Posted on 06/22/2019 7:33:16 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
When it comes to improving fact-checking, most of the focus tends to be on how fact checkers select the claims they examine, the sources they turn to in determining “truth” and the strength of their arguments. While it receives less attention, the editorializing language fact checkers use can be just as harmful to the public’s trust in their work.
Browse through the first five pages of FactCheck.org’s Barack Obama archive and fact checks of the former president’s statements are headlined with relatively clinical terms such as “misrepresents,” “misleading” and “cherry-picks.”
In contrast, the first five pages of the site’s Donald Trump archive are headlined “bungles,” “whoppers,” “deceptive,” “tramples facts,” “distorts,” “wrong again,” “false,” “wrong” and “errors,” with past headlines using “bizarre,” “baffling” and “fanciful.”
What separates a “misrepresented” fact from a “bungled” one or a “misleading” statement from a “whopper”?
(snip)
..., Eugene Kiely, the site’s director, offered that “we write headlines that we think accurately reflect the story” and that they “are based on the evidence” and “reflect the facts” of each individual story.
Does this mean a “whopper” reflects a more serious falsehood than a “cherry-picked” one? Kiely clarified that “we don’t write headlines based on the severity of the error” and that the language used “isn’t intended as a rating system.”
As to how the site selects words to use if they are not based on severity, Kiely said only, “We do NOT have a rating system. We do NOT choose words as a way to rate the severity of the misinformation, but rather to most accurately describe it.”
Asked for a copy of its written guidelines governing these matters, he referred back to his earlier statements that headline wording is selected on a case-by-case basis to fit each story.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Fact checking from most sites is a joke.
bttt
Yeah, ri i i ight.
Translation: We base our headlines on political partisanship.
Republicans....BAD.
democRATS....GOOD.
If a fact needs to be "fact-checked", then it isn't a fact. It's an opinion or just fake.
In contrast, the first five pages of the site’s Donald Trump archive are headlined “bungles,” “whoppers,” “deceptive,” “tramples facts,” “distorts,” “wrong again,” “false,” “wrong” and “errors,” with past headlines using “bizarre,” “baffling” and “fanciful.”
Fact checking corrupt 'fact checkers'... an idea whose time has come... The first fact checker group is owned by a newspaper that has NOT had one working conservative in the News Room in over 40 years.
Snopes is the absolute worst.
Once a week the local paper runs a full page provided by one of the news services enumerating Pres. Trump’s many alleged misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies. Such an obvious partisan hit-job. I skip right past it.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I’ve been rereading Orwell’s “1984” for the first time since high school. Amazing how prescient he was. We seem to be firmly entrenched in Winston’s world.
I have developed an aversion to loaded language, no matter if it comes from the left or the right. Adjectives are a major source of manipulation, but choice of verbs, as the article points out, also reflect the desired narrative.
Getting truth out of biased writing might never be perfectly achieved, but if there’s one thing the internet teaches, it’s that hair-on-fire bombast is best burned BEFORE reading.
Speech is multi-faceted, setting aside images, words, tone, cadence, inflection, volume and more, all contribute to meaning and the message of the speaker.
There are an extraordinary number of nuances available to speakers and writers that are driving these Social Media platforms mad.
Ridicule through sarcasm by using their (the Left’s) own spoken words alone is becoming a ban-able offense. Re-posting or sharing so-called “Trusted media” articles is being punished as “Hate Speech” in Europe.
Telling the truth, is now considered hateful.
These Social Media platforms and certain Governments are attempting to eliminate any speech that challenges the current SJW’s standards.
They want everyone to just watch and share Cat videos.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
But when someone posts a video of an Orange or white cat kicking a black cat’s ass?
Ridicule through sarcasm by using their (the Left’s) own spoken words alone is becoming a ban-able offense.
Since that’s worse, they’ll take that away.
Facebook will become like my HOA community newsletter, where they tell you up front that anything negative about anybody will not be published.
Some people love pabulum and crave it. Me, not so much. Let’s you and him fight.
Understood, but no one can take Sarcasm away.
True believers that restate their leaders words will be accused of being “Sarcastic”.
They will eat themselves alive and they don’t care since it’s a moving target that exists on having a constant rage mob that an advertiser based business model that’s full of SJW’s controlling the advertisers.
Get Woke, go Broke?
Not so much.
Where’s the money coming from to run these Platforms?
Who’s calling the shots here?
YouTube?
FaceBook?
No.
It’s their advertisers that pay them.
It’s their advertisers that are being attacked and threatened by an insane group of highly effective and motivated SJW’s that are calling all the shots.
I miss the wild west days of Usenet. No censoring. No suspending. No banishment. What we have today is the equivalent of a prisoner standing in the middle of his cell shouting out through the bars, “I’m free! I’m free!”
Wow, Usenet.
Those were the days.
I recall when AOL was getting started and had their “Rooms”
They would introduce a new arrival into the “room” by announcing, “So and So (screen name) has entered the room”
I changed my Screen name to, “A man with a Gun”.
LOL
I remember those times when you’d get an AOL cd-rom in the mail every few months. My boss, computer illiterate, gave me one of his AOL CDs and I thanked him but told him I didn’t need training wheels.
That was the time when so many online folks thought AOL was the internet, and never ventured out from it.
From bulletin boards to the WWW.
Buying a new modem every six months.
Netscape downloads that failed and then buying it.
Always upgrading both hardware and software.
I was paying my bills electronically in 1991 with CheckFree and as much as I loved “Bill Payment”, what I really wanted was “Bill Presentment”. I hated opening the mail.
And video games. The biggest driver of computer sales in that era was the need to keep up with ever-more demanding video game graphics.
Who indeed...
“In contrast, the first five pages of the site’s Donald Trump archive are headlined “bungles,” “whoppers,” “deceptive,” “tramples facts,” “distorts,” “wrong again,” “false,” “wrong” and “errors,” with past headlines using “bizarre,” “baffling” and “fanciful.””
What’s been pissing me off is when Trump claims he was spied on by Obama, the media calls it a LIE, since he didn’t prove that was the case (at least initially).
Well, words have meanings, and to claim someone is lying means the person making the claim can PROVE that the person is lying. The media has NEVER presented any proof that Trump was not spied on, nor could they - it’s impossible, since the media doesn’t have reporters stationed in every intelligence agency 24/7. They claim Trump lied based on someone like Brennan/Clapper (not exactly purveyors of truth themselves, but that doesn’t even matter) saying that they didn’t spy on Trump.
So what should the media say? Something to the effect of “President Trump made an UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIM that he was spied on”. The people in the media know FULL WELL that the word “lie” is a loaded word, and they use it as a weapon, in cases where it is slander. They need to be sued for that.
When Trump first made the claim, primary newspapers had already printed that the government had his campaign under surveillance - including the same ones claiming he was speaking without proof.
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