Award Winning Journalist admits to writing Fake News

[supersonicwaffle]

Not that it excuses anything but I imagine the first thing to be cut as things feel the squeeze (not like newspaper has been the most lucrative of industries these last few decades) is the department that routinely says "all good" and starts to look more and more like an expense, especially if those they look at are considered upstanding members of society doing their bit. Actually you say IT is your game so you probably have sat there with people seeing the money fly out into your department and not generate any income per se aka you are an expense, however in the middle of their clueless rant you start to ponder how long it would take for things to fall over if you all vanished tomorrow.

I don't know what the journalistic equivalent is but spies call them paper mills. When your checking department goes skeleton crew you probably get them as the first thing to slip through the net.

I will admit that I've only worked as an outside contractor, people come to me because they have a need or a problem. This is pretty uncommon to me. OTOH I work fully transparent and have automation in place to create statistics, which is what I would expect from a department that fact checks.

While fact checking a piece, make notes of what can't be corroborated, keep statistics of what is a usual number of unverifiable facts for different departments (harder to verify facts from a reporter on the ground in a war than someone researching a border militia in the US), create reports that show some reporters tend to have significantly higher numbers in these areas, create reports that show trends some reporters became less verifiable over time. You know, the bare minimum.

--

People are less interested in the news outlet itself (the "source"). Two examples: 1. People stopped "clicking through" to the original webpage on facebook anymore, to them they get their news "from facebook" (Their videos are autoplaying, why leave the stream.. Thats design.) 2. The google news story about "we dont permit you to use our stories, ups - our reader numbers fell by 50+%".

You're saying people went from reading articles to reading headlines, it's exactly what I meant. Your example regarding google as a news aggregator is literally saying people DO "click through" and it has a massive impact on the site if they don't advertise properly (i.e. be present at aggregators and in social media).

People are still interested in stories - but they can get them "where they already are" (talking to their friends on facebook), and therefor are less interested in news outlets.

The only thing I get from your argument is that people may not be as interested in a specific outlet because they are provided tools to get a better overview over many outlets. This does not constitute less interest in news but may indicate less interest in news of a certain political bias.

I dont see how adhering to facebook logic ("become a personal brand") fixes that. It just strokes peoples egos and plays into the "only whats popular is important" narrative (you dont have a medium any more that can "subsidise" the important story with some popular ones - everything is now optimized for popularity (algorithm)).

Again, I think you're barking up the wrong tree and have a false assessment of the issue at hand. It's true that it won't fix things, it will make it worse. You said yourself Restle is advocating for this, if you look for the immediate feedback that he got for this (twitter responses), it's overwhelmingly negative, are we just ignoring this?

From my perspective, this harms journalism more, than it benefits it. You end up with those guys:

Exactly, from what I hear Relotius was a proponent of value driven journalism as proposed by Restle (I may be wrong of this). This is exactly what it breeds, because the whole premise of it is BS.
I will say again that "amateurs" have been given tools to self publish easily (social media, blogs, etc.) and are in the proccess of overtaking traditional news outlets because outlets will ignore how to play the new game properly, make wrong assumptions and ultimately fall flat on their face while trying to turn things around, it's literally how a lot of big players in various industries have fallen in the past.

But then my main issue here is "facebook", or "google news", or (the aggregators)...

Why? They're a tool for consumers to get a better overview over different outlets. People have done this manually for ages with RSS feeds, remember the outcry when google cancelled their RSS reader application?

Taking a 30% (usually) cut of the income, while having ruined the addvertising market for conventional media (they know much more about their "customer").

I think that's way too simplistic, while what you describe is a problem for big outlets, it's a godsend for smaller outlets and independents. Funny enough, when adpocalypse struck and things became harder for smaller outlets and independants they found a way to generate income through other means like subscriptions, while bigger outlets basically did nothing but take ad block creators to court and trying to make their content inaccessible with an activated ad blocker, recently they started to put certain content behind paywalls which does seem to work better given that it's become more commonplace.

Replacing agenda setting with popularity algorithms (I like).

I don't know if I understand correctly but if you're saying that journalists following an agenda is replaced, than that's a good thing in my book because journalists have no business doing that.

But then thats not a very profound relization as well. I simple want the old system back. Which is never going to happen either.

You want an old system, where it was significantly more time consuming to take in multiple sources to aid in forming an opinion, back?

Thats also why I dont see this as the great new future of media. If it happens, the "educated" people will still rather flock to outlets that follow a different standard - which currently some believe will then be mostly those run by people who are willing to loose money and still dont downsize the editorial staff (Bezos, ...).

The new media landscape and quality journalism are not mutually exclusive. Assumptions made by traditional media of what it would take to transition are misguided.
Funny you mention Bezos. Here's an article of an outlet with "different standards" https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...creator/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0e4eefe92207

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Faux News is a fake conservative operation designed by liberals to appeal to conservative boomers. With the exception of Tucker Carlson, who is under attack by advertisers, it's a total shitshow front.

Could you please explain to me how that logic works? The ultra-conservative "news" outlets are the antithesis of the liberal ideal, and often produce stories that could in fact be considered dangerous to groups that liberals tend to cater to if the audience actually acted on them (which, they've started to). If Breitbart, Fox Radio, Fox and Friends et al were all a liberal sham, why wouldn't they have pulled the plug by now?

 

[notimp]

I don't know if I understand correctly but if you're saying that journalists following an agenda is replaced, than that's a good thing in my book because journalists have no business doing that.

No, not saying that - literally just saying, that "most popular" leads to youtuber culture and bubbles culture.

Splicing in a "less popular" news item is called the feuilleton for example, or the culture section, or even "reporting that took three months - where the costs where offset by the rest of the paper, bringing you sports news".

Today you have those formats financed on Patreon. Maybe. If they ought to be "selfsustaining".
--

But then you are asking more about the "agenda setting" principal I believe.

There we actually diverge. Because "non-yellow press" media always had an editorial focus (Gatekeeper, Influencers, emplying an editorial philosophy (Blattlinie)). Yellow press did also, but they were playing closer to the popularity side of things.

Now here is the controversial part. Have five different opinions/papers, know where they are leaning. And you get a balanced opinion on some stories as a result.

Have an algorithm picking the most popular stories for your specific bubble - you dont.

This still presumes, that you have to go through social media to reach an audience, because thats where the people are, and you want to make (far less than in the past) ad money. The new positive - you might scale better than in the past (the whole world is your market) if you are an english language medium.
--

I've also touched on rich people basically cross financing media outlets, as a model. If you've looked at journalism in the past, this was the model for most of its time. Parties had their papers, the Church had their papers, ... And it is still part of the current media ecosystem. (Look at the media concentration in the US, then look at trusts running newspapers in Germany.)

I dont particularly like this model. Especially not, if papers get the impression, that their audiences have left them and their businessmodel is not viable without outside support. (Springer diverged and now runs car auction platforms for example, or did so on the past...)

But I still believe, that they will end up with more journalistic capacity (ability to bring me storys that matter), than anything that goes the "lets try to appeal as many people as possible - via facebook" route.

Now - the good news is, that those are not the only viable models. If you are a newspaper, and you can get paying subscribers ("Do you have a youtube video of that?"), you are still golden. Its just thtat advertising wont coup your costs as it did in the past.

if you are a documentarian, and build a brand, and go with Patreon, or doners, great as well.

And if you are partly state financed (öffentlich rechtlich), you are starting to look like you are living in a bubble yourself - but actually a positive one.

Its just, that I doubt that playing the social media game, to regain peoples attentions will work - without sacrificing quality to a large extent. Thats basically it. I'm weary of that.
-

There is also the "psychological barrier" of "no - we have to write up a story neutrally" that falls with the "lets make opinion journalism" model. And despite what happened at the Spiegel, it should make more people try to get "popular influencer" status a result. You read some journalists Twitter accounts, you should have a feel for where that goes. If thats now part of the paper as well... What do you do on a slow news week, for example...

Also if you really reached the status of a "popular newsinterpreteur" and you've done so because of your opinion. You've really breached into politics by then. And if you can do that "alone" - whats really holding you back to be part of a newspaper any longer...? (We've had examples in the past, where Columnists could dictate 80% of a papers sale on any given day, I think in the UK. If they switched papers, ... )

 

[Kigiru]

I mean... >CNN awards.
From liars for liars. That award was worth as much as a bunch of used toilet paper for people that know how it works so ehhh...

 

[SonyUSA]

Fake news

 

[supersonicwaffle]

There we actually diverge. Because "non-yellow press" media always had an editorial focus (Gatekeeper, Influencers, emplying an editorial philosophy (Blattlinie)). Yellow press did also, but they were playing closer to the popularity side of things.

I understand that and am fine with "some" political bias. There's two seperate issues I was commenting regarding this earlier.

1. When publicly funded this goes out the window, it's forcefully funded buy everyone and therefor must be balanced, not a single show per se but overall it does.
2. Restle's perversion of an idea of what journalism is takes arbitrary moral standards, tries to apply it to facts and will ultimately devolve into an argument between his side and wrongthinkers. He's already trying to justify going against the political center if it drifts to the right on certain issues because it may be stupid according to him.

Now here is the controversial part. Have five different opinions/papers, know where they are leaning. And you get a balanced opinion on some stories as a result.

Have an algorithm picking the most popular stories for your specific bubble - you dont.

With all due respect, I think you're using popular wrong.
Popular in terms of politics (and news thereof) would represent the political center and be inherently balanced.
You're saying an algorithm is serving up content that a user has previously shown interest in and thus it's building bubbles. Have you ever entertained the possibility that these people never showed interest in the other side of the story and only consumed media with a certain political bias beforehand thus having lived in a pre-social-media bubble? This seems more plausible to me than algorithms radicalizing people.

But I still believe, that they will end up with more journalistic capacity (ability to bring me storys that matter), than anything that goes the "lets try to appeal as many people as possible - via facebook" route.

People may surprise you! No one thought stretching talk formats out to multiple hours so guests can be heard out would be popular but it's massive right now.

Also if you are really reached the status of a "popular newsinterpreteur" and you've done so because of your opinion. You've really breached into politics by then. And if you can do that "alone" - whats really holding you back to be part of a newspaper any longer...? (We've had examples in the past, where Columnists could dictate 80% of a papers sale on any given day, I think in the UK. If they switched papers, ... )

What would be desirable about being part of a newspaper and potentially compromising independence, possibly forcing the outlets bias on you even?
Journalists work as freelancers all the time, what would be wrong about self-publishing? Why would you assume a journalists couldn't work like this?

 

[kuwanger]

Could you please explain to me how that logic works? The ultra-conservative "news" outlets are the antithesis of the liberal ideal, and often produce stories that could in fact be considered dangerous to groups that liberals tend to cater to if the audience actually acted on them (which, they've started to). If Breitbart, Fox Radio, Fox and Friends et al were all a liberal sham, why wouldn't they have pulled the plug by now?

Because it makes good money. Money trumps politics. Besides, they can always tell themselves that liberalism will ultimately prevail. Or when the time comes they'll just buy those nice killer robots when they, as members of the 1%, are faced with the anger of the 99% horde.

 

[notimp]

People may surprise you! No one thought stretching talk formats out to multiple hours so guests can be heard out would be popular but it's massive right now.

See this discussion and original article:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075333

What would be desirable about being part of a newspaper and potentially compromising independence, possibly forcing the outlets bias on you even?
Journalists work as freelancers all the time, what would be wrong about self-publishing? Why would you assume a journalists couldn't work like this?

Hmm, lets see - why pay 6USD a week for 260 people working for a news medium, when I could pay 5USD a month for one journalist telling me his opinion. Millennials obsession with finding one guy, that will be their like... Alexa.

(Why cant I have like - good News anymore? Because it doesnt pay. But like why cant I then have less people giving me better news, like - for less? Because it doesnt work. But If I like have a really great news guy, and he also gives me opinions, and... )

The Georg Restle article above I believe made the rounds several months ago, after this weeks Spiegel thing, the new trope is "lets have reports that are made by several people" (four eyes principle) and not just one star reporter. Something along those lines should answer your question.

Why cant independent, crowdfunded journalism be the solution? Why do you have to tell every millennial that his dreams of becoming a youtube star are overblown.. If you dont want to pay taxes - on youtube (higher ad-revenue than print) you need about 60.000 subscribers to make living wage in the west. Go! You'd need about the same amount of subscribers to get maybe 1.000 people spending 1-5 USD a month on you on patreon.

Theres not much to be said against freelancing (despite that it is precarious work (prekäre Arbeit)), but for whom. Also, people get older and need more dependable, sustainable income.

 

[notimp]

Hey the "bad journalist guy" also did "like and donate" call outs for his fictional characters. Onto his private bank account.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesell...ser-offenbar-mit-spendenaufruf-a-1245226.html
(article in german)

Called it in my first posting. That guy did behave like a youtuber..

edit: Because I linked to the Seymour Hersh interview on page one. Reporters without borders now lists the US amongst the top five most dangerous countries for journalists.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/...rous-countries-journalists-first-time-n949676

"The hatred of journalists that is voiced ... by unscrupulous politicians, religious leaders and businessmen has tragic consequences on the ground, and has been reflected in this disturbing increase in violations against journalists," Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said in a statement.

Dont worry, you all have those great youtubers, and instagramers though.

(via blog.fefe.de)

 

[supersonicwaffle]

See this discussion and original article:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075333



Hmm, lets see - why pay 6USD a week for 260 people working for a news medium, when I could pay 5USD a month for one journalist telling me his opinion. Millennials obsession with finding one guy, that will be their like... Alexa.

(Why cant I have like - good News anymore? Because it doesnt pay. But like why cant I then have less people giving me better news, like - for less? Because it doesnt work. But If I like have a really great news guy, and he also gives me opinions, and... )

The Georg Restle article above I believe made the rounds several months ago, after this weeks Spiegel thing, the new trope is "lets have reports that are made by several people" (four eyes principle) and not just one star reporter. Something along those lines should answer your question.

Why cant independent, crowdfunded journalism be the solution? Why do you have to tell every millennial that his dreams of becoming a youtube star are overblown.. If you dont want to pay taxes - on youtube (higher ad-revenue than print) you need about 60.000 subscribers to make living wage in the west. Go! You'd need about the same amount of subscribers to get maybe 1.000 people spending 1-5 USD a month on you on patreon.

Theres not much to be said against freelancing (despite that it is precarious work (prekäre Arbeit)), but for whom. Also, people get older and need more dependable, sustainable income.

I’m kn mobile rn please excuse the lack of formatting.

The article you linked neatly describes a regular hype cycle that’s very commonplace in technology or internet culture without being aware of it, it’s almost funny how unaware the author seems.
The sentiment in the first few comments of the discussion is that podcasts are permanent and that they’ve replaced NPR for some.

Regarding price. It is quite disengenous to compare a print format that relies multiples of overhead costs such as printing, distribution, etc. to straight online content that, at its most expensive runs a handful of webservers and at its least expensive uses third party infrastructure. It’s also disheartening that you still keep mention journalists who work for outlets while discrediting everyone else as someone who just gives you their opinion even though you acknowledge there’s not much wrong with freelance work further down. Which is it?

As I’ve said, I’ve only just come across Restles piece but I’m quite shocked as you can probably tell. I’m disgusted that I’m funding his salary.

I’m also not saying crowdfunding and independence is the solution. I’m saying that mainstream media has lost trust by pushing an agenda and their answer is to openly push that they SHOULD be the moral arbiters as evidenced by Restle. They’re not addressing the disconnect between them and their audience because they literally think they’re stupid if they don’t agree with their views of things.
It may also be worthwhile to address that far left politics amongst journalists are very much overrepresented while even just center-right is only a third of the population according to this https://de.statista.com/statistik/d...erenz-von-politikjournalisten-in-deutschland/

—

Also interesting that you source fefe while discrediting people working like this by having “youtuber culture”

 

[notimp]

I dont believe that. I really believe that the following has happened.

People trust facebook, people trust facebook news (+1 trust if it came from a friend), people see fringe news in facebook feed (30.000 immigrants at the border), people like russian model as news caster. People hear "welcome culture" from their mainstream newscasters. People shout fake news.

Thats it - there was no more loss of trust. The rest was just mainstream media reacting too late.

Was that them pushing an agenda? Maybe partly but not because of the reasons most people like to think. First, thats what they are being told by the government, which is always a great line to repeat, apart from when the people are about to revolt, which they didnt see coming. Second the biggest media outlets follow either a (christian) conservative, or a liberal bias, and both of those - and the industry were in agreement, that they could handle this (where even enthused for younger folks - even if not in the first generation, certainly in the second (children) it would pay off...).

There also was a vague fear, that the immigrant stream would never stop. And how soon it "stopped" was definitely politics, so thats not even that wrong. If you bring it up as a point of contention.

But on the flip side when societies say "its enough" is really on the societies themselves. There is no such thing as a definite number there.

The rest was mostly bullshit. "But they all get free iPhones (=smartphones are available for less then 100 USD, granny)" "But they all terrorists, rapists, and some - maybe are good people" (=a few dozen people killed at christmas markets - while the ISIS PR was still happening on the trusted facebook, other murders as well, an rapes - but from politicians perspective, really not that many.).

A "they groped out women" incident on new years eve - which happened for one year, than mostly didnt repeat (cultural misunderstanding, if you take the macho perspective ), but that was actually reported on.

The main "loss of trust" narrative actually was, that news media piveted too slowly to the "we dont want more migrants" sentiment.

There also was a "journalists get hired out of university from US friendly cycles" (Atlantikbrücke) scandal "broken by the left", but thats not all news outlets - far from it. Maybe the ones deemed "important" by a general mainstream.
-

This doesnt warrent at all the "loss of trust" "fake news" sentiments that where out there. People on this simply were wrong.

What happened much more likely is , that the 90% of folks, that where watching they 8pm newscast believing it was "the news", for the first time in their lives came in contact with fringe and alternative news. Which they couldnt identify their sources of (doesnt mean automatically that they are fake), which they gave a "trust bonus" to, because they trusted facebook, and it came from their friends.

And there being a populist revival, which the conventional media tried to "write down" for the first, maybe month. Then they flipped and had an open discussion about their motives for not reporting (They tend to want to represent the "ideal" image of society, at least as mainstream newscasters, also as liberal newspapers, or christian conservative ones... That was before they saw their voters go bye, bye.. ).

Could have the mainstream media acted differently? No.

Populists simply had no representation in mainstream media as of then. Also they are the ones with the "fake news" warcry if you remember. Which was then idiotically picked up by mainstream media (fearing for their reader/listener/viewer numbers), lending it credence.
-

Now, I read quite a bit of fringe media stuff as well - on the left, and less so on the right. Do I feel betrayed by conventional media in any way? (In europe.) Not particularly.

Did I see people in droves shouting alternative media headlines from the rooftops, complaining, that they didnt see that in mainstream news, when they saw it on thier trusted facebook groups? Heck yeah.

But I already went through some media literacy training (simply by having used the internet for a long time) and they didnt.

If you can come up with other fields where "fake news" might have had a palpable impact on peoples decisions of voiced sentiments, I'd be interested, but those are the ones I came up with from the top of my head.

Heck, and if you'd like more positive Putin stories in the news, you already have two political parties to choose from to make that happen.

Thats not a "the media is coopted by political parties argument" - but again, they like to report the administrations position. Its the safest thing they can do. And they get rewarded for it, by more access. If you want slightly different perspectives on it, you might have to consume more than the 8pm news, but its out there. Thats also not a bad thing, or immediatly saying that the media is always lying to you. Its just the thing, that was always a thing in the relationship between power politics and and the media. The ones with "most access" always were the friendliest regarding the status quo.

And its a culture thing. All selfcorrection proposals aside, its sheer impossible to fix that.

Georg Restle, is an intelligent guy imho - I've also stated that I like the format, that hes working for. Its just, that hes not always "right", neither am I - or is anyone. He tries to tap into trends, that I might have seen for a few more years than he has, an have a different opinion on, but thats fine. I mean those people are literally asked "how to fix journalism" (not the fake news stuff, but the "our income stream is crumbling" stuff), and they have to come up with something... I mostly retreat to the "no comment" line on that one..

(One proposed solution for example would be more state money - even for smaller outlets, but thats also something most people (even journalists) usually dont like.

And I really think, that you are up against a bunch of idiots, now getting "their news" from facebook and their friends, and really being quite content with it ("Hey its free, whats not to like about free! Hoho,ho.. And so easy, its right there.."), despite not having any idea who has written that up. Also they like the most scandalous headlines the most (have you seen the "new media initiatives" of most established brands? (Bento, ..)). And russian models. Tell me something new. )

edit: Also, yes - the center left is overrepresented in journalism, but that might be, because conservatives mostly laugh at you for becoming a journalist. They are much more content with their "work place hirarchy fantasies..." Isnt that what they study "economics" for?

 

[supersonicwaffle]

First of all, let me thank you for the exchange. Appreciate your willingness to discuss.
Also a merry christmas to you and your family.

I dont believe that. I really believe that the following has happened.

People trust facebook, people trust facebook news (+1 trust if it came from a friend), people see fringe news in facebook feed (30.000 immigrants at the border), people like russian model as news caster. People hear "welcome culture" from their mainstream newscasters. People shout fake news.

Thats it - there was no more loss of trust. The rest was just mainstream media reacting too late.

I guess we won't see eye to eye on this. I can hit you with multiple examples where things were taken out of context by mainstream media, especially pertaining to migration. As a Journalist knows there's always context, omitting it is a violation of journalistic ethos.

• Maaßen said he doesn't have any information regarding hunts in chemnitz (thruthful, could never be corroborated), called into question the authenticity of a video posted by a twitter account called "ANTIFA Zeckenbiss" (video was found to be authentic later), and said it could be a false flag
  • was made out to deny ANY far right violence
• Seehofer's remarks about 69 deportations on his 69th birthday. He was talking about heightened efficiency in the deportation process. In a side remark he said that, 69 deportations have nothing to do with it being his 69th birthday, seemingly noting the absurdity of that implication.
  • To this day it's hard to find a complete quote in written form because all the outlets shortened his quote to deliberately misrepresent him, making him out to feel as if the deportations were his birthday present. Good job.

I could go on but stuff like this is what loses trust. Criticism of this was all over social media and it was just ignored and they ran with it for days, even weeks. If a deliberate misrepresentation is too controversial, some outlets will just disable the comments under the article and call negative feedback hate speech.

Was that them pushing an agenda? Maybe partly but not because of the reasons most people like to think. First, thats what they are being told by the government, which is always a great line to repeat, apart from when the people are about to revolt, which they didnt see coming. Second the biggest media outlets follow either a (christian) conservative, or a liberal bias, and both of those - and the industry were in agreement, that they could handle this (where even enthused for younger folks - even if not in the first generation, certainly in the second (children) it would pay off...).

I see this as two seperate issues:

• Not being critical enough of the government. Albeit a bit overblown, people do have a point in regards to publicly funded media being too close to government as the programming directors are voted in by people who are mostly affiliated with a party and are organized according to their political beliefs within the election committee. It's not hard to see potential government influence.
  • Not really sure how this applies to private media.
• Clearly, on one of the issues people prioritize highly, you have the conservative party holding a position left of them.

There also was a vague fear, that the immigrant stream would never stop. And how soon it "stopped" was definitely politics, so thats not even that wrong. If you bring it up as a point of contention.

But on the flip side when societies say "its enough" is really on the societies themselves. There is no such thing as a definite number there

Here's the thing. As a lot of protestors will tell you, they never had a problem with refugees but they didn't agree with immigration. They made a very clear distinction which the media refused to do, it took years for them to frame the discussion as immigration instead of refuge. Here you can see them actually budge to criticism and loss of trust.

The rest was mostly bullshit. "But they all get free iPhones (=smartphones are available for less then 100 USD, granny)" "But they all terrorists, rapists, and some - maybe are good people" (=a few dozen people killed at christmas markets - while the ISIS PR was still happening on the trusted facebook, other murders as well, an rapes - but from politicians perspective, really not that many.).

If you claim there's a significant rise of misinformation you will have to make an argument that this has changed. People were misinformed and dumb before facebook.
Regarding violent crimes, there's an interesting discussion to be had. The statistics we have (Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik) show a significant problem that is barely reported on. As I've mentioned earlier non German suspects have even made up the absolute majority in gang rape cases.

A "they groped out women" incident on new years eve - which happened for one year, than mostly didnt repeat (cultural misunderstanding, if you take the macho perspective ), but that was actually reported on.

Thats a gross misrepresentation. As evidenced by the PKS, we have a problem with SIGNIFICANT overrepresentation of immigrants with regards to sexual and violent crime. As people will tell you, look into local outlets, here in the south they're full of reports on violent crimes commited by immigrants.

What happened much more likely is , that the 90% of folks, that where watching they 8pm newscast believing it was "the news", for the first time in their lives came in contact with fringe and alternative news. Which they couldnt identify their sources of (doesnt mean automatically that they are fake), which they gave a "trust bonus" to, because they trusted facebook, and it came from their friends.

I don't think it necessarily needs to be fringe groups. In some cases it's just enough to upload a clip with the full quote and unaltered context. This may just be me, but I find it increasingly frustrating that news outlets don't link primary sources properly if possible, transparency like that would net them a huge boost in trust.

And there being a populist revival, which the conventional media tried to "write down" for the first, maybe month. Then they flipped and had an open discussion about their motives for not reporting (They tend to want to represent the "ideal" image of society, at least as mainstream newscasters, also as liberal newspapers, or christian conservative ones... That was before they saw their voters go bye, bye.. ).

Again, populist, as in something popular, represents the political center. Can you see how nonsensical it is to write down the political center?

Could have the mainstream media acted differently? No.

Yes by not ignoring the political center, presumably because they thought they're stupid.

Populists simply had no representation in mainstream media as of then. Also they are the ones with the "fake news" warcry if you remember. Which was then idiotically picked up by mainstream media (fearing for their reader/listener/viewer numbers), lending it credence.

Let's break this down. A majority of people were against taking in more immigrants. Only one party was willing to represent the will of the people while all other parties refused to and journalists try to "write them down" by your own admission, partly by taking things deliberately out of context and framing immigration as refuge. Now people are simply wrong in losing trust and calling BS, gotcha!

-

Now, I read quite a bit of fringe media stuff as well - on the left, and less so on the right. Do I feel betrayed by conventional media in any way? (In europe.) Not particularly.

Did I see people in droves shouting alternative media headlines from the rooftops, complaining, that they didnt see that in mainstream news, when they saw it on thier trusted facebook groups? Heck yeah.

I will admit that I read spiegel online and visit rivva.de as an aggregator. Politically I would say that I'm liberal, to me individual freedom is the ultimate good and should be preserved. I also think that being critical of Islam is very much a liberal stance as for example homophobia is demonstrably rampant in muslim culture amongst residents in europe. I would also argue that this stance represents the political center quite well. I also see that being critical of Islam will get you wrongly labeled as being far-right, fringe, etc. So please excuse me that I can't take you serious on this without providing examples.

But I already went through some media literacy training (simply by having used the internet for a long time) and they didnt.

You're attributing stupidity to people you disagree with is all I get from that.

If you can come up with other fields where "fake news" might have had a palpable impact on peoples decisions of voiced sentiments, I'd be interested, but those are the ones I came up with from the top of my head.

Not particularly "fake news" but "grievance studies" showed that it's particularly easy to have BS published as science by journals specific to left leaning ideology, stuff that guides minds like "Margarete Stokowski" of spiegel.
The sentiment I hear from people speaking at universities on a regular basis is that German univiersities are becoming more and more with this junk science.

Heck, and if you'd like more positive Putin stories in the news, you already have two political parties to choose from to make that happen.

Thats not a "the media is coopted by political parties argument" - but again, they like to report the administrations position. Its the safest thing they can do. And they get rewarded for it, by more access. If you want slightly different perspectives on it, you might have to consume more than the 8pm news, but its out there. Thats also not a bad thing, or immediatly saying that the media is always lying to you. Its just the thing, that was always a thing in the relationship between power politics and and the media. The ones with "most access" always were the friendliest regarding the status quo.

See there is the fundemantel disconnect. As soon as the administration takes a position against the mojority of the population they will be seen as untrustworthy. It's the argument Restle has made, that they shouldn't just regurgitate a parties PR statements and I applaud that. The problem is he specifically justifies his reasoning by going against the popular opinion, not by going against the administration.

Georg Restle, is an intelligent guy imho - I've also stated that I like the format, that hes working for. Its just, that hes not always "right", neither am I - or is anyone. He tries to tap into trends, that I might have seen for a few more years than he has, an have a different opinion on, but thats fine. I mean those people are literally asked "how to fix journalism" (not the fake news stuff, but the "our income stream is crumbling" stuff), and they have to come up with something... I mostly retreat to the "no comment" line on that one..

I acknowledge that humas are fallible and not everyone is right on everything but that's ignoring the scale of the problem. His proposal is nothing short of disturbing.

(One proposed solution for example would be more state money - even for smaller outlets, but thats also something most people (even journalists) usually dont like.

Publicly funded media is at a 10% apporval rating. Let's talk about cancelling "bares für rares" or "game two" before we consider giving them more money.

And I really think, that you are up against a bunch of idiots, now getting "their news" from facebook and their friends, and really being quite content with it ("Hey its free, whats not to like about free! Hoho,ho.."), despite not having any idea who has written that up. Also they like the most scandalous headlines the most (have you seen the "new media initiatives" of most established brands? (Bento, ..)). And russian models. Tell me something new. )

I understand your concern and I agree that could partly be what's going on. I don't like the attribution of idiocy since you would have to argue on the basis of something tangible in order to call a majority stupid, it's the same fallacy Restle falls into and it comes off more as crusading against wrongthinkers than honest discussion.
Regarding you don't know who's reporting on the news. We know someone openly sympathizing with far left extremism is running fact checking formats for public stations (Patrick Gensing / Faktenfinder). So, I'm not sure whether that's really the case you want to be making.

 

[notimp]

Merry christmas to you and your loved ones as weil.

I'll need some time to reflect on your points, so a longer response might still be coming, but here is your first impulse reaction on Seehofer, Maaßen and reports on deportation efficiency.

Maaßen and the accusations surrounding his departure was used as a political gambit on the left. You can identify this by the "we all are morally outraged" part of the public argument (Yeah, sure.. ). What happened internally though is, that he has lost his political capital, by positioning himself very clearly politically. Important people on the left seemingly really didn't like him for that reason. He is supposed to act kind of a-politically in his position. Also, I can tell you that on the left - there were quite a few stories about the BND not quite grasping the current times, and going with overblown scare tactics stories publically to divert from them really not looking so good in a few cases. This was political back and forth - with media outlets probably positioning themselves politically, yes.

Our good old Mr. Seehofer... I dont believe I know the case you are referring to exactly so I'd have to look into that. But I know that migrant deportations are public stage politics. As in they dont do anything. They are PR. In some cases needed PR - there are for example initiatives that promote "voluntary return" where people can get investment capital, and capital to sustain themselves for about three years if they return to their countries. The money doesnt come from the nation states alone, but also from european funds, and they dont get it at once, but only when they comply with entrepreneurship programs set up in their countries of origin, or destination. But those things, set up all together - arent really that less costly. They basically play with the "euros are worth more in your country of origin - fact - when do you want to return?" concept for people with not much perspective in europe. People in their countries then see, that some folks are returning voluntarily and thats part of a desired effect.

Forced deportations. Very costly. Can be drawn out to even produce more costs, if the person knows what they can go for in legal courts. Legal courts have limited capacity. They only work that fast. As a result, every deportation case you see in the media is more played for the deterrence and the political capital factor, than for this to really be a viable solution for pretty much anything. People can go dark - which is also not something that we want particularly - and depending on what you use to calculate the long term costs of an "economically motivated migrant", it usually isnt cost effective either. The people cought in this which tried to integrate - and also got an in training job in the industry are actually poor bastards, because its really symbol politics mostly.

So the notion that "this is now getting more efficient" and the media didn't want to report on that - I dont buy into.

Also - mainstream media always was political to some extent. People knew it and didn't cry fake news in past decades. So for me its really just the perception gap of "hey - the 8pm news doesnt tell me everything thats going on out there - and not in a way, that other more fringe news outlets might". And what a realization that is... So you mean, that listening to centrist (although in parts left leaning, when society isnt) news for 20 minutes a day doesnt give you the whole perspective? Better look up some more russian newscaster model videos and complain.

The "bias" concept in journalism has a quite descriptive word standing for it in german. This "Blattlinie". Meaning, that as a journalist you tend not to want to "write yourself out of a job". And despite you trying to be your best objective self, reporting on the truth, there might still be political factors in play - which you stop confronting, lets say five years into the job. Its always a give and take. Journalists are no angels either. Thats why its important for some political people to hunt for different perspectives. But this is still very much removed from "they are all trying to hoodwink the public" - when they really mostly are not. Most journalists selfimage is that of a neutral arbiter of world proceedings, or the investigative guy/gal that want to report on things. And that is really most of what you can hope for. That at the point, where people start listening to them (f.e. because they have the prettiest model type newscasters ) it also becomes political - sadly is also somewhat of a given. Also there might not be something like 100% objective news. But thats a story for another time..

 

[supersonicwaffle]

Maaßen and the accusations surrounding his departure was used as a political gambit on the left. You can identify this by the "we all are morally outraged" part of the public argument (Yeah, sure.. ). What happened internally though is, that he has lost his political capital, by positioning himself very clearly politically. Important people on the left seemingly really didn't like him for that reason. He is supposed to act kind of a-politically in his position. Also, I can tell you that on the left - there were quite a few stories about the BND not quite grasping the current times, and going with overblown scare tactics stories publically to divert from them really not looking so good in a few cases. This was political back and forth - with media outlets probably positioning themselves politically, yes.

Oh Maaßen has been dubious before for sure, there's also a few things where I don't understand the outrage regarding him.
He had 169 talks with representatives of the major parties, a few (apparently single digit) times he talked to AfD and this has created outrage, what's up with that? During this outrage he also said that he "of course doesn't sympathize with AfD", if people were making the case he's not neutral enough you'd have to say he's a lefty, no?
WRT Chemnitz I fail to see how he positioned himself politically. He truthfully said that they have no proof of far right protestors hunting down migrants. Further he called into question whether a video shot from the perspective of supposed right wingers, posted on an ANTIFA account does show these supposed hunts, which we now know it doesn't. At the time, stories about "hunts" were all over the place even though reporters on the ground said they didn't see any of it. For better or for worse it was literally fake news and politicians, media even our chancellor just ran with it.
You can maybe say he positioned himself politically when calling out false information by the media. Still funny how that would point to journalists having a power trip with the purpose of polically lynching a guy for daring to call their BS into question.

Our good old Mr. Seehofer... I dont believe I know the case you are referring to exactly so I'd have to look into that. But I know that migrant deportations are public stage politics. As in they dont do anything. They are PR. In some cases needed PR - there are for example initiatives that promote "voluntary return" where people can get investment capital, and capital to sustain themselves for about three years if they return to their countries. The money doesnt come from the nation states alone, but also from european funds, and they dont get it at once, but only when they comply with entrepreneurship programs set up in their countries of origin, or destination. But those things, set up all together - arent really that less costly. They basically play with the "euros are worth more in your country of origin - fact - when do you want to return?" concept for people with not much perspective in europe. People in their countries then see, that some folks are returning voluntarily and thats part of a desired effect.

Forced deportations. Very costly. Can be drawn out to even produce more costs, if the person knows what they can go for in legal courts. Legal courts have limited capacity. They only work that fast. As a result, every deportation case you see in the media is more played for the deterrence and the political capital factor, than for this to really be a viable solution for pretty much anything. People can go dark - which is also not something that we want particularly - and depending on what you use to calculate the long term costs of an "economically motivated migrant", it usually isnt cost effective either. The people cought in this which tried to integrate - and also got an in training job in the industry are actually poor bastards, because its really symbol politics mostly.

So the notion that "this is now getting more efficient" and the media didn't want to report on that - I dont buy into.

"Ich nehme jetzt mal Afghanistan: Ausgerechnet an meinem 69. Geburtstag sind 69 - das war von mir nicht so bestellt - Personen nach Afghanistan zurückgeführt worden. Das liegt weit über dem was bisher üblich war. Der vorvorletzte Flug war mit Zehn und für die Zehn brauchten wir 52 Begleitpersonen. Nur damit einmal die Anstrengung klar wird, die da Unterwegs ist."

He was very cleary talking about efficiency of deportations.

From spiegel-online where they did link his full quote as a video clip as the very last thing and opened their article with:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/seehofer-69-abschiebungen-zum-69-geburtstag-a-1217747.html

Wörtlich sagte er: "Ausgerechnet an meinem 69. Geburtstag sind 69 - das war von mir nicht so bestellt - Personen nach Afghanistan zurückgeführt worden. Das liegt weit über dem, was bisher üblich war."

No word about the comparison to previous deportations but a few twitter reactions from politicians who are all outraged.
I for one believe the way he's quoted changes context and thus is a violation of journalistic ehtos. I guess you could the the journalist acted according to spiegel's "Blattlinie" but I for one think it's over the line. Publishing one more sentence online literally costs you nothing, it's not like print where you have a restriction on words or characters, this was verly clearly deliberately changing context. Throw in the framing with the twitter reactions (5 of 5 left wing politicians) and I can see where people crying fake news come from.

Edit: One more thing that popped into my mind just now.

One of the deported persons committed suicide upon returning to Afghanistan which the mainstream media outrage machine ran with, omitting the fact that this person has beeen convicted of violent crimes here.

Also - mainstream media always was political to some extent. People knew it and didn't cry fake news in past decades. So for me its really just the perception gap of "hey - the 8pm news doesnt tell me everything thats going on out there - and not in a way, that other more fringe news outlets might". And what a realization that is... So you mean, that listening to centrist (although in parts left leaning, when society isnt) news for 20 minutes a day doesnt give you the whole perspective? Better look up some more russian newscaster model videos and complain.

It's an interesting conclusion. You're arguing things have changed and they sure have.
Point is information is much more accessible than it is before. It may just be that people came to the realization that this sort of bias by mainstream media may have violated journalistic ethos for a very long time.
Getting negative feedback, which is pretty much what we're arguing about, is a sign that things need to change. It's an opportunity to question the proccess. Right now, mainstream media is making the case to "defend themselves" in a way that defends their traditional proccess against their audiences wishes to be more neutral, transparent and truthful. That's why I'm making the case that they're stuck in old ways and don't understand what's the problem because they're not willing to question how they've worked in the past.
I don't want traditional media to die but the access to information and especially primary sources, shines a light on the way they work and opens them up to a whole new level of scrutiny. They're refusing to acknowledge that things need to change.

The "bias" concept in journalism has a quite descriptive word standing for it in german. This "Blattlinie". Meaning, that as a journalist you tend not to want to "write yourself out of a job". And despite you trying to be your best objective self, reporting on the truth, there might still be political factors in play - which you stop confronting, lets say five years into the job. Its always a give and take. Journalists are no angels either. Thats why its important for some political people to hunt for different perspectives. But this is still very much removed from "they are all trying to hoodwink the public" - when they really mostly are not. Most journalists selfimage is that of a neutral arbiter of world proceedings, or the investigative guy/gal that want to report on things. And that is really most of what you can hope for. That at the point, where people start listening to them (f.e. because they have the prettiest model type newscasters ) it also becomes political - sadly is also somewhat of a given. Also there might not be something like 100% objective news. But thats a story for another time..

I agree with you. Point is, a more obvious seperation of facts and opinion would be better suited to allow the audience to form an opinion themselves and then look for a take with the outlets political bias. It's their insistence to keep things mixed, presumably because "that's how we've always done things", that opens them up for criticism. They're just refusing to give people what they want. Again please look at Restle's feedback on his twitter post, people want to be able to form an opinion themselves.


Edit:
FYI here's another story that I became aware of amidst the patreon scandal that's going on rn.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjqdb/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-profile-shenzhen-maker-scene
https://medium.com/@therealsexycybo...-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5

 

[Glyptofane]

Could you please explain to me how that logic works? The ultra-conservative "news" outlets are the antithesis of the liberal ideal, and often produce stories that could in fact be considered dangerous to groups that liberals tend to cater to if the audience actually acted on them (which, they've started to). If Breitbart, Fox Radio, Fox and Friends et al were all a liberal sham, why wouldn't they have pulled the plug by now?

I don't want to deal with this, but here goes. Rupert Murdoch was never a real coservative, just a businessman who saw an opportunity to compete with CNN's insane bullshit. He pretends to be a Republican, but his sons won't and now run the station. You probably don't watch it regularly, but people who do tell me is has been rapidly shifting to the left. This nonsense does not represent us, save Tucker... it's a passable representation. That's all it is.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

I don't want to deal with this, but here goes. Rupert Murdoch was never a real coservative, just a businessman who saw an opportunity to compete with CNN's insane bullshit. He pretends to be a Republican, but his sons won't and now run the station. You probably don't watch it regularly, but people who do tell me is has been rapidly shifting to the left. This nonsense does not represent us, save Tucker... it's a passable representation. That's all it is.

I can't say that I watch it, but I DO listen to Fox radio pretty regularly. I can assure you that if it's been shifting any direction, it's been further right

 

[Glyptofane]

I can't say that I watch it, but I DO listen to Fox radio pretty regularly. I can assure you that if it's been shifting any direction, it's been further right

Man, I gotta ride in a truck with my boss almost everyday. He listens to Rush and Hannity... I just try to avoid confrontation, but usually say nothing just to avoid mutual disgust. I tried bringing up my Jew shit once and he was just like, we gotta fight these wars!!!

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Man, I gotta ride in a truck with my boss almost everyday. He listens to Rush and Hannity... I just try to avoid confrontation, but usually say nothing just to avoid mutual disgust. I tried bringing up my Jew shit once and he was just like, we gotta fight these wars!!!

So your issue is that Rush and Hannity aren't antisemetic enough for you

 

[Xzi]

I don't want to deal with this, but here goes. Rupert Murdoch was never a real coservative, just a businessman who saw an opportunity to compete with CNN's insane bullshit. He pretends to be a Republican, but his sons won't and now run the station. You probably don't watch it regularly, but people who do tell me is has been rapidly shifting to the left. This nonsense does not represent us, save Tucker... it's a passable representation. That's all it is.

How on Earth do you see Fox as shifting to the left? It took a hard right into becoming the Trump news network the second he was elected. The only people on the network that have any sort of remote attachment to reality are Shep Smith and Chris Wallace, and I'm sure most typical Fox viewers skip those shows/segments. Every other anchor and personality might as well be on talk radio. If you think Fox isn't conservative enough, it's probably because real conservatism is dead. All that's left in its place is Gaslighting, Obstruction, and Projection. That's what happens when an entire political party sells out its values in order to worship a populist conman instead.

 

[bodefuceta]

Before newspapers all we had were commoners spreading untrue and misinterpreted news around.
Now we have untrue and misinterpreted news spread worldwide. When you can actually get to investigate what's reported, even the most trivial and least propaganda stuff turn up false. Seriously, you shouldn't even read any newspaper except if it's personally important to you somehow. And never take it at face value. Specially when there are so many great books you haven't read. And NEVER pay for a newspaper that EVER reported anything false and didn't CLEARLY correct it and spread it ALL OVER after knowing the fact, like most unfortunately do, it's immoral and enables this bullshit.