Feature:News in the Slashdot Decade 127
The following was written by Slashdot Reader Matthew Priestley, who,
despite his email address, is a pretty cool guy
Honest News in the Slashdot Decade
In this paper, we
discuss the nature of biased and unbiased news in terms of 'trust decisions',
using the cryptographic sense of that phrase. We examine the biases in modern
media and identify their causes. Two examples of community news services are
examined: Slashdot.org, and FreeRepublic.com. (0)
From this analysis we derive a model of community news.
Disclaimer: The author of this paper works for Microsoft, but his opinions may not be the opinions of Microsoft. In fact, they aren't. The author hereby declares that nobody important at Microsoft is even aware of his existence, and that he is about as significant to Bill Gates as a single bacterium in your colon is significant to the weather in France.
0 Introduction
There is a malaise of distrust among
news consumers. In recent years the number of news outlets has dwindled due to
mergers and attrition, leaving information consumers with a scrawny range of
choice. As the global quantity of information grows at a jaw-dropping rate,
individuals increasingly despair of their ability to filter the news without
aid from massive corporations.
Almost half of adults have little or no trust in media agencies (1), yet almost all delegate news collection to companies they will condemn if asked. When consumers knowingly act against their own interests, a form of coercion must be in operation. In the case of news, this coercion is a stranglehold enjoyed by media companies over filtered information. If their services are not accepted, the consumer sinks in a sea of data. In a world in which no one can process all the news and still enjoy a full life, having all information is as useless as having no information at all.
1 Nature and weakness of trust decisions
The
selection of a news-filtering agency resembles what is called in cryptology a
'trust decision'. Briefly, a trust decision is a choice made by the user to
validate another user's digital certificate. By assigning trust to the
certificate, any content signed by that certificate becomes, in a limited
sense, trustworthy. (2)
It is burdensome to evaluate the trustworthiness of every certificate, and a typical user lacks the expertise to investigate each exhaustively. For this reason, most users choose to trust a Certification Authority or CA, a central agency empowered to make trust decisions on their behalf. By endowing a single node with the power to filter certificates, the user is spared this chore. (3)
This process is analogous to the decision to accept news from an established information outlet. It would require an unreasonable effort and scads of time for any individual to audit all the news. Apart from sheer volume, appraising facts often requires background familiarity. Sources must be checked, viewpoints solicited, and impact considered. It becomes clear that this is no task for a person who hopes to conduct, for example, a life on the side. Hence the necessity of the trust decision.
Due to the exhausting claims of evaluating news, authority to filter information must be delegated.
2 Sources of bias in modern media
2.1 Opinion
pollution
That trust decisions are subject to predation should be
apparent. The most evident form of bias is opinion pollution, in which the
subjective feelings of a reporter taint the news. Such bias may either
systemic, or it may be the fault of "rogue" reporters, or both.
This form of bias is trivial to establish. In a July 8th article discussing a verdict against tobacco companies, the New York Times dwells on the volume of damning evidence presented by the plaintiffs. The deformities of the smokers are described, and the article drops a helpful tip about joining the suit. (4) Covering precisely the same event, the Wall Street Journal scrupulously avoids discussing the smokers, save to describe their organizers as 'flamboyant'. The spectre of a flooded court system and billions in costs is raised multiple times, and the guilty verdict categorized as a legal 'aberration'. (5)
This form of trust violation can be characterized in two ways. If the tolerance for personal beliefs in the news is not widespread, but isolated to a few reporters, then officials of the corporation have delegated their authority unwisely. An organization that is otherwise trustworthy will eventually correct this error. If the corruption runs throughout, however, then the consumer's initial trust decision was poor. In either event, ongoing opinion pollution can only be sustained by broad organization-wide consensus on the value of certain ideas.
Opinion pollution is a trait of homogeneous groups.
2.2
Advertising revenue and corporate ownership
Often overlooked as a
source of bias is the murky relationship between news providers and
advertisers. The age-old subscription model has fallen by the wayside, unable
to compete with advertiser-funded services that appear to offer information for
free. (6)
One fallacy is that advertising flows toward high readership, rewarding popularity with success. In reality, corporations are not interested in buyers, not readers. The Daily Herald, a worker's paper in 1960's England, boasted a readership of 4.7 million the year of its demise - nearly double that of the Times, the Financial Times, and the Guardian combined. (7) But the Herald's readers were demi-socialists, and failed to support the very businesses keeping their paper alive. The advertising money melted away.
A look at subscription income and advertising income emphasizes the dwindling importance of readers. A copy of The Washington Post costs as little as 24 cents a day. By contrast, one inch of black-and-white advertisement in the paper commands $257.55. (8) Economically, it would be more prudent for the Post to alienate 1000 readers than one business buying a daily inch of print. If the lost readership were confined to non-buyers, advertising rates would not even have to drop. When profit per advertiser squashes profit per consumer, the business of advertiser-funded information outlets becomes not the sale of information, but the sale of a receptive audience.
The situation is aggravated when a large corporation owns the news-filtering outlet. Most fans of TV news are unaware ABC is owned by Disney, NBC by GE with investment from Microsoft, and CBS by Westinghouse Electric. Stories critical to these interests are treated gingerly in the news. (9)
Reliance on advertising or corporate ownership selects for news that is business-friendly. High readership is no exemption.
2.3 Feeder
authority
Any reader who has attempted to wrest information from the
government is aware of its inertia. Similarly, the PR departments of businesses
are known for their unhelpful volubility. In the first case the problem is
information deficit, in the second it is disinformation glut, but ultimately
the predicament is the same.
The situation is no different in a modern newsroom. Effective reporters are those who have established personal relationships with 'sources' inside various institutions who feed them privileged information. These reporters are superior information gatherers because they may ask questions that typically are rebuffed.
Without the goodwill of their 'feeders', even competent journalists drown in a sea of flack. Should an information gatherer alienate an important feeder, the gatherer is instantly severed from a pool of developing information. Pains are taken to ensure feeders are pleased with the treatment of their comments in published accounts. (10) This creates an unhealthy environment for the analysis of news. If an information outlet were to criticize the statements of a feeder, or if fallacies or lies were exposed in the feeder's reasoning, the potential effect on the outlet would be calamitous. This allows the feeder to make use of information outlets as occasional distributors of propaganda, knowing that refusal is unlikely.
Information from a small number of feeders may be propagandized.
3 News distribution over the Internet
Slashdot.org and FreeRepublic.com are representatives of a new class of news filter. While using these sites, consumers alter the fundamental structure of their trust decision. Rather than inhabiting a descending tree, in which trust is derived from progressively higher and fewer nodes, a Slashdotter or Freeper distributes their trust. In a distributed trust model, each consumer inhabits a single node in a formless but highly connected graph. Central authority is weak, participants are anonymous, and all nodes perform small amounts of voluntary labor.
3.1 Slashdot.org
Recently thrown mainstream as a gathering spot for Linux advocates, Slashdot.org has a large and devoted following of geeks and technophiles. Interestingly, because of its adherence to transparency and peer review, Slashdot has evolved a news system that defeats several of the biases described above. Slashdot is the conceptual descendent of the Internet newsgroup and the old-timer's BBS. Members log in to the web board and select one or more current items to discuss, then post their reactions.
3.1.1 Successes of the Slashdot model Participants on Slashdot are only identifiable if they wish to be. Widespread use of aliases insulates participants from real-world reprisal - a Slashdotter may criticize the government, their employer, or other feeders with small risk. Handle-use also renders a state of meritocracy on Slashdot. Comments and topic submissions are judged by their own merits, since little is known about their real-world source. Aliases grow trusted in the forum as a result of their owner's contributions. Deprecated aliases have only themselves to blame.
Members submit topics on Slashdot, and those with promise are posted to the forum. By distributing the labor of reporting, the process of information collection becomes inexpensive, and the likelihood of discovering important news increases - much like the 'Have you seen this child?' ads on milk cartons. (11) When the system requests voluntary labor, it is limited to tasks costing only a few mouse clicks. The decision of what is 'newsworthy' is also simplified, since an audience member has provided the item. If each registered Slashdot member contributed only 1 minute per day, their efforts would sum to 1083 work-hours of labor - absolutely free.
Relinquishing trust to anonymous lurkers appears foolhardy, but as randomness grows, so does quality. The web demographic is a straw poll in the worst sense of the term (12), but there are tide pools of demographic validity if groups are narrowly defined. When a site achieves a certain level of notoriety, Slashdot for example, a cross-section of users may fairly be said to represent its supporting community, in this case idealistic geeks. An information consumer is not interested in topics useful to the average person; rather they are interested in what is useful to people like themselves.
No opinion is authoritative until it runs the Slashdot gauntlet. Members comment on topics, share experiences, and take potshots at sloppy reasoning. This is more egalitarian than the feedback model of magazines, TV, or books. In those cases, if a retort is even possible, it is run in the following issue, with no guarantee to reach the original audience. On Slashdot, user comments frequently upstage the 'official' news, and it is a testament to their quality that reading the primary source is often unnecessary. Because most topics excite a gamut of opinions, Slashdot defeats the threat of opinion pollution.
To tame dull or off-topic comments, Slashdot members are randomly empowered to moderate the 'score' of remarks. Moderators are chosen by the system with a preference towards regular but not ubiquitous readers. Comments that gain the approbation of everyday participants gradually move up through statistical effects. Pointless comments sink into oblivion. Visitors to the forum may choose their own threshold of dependence on this ratings system. On Slashdot, the uniform opinions of classic information outlets are rare.
Finally, the scripts and HTML that run Slashdot are released to the community. This ensures, within reason, that the site truly operates as billed, as well as opening the code to all the benefits of open source.
3.1.2 Failings of the Slashdot model
Among its positive effects, anonymity damages credibility. If Secretary of State Madaleine Albright posted a remark on technology export limitations, her opinion would be more significant than had 'DrDeath' typed precisely the same opinion. Validation of real-world credentials can be desirable. One solution would be to support either the S/MIME or PGP signing standards as a user option. A hash of important messages could be included with the post, thereby validating the identity of the signer. (13)
No Slashdot participant receives a handle until they submit an e-mail address to the Slashdot central authority. Those who do not may participate as 'Anonymous Cowards'. AC's suffer numerous disadvantages, not the least that their posts begin at a lower score. Though this distinction discourages meddling from non-regulars, it is risky. Regular members are no less anonymous or even cowardly than AC's, save that they have disclosed their private information to the Slashdot central authority. This makes criticism of the authority more difficult, since critical remarks are safe only as an AC post from a lab computer, which is immediately scored down.
There is one departure on Slashdot from democracy. While consumers do submit the discussion topics, these are dropped into an administrative black box, unseen until a few emerge handpicked by the central authority. Inside the 'box', a small number of humans, vulnerable to self-interest, choose which of the topics will be news. In theory, the authority could even replace submitted topics with its own. A better system would be an open one, moderated in the same manner as user remarks. Along with their ration of remark-points, moderators would be given a supply of topic-points, which could be spent on proposed topics in a pool. Users could set topic thresholds in the same manner that they set thresholds for remarks. This method would be self-policing and eliminate tedious work for the central authority. (Update: 07/16 01:15 by CT : See the Slashdot FAQ for the reason that I've decided not to do this)
Slashdot is funded by banner advertisements, and on 6/29/99 announced that it had been acquired by Andover.net. (14) While there is little danger of the various Linux distros exerting pressure as yet on Slashdot, and while Andover rarely appeared on Slashdot in the past, nonetheless these developments cast a shadow on the impartiality of the community forum. Is it less likely that a story criticizing Sony will be run when an advertisement for the Sony AIBO adorns the top banner? What would become of stories damaging to Andover? Members should be alert for signs of conflicting interest.
3.2 FreeRepublic.com
Similarly evolved, although less highly automated, is FreeRepublic.com, a forum for the exchange of conservative commentary. FreeRepublic is similar to Slashdot in appearance and general design. We will focus on their differences.
3.2.1 Successes of the FreeRepublic model
FreeRepublic's most notable trait is the freedom members enjoy in topic selection. Power is so far in their hands that every member may post any topic they choose, resulting in dozens of discussed topics per day. A true distributed trust network has no single point of entry. Since the number of daily articles is finite, any given node in a sea of nodes has negligible influence. Individuals may be bought or coerced, but since the merits of each contribution are peer-reviewed and peer-diluted, successful corruption must be hugely widespread. The resources needed to influence a majority of users would be prohibitive, and only dubiously worthwhile. Once accomplished, the forum would cease to serve the needs of valid members and would naturally dissolve. Attempts to corrupt distributed news forums are by nature self-defeating.
FreeRepublic reaps no funding from advertisement or corporate ownership. The site is fed by out-of-pocket donations from participants. Though it should be noted that FreeRepublic's supporting community stereotypically has more disposable income than the average netizen, even so the site is accountable to none save its members. When the object of a news outlet is the aggregation of money, it should be unremarkable when money supersedes the pursuit of information. But in a community forum, participants have no aim other than valuable and convenient news.
Participants on FreeRepublic meet physically, organize in chapters, and crusade in the real world to accomplish their aims. There is little risk to anonymity, since there is no need to divulge onscreen handles. Provided chapters are small and independent, the inevitable discussion of principles will not even dampen diversity of opinion, which could expose the forum to opinion pollution. Participants also leave the meetings with a sense of community, which increases their voluntary labor.
3.2.2 Failings of the FreeRepublic model
Although a blessing, complete freedom of topic selection is also a curse. At times of peak activity, two successive clicks on Refresh may result in two completely different topic lists. Crackpots frequently post and their topics slide off the page untouched by regulars. There is much duplication as news breaks. Most topics receive fewer than twenty comments, reducing the effects of peer-dilution and peer-review. All these problems could be resolved if FreeRepublic were to transition to the scoring-based topic selection approach recommended previously.
FreeRepublic has no moderation method for comments, and consequently all remarks carry equal weight. In its absence, opinions win by volume or position near the top of the remark list rather than insight or appeal to the median qualities of the community. Corruption of an unmoderated forum is trivial given fifty aliases and sufficient time.
On FreeRepublic, community participants are not permitted to comment or post discussion topics unless they are logged on. This is an extreme case of Slashdot's Anonymous Coward dilemma. No contribution can be made to the forum without being noted by the FreeRepublic central authority. There is no guarantee the central authority will not terminate or diminish the accounts of those who criticize its practices.
Finally, FreeRepublic is closed source. Though the site is more static than Slashdot, what scripts it has are not disclosed to the forum. Members must take it on trust that no back doors lurk in the code.
4 Issues in Internet news distribution
4.1 The trouble with enthusiasm
One trait of both Slashdot and FreeRepublic is that their populations contain a percentage of zealots. This fact attracts the attention of non-members and ensures the continued participation of long-standing ones. While allegiance to a specific viewpoint is in no way an exclusionary criterion on Slashdot or FreeRepublic, most users share a common opinion on a few controversial issues. This may reflect the fact that contentious topics generate the most passionate interest.
Regrettably, this bond introduces a capacity for bias. Most information processed on a trust graph will lie outside the emotional boundaries, allowing peer-review and peer-dilution to ensure honest news analysis. But when discussion touches on a 'hot button' topic, rampant uniformity of opinion eliminates these safeguards.
FreeRepublic may safely be termed incapable of objective thought when the topic of President Clinton is broached. One recent post discussing Clinton's attendance at the World Cup bore the helpful keywords 'CLINTON RAPIST EVIL SLEAZY TRAITOR'. (15) Similarly, the high quality of discourse on Slashdot disintegrates when Microsoft enters the headlines. Both communities may be absolutely correct in their opinions on these topics, but the mere fact of consensus mimics the effects of corruption and degrades the community information filter. Whether it is desirable or even possible to generate a community forum without this sort of bias is a question for further debate.
4.2 Overcoming feeder bias
Although incisive analysis may overcome the flaws in a poorly written news article, community forums are ultimately limited by their feeders. These feeders are not usually primary sources, except in cases where significant documents are available online. Far more common is the linking of news articles from established information filtering corporations. The question arises whether community news efforts can surmount partiality on the part of the original reporters.
The answer appears to be yes. When CPU-maker AMD recently released comparisons between its chips and those of rival Intel, Slashdot was quick to dissect the biases in presentation and supply the necessary omitted background. (16) However, it should be noted that processors are a topic enjoying high familiarity among the technical elite who visit the site. Had the discussion been on the political condition of Nicaragua, results would be sketchy at best. Fortunately, community information forums are inherently unlikely to encounter this dilemma. Since the group as a whole selects topics, discussions lying outside the expertise of the majority are rare. A more difficult question is this: will community news replace traditional news outlets, or merely supplement them?
5 Conclusion
Community information filters are a novel approach to news. Trading on the principles of self-interest and distributed trust, they levy the expertise of thousands into producing honest, cheap daily news. In a world where command of information is rapidly becoming the root of institutional power, distributed trust graphs refocus information upon the needs of the citizen. While they remain in a state of infancy, the rise of sites such as Slashdot and FreeRepublic herald the demise of traditional information flows. We have entered the Slashdot decade, and only time will judge our success.
6 References
(0) http://www.slashdot.org, http://www.freerepublic.com
(1) http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr990108.asp
(2) http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/faq/html/4-1-3-11.html
(3) E.g. http://www.thawte.com
(4) "Tobacco Industry Loses First Phase of Broad Lawsuit", New York Times, 6/8/99
(5) "A 'Class' Trial Finds Tobacco Firms Liable; Big Payments May Follow", Wall Street Journal, 6/8/99
(6) Cable is an exception. The means of distribution in cable are monopoly-owned, preserving cable from direct competition with TV.
(7) Herman & Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, Pantheon Books, p15, [cf.]
(8) As of July 1999, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/guide/sub/sub.htm, http://adsite.washpost.com/rates/retail/fullrun.html
(9) http://www.fair.org/media-woes/media-woes.html
(10) E.g. http://independent.org/tii/content/events/f_macarth.html
(11) http://www.missingkids.org
(12) http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/digitaldivide
(13) http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/faq/html/2-2-2.html
(14) "Slashdot Acquired by Andover.Net"
(15) "Clinton hopes for soccer diplomacy"
(16) "Athlon Benchmarks Out"
Running the "gauntlet" [sic] (Score:1)
However, it does not follow that only opinions subjected to this gauntlet slapping are valid, and more than just a bit slashdot-centric to pretend that they are. Let's not be so self-satisfied.
Also, the point about Linux is misleading. This place is about geeks. It says so right at the top. Are you saying that only geeks use linux, and no nongeek use linux, and no geek uses nonlinux?
Media Bias (Score:1)
Remember that newspapers are in the business to sell papers. News programs are in the business of selling news.
There has been an interesting article( http://www.msnbc.com/news/283198.asp ) that criticises the fact that whenever an interview is done with Tom Cruise, a written agreement is signed that "the interview and the program will not show the artist in a negative or derogatory manner."
Newspapers need advertisers. Advertisers need customers. Therefore newspapers need to attract customers. This supports the general inclination for all news media to sensationalise what is going on.
How long did the OJ trial need to continue as 'front page' news? How long did monicagate need to be there? the news does it because the more Salacious the news is, the more excessive, the better their sales, and the longer they keep their audience. Excess sells.
Its no wonder that the Star and the National Enquirer have enough money to pay the huge fees for the slandor they produce.
news == what we make it (Score:1)
I guess the ideal news source would be completely objective but have opinion pieces too - the main problem is where do you get the information from? Sure, the major news networks are corporately-controlled, but that still means that they can afford the jets and satellites to send someone over to Kosovo and report back what is really going on. For all the analysis that goes on
here at Slashdot, for the most part people report based on things they've read or seen in other places, _not_ first hand. I know this will sound like a jonkatz-inspired new-media-friendly-and-happy idea, but I think its true that the Internet will help this problem by allowing people to communicate all over the world without needing that huge overhead. A kid in Bosnia can just as easily boot up a computer and make a web page about what is going on in his town as someone in the US. In fact, I saw one such piece during the recent bombings over there and I thought it was really effective.
I think that allowing people to post anything they want, as much as they want, while still remaining anonymous, is a good thing (hence the reason I'm posting this AC). But, keep in mind, that makes it impossible to know if the person is telling the truth, or where they are getting there info from. If I write something like "89.3 percent of Windows users have twelve toes", and then another poster writes "No, I read it was 67.8 percent", how do readers know which to believe? I know for me, when I read an article about some technical thing that I'm not familiar with, I generally tend to side with the most clear and rational posts - these people could be completely lying or wrong but they are still believable. That's why it's easier for most people to believe a guy in a suit commenting on the drawbacks of the open source model than someone posting "micr0$oft sUx!!!" - alot has to do with presentation. All Im saying is that we posters make our own reality and decide what is true just as much as the suits in those corporations do.
Maybe it's just all about knowing what bias is there, as a previous poster wrote. I personally know that when I read a
stable, young, males. Sure there are exceptions, but for the most part we all share certain characteristics. I find it a real breath of fresh air to find that one post in a million that goes against the status quo here, or is by someone that breaks the stereotype of the typical user.
And maybe that's the best thing about a forum like this - there's something here for everyone.
Okay, this has become a rant that really makes no sense.
how would the /. model apply to other news? (Score:1)
For example, I've found the InfoWorld mag http://www.infoworld.com (I have NO affiliation with them) decent but somewhat pro Microsoft, and flashy. If there was an online, moderated, more trustable (less advertisementized) version I would use it more regularly.
If you can't trust the insiders, who can you trust? Excessive advertising revenue skews the percieved perspective, how can this be fixed?
Re:Rebuttal (Score:1)
Re:Running the "gauntlet" [sic] (Score:1)
He discusses the gauntlet/gantlet controversy here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/jesse/?date=19990621
His primary comment is the following:
... gantlet was once preferred for the 'course of criticism or punishment' sense, and some conservative usage writers still recommend that run the gantlet be preferred over run the gauntlet. If you trust these writers, then run the gauntlet is incorrect. In reality, run the gauntlet is and has always been more common than run the gantlet, and there's no good reason, etymological or otherwise, to prefer gantlet.
My comment: You might wish to use gantlet anyway to foreclose commentary from self-aggrandizing overly prescriptive language pundits, and to prove your overweening knowledgeability of spelling variants.
The Limits of Reader Review (Score:1)
The model certainly works where the topic of discussion is one that is familiar to a majority of Slashdot readers. Then, bogosity is quickly detected and summarily dealt with. Unfavorable or embarrassing issues that were glossed over are dragged out in the open for all to review. Some posters chime in with background data to help put the issue in context. Others post links to source documents. But it's also important to remember that most Slashdot readers bring their own knowledge and experience: Even though they may not be expert on a particular topic, they do have enough acquaintance with most "news for nerds" to make a reasonable assesment of each post's validity and authority.
But as topics get farther away from the community's area of expertise, we get more opinions and fewer facts. I'm reminded of many of Slashdot's recent discussions of intellectual property, where, lacking detailed, specific knowledge of patent or trademark law, posters wrote things like "Well, I think
Traditional media would deal with both of these problems in the same way: Assign reporters to do research, ask questions, and report the answers they get. Foo Company says they've patented the letter d? Get out the Rolodex and find your patent attorney- source and ask, "What's the law here? What's your opinion of the situation, in light of your specialized knowledge." Then research: Has anybody ever tried to patent a, b, or c? What happend then? How about Foo Company? Do they have a history of making extravagant claims? And, oh yes, does Foo's patent really exist, and does it really cover what they're saying it covers? (And you may need to call that lawyer back for a translation!) In the Harvard case, reporter Jane from the New York Times can always pick up the phone and say, "Mr. Harvard spokesman, your official statement [slashdot.org] says you took down Packet Storm because of 'sexually-related material and personal attacks' on it. Packet Storm's creator contradicts your statement. Can I view the files you are characterizing 'sexually-related material and personal attacks'?" (And, unsaid but always evident: "And remember, if you stonewall or try to evade me on this, the whole world will see the lead paragraph of my story that says you refused to answer my questions.")
This explains a lot (Score:2)
This article helped me in reaching a better understanding of the forces involved.
A word of caution: this also demonstrates that there is an element of fragility in this model. If users ever get the perception that slashdot is going too commercial, it could loose it's primary appeal. In our effort we are commited to keep it strictly non-comercial, and exploiting that fact to promote it.
Re:Free /. from advertising bias! (HHOS) (Score:1)
People aren't going to search for alternative means of monitary support for content unless the present system stops working. If ad filters become common then the issue can be forced. I don't see any other practical way to bring the issue forward.
Maybe then we can stop whoring out our minds.
Junkbuster [junkbusters.com] forever!
Nice essay, except... (Score:2)
I don't think the slashdot model is perfect yet (I *DO* strongly agree that there could be more discussion topics/news articles that are accepted, then use a priority-type system to those, so that the sumbission process is more open and reflects a larger cross section of the slashdot readership instead of just 2 or 3 people, but that's Rob's decision to run it this way). But in getting away from standard media into new ways of delievering news, slashdot has lead the pack.
Free /. from advertising bias! (HHOS) (Score:4)
I'm worried about the rush to fund Internet information sources from advertising---it'll end up heading the same way TV has: it's a medium to sell consumers to producers, with the content a distant second, useful only as a lure for the consumers.
Micro-payments would be an ideal way to avoid this problem, but the mechanisms to ensure reliability and anonymity, though extant, are pitifully slow in being implemented, and are further hindered by the absence of standards. I'd gladly pay, say, USD 0.0001 (a hundredth of a cent for the math-impaired) for any web page I'm served, so long as it's totally transparent to me. There are plenty of sites out there that get much less than that (read: zero). Unfortunately that's not going to happen soon.
So, how about those sites to whom I'd pay significantly more than that, maybe even an order of magnitude more, like Slashdot?
Anonymous micro-payments are good for surfing, but when I've found someplace really worthwhile, why shouldn't it offer advertising-free pages to me in exchange for cash? Are you listening, Rob?
How much do you get in advertising revenue for my presence? I bet I'd pay much more than that to rid my pages of ads. All you need to do is offer a, say USD 5.00--10.00 annual subscription (is this in the right ballpark?) to volunteers. I give you a credit-card number, you bill me annually, and when I log on, voila---no ads. If enough think this is worthwhile, you could get rid of the ads for everyone. I wouldn't mind subsidizing a few dozen ACs and free riders to get a /. which couldn't care less about the feelings of anyone other than its readers.
Of course, this raises the specter of /. dominated by the paying customers, but keep the price down, and anybody can play. Not too bad!
Thanks for a great article. Tell Jon Katz to reflect for a while on what makes this one so good :-).
FAIR is biased too (Score:1)
For more information, read Christina Hoff Summers book, "Who Stole Feminism?" There's a rebuttal by FAIR in which a statistic was picked literally out of the pages of a magazine.
Possible solution to one problem... (Score:1)
I'm working on setting up a community site which discusses Anarchism (Libertarian Socialism) and modern day activism, and after it's gotten on it's feet, I think it'd be a great idea to encourage people from FreeRepublic.com to visit, and people from my site to visit there.
Although you might think that posting a Slashdot advertisement to alt.love.bill-gates, or posting a FreeRepublic ad on EatTheState.org would be inciting a riot, I think it's the only way to provide your users with all sides of the coin.
And there's always moderation. I absolutely love Slashdot's system, it's worked wonders. I set my threshold to 2 or 3 (sometimes 1 if I have a lot of time), and I usually get about 10-15 very thought out messages. Only problem I see is that good posts that are far down a thread seem to be lost. Maybe there could be some system for randomly injecting posts outside of your threshold at the bottom of all the comments?
--
Michael Chisari
dominion@beyondtheweb.com
Another great press accuracy resource - fair.org (Score:4)
CBS and Westinghouse (Score:3)
CBS is no longer owned by Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Four or five years ago new management at Westinghouse bought CBS. Westinghosue Electric Corporation was renamed CBS a couple years back and then CBS proceeded to sell off all the industrial companies that made up Westinghouse.
Westinghouse is no more.
Tom
Actually, it does (Score:1)
Concludes that the distributed model of
Really, though,
So really, cnn.com is a news portal as well. The difference is that
But I'm beginning to repeat the editorial, so I'll stop now.
Two corrections (Score:4)
I believe that the place this has been most completely explored is in the study of financial markets. A good introductory book is, A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The long and the short of it is that the average consistently does better than the participants. Which is why very few managed funds manage to match, let alone exceed, the performance of dumb indexed ones. (The portion that do is explainable by dumb luck.) Of course this fact depends strongly on the nature of what a market is, but still
Eric Raymond's thesis that "All bugs are shallow" with OSS development is another example of the same phenomena. He has documented that it works in software development. But does it work in news? Well that is another question.
My belief is that with open discussion between relatively rational people, the initial response is meaningless but the follow up over the next several days can get into a positive feedback cycle resulting in a broad agreement on the events which are beyond the abilities of all but (possibly) a few participants. How? When it works right it is just like the OSS model! The fact is that what practically anyone notices gets communicated. Significant facts get reinforced. Insignificant facts get rebutted and disappear. Then "prominent people" come up with (and refine) statements distilling the best of the ideas. Those get communicated out, circulate, and a consensus is arrived at and generally communicated that is beyond the ability of any one person in the group to have generated.
Don't believe me? Well let me consider an important news event. Mindcraft. (Ick.) If you go back and look the initial response was disbelief, flames, the usual. However within a few days of the original tests there were official rebuttals to the tests floating around with detailed breakdowns of the things that were done wrong. Then as more tests were done, the same pattern was followed. Stop and think for a moment about everything you know about what was wrong with the final public Microsoft tests. OK, perhaps you personally could tell that the networks and servers were crazy for the need. Everybody knows that stability and uptime were ignored. But how many of us knew, or even had the resources to figure out, that Windows NT had changed their TCP-IP stack to be multi-threaded? Which of us could, as Jeremy Allison did, point out the tremendous difference for SAMBA between NT and Win9x clients? How many of us are in a position to do as ct did and run tests varying the parameters ever so slightly and really demonstrate that NT was only a clear win for serving static pages out of RAM. And so on and so forth.
In short many of us, myself certainly included, now know a summary analysis of what was wrong with the Mindcraft tests that is beyond the abilities of any individual to produce or easily verify. I call that pretty darned impressive.
Of course, that takes time and feedback, which the short life-time of posts on
Oh, yeah. I promised two corrections. The other? A straight line from a to b is a path of minial distance from the one to the other, which by definition must be a geodesic. So non-Euclidean geometries don't change the fact that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, they merely change a lot of things that we thought we knew about straight lines.
Cheers,
Ben
Re:Two corrections (Score:1)
I also lament that there is such high article turnover, because it doesnt allow your hypothetical follow up session to take effect.
Oh yeah, and uh (tongue-in-cheek) s/geodesic/curve
Re:Peer Review and the breakdown of reality (Score:1)
However, trust can be built in someone who makes appealing assertions, but not necessarily the "best" (by the standards of those who believe him/her) assertions.
Remember the hype behind Cold Fusion?
What about the Jonestown Massacre?
Re:News in the slashdot decade (Score:1)
"Best" for whom? In terms of sheer numbers?
Kudos to the author for tying cryptographic concepts in with practical, real-world ones. Wouldn't take too much to summarize and explain this to my non-techie relatives. Thank you, Mr. Priestley.
Re:Traditional news sources will not disappear (Score:1)
Not so fast.
You're absolutely right that ./ and FR are filtering mechanisms and do not begin to encompass the whole process of journalism, which is built on a great deal of generally unappreciated shoe leather and sweat. The community filters don't do the grunt work of uncovering, investigating, reporting the news. They're getting a free ride on the sweat equity created by the traditional news sources. Taken apart, they don't really threaten traditional news sources.
But the traditional news sources -- particularly local newspapers, where a great deal of wire news really originates -- are in serious economic jeopardy due to the macro effects of the Internet on commerce, vicious new competitors in key market segments (such as classified advertising), and major shifts in audience attention.
There's a good piece on this in the Economist [economist.com] this week.
By the way, I think Matthew Priestley's analysis of the relative economic value of readers and advertisers is flawed and shortsighted, but the piece raises some serious issues and I'm passing the URL along to some colleagues.
Reporter/Journalist 'bias' (Score:1)
Used to be newspapers openly admitted their editorial political leanings, with names like "The Webster County Republican" or the "Heater Democrat".
Chuck
Re:Rebuttal (Score:2)
Since both /. and the New York Times are news sites, it's perfectly legitimate to compare them. And the bias in the New York Times, like that in the Wall Street Journal or any of the major media, is unlikely to be primarily due to rogue reporters. It's clearly systematic. If one is not willing to see that in the cases where the systematic bias favors one's personal political views, it's unfortunate.
I'm also not clear that your contrast between "liberal" and "representative" media is a useful one. It hardly seems more "liberal" to be willing to slant the news in order to push your personal agenda, which is certainly a very prevalent problem in the mainstream media. I would love to see more "liberal" (i.e., more free) mainstream media. I hardly think it matters if the media is more "representative", a word that, in context, seems to imply that we will get better news if we get it slanted by the viewpoint we ask for. News should represent reality, not the readership, if it's going to be useful to that self-same readership.
That's me! (Score:1)
According to the Kingdomality Test [careermanagement.net], I am a benevolent ruler. [careermanagement.net]
It'll be a difficult job, running everything for the benefit of my fellow man, but I am willing to shoulder the burden. Just let me know when I can start.
Jay (=
Honesty... (Score:2)
Sure it's difficult to know who to believe, but it encourages us to make up our own minds rather than blindly believing some "authoritative" source who, in the end, is only human. Here at Slashdot, anyone presuming to be anything but merely human is flamed into oblivion... and that's the way it should be.
Stop the Decade, I Want to Get Off (Score:1)
Pigdog Journal [pigdog.org]
Net Flotsam
Stop the Decade, I Want to Get Off
Reported 1999-07-16 11:35:42
by Mr. Bad
Man, I just don't know what to say. The megalomaniacs of the Dumb-Down Bundt have declared this "The Slashdot Decade." Christ! ... [pigdog.org])
( More
Re:Possible solution to one problem... (Score:1)
a total lack of reliability of the posted information.
News posted on Slashdot have mostly appeared on other
media outlets, and Slashdot webmasters just add the link
with maybe some editorial comment, without making some
special effort to check whether the information is reliable
or not.
This scheme sometimes goes wrong: for instance, the BBC
ran some nonsense story about the French government
contesting the Greenwich meridian and organizing some
big party along the Paris meridian. This was bullshit.
Yet Slashdot posted the message, and there were
about 200 comments taking the information as genuine.
This leads to the next problem: the total lack of
responsability of Slashdot. In serious paper media,
readers or people involved in the printed story can
get some rebuttals printed. In Slashdot, it is impossible.
Ok, you can send some additional comment, but it'll
be drowned at the end of the list of comments, and
won't cancel the possible bad effects of the story.
Re:Rebuttal (Score:1)
Further -- you can compare the NYT and slashdot, but not in any meaningful fashion. Slashdot has a paragraph at most of news -- the NYT has paragraph upon paragraph. Opinion pollution (or whatever he called it) probably has a less pervasive effect on slashdot since people are reading it for the superficial news and not anything further.
Also -- the NYT claims to be very objective -- whereas I don't think slashdot would make the same claim. What with the picture of bill gates and the fairly clear pro-opensource/anti-monopoly slant.. etc..
Also -- the manner in which news items are submitted should ensure that opinion pollution -- if it occurs -- represents the views of the readers and not the owners.
Rebuttal (Score:4)
This article initially impressed me as conservative claptrap, yearning for a day when the traditional media was less liberal and more representative. The hapless Matthew Priestley guises this fundamental complaint in a haphazard analysis of Slashdot.
Slashdot is anything but traditional--something that should be apparent to everyone reading it. Making comparisons between the New York Times and Slashdot turn Priestley's criticisms to non sequtors. Slashdot is not the New York Times. It does not suffer from "rogue" reporters in the same sense. Further, it does not claim to be a heterogenous group. Slashdot's homogeniality is emblazoned for all to see on the top of the page, "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters."
Another striking feature of the article is its confusion of "authority" with "credibility." Priestley notes that "no opinion is authoritative until it runs the Slashdot gauntlet." Yet, in the next section, he criticizes the anonymous and user submitted comments -- which he argues are the same thing, as DrDeath is just as anonymous as Anonymous Coward -- for destroying possible credibility. He contends that it would be a good thing to have Madeline Albright's comments receive a higher score than DrDeath or some AC.
John Katz, the celebrated columnist of Slashdot, is popular because of what he writes, not because of who he is. The same should be and is true for Slashdot's users. If Madeline Albright has something to say, it should be judged on the content.
If content and source are intertwined, this approach becomes problematic. Clearly if Madeline Albright said that we had just bombed the Balkans that should be different from if DrDeath said we just bombed the Balkans. Slashdot has no method of dealing with this. But come the day when the Secretary of State wants to post a comment, CmdrTaco will find a way to verify his or her identity.
"Liberal media" (Score:1)
This is a popular but overly simplistic notion. While there is some truth to it in that most reporters have been shown to have more "liberal" leanings than "conservative" ones, it's less well known (gee, I wonder why) that most editors and nearly all publishers have "conservative" leanings. If you control what stories will be covered, you can worry less about how they're covered.
Re:"Liberal media" (Score:1)
That depends on the definition of terms. I'm using the terms as they are typically applied in American politics (which is a horrible corruption of the true meanings of the words, I know).
I put the terms in quotes because I was using them as they are typically applied in American politics.
Editors and publishers are more likely to be pro-government and establishment, which means they are (perversely in terms of language) liberal.
You are contradicting yourself. The current US gov't/establishment is not by any stretch of the imagination "liberal" as the term is used in current US politics (nor in the classical definition, either). So being supportive of them would not make someone "liberal".
Re:Give this man a job!! (Score:1)
Well, I happen to think Matthew would be a great journalist, but I wonder if traditional media outlets are even looking for great journalists these days.
Perhaps I'm just cynical, but --from the outside-- it appears as though news outlets are hiring "pawns" that are willing to give news the Official Company Slant rather than objective thinkers.
Matthew would make a very bad pawn--too many original thoughts.
Success of counter-points on /. (Score:3)
There may be 50 posts articulating more-or-less the same arguments against software patents. Only one or two of these makes it above three. A single dissident will make a well-written post for The Other Side and--almost invariably--it gets moderated up three or four times.
Inspite of the fact that we are a (fairly) homogenous group, I think the combination of open discussion and moderation keeps us honest about our biases and exposes us to other schools of thought.
Re:how would the /. model apply to other news? (Score:1)
Re:Reporter/Journalist 'bias' (Score:1)
Perhaps there is hope for shortwave after all.
look again (Score:1)
Umm, take another look at section 4.2 Overcoming feeder bias:
-matt
Re:Running the "gauntlet" [sic] (Score:1)
Err, how is 'gauntlet' the wrong word?
-matt
Re:That's me! (Score:1)
What a silly test. Kneel before Prime Minister [careermanagement.net] Sloppy!
Re:Free /. from advertising bias! (HHOS) (Score:1)
As long as networking companies are building the infrastructure for this, I hope they will also provide the analog of "800" (freephone) and "900" (premium-rate) service.
In this dream world, to get an ad-free Slashdot, we could simply go to http://slashdot.org.900; our ISPs would charge us a few milli-cents extra for each page view, and pass the surplus along to the Slashdot administration.
The media's centrist bias (Score:3)
That is: They are happy to point out instances where our major institutions cause harm (a politician is corrupt, a corporation dumps toxic waste, a doctor sexually abuses a patient, and so on). However, these are almost always treated as crimes done by aberrant individuals, as special-case failures of the system, or as signs that the institution needs some minor adjustment. The media are extremely reluctant to suggest that any of these institutions (government, corporations, health care) causes so much harm that it needs to be reorganized in a significant way.
Re:Stop the Decade, I Want to Get Off (Score:1)
Just adding to "the drooling gabber of thousands of Internet newbies re-hashing the same arguments that have been raging on Usenet since 1985."
Disregard URL (Score:1)
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi
A protest, not a solution (Score:1)
Nevertheless, the protest is not the solution. As I asked before, is peer review really useful when you have 200 opinionated replies spewed in a matter of hours, and quickly forgotten the next day?
Let me suggest this:
The only viable solution are news sources -- traditional or otherwise -- that can gain public trust by exercising editorial oversight over original content with an eye towards accuracy, objectivity and balance.
What happened to truth? (Score:5)
How about truth: something objective, verifiable and valuable? The loss of the ideal -- even if not completely attainable -- of objective reporting in favor of advocacy does a disservice to both journalism and truth. When traditional news media loses its desire to be objective, they lose trust and someone else takes over. This article is only a snapshot of something that has been going on for ages. The WSJ on July 15 had an excellent editorial on the New New Journalism that gives a good historical perspective.
In the 1830s, "staid newspapers" in NYC were attached to political parties. Enter the "penny newspapers": raw, colorful and independent. They settled down and became less sensational, but retained their nonpartisanship. In the 1890s, it was the "former pennies" that were being upstaged by newer papers, but the ensuing debate strengthened restraint and accuracy.
Today the poor state of the press calls for alternatives. The Internet models now, alas, poorly serves the cause of truth. Internet journalist Matt Drudge only claims an accuracy rate of 80%, for example. Peer review only works if all facts are in front of the peers, as in source code. Poorly informed peers make for poor reviews, as has already been pointed out. An orchestrated herd of anonymous cowards can easily bias the atmosphere. And how useful is having 200 comments to a casual browser?
The simple fact is that nothing substitutes a good editor. Slashdot's articles are useful, as another poster pointed out, because they care largely links to other news sources. Slashdot is already benefitting from traditional editorial control. Its only original content -- the Slashdot Effect and followup comments -- are rather lacking in quality. We still rely on traditional journalists for much of Slashdot's useful content. What do we want to see? As the Mindich's WSJ editorial puts it,
they are less partisan, more detached, more accurate. They understand the uses and misuses of balance. They appreciate the difference between opinion--their own in particular--and truth. Unlike self-styled Web journalists, with no distance between their thumb and the "enter" key, responsible journalists have publishers, editors, ethics and professional reputations built over time. In short, responsible journalists have better filters.
It is regrettable that many journalists fall short. Nevertheless, this is something that the new Internet models do not address. They only allow us to hear what we want to hear.
An aside: I am puzzled by what the article considers bias. Is the WSJ really biased in raising the issue of legal costs and a "legal aberration"? The NYT too said that the case is unusual and that Florida courts would be flooded.
Re:add small column (Score:1)
where registered users could ask questions that weren't massive enough to require an ask slashdot
Re:Will this go the way of usenet? (Score:1)
There is a big difference between news sites such as Slashdot and Usenet newsgroups: each news site is controled by a small group of people (sometimes only one webmaster) that can change and adjust the moderation software whenever necessary. This is not possible with the newsgroups: changing the moderation policy on a newsgroup is a nightmare because it is driven by a process (RFD/CFV) prevents any quick changes in case of emergency. This is due to some architectural differences between the WWW and Usenet (one WWW server versus thousands of NNTP servers replicating each other) as well as some political differences (guidelines for creating Usenet newsgroups).
Another difference is that all news sites have their own interface for submitting new comments, and they implement their own moderation policies. This diversity makes it very difficult for spammers and trolls to ruin many news sites in a short time, as they can do with the newsgroups. It is trivial to write some software that can post the same spam to thousands of newsgroups.
In this respect, news sites such as Slashdot may be similar to Usenet newsgroups. You will probably find hundreds or thousands of news sites on the Internet, but only a handful of them are relevant for you. So from your (or my) point of view, the WWW-based news sites will be 99% crap and 1% interesting (note that others may choose a 1% that is different from yours). This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you can find the 1% that suits you.
Traditional news sources will not disappear (Score:3)
Traditional information flows will change, but traditional information sources will not disappear. The community information filters would be slower and less efficient without theses sources. For example, most of the news posted on Slashdot are links to some of the traditional news sources. Calling Slashdot a "community information filter" implies that it is usually a filter, not a source.
But to some extent, the community-driven sites are also a source of information (the comments are often more informative than the original article). They could eventually become the dominant source of information, although the transition will be slow and there are some pitfalls on the way. One of the dangers is that the communities may be disconnected from other sources of information. Sometimes, important news come from places that are outside the community's focus, yet they have an impact on the community. Having some members subscribed to some "generalist" sources of information (that may be biased) ensures that the important news will eventually reach the community.
That model could be extended to a world in which most of the information comes from community-driven sources, as long as each community has enough members participating in other communities or collecting the information on their own. But without the traditional news flows, that model is only viable for (very) large communities. Or small ones that are mostly spin-offs from larger ones (thus relying on larger communities as their source of information).
Trust has to be earned - not taken for granted (Score:1)
In the final analysis, I feel Slashdot's advantage over Old Media is that it lets people exercise their critical judgement when news gathering; news isn't spoonfed to them and expected to be accepted at face value. And that can only be a good thing.
(PS. Anyone interested in the musings of a Linux newbie can read http://chrisworth.com/oddments/the_microsoft.matr
Re:Trust has to be earned - not taken for granted (Score:1)
http://chrisworth.com/oddments/the_microsoft_ma
Re:News in the slashdot decade (Score:2)
Our current situation in the United States and other nations, with a constitution, checks and balances, and other forms of regulation keeps any one person from destroying the prosperity we have earned. However, it can only last as long as we have a sufficiently benevolent leadership. The leadership in our country is a sample of our people, so if there comes a time when the people would consistently choose war, crime, murder, etc., our government will similarly fail.
That's not entirely related to this topic, but I think it's an interesting subject and maybe one or two people would like to comment on it.
Re:Nice essay, except... (Score:1)
Having been active on both sites, they both also have one extremely important feature in common -- they provide the news consumer with a means to discuss content (and implications) of stories, but also to critique the way the stories are written and presented.
The examples on ./ are easy to find. On FR, the "major media" outlets are routinely crucified for the liberal bias evident in their reporting (note, all news reporting has bias -- the major American media is generally liberal) since FR is a conservative/libertarian site.
That is the real distinction -- not just the ability to discuss news topics, but to see just how much information is filtered even before reaching the average person.
Re:"Liberal media" (Score:1)
Reporters are slightly more balanced than their editors, but it's still an overwhelming majority with a liberal bias. Personally, I think this is a result of reporters ceasing to be journalistic watchdogs and instead becoming activists for government involvement in [insert fashionable cause here], which is typically a "liberal" position in American politics.
Note that just under 90% of reporters voted Democratic in the 1994 elections where the Republicans won the US House for the first time in 50 years... they are clearly not a representative sample of the entire population. (I don't want to get into a discussion of whether or not they're right and wrong [and why], just explaining the use of the term "liberal bias" in the media.)
Note also that there are reporters with conservative baises, libertarian biases, "green" biases, et. al. Also note that many of these can overlap on certain issues (both liberals and conservatives want government control of the Internet, but for different reasons).
Let me repeat myself: all reporting has the reporter's bias built-in to it. Smart news consumers will identify the bias and try to focus on the objective part of the story. Sadly, some stories never make it out of the newsroom because of the collective biases of the reporters, their editiors, and the publishers -- to be fair, there's only a limited set of resources to allocate to news (number of reportes, space/time in the paper/magazine/show, whatever) and these people are paid to make those decisions, though it does at times come down to politics.
Fortunately, with the internet, some of the "spiked" or non-stories do get out. Of course the channels that do this don't always have the same trust levels (correctly or not) of the major media. As always, it's about having more options but that means doing more research into those options...
Re:"Liberal media" (Score:1)
Funny disclaimer (Score:1)
Rule #61 of comedy: mentioning France automatically makes it funnier.
At least that's what I've been told.
-eldamitri
"there once was a big guy named lou
Re:Media coverage (Score:1)
The thing is, you can appear to be presenting both sides of the story, and still have bias. The person writing or presenting the news item gets to pick which quotes/clips they use, as well as the order in which the sides are presented ( which i think might be significant in how a story is recieved, although it's just a hunch, i have no data to back that up. ) In certain stories on shows like 20/20 or Dateline, i've seen the emphasis placed on one side of the story ( IMHO )
Re:Stupid pro-opensource remarks (Score:1)
As far as CmdrTaco furthering his arch-evil agenda by secretly replacing PERL scripts with devious filters that CONTROL YOUR BRAIN, well, this seems far less credible than the Trilateral Commission.
No, I don't work for the Trilateral Commission, and I don't spend my days disavowing their existence, and I promise that they don't really control the universe. Really! I promise!
Open-source scripts (Score:2)
I don't think it offers anything of the sort : we've no way of determining whether the sources provided are, in fact, the ones that run.
I'm not suggesting that slashdot actually performs any obscure filtering, or that the scripts provided aren't the ones that run. But I don't think providing those sources offer any guarantee of impartiality : I just see them as a friendly and idealistic gesture that's welcomed by the community that slashdot serves.
Re:Self Serving News (Score:1)
Not necessarily. David Letterman made a LOT of anti-GE jokes. Even before he was itching to leave.
Skippy
Thank you, Mr. Priestley! (Score:1)
gildot (Score:1)
Re:What happened to truth? (Score:1)
Unlike self-styled Web journalists, with no distance between their thumb and the "enter" key...
This reminds me of a quote from Frank Herbert, in Dune:
Deciding what not to say in an article is definitely the more difficult task.
(Of course, the ironic act of actually composing this comment - deciding what to say, or even whether or not I should submit - is not lost on me.)
Bias and Target Audience (Score:3)
News outlets like Slashdot will continue to grow. It's like a book club. People get together to discuss a common topic which they all understand to a certain degree. We can dissagree about key points and voice our opinions in a productive manner.
The other key point in this article that is not well fleshed out is bias. To most, bias seems to be something that is negative. It is not. The key to understand news from a particular source is to identify its' bias. Penn Jillette wrote an article about this in PC Computing a few years ago. He wrote about how important it is to identify what the bias in a story is. Once you figure that out, the true meaning of the story is revealed.
Take Slashdot for example. The community that reads and participates is pro-Linux. Therefore, a fair amount of anti-Microsoft news will appear. I'm not saying that is bad. It's just part of the bias of Slashdot and its' readers. No one would expect to find a detailed analasis of why Microsoft is great here.
Bias is a useful tool. It helps to explain why an article or comment is written rather than just the facts. By doing so, it is easier to identify what the true facts are.
Give this man a job!! (Score:1)
Thanx again, and if Billy throws u out look at our page. But I am not a stoopid headhunter
Re:Give this man a job!! (Score:1)
Stupid pro-opensource remarks (Score:2)
What I really hated about the article is this stupid and ridiculous open-source activism.
Yes, it is nice that CmdrTaco publishes the code for Slashdot, but for the matter of transparency of the news selection mechanism it doesn't really help. It may increase the stability of the system and is a great help for people wanting to start similar sites, but, even with the source code, there is no way of checking what scrips CmdrTaco is really running. Nobody can stop CmdrTaco from adding a message filters. And if he tried, no matter if the code is available or not, sooner or
later discrepancies would crop up and people would become suspicious.
The whole issue is about trust, and the source code does not help (or hinder). Saying Slashdot is better than freerepublic because one is open-source and the other not, is only ridiculous.
Re:Free /. from advertising bias! (HHOS) (Score:1)
The Internet Junkbuster [junkbuster.com]
will do what you want for every site you go to.
Re:A protest, not a solution (Score:1)
I also agree with the importance of editorial responsibility: but what is important here is the relationship of the editorial structure to user comments. I think that this is the part of the medium which requires the most development. There is undoubtedly much of value within the comments: what we need is to find the most valuable information and make that the most readily available. This is difficult. But I think in ten years, most media will be two-direction communication which is very efficient in both directions. And I see
Re:What happened to truth? (Score:2)
The
What is happening is that the public is developing a defense system against bad reporting and bad opinion. Perhaps that 80% accuracy may sound low, but is traditional media really more than 80% 'true,' when it's obviously biased by the support of mega-corporations who manipulate the news? I would argue no. What is going on in this evolution is that we who have been forced to accept the meager helpings of truth we've had to settle with are now finding ways to defend ourselves against misinformation in the public media. This is not only a positive step; it is essential for our development as an information-dependent species.
News and manufactured consent (Score:2)
anyone remember Noam Chomsky? I thought it rather peculiar, that the connection wasn't remarked earlier, so here it goes (IMHO, as always):
As I understand it, Priestley's ananlysis of the \.-model is a spitting image of self-governing information pools, envisioned some twenty years ago. They are coming with built-in credibility and -most important- are promising an impressive ratio between (theoretical) reach and economical independence.
Enter NC: He proposed an approach to the mass media and politics called "propaganda model", which is (very) basically about two rules:
1. The media is systematically dependent of a manufactured social consent. This practically means, that being in control of information it and it's allies start building a public consent and move on to merely nourishing it, after that.
They do not (and can not) leave information unfiltered.
2. This does not give way to speculations like all sorts of stupid conspirational mumbo-jumbo, the mass media is simply too much a part of society and too dependent of an economy of scale to ever escape this.
In this sense
There is a nice movie and lots of very different books, but I would still like to recommend his untimely thoughts.
cheers,
dpool
Re:Fine line between Target Audience and Inbred Op (Score:1)
Check out the history of intellectual movements sometime -- I'm thinking particularly of Barbara Tuchman's analysis of Zionism in _Bible and Sword_, or Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie's history of Catharism in _Montaillou; Promised Land of Errors_. I think you'll find that a postal system and printing press are required equipment for national or global dispersion, but that phones and computers aren't.
I agree with a previous poster that suggested bias is good. I know the leaning of
My
Re:News in the slashdot decade (Score:1)
And because they were truly benevolent, they always stepped down after the crisis was over and returned power to a senate or council... Cincinnatus is the Roman version ( Li vy's Early History on project gutenberg [cmu.edu]), but I can't remember the name of the Greek original. Any other liberal arts students?
Re:The media's centrist bias (Score:1)
This may be a remnant of the "Pleasantville" approach to broadcasting. Try to offend as little people as possible to maintain an audience. Interestingly enough, I think this trend is decreasing. Before the '80s, any news provider that stated a platform was considered an underground source. Their journalists sometimes were even considered unethical. Into the late '80s and '90s more news providers seemed to cater to demographics. Talk radio began to boom, and the internet provided a perfect outlet to choose your filter/provider/editor, etc. Traditional media outlets have tried to catch up a little. You see far more news magazine shows, and many times they will dip down to do features on both sides of the story.
Non-comedic talk show hosts increasing dip into the news. They will develop a whole show talking extempereonously about a topic to their political slant. Most of this is still relegated to cable, or radio, but since this generates ratings in valued demographics, the big guys may follow.
Per the essay,
Re:News in the slashdot decade (Score:2)
Even with a platonically ideal dictator, they would still have to setup an administration. For their system to work, it would seem that all their subordinates would also have to be platonic ideals. If not, they surely would be vested with enough power to corrupt the system at lower levels. These corruptions could go undiscovered unless they reached a high enough level to gain the dictators view. To prevent this you would have to set up a system of checks and balances underneath the dictator which could be subject to additional corruption.
Re:Peer Review and the breakdown of reality (Score:2)
I think this where the article makes the analogy to cryptosystems. I think the same level of faith you attribute to the Old Media, can be applied to the individual posters on slashdot. Some Ids have a track record of providing useful and informative information on a consistent basis. When we develop that trust in a poster, we are less likely to follow up on their claims or inferences. As stated in the article, we are more likely to distrust AC postings.
Do we need a copyleft for words too? (Score:1)
Equal Time (Score:1)
Re:Equal Time (Score:1)
Re:News in the slashdot decade (Score:1)
Someone who has ultimate and complete power (a "dictator"; I believe in ancient Athens they were "tyrants"?) could make any change he/she/they so desired. If they always made decisions with no motivation but the good (both in terms of rights and in terms of actual well-being) of the people, then they would be the best possible government.
Now we just have to find people who don't follow the model of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and who are omniscient enough to realize what is the "good" thing to do in any situation.
Re:Free /. from advertising bias! (HHOS) (Score:2)
He doesn't care about seeing the ads themselves so much as he cares about the very existance of the ads. He's worried about the advertisements jeopardizing the impartiality of the website.
What if Microsoft said, "Rob...We'll give you [insane amount of money] if you delete any post that bashes Microsoft or praises Linux." If Slashdot is dependant upon advertising dollars for its existance, and Rob needs that money, then he has a choice. He can either accept it -- and the strings attached to it -- or he can let Slashdot die. Neither of those are very appealing options to me. But if Slashdot *wasn't* dependant upon ad revenue, and in fact didn't even *need* ad revenue, then companies couldn't bribe Rob into slanting things their way. Whether or not you see the ads has absolutely no bearing on whether or not their presence affects impartiality of the site.
Now, delving slightly off-topic, I am of the school of thought that feels ad filters hurt the site. If a site like Slashdot has ads, it's because it needs the money to run. Companies pay for those ads based on how many times they think the ad is going to be viewed. If, say, 75% of the viewers of a page are filtering out that ad, then companies are going to question the value of buying that ad. I've only got a 26.4k connection at home (absolutely abysmal phone lines in my area), yet I don't use ad filters, and I even clickthrough ads once in a while, even if I have no real interest what they're advertising, in order to support the site. I value Slashdot enough to spare a minute of my time encouraging the purchasers of ads that it's a worthwhile endeavor.
Overall, though, I agree with the original poster in this thread, who said that he would be willing to pay a small subscription fee, and would be willing to allow free-riders, in exchange for releasing Slashdot from a need to carry ads. I suppose it would be more of a donation than a subscription fee, but $5-10 annually would be a small price to pay for a trusted source of "news for nerds".
public moderation (Score:3)
Public moderation is a great thing, and I believe it would be improved by having more of it. The original posts themselves could be moderated (scored based on number of quality posts? scored directly by readers?). Slashdot would benefit from letting everyone moderate all the time, with the exception of their own posts and follow-ups.
But, we will always want bias. Slashdot would not be slashdot if it weren't Rob picking the posts. The NYTimes would not be....etc
One point to remember in considering bias - I can read both newspapers, read multiple web sites, and I think that is often overlooked.
commentary (Score:1)
Re:Free /. from advertising bias! (HHOS) (Score:4)
The question is to what extent you get in bed with advertisers. Is all money good money? Is money from Microsoft ok? What about the Tobacco Barons? What about the KKK? Where do you draw the line? Can you turn one away? Could you be sued for doing so?
What if they want to pay you a lot of money? What if they wouldn't pay you a lot of money if your stories put a bad light on them? Remember what happened with the MSNBC reporter who was covering the MS-DOJ trial. He was fired.
Can you survive without advertising? Is it better to do so? If going without advertising has an impact on the quality of your publication, where do you draw the line?
Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, wrote that ``Contempt, rather than celebration, is the proper response to advertising and the system that makes it possible.'' Pervasive advertising to captive audiences has certainly gone from bad to worse in the last few years, not just in this medium but everywhere. Yet those who sip from the teat of money, especiall free spamvert money, are addicted far worse than any cocaine user ever was.
I regret that I offer no solution.
I never see the ads (Score:1)
lynx, I never see the ads. The pages also load quite a bit
faster than with netscape. I'm sure I must be missing out
on a certain amount of nifty stuff but I'm really only here
for the information.
Re:Fine line between Target Audience and Inbred Op (Score:1)
Related article at The Economist (Score:1)
the Economist online. It is mostly concerned
with the impact of internet as a successor technology to
the newspaper.
Quote:"Get rid of the need for physical inputs, however, and the economics of the business changes completely. Once the barriers to entry disappear, so does the rationale for the package of content and revenue that makes up a newspaper. Now that being a publisher costs so little, niche publishers can pick off speciality areas of content-the weather, say, or the stockmarket-and build a business around them. Classified advertisers can set up their own sites where prices to advertisers are likely to be lower because they do not have to pay for the physical inputs or subsidise the content. The newspaper, it turns out, was a hundred different businesses rolled into one; and, now that the economic glue that held them together has dissolved, they could fall apart."
The article is available at www.economist.com [economist.com]
Re:Equal Time (Score:2)
As far as news today being an improvement over Hearst's time, I think that's a dubious statement. Hearst probably held tighter control over a smaller information pool, but today active censorous control has been replaced by spin, which is more widespread and perhaps more pernicious, as it's less immediately noticeable.
Also, bias doesn't have to be malicious to be bias. It's quite probable that most news reporters are either quite unconscious in their bias or feel they're acting out of perfectly ethical impulses when they spin stories.
gomi
Self Serving News (Score:1)
humans suck (Score:1)
These were great documents written by a bunch of guys who mostly meant well. Statements like "all men are created equal" and "we the People" were put forth as law from guys who "owned" slaves.
The constitution was written with as much forethought as possible in an attempt to keep the new country from falling into the same traps that they believed Britain had fallen into.
Now take a look at the US.
This is cycle that is as old as humanity and doesn't seem to be getting any better IMHO.
/. is great! It's new, fresh, and honest (unless you like Microsoft products), not too much unlike the US in the 1700's. Eventually, however,
You can't blame someone for not wanting to advertise the fact that they or their friend sells the same product at a higher price than a competitor's can you? I wouldn't and I would have snipped the post too. But hey, I'm a capitalist pig, and darn proud of it. These little things creep in and pretty soon we've got cops pulling us over and taking our lunch money
I believe
Re:Stop the Decade, I Want to Get Off (Score:1)
(pause as Bob wanders around the site)
Okay, I just went to look at more of that site. The whole site is like that. It's kind of like the Onion [theonion.com], except it's not funny. Hmm.
--
Bias can be a good thing.. (Score:1)
Yet I feel that the quality of news was higher then, and that quality was a direct result of this bias. How can that be? The enthusiasm each reporter brought to his job, doing his best to hunt up facts that validate his world-view, enabled him to ferret out facts that a more laid-back, unbiased reporter or paper would miss.
The fact that every paper was biased didn't pollute the public mind, since every town had a wide variety of papers,large and small, general-purpose or narrow focused, to choose from. It wasn't uncommon for the businessman to buy several papers on his way to work, and buy a few more on his way back home. Thus the interested reader, who wanted a true accounting of the facts, could easily discover what the truth was merely by reading differing accounts of events.
Sort of like Slashdot.
Joe
Re:Free /. from advertising bias! (HHOS) (Score:1)
"When it comes to the choice of the lesser of two evils, I pick the one I haven't tried before."
Segmented news -the death of a full-minded person? (Score:1)
On one hand it allows those interested to really have all the news they can on this one topic, on the other, it tends to specialize people, which can be a deathwish in conversations and situations outside of the topic.
Haven't we all seen those people who will talk of nothing other than their one favorite thing?
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org [geekrights.org]
Re:Two corrections (Score:1)
Yep, on Slashdot, there doesn't seem to BE a multi-day follow-up. Threads pretty much die when the story scrolls off the front page. That's ok for items like "XYZ Corp. upgrades whizzbang to 400 mhz", but is less than ideal for stories with a more philosophical bent. It's a little unfortunate, because topics that could stimulate thought and reflection lose some of that potential because of the perceived need to rush when posting a comment. On the other hand, the stories are still there after they scroll -- just takes an extra click, if people want to.
Will this go the way of usenet? (Score:1)
I've pretty much given up on traditional news media. My exposure to current events is 95% from National Public Radio during my drive to/from work. But even NPR goes astray. The excessive Clinton trial coverage really irritated me, for example.
When I bumped into
ZDTV recently became available on my cable service. While much is Wired-like fluff, I do enjoy some of the shows, like the often tounge-and-cheek The Screen Savers (no flames, please). The only problem is now that I read Slashdot, almost everything is old news to me. I don't know whether this is a blessing or a curse.
Anyhow, this thirst for current information and community debate reminds me of my similar taste for usenet. Though I'm not sure if I missed the official Golden Age when I was most involved (1990-1993), I felt usenet was still of sufficient quality back then. I could even appreciate the Usenet Olympics.
However, as most of us know, usenet went to hell in a handbasket very quickly. (Some may feel it had already gone to hell even before the years I was involved, but nevermind...) Today I find it pretty much useless, save for a very few highly technical groups.
As this kind of forum gets more popular, will clusters of people like Slashdot fall prey to the idiots, trolls, spammers, etc. that ruined usenet? Are the few moderation mechanisms in the system good enough to keep such garbage out?
Fine line between Target Audience and Inbred Opini (Score:4)
While the
/. is an encouraging model of open discourse, and even so its partisan leanings (in aggregate) are clear for all to see.
More troubling are nakedly political sites ie the Consertive site mentioned in the article. The explosion of the Internet has allowed rabid dogmas to flourish, freed from critical analysis that restricted fora of the pre-wired age required. News gatherers take the step one further, as they allow and encourage 'real-world' events that support a particular ideology to be sampled, discussed and internalized in isolation without context in the greater culture. This allows us all to build unreconcilable 'true' pictures of culture that clash when rubbed against those outside that filtered embrace.
I posit that the internet, and specifically this agregation of limited world-views can ultimately lead to a more contentious, less consentual and increasingly isolated society.
For all their inherent biases and corporate corruption, traditional news services were more successful in keeping a cultural perspective alive through reporting diversity. Or at least the majority culture, which, while in some ways despicable still encourages a common touchstone over segregated enclaves of unassailable thought.
But anyway, I like geek stuff, so I'll still read
JJMcC
Re:Equal Time (Score:1)
And what's this crap about the quality going down? What the hell do you expect with the number of new news organizations going online every day? It's like a pro sport expanding from 12 to 24 teams. The pool of top-notch talent is only so deep, so diluting it by 50%/team is only going to bring more inexperienced folks on board.
That and the push to be first has done more than any bias to undermine the quality of the news. I love the old saying "don't attribute to malice what simple incompetence will explain" or something like that.
I'll take today's news organizations over what passed as news when Hearst ran his empire!
The source? (Score:1)
Yes, journalism is pretty wretched these days, but let's not lose sight of how it got there.