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New Web Site Will Team Journalists With Programmers (sfgate.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the devs-and-data dept.

schwit1 shared an article from the New York Times: When investigative journalist Julia Angwin worked for ProPublica, the nonprofit news organization became known as "Big Tech's scariest watchdog." By partnering with programmers and data scientists, Angwin pioneered the work of studying Big Tech's algorithms -- the secret codes that have an enormous effect on everyday American life... Now, with a $20 million gift from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, she and her partner at ProPublica, data journalist Jeff Larson, are starting the Markup, a news site dedicated to investigating technology and its effect on society. Sue Gardner, former head of the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, will be the Markup's executive director. Angwin and Larson said that they would hire two dozen journalists for its New York office and that stories would start going up on the website in early 2019...

Angwin, who was part of a Wall Street Journal team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for coverage of corporate corruption, said the newsroom would be guided by the scientific method, and each story would begin with a hypothesis... At the Markup, journalists will be partnered with a programmer from a story's inception until its completion. "To investigate technology, you need to understand technology," said Angwin, 47... Newmark, who splits his time between San Francisco and New York, has for years kept a low profile. But he worries about what he sees as a lack of self-reflection among engineers. "Sometimes it takes an engineer a while to understand that we need help, then we get that help, and then we do a lot better," Newmark said. "We need the help that only investigative reporting with good data science can provide...."

Engineers being surprised by the tools they have made is, to the Markup team, part of the problem. "Part of the premise of the Markup is the level of understanding technology and its effects is very, very low, and we would all benefit from a broader understanding," Gardner said. "And I would include people who work for the companies."
Larson laments a world where programs handle crucial decisions, and "once they go into production, there's no oversight..." Or, as he says earlier, "Increasingly, algorithms are used as shorthand for passing the buck." The Markup's site promises " a nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom" offering independent analysis of how technology is re-shaping everything from what we believe to "who goes to prison versus who remains free." The site's donations page adds that "We strive for fairness and independence and for us, the best way to achieve that is to operate without ads or a paywall."

Angwin tells Recode that she grew up in Steve Jobs' neighborhood in Palo Alto, and in a long interview reveals that she learned to program in a fifth grade class that a public-spirited Steve Jobs funded. Now the Times points out that the Markup "will release all its stories under a creative commons license so other organizations can republish them, as ProPublica does."

51 comments

  1. New Slashdot Post Will Team First With Hot Grits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    frosty, m'ladies

    (tips fedora seductively)

  2. KAVANAUGH TEAMS WITH LITTLE GIRLS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and of course, BEER!

    1. Re: KAVANAUGH TEAMS WITH LITTLE GIRLS by mstrash · · Score: 0

      Better than your mom getting double teamed by gorilla like apes every weekend at her breeding parties because she wants a redo after her first mistake, you.

    2. Re: KAVANAUGH TEAMS WITH LITTLE GIRLS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean a DEVIL'S TRIANGLE. That's what you mean. The Kavanaughter lied about that. TOO! "Drinking game, ... like quarters" he said, UNDER OATH. LOCK HIM UP!

  3. APK Hosts File Engine for Linux/BSD... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux/BSD h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p

    Yields more security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats use hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less!

    Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" slowing you hosts speed u up 2 ways: Adblocks + Hardcode fav. sites u spend most time @ vs. competition loaded w/ security bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + overheads slowing u (messagepass 'souled-out' to advertisers easily detected & blocked addons + firewall filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploitation!

    * ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI 4 Linux/BSD!

    (Better vs. Windows model in speed/efficiency/merge)

    APK

    P.S.=> Protects against Spectre & Meltdown + ads/trackers/botnets/malware downloads/malcript/email malicious payloads... apk

  4. MacOS version available, too... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's here! APK Hosts File Engine 1.0++ 64-bit for MacOS h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r M a c O S . z i p

    Yields more security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats use hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less!

    Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" slowing you hosts speed u up 2 ways: Adblocks + Hardcode fav. sites u spend most time @ vs. competition loaded w/ security bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + overheads slowing u (messagepass 'souled-out' to advertisers easily detected & blocked addons + firewall filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploitation!

    * ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI 4 MacOS!

    (Better vs. Windows model in speed/efficiency/merge)

    APK

    P.S.=> Protects against Spectre & Meltdown + redirect poisoned or downed DNS/botnets/malware downloads/malcript/email malicious payloads... apk

  5. APK Hosts File Engine is probably malware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I tried this software; it completely corrupted my operating system; I lost all connections and eventually the whole system drive scrambled. Had to reformat everything and re-install fresh. What a huge mistake, wouldn't refund money. Called BBB and reported this company for faulty and misleading.

  6. Re: New Slashdot Post Will Team First With Hot Gri by mstrash · · Score: 0

    SecoNd!

  7. Hilarity ensues! by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

    If this isn't a set up for a sitcom, I don't know what is.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  8. There are stupid ideas, and then there's this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Partnering someone who's skill is in writing summaries with a programmer or data scientist isn't going to do anything to help "investigate technology and its effect on society".
    For that matter, what good is a programmer going to do? Why don't they team up the journalist with network engineer, or a paper manufacturer foreman? They're all as involved.

    The ideal solution would be to TEACH journalists some data science and programming, or better yet, teach programmers how to write - and then pair them with social scientists. You know, people that actually study societies.

  9. backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a nice idea. It has a fundamental flaw.
    More often than not its the people who use technology that don't know what the devs have made rather than the devs.
    The devs usually know very well what their tech is worth, both in design and implementation.
    People throw everything in one basket and think it contains more or less than it really does.
    Devs with an informed understanding of what societies want from tech can pick the right basket not oversight agencies who may have aspirations coupled with confusion about details of different kinds of technology.

    1. Re:backwards by arth1 · · Score: 1

      The devs usually know very well what their tech is worth, both in design and implementation.

      Yes, but not always the consequences. Do you think those who wrote video image letter recognition algorithms considered how it was going to be used by law enforcement dragnets and advertisers alike? Do you think those who programmed voice recognition or IoT message queueing considered the implications of something like Alexa?

    2. Re:backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both of your rhetorical questions propose a consequence that is nearly the most likely use of that technology. Yes, I'd say people programming scraping text from videos thought it might be used for license plates. Yes, I'd say people programming voice recognition thought it might be used by consumers to talk to a computer that would then take action.

    3. Re: backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They usually know when they will get blamed for problems and then be stuck on square one only its them on the hook and not the last people who ran into problems

    4. Re:backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People will have to think without the help of journalists. It will be anarchy.

    5. Re:backwards by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Yes, I'd say people programming voice recognition thought it might be used by consumers to talk to a computer that would then take action.

      In other words, you have not thought much about the implications either, assuming both that it must be the consumers who do the talking, and that it's a computer that takes action. That's two misplaced trusts in one sentence.

      And that, I think, is the problem a nutshell - inventors, engineers and programmers tend to trust that their products won't be to serve other purposes.
      It's an old problem. Good old Montpelier likely didn't consider all the nasty things that could be dropped from a balloon, or how it could be used to hinder other types of flying machines that were only ideas and not reality.
      And Ray Tomlinson probably did not consider forgeries when the first e-mail was sent. If he thought about it at all, it was likely dismissed because why would anyone forge the account name or arpanet host, because then they wouldn't get a reply!

  10. Good luck with that by arth1 · · Score: 2

    I really don't see anything there that would attract programmers or scientists or engineers.
    What's the actual incentive for the non-journalist side, so they can attract the resources? More than market rate for short-term assignments?

    1. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It will attract Twitter loudmouths who call themselves "programmer" or "developer", even though their only contribution was writing Codes of Conducts and making change requests because variable names are problematic.

    2. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Compensation will be low. It isn't a big deal for them.

      The thing about the modern media ecosystem is that it pays poorly, employs unpaid interships, and attracts people who've taken out large student loans to finance largely useless degrees in the humanities. No rational wealth-optimizing person would take a career in journalism. Consequently, the people who choose to take these jobs are either idiots or people who are getting something else out of them. We can rule out the former explanation, since writing well requires a functioning mind. We have to conclude that there's significant non-monetary compensation involved, and this compensation takes the form of sanctimony. People go into journalism these days so that they can feel morally righteous, and this sort of person should be our last choice for the creator of unbiased reporting.

      I see no reason why the same dynamic wouldn't apply to these programmer adjuncts. The pay is probably awful, and the job probably comes with an opportunity to be sanctimonious and to feel righteous. It'll attract the same sort of barely-technically-component but very politically loud people that have turned the big tech companies into culture war battlefields.

  11. APK Lies Yet Again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    His claim about hosts protecting against speculative execution flaws is yet another lie. He also claims that his hosts file blocks every ad server and that hosts do port filtering. APK is a proven liar who suffers from narcissistic personality disorder and is unable to ever admit that he's wrong.

  12. Propaganda, now semi-automated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No thanks. I stopped trusting anything but my personal experiences and friends with which I have experiences that make them trustworthy. And even there, I am wary.

    The conecpt of a "news" site has lost all appeal.
    In the end, only my environment can be considered real. If some draconian rule is enforced, what matters is he people around me (e.g. cops) joining in or opposing it.

    Otherwise one will feel helpless in changing a thing w.r.t. one's own situation. Which is not true for the immediate surroundings that actually matter.
    It's what keeps one from merely becoming depressed and apathic, and accepting the dictatorship.

    The only news that can actually be useful, in my experience, are science news and actual real emergencies that actually affect my area. (As opposed to propaganda, fluff, and the Panic Of The Day.)

    1. Re: Propaganda, now semi-automated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are echoing my thoughts almost verbatim. Your post made my day on this crummy "news" site

  13. arth1 = fake name massive human fail... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Your MASSIVE FAIL in this life is you're nothing more than a chattering little do-nothing "ne'er-do-well" online & you know it...

    * Is that the best your "phantasyland FAKE NAME" (for your fake lie of a so-called 'life') can manage?

    When a FAKE NAME do nothing like YOU does better than I have? Then talk (you're all talk & no action)...

    You can't help you're an immature little BUTTHURT no-mind, lol! I blew you away in TONS OF PLACES and easily dust your no-mind bullshit blatherings.

    APK

    P.S.=> The TRUE PRICE of your UNIDENTIFIABLE FAKE NAME do-nothing selves like you that I can ALWAYS CASH IN ON (lol) is that I can use FACT/TRUTH on them to SHATTER their all TOO fragile delusional egos that they actually know A DAMN THING in computing, lol... apk

    1. Re:arth1 = fake name massive human fail... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      c6gunner everyone knows you impersonated apk. Stop. It looks bad for you https://linux.slashdot.org/com...

    2. Re:arth1 = fake name massive human fail... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And everyone knows APK posts unsigned to make it look like he has support when he has run out of lies to tell.

  14. Re:There are stupid ideas, and then there's this.. by devslash0 · · Score: 1

    So they can write politically correct algorithms? No, thank you.

  15. Anonymous Coward = fake name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Your MASSIVE FAIL in this life is you're nothing more than a chattering little do-nothing "ne'er-do-well" online & you know it...

    * Is that the best your "phantasyland FAKE NAME" (for your fake lie of a so-called 'life') can manage?

    When a FAKE NAME do nothing like YOU does better than I have? Then talk (you're all talk & no action)...

    You can't help you're an immature little BUTTHURT no-mind, lol! I blew you away in TONS OF PLACES and easily dust your no-mind bullshit blatherings.

    APK

    P.S.=> The TRUE PRICE of your UNIDENTIFIABLE FAKE NAME do-nothing selves like you that I can ALWAYS CASH IN ON (lol) is that I can use FACT/TRUTH on them to SHATTER their all TOO fragile delusional egos that they actually know A DAMN THING in computing, lol... apk

  16. let them pay you by ooloorie · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Why team with journalists? Journalists don't know anything, can't do anything, and don't bring anything useful to the table. In fact, if anything, they taint your work and your message with their biases and ideologies. Journalists used to be a necessary evil as gatekeepers to a costly, limited bandwidth distribution medium (paper, TV), but that function has been made obsolete. And journalists work for for profit corporations that turn your knowledge into their profits. They get something out of teaming with you, you don't get anything out of teaming with them.

    If you have something to say or contribute, skip the middleman and publish it and distribute it yourself. If you develop tools for detecting bias or censorship in Google, put them in a Github repository, publish a couple of papers on it, and record YouTube videos.

    And if journalists want to take advantage of your expertise as a programmer, make them pay consulting fees. After all, it is their corporate masters that make money from your skills and expertise and they should pay for it.

    1. Re:let them pay you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I agree. First thought that came to mind was does "teaming" mean programmers work for free and journalists get the credit of work?

    2. Re:let them pay you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ProPublica is a George Soros funded thought police. Their profit is mind share. Once nobody thinks the way they do, they die.

    3. Re:let them pay you by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      If you read carefully, what they want to get is hired into tech companies to "help" engineers "understand" the consequence of their creations. More make work for people who can't get jobs and don't want to do real work. This has been creeping into tech lately. A lot of people want to get into these companies because there is a lot of money to be made, but they have no real skills, so they use this as a wedge to get themselves in the door.

    4. Re:let them pay you by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      If you read carefully, what they want to get is hired into tech companies to "help" engineers "understand" the consequence of their creations

      True. What they don't seem to understand is that (1) engineers generally understand the consequences of their creations, whether it's a social media website or a nuclear bomb, and (2) when we don't like the consequences of our creations, we just change jobs.

      A lot of people want to get into these companies because there is a lot of money to be made

      Journalists are even more desperate, with the number of jobs decreasing several percent every year.

  17. I guess the first thing they will need to do by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    is form a committee to create a Code of Conduct.

    Hard hitting news combined with programmers couldn't possibly have any social leanings. /s

  18. c6gunner IMPERSONATING me again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    c6gunner shot himself down w/ his FAKEname on a post impersonating me https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & w/ c6gunner altering /. user's words there.

    All since I challenged c6gunner to show better work than mine he did & you can't c6gunner "ne'er-do-well"!

    Right after you tried to mock me 1st https://linux.slashdot.org/com... for no good reason & I didn't bug you @ all!

    YOU DEMAND PROOF OF OTHERS "I've yet to see you provide any evidence of that." by c6gunner on Monday March 15, 2010 @10:02PM (#31490942) ?

    Thus so I DEMANDED IT OF YOU & YOU FAILED!

    * c6gunner = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!

    APK

    P.S.=> You say hosts are shit here https://slashdot.org/comments.... ?

    50++ /.ers & security pros + RESULTS SAY DIFFERENT:

    Proof's here from /.ers https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments....

    Proof from SECURITY PROS https://slashdot.org/comments....

    Proof by & REAL RESULTS w/ hosts working vs. threats https://slashdot.org/comments....

    So EAT YOUR WORDS... apk

  19. Wasn't I - it's c6gunner impersonating me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: his FAKEname on a post impersonating me https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & altering /.er's words.

    So I challenge c6gunner to show he did better work than mine & he CAN'T!

    c6gunner tried to mock me 1st https://linux.slashdot.org/com...

    YOU DEMAND PROOF? "I've yet to see you provide any evidence of that." by c6gunner on Monday March 15, 2010 @10:02PM (#31490942) ?

    I DEMAND IT OF YOU & YOU FAIL!

    * c6gunner = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!

    c6gunner's LYING say I did a MacOS X one - I haven't yet & c6gunner's LYING impersonating me hosts work vs. Intel CPU issues (spectre/meltdown).

    APK

    P.S.=> You say hosts = shit here https://slashdot.org/comments.... ? /.ers & security pros SAY DIFFERENT: /.ers https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments....

    SECURITY PROS https://slashdot.org/comments....

    REAL RESULTS w/ hosts vs. threats https://slashdot.org/comments....

    EAT YOUR WORDS

  20. Addendum you bullshitting LIAR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: It's FREEWARE so how can you ask a refund? You didn't PAY ANYTHING for it!

    * You called the Better Bullshit Bureau for BULLSHITTERS like you liar.

    30 /.ers prove you wrong too https://science.slashdot.org/c... https://science.slashdot.org/c... https://science.slashdot.org/c... https://science.slashdot.org/c... https://science.slashdot.org/c... https://science.slashdot.org/c...

    APK

    P.S.=> Unbelievable how SOME idiots around here have NOTHING BETTER TO DO than try to give me guff - me, who produced a ware that gives you more SPEED/SECURITY/RELIABILITY & even ANONYMITY online... apk

  21. STFU JEW LIAR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    President Xi dictator & his DAVOS fake jew allies said they would crush Trump & the US @ Davos (look it up).

    Jews hide this post of verifiable fact. They censor anyone pro Trump/pro USA, Soros caught funding divisory groups + Google/Facebook/Twitter censoring too. A historical pattern dictatorships use + bread & circuses + seizure of media/communication, finance/banking for fake news + creating seize the youth, seize the future (stupid millenials of today are the proof) since they are easily influenced possessing no wisdom being given false or incomplete histories. All through federal funding of education at state levels for indoctrination, not education (education only fit to make laborers out of the unwashed masses jews call goyim in their false sense of superiority yet they cut their noses off in rhinoplasty trying to be the "inferior goyim" proving they themselves KNOW they are the thieving inferiors known as crooks all through history nation to nation they are banished from). JOOgle itself is merely a watchdog on YOU goy cattle's patterns so they can inject fake news and censorship to HERD YOU - hence all the tracking. Read on:

    Khazar Talmudic Jews believe this of all they call goyim/gentiles (any non-jew): Jews = biggest racists of all for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Peron, Spanish inquistion, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above.

    Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud.

    This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple & they killed him for it. Jeremiah did the same to them also + the Essenes could not stand them either breaking away from the pharisee corruption):

    Jew Talmud excerpts (the book that calls Christ's mother a whore & a bastard of a roman soldier):

    1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim is like killing a wild animal."

    2. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."

    3. Sanhedrin 59a: "A goy (Gentile) who pries into The Law (Talmud) is guilty of death."

    4. Yebhamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age."

    5. Schabouth Hag. 6d: "Jews may swear falsely by use of subterfuge wording."

    6. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Do not save Goyim in danger of death."

    7. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Show no mercy to the Goyim."

    8. Choschen Hamm 388, 15: "If it can be proven that someone has given the money of Israelites to the Goyim, a way must be found after prudent consideration to wipe him off the face of the earth."

    9. Choschen Hamm 266,1: "A Jew may keep anything he finds which belongs to the Akum (Gentile). For he who returns lost property (to Gentiles) sins against the Law by increasing the power of the transgressors of the Law. It is praiseworthy, however, to return lost property if it is done to honor the name of God, namely, if by so doing, Christians will praise the Jews and look upon them as honorable people."

    10. Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia 17: "A Jew should and must make a false oath when the Goyim asks if our books contain anything against them."

    11. Baba Necia 114, 6: "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."

    12. Simeon Haddarsen, fol. 56-D: "When the Messiah comes every Jew will have 2800 slaves."

    13. Nidrasch Talpioth, p. 225-L: "Jehovah created the non-Jew

  22. I beg your pardon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Though I like the idea of a watchdog, there are a whole lot of us that actually aren't mindless sheep that can be so easily influenced by fucking code. People in the Valley *reaaalllly* need to get out of the bubble and lose their preconceptions. I'm sorry that California liberals can't wrap their heads around the fact that a lot of people simply *don't like them or their policies* and *don't want them anywhere near our government*. Shocking, I know. Good idea, relentlessly retarded premise.

  23. My dad used to be a real journalist. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I understand where you're coming from though. Nowadays, it is hard to believe, that "journalists" could be good. Much like "politicians".

    But the thing is: Those are not journalists. They stole the word.

    As an example of what a real journalist does:
    * My dad discovered a photo where the ex Pakistani military intelligence leader Hamid Gul sat there with a CIA agent in turban and traditional clothes, and they seemed to drink tea and be best friends. Naturally, like we all would, he thought "WTF"?
    * But unlike you and me, he proposed an investigatory bit to our local TV station. (Public [state] TV, mind you, and working together with others to form a country wide one.)
    Since the editors knew him well, they accepted. The budget was massive, and would burst the budget of the entire station later on, when it was supposed to be made into a documentary.
    * He found out, that Hamid Gul was under house arrest in northern Pakistan (that area that you always hear as the terrorist training camps) ... *by* the Al-Qaeda, because *they* thought he was too nuts. (WTF number 2.)
    * So he flew to Pakistan, went to that little town where Gul lived, and *asked* him. (Yeah, that’s right. Imagine you and me... that’s the shit we'd *never* do, and that he gets paid for.)
    * This involved two informants being murdered for telling him (to save their families which would otherwise have been murdered), entering a zone where all foreigners are shot on sight, faking proficiency in the Koran and in praying (my dad has stopped accepting religion when he was a teenager) just to not get shot instantly, and asking Gul while two AK-47s were pointed at him in case Gul twitches at something that displeases him.
    * That way he found out who the agent was, and that it was in fact really a CIA agent, as he had a long and "fruitful" relationship with the CIA, (all according to Gul of course). Including what we already know: That the CIA were not only aware that the Pakistanis gave all the US money "to fight terrorists" to the terror camps, but that it was kinda the point. (Again, be wary of who is telling us this!)
    * He also found out why Gul is under house arrest: Since he oversaw the construction of the Pakistani nukes (a god state by the way, but *somehow* not the enemy of the US), he had full access and all the codes. And he planned to put the warheads in passenger planes, and fly them over. (HOLYWTF number 3.) Even the Al-Qaeda knew that that was a death sentence to their whole region and served absolutely no one, and locked him up. (phew!)
    * And what did my dad do after that? He wanted to interview the agent! In Washington!! So he flew over. Via Hamburg! (WTF, does he not know that that was the precise route that the 9/11 terrorists took? ... Sometimes my dad is really stupid that way. ... Then again, he has friends in certain places that probably watched anyway.)
    * He found the "ex" agent in Washington... (you're apparently never really "ex", due to what you know) ... and got him to *confirm* Gul's stories! (Raise your chairs and hairs, fasten your seatbelts, shit’s getting real.)
    * Later, a swat team stormed his hotel room and demanded he should delete ALL the things. He of course complied. ... Because everything was already uploaded. It's not like he's a rookie. ^^
    * That's what he then put into his documentary. A shorter version was broadcast. But the full version was too expensive, and since the various regional stations here in-fight like toddlers, they could not agree on financing it.
    * Not long thereafter, the editors at his station pretty much all went into retirement, and were replaced by younger ones, who didn't accept anything by my dad anymore.

    He retired too, since then.

    I wish even a single thing of that "Bond movie" shit was made up. But I'm as close to the source as I can be, without risking my life. (Actually, our family once got threatened with death by terrorist

  24. Lets test them! by 3seas · · Score: 1

    https://3seas.org/EAD-RFI-resp... to see if they really are looking for ethics violations.
    As a side dish https://3seas.org/

  25. I heard her cunt stinks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it stinks like WD-40 and fish.. In turn and in all fairness, "Journalists" love smelly cunts.

  26. no respect for journalism, eh? by hmadrone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did your CS degree cover locating, interviewing, documenting, and protecting sources? Did it teach you how to get into and out of a war zone safely and do effective coverage while you're there? Did it teach you how to investigate a situation that smells funny? Did it teach you how to cover your tracks and avoid government and corporate censorship?

    Let's turn that around and see what that disrespect feels like pointed at us:

    "Why team with programmers? Programmers don't know anything, can't do anything, and don't bring anything useful to the table. In fact, if anything, they taint your work and your message with their biases and ideologies. Programmers used to be a necessary evil as gatekeepers to a costly, limited bandwidth distribution medium (computers), but that function has been made obsolete. And programmers work for for-profit corporations that turn your knowledge into their profits. They get something out of teaming with you, you don't get anything out of teaming with them."

    Oh, okay, that' s pretty much how social media companies operate.

    There are all kinds of journalists out there, and they have their own areas of expertise of which programmers know nothing. Many of them put themselves out there in war zones, disaster areas, and other dangerous situations. They poke under rocks with their sticks and tell us what they find.

    Journalists have always been hated by people who don't want us to see what's under those rocks. And sure, there is a lot of sloppy journalism, and editors have always shaped their reports to fit the narrative they want to tell.

    If you hate and revile the press indiscriminately, though, you run the danger of destroying one of the pillars of liberty.

    1. Re:no respect for journalism, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You can't protect your sources when you don't even understand technology. You are likely using technology you don't understand while you pretend to protect your sources, and you'll likely end up getting someone killed.

      You should ask Julian Assange about protecting sources.

    2. Re:no respect for journalism, eh? by sheramil · · Score: 2

      Did your CS degree cover locating, interviewing, documenting, and protecting sources?

      I studied journalism, a long time ago, under a veteran named Barry Watts. One of the other students once asked him about journalistic integrity, and Mr Watts gave one cynical, barking laugh, adding "You poor, naive bastards. "

      And he was right.

    3. Re:no respect for journalism, eh? by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      Oh, okay, that' s pretty much how social media companies operate.

      It is, but it isn't what programmers are paid for. Programmers are paid for delivering correct, robust, scalable, secure code, and the better ones generally do that.

      Let's turn that around and see what that disrespect feels like pointed at us

      Journalists frequently disrespect programmers. But why would I care? It's not about anybody's "feelings", it's about objective facts: the profession of journalism is disappearing because their "skills" aren't needed anymore.

      If you hate and revile the press indiscriminately, though, you run the danger of destroying one of the pillars of liberty.

      The "pillars of liberty" is free speech and an informed populace. Those are two concepts that have been anathema to corporate media and the journalists they employ for more than a century. What newspapers care about is profits, and what journalists care about is personal advancement at any cost.

  27. Youtube video? Srsly!???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Youtube video? Srsly!???? Certainly that would violate some hidden google ToS and be removed.

    Say anything bad about MSFT, and the github repo is gone.

    I love your enthusiasm, but please don't been such a total noob.

  28. Hilarious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A journalist calling an engineer not self aware. How about the journalists learn to do more than write in their native language in a way that simply pursues an agenda. It's also just precious that we have the usual offenders (those organizations behind funding extreme leftist organizations) funding this.

  29. Prolonging the war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This effort is nothing but another weapon for the culture war. The problem with the technology press is not that reporters don't understand technology. It's that reporters largely buy into a totalizing and evil ideology and push it relentlessly. Pairing reporters with programmers who share this same ideology will not improve the world. Instead, it will just allow the press to lie in a slightly more insidious way.

    Look: the media is overwhelmingly leftist and introduces deliberate bias into almost all reporting, technology reporting included. You may think I'm just paranoid, but it's really true. See how almost all mainstream press outlets simply and flatly lies about Damore's essay? See how the press continually magnifies any problem a women might have anywhere into "tech hates women", which is the furthest thing from the truth? See how the press constantly pushes big tech companies to censor ever-more content in the name of preventing "harm"? All reporting these days approaches the world from a very specific angle and attributes all the incredible complexity of its problems to the same small number of identity-related problems that the left invented and with which the left is obsessed.

    The stories this new outlet will publish will not be about examining in a dispassionate way the impact of technology on society. Instead, they will be the same stuff that Vox and its ilk push, high-quality tendentious sophistry designed to cloak an agenda in cherry-picked faces and unlikely theories. The leftist agenda amounts to the same deluded and radical cosmic egalitarianism that, in the 20th century, killed hundreds of millions of people. We're going to end up in the same place. This agenda is the closest thing to evil that actually exists.

    By giving $20 million to the people pushing this agenda, Craig Newmark is insulating these people from the market forces that would otherwise direct society's attention toward productive, not evil, activities. These people will eventually lose, as the truth wins in the end. But by giving $20 million to communists in the press, Craig Newmark is prolonging an evil period in human history and prolonging a long, tiresome, and immiserating social struggle.

  30. This is bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It doesn't matter where misleading information originates. Algorithms are not 'surprising' or 'magic'. Why have we become so gullible? Why are people in the valley so unethical? No one wants to address the real issues: personal responsibility and personal accountability, both of which seem to have evaporated from American society. That is a much bigger and messier conversation though, addressing everything from laziness, greed, and ignorance to modern parenting trends. There is no such thing as being 'influenced' without consent, and wow am I tired of engineers behaving as though they have created sci-fi lightning in a bottle when in fact what they have is a glorifed calculator. A tech ethics committee would be great, anti-trust would be great. This, on the other hand, sounds like it came from a millennial's remedial sociology class.

  31. I could see helping them. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    It depends on what they're asking for. Is it a phone call every once in a while to help explain why the journalist is spewing nonsense (technically)? Or do they want me to treat it as a job. Because I could see treating it as volunteer work. I already volunteer my time to some causes I care about, and if phrased as "please make tech journalism more journalism and less press release recitation" I could see caring about that.

    The state of most tech journalism is really bad. Or, please point out the sources I should be reading. Anyway, on to the next story about Musk's tweet from a few weeks ago.

    --
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  32. Oh, hell no! by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    Teaching everyone to code is a bad idea. Teaching people to code well is a good idea but, of course, most people will never be able to code well. By the same token, journalism has become a license to destroy people's lives with impunity. "Oh, I had an anonymous source." Do you really want the toxic combination of bad programmers and shoddy journalism creating, well, ANYTHING?