Besides, immediacy is more important than accuracy, and humor is more important than accuracy.' Needless to say, such a statement raises some interesting questions about the growing influence of blogs and other non-traditional online news sources. That being said, does the nature of the World Wide Web in fact give sites like Wonkette, Drudge, or even Slashdot a free pass on accuracy if it means the difference between getting the scoop or not?"
That being said, does the nature of the World Wide Web in fact give sites like Wonkette, Drudge, or even Slashdot a free pass on accuracy if it means the difference between getting the scoop or not?"
This really is a nonsensical spin on this story, and also the wrong question to be asking. Wonkette, Drudge, and even Slashdot can put whatever the heck they want to online. It is up to the reader to decide, based on multiple criteria, whether or not they believe/trust/put stock in the information's deliverer.
If you as reader use no criteria as filters, if you blindly believe any site, info, data, gossip, or especially scoop, you deserve what you get. That goes for both the online world and the offline.
That said, it's amusing how little humans change despite this new technology we're all enjoying. Gossip columnists and gossips in general have always been with us, have always been attractive to us, and no doubt will always be, even when we're beaming our thoughts at each other telepathically in our lifepods in orbit around the Sedna refuelling station.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
How is it a 'scoop' if the news/story/whatever is innacurate? I could scoop ALL the major news sources just by making up crap stories featuring the right players. I don't see any way to call this (or relate this) to journalism.
The thing with an Online medium, is that anyone can publish, and for relatively low cost. There is simply no way to make sure that every small-time publisher has all their facts straight. Hell, look at the Times itself. How long did it take them to catch Jason Blair, and he was just making it up as he went along.
This is where you're going to run into some good old fashioned biological competition. The sites that print the truth all the time, will be better trusted than those that just spew out garbage.
And, then as now, the humor/pundit sites that tell everyone what they should be thinking with no regard to honesty, truth, or provability, will be the best read.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
An people wonder why news no longer reports news. Reporting as a profession has been going down hill rapidly the last 5 years. It's gotten to the point where news is 95% lies. Every now and then, a reporter works their ass off and gets 35% right. Since reporters rarely have full control and the editor usually change things. Of course people should think critically. Though every now and then it's great fun to post flamebait and trolls.
With the scandel they had a few years ago with the reporter that would make up stories.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
When I was studying journalism in college, the answer was, "Speed is more important, provided you are accurate." In other words, you have to get the scoop and get it right.
Well, that was the answer that was spoken out loud. The truth is really that speed is far more important that accuracy, no matter what medium you're talking about. We have an insatiable appetite for news and information, and we would prefer to know that SOMETHING, ANYTHING, is going on right now, and you can fill us in on details as they become available.
Now, there is the nagging suspicion that if one is continuously inaccurate, one's viewership/readership will suffer. Bloggers have to overcome this obstacle as much as more traditional media.
Of course, if you're always the last one to break the story, it doesn't matter how accurate you are...nobody will be reading you to find out.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
The difference between Slashdot and Wonkette is that Wonkette unabashedly embraces the fact that Wonkette.com is a rumor mill and kaffeeklatsch, whereas Slashdot tries to pass it's rumormongering and hearsay off as real reporting.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You MUST be new here.
Now that that joke's out of the way, I don't think online sites get any more of a free ride when it comes to accuracy. For example, look at the following incidents in the traditional "old media":
When it comes down to it, the Web is just as (un)reliable a source for information as anything else.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
The point: Most readers will trade off accuracy for someone who's openly in their philosophical or political corner.
Most readers will naturally flock to a source that reflects their philisophical/political views sure, but do they actually realize they are trading accuracy? I certainly can't understand why anyone would willingly get their information from an inaccruate source, and then use that information to either form opinions or attempt to advance their views. It kind of hurts someone's arguement when they base it on inaccurate information.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
Communication at fast-forward speeds should make scoop-ism less important, not more. Who cares if you first hear about a story on Drudge or whatever if you're sure to see it linked from Metafilter, Slashdot, K5, et al within the hour? With a million different sites spewing news as fast as it gets made, accuracy should be the distinguishing mark, not speed.
Cox is quoted in the article as saying, 'I think it's implicit in the way that a Web site is produced that our standards of accuracy are lower. Besides, immediacy is more important than accuracy, and humor is more important than accuracy.'
... ah screw it.
That quote was credited to Nick Denton, the publisher of Wonkette who recruited Ms. Cox to write for the site. Ms. Cox did not say that.
Really now, if you're going to accuse somebody of having low standards for accuracy
"immediacy is more important than accuracy"
That sums up about half of what is wrong with our news today. The other have is:
"entertainment is more important than information"
Gah. That's a scary, scary attitude. Thank goodness pbs/npr, bbc and newspapers still exist.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Taken one blog at a time, or one post at a time, the web might be less reliable than old media outlets like the NYT or CNN, but taken all together the web is far more accurate than old media. The NYT regularly gets the facts wrong, seldom corrects its mistakes, and never corrects them in a place that you are likely to see. Reputable blogs on the other hand do a very good job of correcting their own mistakes, and if they don't then you can be pretty sure that other bloggers will do it for them.
Got me to thinking how the NY Times will print just about anything these days. A news site operating under the creed, "immediacy is more important than accuracy, and humor is more important than accuracy" has a free pass on accuracy because obviously, IT'S NOT A NEWS SITE!
Sure, we can look at how such sites are used and how they affect readers' opinions on certain issues, but not every mention of current affairs is 'news'. What's next? An expose on The Daily Show? Op-Ed pieces on how MAD fold-ins distort the issues?
If the Times is really concerned about standards of accuracy, I'm sure there is plenty of work to do in house.
I think it's interesting your take on that statement, but I see something different at work.
Slashdot does not produce or report news. So, just as the editorial section of a newspaper, by default, gets to say whatever the editor wants to say, regardless of fact or spin - the same is true for a blog.
If newsforge (slashdot's sister site) tries to run opinions and not facts - then we'd have a question to be had.
Is a newspaper the place to run opinion fodder? Well, that's up for debate. So far the only legal remedy to printed lies is to file a libel suit. And the criteria for libel is the same regardless of the medium (unless you are doing a parody).
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Lets don our tinfoil hats now...
Anyone that believes sites like the drudge, slashdot et al at face value is no better than...
Anyone that believes CNN, Fox "News" and any other reliable "news" source at face value.
It's up to the individual to sift through the information and form their OWN OPINION.
There have been several high profile cases recently (NY Times springs to mind) where reporters have been pulling facts out of their arses with no verification of their facts or anything. Then there are the multitudes of stories that get pulled from the main stream because of political pressure, shareholder interests etc.
Every news article is published by someone who has an agenda. It's just the size of the agenda that differs.
I for one welcome any other opinions or news stories from people that were either there or know people that were. It gives me more choice and a broader exposure to the actual story which allows me to make a much more informed decision as to what I do or do not believe.
Journalism is journalism and an opinion is an opinion, no matter the source. As an aside, has anyone heard of a search engine just for news articles that is as up to date as the news is? The real problem with independant reporting is that it's too hard to actually find the well written pieces to begin with.
John the Kiwi
Journalism is a craft which mixes observation, investigation, analysis, scientific description, creative description, and a careful balancing of conflicting information and viewpoints. It leads to a certain kind of information -- journalistic information -- which has a very important place in the world.
... and so on.
There are other kinds of information: gossip, rumors, speculation, argumentation, analysis from a particular viewpoint, the presentation of interesting information which favors timeliness over verifiability, research, balance, and even accuracy. Like Slashdot, for example. This kind of information also has a place in the world, and it's also a very important place. And the list goes on: there is scientific research, which is not the same as philosophy, which is not the same as intuitive speculation
I wouldn't want to live in a world without this variety of types of information.
The problem comes when people confuse these many different kinds of information. Slashdot, for example, is not journalism. It is great and fun and sometimes idiotic but often useful -- it's just simply not journalism.
So, as daeley rightly points out: let the reader beware! Judge your information and the sources of that information. Be a wise reader. And to that I'd add: let the writer beware as well. Know what kind of information you are presenting, and present it well.
The watch phrase for the consumer of anything purporting to be journalism, online or offline, is "let the buyer beware". One person's accurate reporting is another's biased bird cage liner. You neglect to use your critical filter at your own peril.
But part of the point is that accuracy in reporting is far more subtle than true or false. Of course saying you have little regard for trying to establish truth in what you write is appauling, but then don't most high-brow publications claim they print the truth, even when they differ so much.
Ask yourself this: how can (to take UK examples I know about) The Telegraph and The Guardian differ so much, if both are telling the truth? By choosing focus, angle and interpretation, you can dramatically change what the reader comes away with. Just look at the distortions in reporting between US and UK newspapers when the US is involved militarily somewhere and the UK isn't to get an idea of how different they can be (there you have two countries that are at least relatively close in foreign policy and ideology).
So part of the problem with the web is that these problems can become magnified. When reading an established newspaper, you should know the angle, editorial policies etc. and adjust your brain accordingly. But when reading an article on the web, it can require a lot more thought and research to ascertain what angle, scope and interpretation the author is employing. Given that few people even manage this with the established corporate media, imagine the scope for misleading people on the web!
That's not to say that the web is worse (in fact, it's better exactly because you get more variety than you get with the corporate media), but that it's far more intellectually challenging.
I certainly can't understand why anyone would willingly get their information from an inaccruate source, and then use that information to either form opinions or attempt to advance their views.
You are assuming that the arguer values accurate information. In the fundamentalist vs. evolution debate the fundamentalists value their world view over accuracy.
SteveM
but do they actually realize they are trading accuracy?
I don't think most Rush Limbaugh (for instance) listeners care if its accurate. It supports "their" point of view and that's all that matters.
I think that some people do care how accurate their news source is - and they will gravitate to sources that have good reputations.
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
And TV? Jesus. When Fox News can be as popular as it is, you know there is something wrong with TV journalism. Fair and Balanced? God I hate them...
When you watch The Today Show you don't notice how openly liberal the hosts are and how they spin every story and every interview to fit their own personal political agendas, because you are a liberal. You might say they were "not completely biased". When I watch Fox and Friends I don't notice how openly conservative the hosts are, etc, because I am a conservative. Neither of us are getting any stories reported in a completely unbiased way, and it's not easy to get a completely unbiased news report from *any* outlet. However, I would call the fact that we have a choice of news outlets with differing political agendas somewhat "Fair and Balanced". Instead of proclaiming your hate to God, you should try to recognize this as a good thing.
I grew up in Egypt, where the most reputable media is government owned and mostly toes the government line, and the opposition media is disposed to exaggerations, personal attacks, and plain inaccuracies. Ironically, this results in a news consumer who understands that he is "reading through a prism" of biases and always attempts to reconstruct 'the truth' (whatever that is) from fragmented and biased accounts. Nobody really accepts anything the media reports at face value.
Unfortunately, I'd say the majority of US news consumers are blissfully unaware of the fact that whatever they're reading or watching is not 'the truth', but some person's account of the truth, no matter how dedicated that person/reporter is to objectivity. My Firefox multi-tab "home page" includes both the NYT and the Wash. Post, and it's incredibly enlightning to see how the two papers *differ* in their headlines covering the same important stories. I don't say this to accuse either paper of bias, but to point out that bias is inevitable.
The US news consumer does have a real advantage: he has *access* to a wide variety of uncensored news sources and opinions in English, and it *is* possible to reconstruct a reasonable version of what's going on by polling a few different sources. I wonder how many people actually avail themseleves of this incredible opportunity.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
If the original submission is entirely off-topic for SlashDot, how could a post pointing this out be off-topic?
Isn't that a paradox? The submission should not be here. SlashDot still needs a way to mod the people who post the submissions themselves.
Until then, sometimes ya gotta sacrifice those karma points to make a statement.
Obviously this is not "news". It's gossip, it's humor, it's sarcasm.
"People should always try to be as accurate as they can be" makes absolutely no sense. There are things such as fiction, humor, and satire which need not be, and may depend on not being, "as accurate as they can be."
I guess the real story is...(insert a word a I don't want to say...okay the word is eeediots) who can't (or won't) think for themselves long enough to make an informed decision.
The folks who think Wonkette is "news" or worry about its accuracy should ask their doctor about a prescription for ClueStick(tm).
I am so tired of hearing about this. Is the New York Times a liberal paper? Yes, so what?. Does the reporting and editorial content in the Times reflect its liberalism? No. It is the conservatives that you need to worry about, because they let their bias show in their work.
Example, at the begining of Clinton's and W. Bush's first terms, each administration set up a committee to look for solutions to issues that were percieved by each administration to be of utmost importance. Both committees met in secret, and very little information was given to the public about how decisions were made by the committee. The New York Times published several editorials condemning each adminstration. The Wall Street Journal (a conservative paper) published several editorials critical of the Clinton administration, and only one editorial that was critical of the Bush administration.
Just think about the subtle way media displays bias, I was watching Good Morning America a few weeks ago, and they had footage of a cop who was on a routine traffic stop, and was nearly hit by a drunk driver(he was standing in the doorway of his cruiser and the door got knocked off) So, how is that bias? Well, the police department released that tape, (which shows the danger of police work) to the media, and made the officer available for interviews. Does a police department do the same thing when an officer is caught doing something bad on tape? The media let the police control these stories and the effect is (rightly or wrongly) the news has a pro-police bent. Another example of bias would be during the first gulf war all of the footage from the cameras on smart bombs.
Lastly,
When I was a kid(15), watching He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ( the original), a commercial came on that warned of the liberal media bias in our country. Why on earth would conservatives choose to run that spot during a cartoon geared towards kids?
My other sig is extremely clever...
I've also heard this canard about the "left-wing media" for twenty years. Apart from NPR and PBS, what left-wing media has the US had? Would the corporate networks support anything other than the economic status quo? Of course not. (I admit that there are minor exceptions such as Michael Moore's shows, but those were (for lack of a better word) exceptional and their content was restricted by the network.)
That's exactly why I usually disagree with many /. moderators. The recent poll on income level really shows too. It would certainly seem that most /. readers/modders are unemployed or are college students.
/. to exist and to display opinion, but I think it would serve everyone well if demographics were clearly stated (anonymously).
/.
/. would know what the natural bias was. This would be useful for any other non-traditional media source as well.
Both groups historically are liberal. That is why a comment against Bush is modded up, and a comment against any liberal (esp Clinton) is modded down.
I think it's fine for a place like
Each account should have settings for political alignment (liberal, independent, conservative, other), income level, age, and even gender. The breakdown should be in a chart on the side of
Then at least people who weren't familiar with
UC Berkeley student modders do your worst, I'm wearing my flamesuit.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
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I've never heard anybody say that they prefer news source X because it agrees with them even though it's not as accurate as the traditional media
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Of course they don't admit it. They lose the argument if they admit to bias.
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Rather, people prefer news sources that agree with them because they think that makes them more accurate than traditional sources
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Okay, we agree, but with a slightly different way of looking at it. You're giving people the benefit of the doubt and saying that they innocently seek confirmation of their legitimacy. I assume that people know their views are subjective and are just being knobs because they find it amusing to watch their opposition get all wound up and flustered.
What person obsessed with power and control in a position of authority doesn't get a kick out of pointing others in six different directions at once? It's cheap entertainment to argue with someone who actually cares.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
I agree with most of what you've said. I always thought it a bit hypocritical when the traditional news outlets complained about online journalism being shoddy while they were publishing inaccurate information themselves.
The part I partially disagree with is your Slashdot comment. No its not the pinnacle of journalism but it and other online sites have one advantage the "traditional" outlets don't -feedback. IMO there's nothing better for providing "both sides" of the story than allowing anyone and everyone to add their opinion, experience and facts to the story. Just think if the NY Times had a policy of publishing every letter sent to the editor. Now that will keep you honest.
I'm your regular run-of-the-mill pretentious journalist. I read the Washington Post every day. I read Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The National Review, Harpers and others. I find Time and Newsweek basically worthless. And I can't stand most television news.
I love Wonkette.
Wonkette is not journalism.
Her goal is not to inform, her goal is to entertain. Most importantly, she is upfront about this. She makes no proclamation that she will tell the whole truth. Her level of credibility is just a hair above The Onion and that's fine because she's entertaining and doesn't claim to be anything else.
Guess what: The people who read Wonkette know not to go to her for the news. Wonkette is just Entertainment Tonight for people who care about the stars of politics instead of the stars of hollywood etc. I couldn't care less if David Beckham had an affair, but I got a kick out of knowing that Mathew Yglesias was in Best Buy.
But, to get to why this is on Slashdot. Yes, the Internet is different. Previously, the news mediums available to us before were push only. They lectured to us. So, it was natural that articles looked like lectures.
The Internet instead is a conversational medium. As a result, much of it will inevitably look much more like what people are talking about, than a newspaper or even television.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
My relationship with Fox News is love/hate. They are undeniably right-wing and sleazy. But they are more lively than CNN.
Besides, if you're serious about news, you AREN'T watching TV. You're reading the Washington Post, New York Times, MSNBC, Slate, Salon, and a ton of other online sources. The only TV that is truly enlighteneing is C-SPAN.
This site is, in fact, evidence that NBC's Today show is fair and balanced. The site proports to show the "liberal bias" of host Katie Couric but in every case she's interviewing a conservative political figure.
What she's doing is what every responsible journalist does in an interview. She asks questions that challenge the person being interviewed. The alternative is to turn the show into a soap box.
She also asked a tough question in her interview with Bill Clinton, normally considered a liberal, although the site uses her question as evidence of her liberal bias.
What the site shows is that a large number of conservatives appeared as guests on the Today Show over the last 10 years and then somehow concludes from this fact that the show has a liberal bias.
Inaccuracy from a single online news source is OK, when you cross-reference it with other sources. The Web offers a cheap, workable way to do this that print/broadcast media don't: aggregation. Especially with so much news (in print/broadcast as well as bits/interactive) produced by parallel distribution workflows, headlines, stories, angles and agendas all take a resonance that's unnerving across multiple newsracks, but manageable in an RSS aggregator. See not only the contrasts in reporting/story, but the uncomfortably synthetic similarities of "manufactured news" that agrees too much, especially across "independent" sources.
Wall Street has used these techniques (and techs) for years. Multiple data sources are compared/contrasted for "data quality assurance". Long after the "single point of failure" is left behind, more textured info, weighted perspectives, prediction/accuracy performance grades and simply emergent patterns in the grapevine all add to the usability of the data, with enveloping context environements abounding. Of course, if you still just believe everything you read, at least you'll be too confused by the diversity to do anything that gets in the way of the rest of us clever enough to put the picture together.
--
make install -not war
Whenever I am reading text and notice it using the word "evolutionist" it's like a lightbulb goes on, and it's suddenly clear why the preceding paragraphs were salted liberally with incoherent bogosity. Calling someone an "evolutionist" in this day and age is a bit like using "geosphericalist" as a pejorative in the 19th century. It's a waste of time arguing -- just smile and nod and back away slowly.
For anyone with legitimate interest in the arguments there's always talk.origins.
Seriously. Modern journalists just do Nexis searches for their "facts", so all it takes is one bad "fact" to get out there and it gets propogated.
That being said, does the nature of the World Wide Web in fact give sites like Wonkette, Drudge, or even Slashdot a free pass on accuracy if it means the difference between getting the scoop or not?"
No, human nature gives these sites free pass to print exciting, breaking (though not fully or even partially accurate) news. People in general want to be caught up in the excitement of *something*. They like to think they have an inside track, or some source of information that their fellow man does not have. It's a source of pride to them.
These sites simply cater to this human desire. They get started because they, typical humans that they are, feel they have some sort of inside track and they want to show off. Soon enough they attract a large enough audience to see dollar signs and attract other 'anonymous sources' who are more than happy to pretend they have an even deeper inside track or understanding of a particular event.
At that point they have no where to go but down, because their customers expect greater and deeper stories to get their 'fix'. They have a very strong urge to fulfill that need, but it can't be fulfilled forever unless you're willing to extrapolate and fill out tenuous information.
Some sites keep it under control a little bit, but few try to hide the fact that they don't really care. Slashdot practically trumpets this fact. They're more than happy to post an 'update', especially since it really won't hurt their reputation. By the time it's up, half their readers don't see it.
It's not necessarily a news site problem - it's a human condition. Whether this condition is a problem depends on how well you can capitalize off it.
-Adam
There are no free passes. However, the way libel and slander law works for a public figure is that there are two things to be proven. The person who has been libeled or slandered bears the burden of proof: they must prove that the accusation is false AND that there was malicious intent on the part of the publisher to cause harm.
/. actually treads a wholly different line. The majority of the "reporting" here is relayed from other sources. Those sources bear the ultimate responsibility for accuracy. A savvy reader knows better than to expect more than a grain of truth from the "Inquirer", but puts a whole lot more faith in "Tech Report".
This is what allows the gossip rags to get away with so much - only taking occasional hits from people such as Carol Burnett or Tom Cruise.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Of course, with any fact you can put a spin on it but this does not matter as long as the listener is aware of the bias. It is a bit scary when a press baron like Murdoch is considered one of the main reasons Blair won the previous elections, and that the future of the Blair government seems to depend on Murdoch not to tell his UK news papers to go after Blair. Either the British readers of Murdochs papers are happy to vote for the guy picked by Murdoch, or they are ignorant of the bias they are served ...
bring it on! --- JFK
does the nature of the World Wide Web in fact give sites like Wonkette, Drudge, or even Slashdot a free pass on accuracy if it means the difference between getting the scoop or not?
This may sound counterintuitive, but I read Slashdot largely because it provides me with what I believe is a very accurate and unbiased view of tech news. I know I've just made some of you spew coffee on your monitors, and I apologize. Here's the trick though - wait until the story has a few hundred comments, then browse at +4. Slashdot is a fantastic collaborative information processing system. On all but the most polarized issues (EG: SCO), the threads here will almost always present all sides of an argument, and are merciless in debunking the bunkers.
While it's true that the overall readership of Slashdot has a slant, even a supposed arch-enemy like Microsoft always gets a few highly rated posts presenting MS's side of the argument.
The trick is to know how to use a site like Slashdot - don't take any one comment as gospel (except the ones from me, of course). Read them all with an open mind, let simmer, and you'll find you get a far less partial perspective than you can get from traditional news-media sources that typically have stories written by a single person.
And you get to see run-on sentences that boggle the mind.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I once wanted to attend a peace demonstration, phoned up a guy who was mention in my local paper by name as the organiser, but the poor chap had NO idea that he was supposed to be organizing a peace march lol!
Out of curiosity, I checked back with the newspaper and they said they had copy-and-pasted the story with slight modifications from a church newswire organization. I phoned them, too, and they didn't know about the story at all.
This was not a tabloid, mind you, but the most respected paper in the region.