Well, I don’t know you personally. I’m saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job.
Which explains a lot of how the 21st century is going, honestly.
[…] I’m saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job. […]
What, in your opinion, would determine if someone is qualified to fact check a news article? Do you have criteria?
Like I said, we should get research methods taught in school from very early on. For one thing, understanding what even counts as a source is not a trivial problem, let alone an independent source, let alone a credible independent source.
There’s the mechanics of sourcing things (from home and on a computer, I presume we don’t want every private citizen to be making phone calls to verify every claim they come across in social media), a basic understanding of archival and how to get access to it and either a light understanding of the subject matter or how to get access to somebody who has it.
There’s a reason it’s supposed to be a full time job, but you can definitely teach kids enough of the basics to both assess the quality of what they come across and how to mitigate the worst of it. In all seriousness.
Okay, well I don’t exactly follow the relevance of your claim that journalism can be practiced full-time. I also don’t exactly follow the usage of your language “supposed to”. Imo, one needn’t be a full-time journalist to practice journalism.
You can do journalism without working as a journalist, but there is a lot of work involved in doing good journalism, which I presume would be the goal.
If you think the workload is trivial, consider the posibility you may not have a full view of everything that is involved. I’m saying everybody can and should have enough knowledge to sus out whether a piece of info they see online or in a news outlet is incorrect, misleading or opinionated, but it’s not reasonable, efficient or practical to expect everybody to access their news like a professional journalist does.
Which explains a lot of how the 21st century is going, honestly.
I agree with the conclusion, but not the premise, or at least not if used as an explicit argument — I think your premise is itself an example for your conclusion. I believe your premise is more an example of why there is, arguably, such a problem with misinformation and disinformation right now: I think it serves to increase the risk to appeals to authority; though, it’s a double edged sword as, imo, unchecked skepticism erodes one’s trust in reality.
I’m of the belief that anyone is capable of being a journalist regardless of their qualifications. I think that restricting that through elitism directly leads to appeals to authority (I’ve seen examples of that itt [1][2][3][4]) — appeals to authority, I think, is one of the root causes for why, anecdotally, news outlets have become so lazy in citing their sources — why cite sources if people will believe what you say regardless? Whether or not something is good journalism, by definition, imo, is self-evident — it doesn’t matter who did the work, so long as it is accurate.
References
@Hikermick@lemmy.world [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-11T05:03:33Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:01Z. https://lemmy.world/comment/13908617.
When reading hard news from an outlet that actually hires journalists I consider that to be the source. […]
@OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml. [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-11T08:06:53Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:06Z. https://lemmy.ml/comment/15451608.
News outlets are generally graded by their historical reputabilitiy. If you find yourself continuously fact checking it, maybe consider following a better news outlet […]
@JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-10T14:54:41Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:11Z. https://lemmy.world/comment/13896551.
[…] Professional journalists are like doctors in that they’ve committed themselves to a code of ethics. As citizens we are called on to trust them to not make sh*t up. […]
@jeffw@lemmy.world [To: “If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn’t that make me the journalist?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works). “Showerthoughts” (!showerthoughts@lemmy.world). sh.itjust.works. Lemmy. Published: 2024-12-10T07:34:34. https://sh.itjust.works/post/29275760.]. Published: 2024-12-10T08:37:58Z. Accessed: 2024-12-11T08:16Z. https://lemmy.world/comment/13892346.
Legitimate news outlets do pretty thorough fact-checking, if only to avoid litigation
Everybody is capable of being a journalist, but not everybody knows how. Qualifications are just some confirmation that someone has gone through some training. The training is to get the required skills. Capacity to get there doesn’t mean everybody is born with the right skillset or this would not be an issue in the first place.
Hence the education angle. You train kids earlier while the subjects they study are universal and prevent a scenario where a lot of people can’t fact check their own information or aren’t aware of their own biases.
Which is to say, no, good journalism isn’t self-evident. If it was, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation because the free market would lift up good journalism, presumably.
Confirmation bias is universal, however, so it takes a lot of work to learn to bypass it.
[…] good journalism isn’t self-evident. If it was, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation because the free market would lift up good journalism, presumably.
Hm, perhaps my usage of “self-evident” isn’t super accurate here — I agree that one needs to be taught/be in possession of the knowledge for how to determine if a sample of journalism is “good”. What I mean to say is that I think articles contain within themselves all that is required to determine if they are examples of good or bad journalism — all that’s required is for someone to know what to look for in the article to determine that for themself.
That depends on what you mean, I suppose. If what you’re saying is a savvy reader can fact-check an article if they know how… probably yes, in most cases. There are also probably warning flags and markers in most pieces to tell a savvy reader whether they should be following up in the first place.
If you’re saying that a savvy reader should be able to spot the quality of the information on the spot based entirely on the information within the article, then obviously not. That would mean the reader already has all the information in the piece and then some. The process of determining that is going to take some additional work to seek additional information, which is why it’s so hard to rely on crowdsourced fact-checking. Not everybody is going to have the time or availability to do that every time.
[…] If what you’re saying is a savvy reader can fact-check an article if they know how… probably yes, in most cases. There are also probably warning flags and markers in most pieces to tell a savvy reader whether they should be following up in the first place. […]
An example that I would add would be the mere presence, or lack thereof, of citations. If nothing is cited, then, imo, it’s not great journalism.
Are you saying that I’m unqualified to be a journalist?
Well, I don’t know you personally. I’m saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job.
Which explains a lot of how the 21st century is going, honestly.
What, in your opinion, would determine if someone is qualified to fact check a news article? Do you have criteria?
Like I said, we should get research methods taught in school from very early on. For one thing, understanding what even counts as a source is not a trivial problem, let alone an independent source, let alone a credible independent source.
There’s the mechanics of sourcing things (from home and on a computer, I presume we don’t want every private citizen to be making phone calls to verify every claim they come across in social media), a basic understanding of archival and how to get access to it and either a light understanding of the subject matter or how to get access to somebody who has it.
There’s a reason it’s supposed to be a full time job, but you can definitely teach kids enough of the basics to both assess the quality of what they come across and how to mitigate the worst of it. In all seriousness.
For clarity, by “it” are you referring to journalism?
I’m assuming you’re in a microblogging flavor of federation and that’s why this is broken down into a bunch of posts?
Yes, I’m referring to journalism.
Okay, well I don’t exactly follow the relevance of your claim that journalism can be practiced full-time. I also don’t exactly follow the usage of your language “supposed to”. Imo, one needn’t be a full-time journalist to practice journalism.
You can do journalism without working as a journalist, but there is a lot of work involved in doing good journalism, which I presume would be the goal.
If you think the workload is trivial, consider the posibility you may not have a full view of everything that is involved. I’m saying everybody can and should have enough knowledge to sus out whether a piece of info they see online or in a news outlet is incorrect, misleading or opinionated, but it’s not reasonable, efficient or practical to expect everybody to access their news like a professional journalist does.
I agree, but I don’t think that that’s a valid argument in defense of a journalist not citing their claims.
I agree with the conclusion, but not the premise, or at least not if used as an explicit argument — I think your premise is itself an example for your conclusion. I believe your premise is more an example of why there is, arguably, such a problem with misinformation and disinformation right now: I think it serves to increase the risk to appeals to authority; though, it’s a double edged sword as, imo, unchecked skepticism erodes one’s trust in reality.
I don’t think I know what you’re trying to say there. Can you rephrase that more straightforwardly for me?
I’m of the belief that anyone is capable of being a journalist regardless of their qualifications. I think that restricting that through elitism directly leads to appeals to authority (I’ve seen examples of that itt [1][2][3][4]) — appeals to authority, I think, is one of the root causes for why, anecdotally, news outlets have become so lazy in citing their sources — why cite sources if people will believe what you say regardless? Whether or not something is good journalism, by definition, imo, is self-evident — it doesn’t matter who did the work, so long as it is accurate.
References
Everybody is capable of being a journalist, but not everybody knows how. Qualifications are just some confirmation that someone has gone through some training. The training is to get the required skills. Capacity to get there doesn’t mean everybody is born with the right skillset or this would not be an issue in the first place.
Hence the education angle. You train kids earlier while the subjects they study are universal and prevent a scenario where a lot of people can’t fact check their own information or aren’t aware of their own biases.
Which is to say, no, good journalism isn’t self-evident. If it was, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation because the free market would lift up good journalism, presumably.
Confirmation bias is universal, however, so it takes a lot of work to learn to bypass it.
Hm, perhaps my usage of “self-evident” isn’t super accurate here — I agree that one needs to be taught/be in possession of the knowledge for how to determine if a sample of journalism is “good”. What I mean to say is that I think articles contain within themselves all that is required to determine if they are examples of good or bad journalism — all that’s required is for someone to know what to look for in the article to determine that for themself.
That depends on what you mean, I suppose. If what you’re saying is a savvy reader can fact-check an article if they know how… probably yes, in most cases. There are also probably warning flags and markers in most pieces to tell a savvy reader whether they should be following up in the first place.
If you’re saying that a savvy reader should be able to spot the quality of the information on the spot based entirely on the information within the article, then obviously not. That would mean the reader already has all the information in the piece and then some. The process of determining that is going to take some additional work to seek additional information, which is why it’s so hard to rely on crowdsourced fact-checking. Not everybody is going to have the time or availability to do that every time.
I assume you mean the first option, though.
An example that I would add would be the mere presence, or lack thereof, of citations. If nothing is cited, then, imo, it’s not great journalism.