Google Launches a News Initiative To Fight False News and Help Publishers Make Money (cnbc.com) 103
Google is launching the Google News Initiative, a journalism-focused program that will help publishers earn revenue and combat fake news. From a report: The initiative, announced Tuesday, will offer publications another monetization model online called Subscribe with Google, as well as work with established universities and groups to combat misinformation. It will also introduce an open-source tool called Outline, which will make it easier for news organizations to set up secure access to the internet for their journalists. Google said it was committing $300 million over the next three years to the project, though it did not elaborate on how the resources would be spent.
The company said it paid $12.6 billion to news organizations and drove 10 billion clicks a month to their websites for free last year. Subscribe with Google will make it easier for readers to pay for content from news organizations that have agreed to partner with the company. FT.com, The Washington Post, and McClatchy Company publications including the Miami Herald are among the 17 launch partners.
The company said it paid $12.6 billion to news organizations and drove 10 billion clicks a month to their websites for free last year. Subscribe with Google will make it easier for readers to pay for content from news organizations that have agreed to partner with the company. FT.com, The Washington Post, and McClatchy Company publications including the Miami Herald are among the 17 launch partners.
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No they are not, we vet our stories here
Fake news. Right here.
Re:Avoid Fake news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no.
Most are not "Fake News" in the Trumpian sense, as in they're not completely fabricated.
However, many (if not the majority) of what one sees today has a nasty habit of taking some facts, emphasizing other (convenient) ones, completely ignoring still other (inconvenient) ones, then subtly weaving a narrative into what is being 'reported'. Then the 'story' gets spiced with enough drama to grab eyeballs (thus advertising dollars).
This is to provide ammunition of opinion-making fellow travelers of a given ideology, to provide 'confirmation' to the existing audience base, and to garner influence (and thus power) along the way. Cable/Sat television news is chock full of it - CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, RT, you-name-it. The Papers are a lost cause in most cases these days, and the Web is even worse. Toss in some satire sites that are too-damned-close-to-reality (enough that it takes a fairly sharp mind to recognize that it's actually satire), and you have the mess we see today.
It's gotten to the point where the only news orgs really worth watching/reading for news on events at large, are the ones which stick to mostly business-oriented content (such as CNBC, WSJ, Fox Business, and suchlike). Why? Because ideological BS tends to be secondary there, and they know that their audience (business folk) don't have much time, adoration, or tolerance for pap or propaganda. For politics, there's always C-SPAN, where you more often than not get it raw and unfiltered (and it's up to you to summarize it all, however you please.)
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What you say is true, but I'd just like to take it a step further.
There's a reason there's no real, "unspun" news to be had: it can't be monetised. You can't copyright facts. Anyone who tries to report "just facts" will have to look at them being stolen, in real time, by all these other outlets and spun into the same crappy stories you describe. To an extent Reuters, AP and suchlike agencies tried to do this, and now look at them - they're barely better than the rest.
The web is fatal to journalism: its ince
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What about the "un-named source" reports that are so common with CNN that turn out to be absolutely false?
There are still people that believe the Trump collusion delusion. So many people are like - today will be the day they finally have some proof.
Maybe they're waiting for proof on the tooth fairy and the money from the dead Nigerian Prince.
There is also the matter of the very good, probably enough to convict proof about Hillary's collusion with the Russians.
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CNN caught a couple of bad reporters UNLIKE Faux, they were fired immediately
UNLIKE WND, the truth is rewarded at CNN
Gulag: the Ministry of Propaganda (Score:1)
This story is laughable. Google is the world's biggest distributor of lies and propaganda.
Avoid Fake news? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Interesting.
The NYT ran a story about how [Trump's CIA pick] Gina Haspel had a role in torture [nytimes.com] during her admin of a Thailand black site.
That was later shown to be completely false (Haspel took over months after the tortures had ended). Pro Publica printed a retraction of their story, but the NYT did not.
For comparison, Infowars is widely decried (*) as fake news for publishing the "Spirit Cooking" article [infowars.com], which is completely accurate in all its claims.
Now congress-people are falling over themselves saying
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The problem with retraction, is the damage is already done, and companies all have different policies about retractions.
Also to note, even irresponsible news sites sometimes will get the information right, because they are not concerned about where the info comes from, which sometimes gives them a lead in getting real information out.
The real problem isn't accuracy of the information, but being able to trust the information. If a wrong story is posted, the media organization better have good reasons for po
Re:Avoid Fake news? (Score:4, Informative)
The NYT has added corrections and notes to their article:
While Ms. Haspel oversaw the site during the torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at the site, she did not supervise the interrogation and waterboarding of the suspected Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah.
So saying that Gina Haspel having had a role in torture is "completely false" really just relies on what you define that as, which people naturally gravitate towards defining according to personal preference to get the result ("NYT totally lied" or "Gina Haspel is 100% ok") they want.
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NYT's correction appears to be at odds with ProPublica's correction.
NYT: "While Ms. Haspel oversaw the site during the torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at the site"
via https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
ProPublica: "It is now clear that Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended."
via https://www.propublica.org/art... [propublica.org]
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I .... don't see how you think those two statements are at odds. Those are two different people (Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah.) Their interrogations occurred at different times.
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Hey, thanks for the reply..
Looks like I got my quotes crossed while trying to quickly compare corrections.
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You're obviously lying. I checked your claims and
- contrary to what you say, she did "have a role in torture", namely she was in charge of the whole thing while people were tortured
- contrary to what you say, the New York Times did correct their mistake regarding the torture of Zubaydah, and the article body as well as the appended note reflect this transparently
- all other accusations (that she commanded a torture center and ordered evidence thereof destroyed) stand
- "Haspel took over months after the tort
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Haspel took over months after the tortures had ended
Yeah, you appear to be lying - or, to be charitable, just misinformed... The various articles mention the names of two tortured people. It's true that she wasn't there for the first, but she was there for the second. More precisely, she was the chief of the Thailand prison between October and December 2002 [wikipedia.org]. The second person in the article was tortured between mid-November and December 2002 [nytimes.com], so during her tenure.
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Infowars is not decried as fake news because of the "Spirit Cooking" article. It's decried as fake news because it's not even "news."
Re:Avoid Fake news? (Score:5, Insightful)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Labeling those you disagree with as "neo-nazis" and ideas you disagree with "hate-speech" is not meant to sway those people to your side, its designed to keep the ignorant on the plantation.
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I'd give you biased, and occasionally quite dishonest, but they're not going out of their way to invent things that did not happen.
You can try to define "fake" to exclude "biased, and occasionally quite dishonest" but that misses the more important question: Should we allow biased and deceptive stories from news sources that millions of people consider trustworthy journalists, but go ballistic on fringe sites that are untrustworthy?
My own sense is that biased and/or dishonest stories on sites like NYT and WaPo are more influential than blatantly fake stories that someone with an agenda circulates on Facebook. Saying one is fake but the
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Should we allow biased and deceptive stories from news sources that millions of people consider trustworthy journalists, but go ballistic on fringe sites that are untrustworthy?
I'm not sure how you could say that either is disallowed without trampling on free speech, which is far more dangerous than any amount of fake or biased news could ever hope to be. If you think it's such a large problem in need of a solution, I believe that you should try to offer a better, competing product instead of attempting to legislate what people are allowed to consume.
The real issue is that most people have already arrived at their conclusions and will seek out sources to affirm those beliefs re
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I'd give you biased, and occasionally quite dishonest, but they're not going out of their way to invent things that did not happen. Trump has been incredibly successful in watering down the meaning of fake news to the point where it gets applied to anything
Calling stories that are intentionally biased or dishonest is applying the word fake to "anything"? I disagree.
If Google wants to set a standard for journalism they accept, they should hold everyone to it.
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I'd give you biased, and occasionally quite dishonest, but they're not going out of their way to invent things that did not happen.
LOL.. Oh yes they have gone out of their way to invent things. Specifically about Trump and his administration they have reported stuff based on "unnamed sources" which frequently turned out wrong and/or misleading.
Their motives for doing this are likely more about selling advertisements and making a profit than politics, but they HAVE been doing this kind of thing regularly.
Journalism Ethics are dead in this country, mainly because they don't get you clicks or viewers.. Trump is just a tempting target
How about proper labeling? (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to be easy to tell actual news articles from commentary and opinion. But no more.
How many news feeds distinguish between the two? How many news web sites clearly label an article as one or the other? How many readers even know the difference anymore.
Solve the labeling problem first and the rest will be easier. Of course, hard news -- without inflammatory opinion -- garners fewer clicks, so there may be no motivation for proper labeling.
Advocacy Journalism... (Score:5, Insightful)
...killed the News.
As soon as journalists decided that shaping/pushing agendas was their moral duty, opinion and facts are intermixed freely without even an attempt to keep them clearly labeled.
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You are right.
Except that it was not really journalists that decided this change was necessary, it was their employers colluding with educational institutions.
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It comes down to the ugly question of free will, doesn't it?
How much of society's intent is a product of its education?
I would claim that consumer demand is not a product of free will, it's a product of conditioning.
Consumerism is a mechanism of slavery by addiction. People have basic desires from instinct. More complicated desires are shaped by their environment, which is controlled mostly by the plutocratic state.
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They had to, because news is worthless. With the aggregation services the facts are quickly disseminated everywhere and available for free, so why would anyone pay to read day old facts in a newspaper?
So newspapers moved to opinion, investigation and long form articles padded with, you guessed it, more opinion.
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You make a good point, but I think it is more just laziness. They need a headline to grab attention, then move on to the next story. The best example are stories about "the latest study on X". They summarize the first two sentences of the abstract, embellish that with another 45 seconds of banter, then go to commercial. Heck, last night I watch the news, where they talked about how many snow days the local schools have used. They went on wondering how schools were going to make up the time, indicating
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That's why decades ago I stopped following watching typical 'news' and began reading verified(as possible) statistics about crime rates/areas/more and as hard/established data as is available. Problem is that goes against much of the gas lighting.
Trusting google with the news would be like trusting gas to put out a fire.
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you left out one by both sides ( at least in the united states) the best way to embrace and or reject religion. ( as both sides tend to use it more as a tool to get their as opposed to acting as believers should.
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After Woodward and Bernstein, too many journalists started trying to make the news rather than just objectively report on it. I'm old enough to remember what the news was like before them. Even Dan Rather, that for well over a decade was considered by many to be the most trusted journalist, threw his credibility in the trash and was fired because he knowingly pushed a fake attack on Bush Jr.
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Good grief. Someone else who has no idea what a Nazi really is. But you sure are proud of yourself though so whatever makes you feel more virtuous..
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News should tell me the facts, not how I should feel about the facts.
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actually, the phrase 'fake news' was first coined in liberal circles to label anything that supported trump and his opinions, he just took the phrase and ran with it. I do think it was one of his own that came up with 'alternative facts', but given the way reporting is done now it is a phrase that almost makes sense.
consider:
Liberal reporter
Most climatologist agree that climate change is influenced by man.
Many climatologist have concluded man is directly responsible for climate change
The majority of data s
Re:How about proper labeling? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even posting the news, it is still easy for the bias to be posted in the story.
In our vocabulary we have many words that mean the same thing, however imply different contexts.
Risk Taker vs. Careless
Analytical vs Heartless
Strategy vs Scheming
Ambitious vs Power Hungry
You can take the facts of the actions of an individual and express it in a way their are either a Hero or a Monster.
The real problem, is such statements sell the story, while a moderate approach of the facts is just too dull.
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Even posting the news, it is still easy for the bias to be posted in the story. In our vocabulary we have many words that mean the same thing, however imply different contexts. Risk Taker vs. Careless Analytical vs Heartless Strategy vs Scheming Ambitious vs Power Hungry
You can take the facts of the actions of an individual and express it in a way their are either a Hero or a Monster.
The real problem, is such statements sell the story, while a moderate approach of the facts is just too dull.
All of the terms you listed are interpretative, and are not needed for a straightforward reporting of facts. Who, what, where, when. Leave why for the editorialists.
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Who: Senator Joe Smith, Republican Senator Joe Smith, Government Official, Washington Insider.
What: Law Amendment #9314, Baby Feeding Bill, Welfare adjustment bill.
Where: Washington DC, Capital Building, Back office in Capital Building.
When: 10:30PM, Late in the evening, At the Last Moment.
You can thank Fox News for that (Score:2)
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they argued, successfully, that they weren't a "News" organization and were in fact an entertainment network. That's how they get away with running opinion pieces and news stories side by side without notice or a pause.
No. Much as I loathe Fox News, I'd rather see them strung up for actual, documented abuses rather than an urban legend that was debunked years ago [snopes.com]. First, it was a single station rather than the entire network. Second, it was a management dispute with a particular employee, not a dispute over the station's truthiness in general. And finally, while the court awarded the plaintiff damages, it made a specific note that it was not a question of the station's truthfulness but a personal d
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> opinion
The best example of that I've seen lately is all of the articles that claimed Trump "tried" to fire someone. He can, so if he "tried," he would have. You have respected papers like the NYT and Wash Post that harmed their credibility by posting that headline.
Hmmmm (Score:1)
"Please get addicted to our revenue model where we are the middlemen between you and your subscribers' dollars. That way we can tell you what to publish or demonetize you like a conservative Youtube account."
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
This. If the publishers don't own the platform, they are not running their own business, they are serving Google's.
For America to Live Google Must Die (Score:2, Interesting)
How long will nerds fetishize monster tech corps like Google? It's a big part of the problem.
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don't worry, there are alternatives, you can also bark like a kennel full of dogs with the news provided by the twitter SJWs
The meaning of "fighting fake news" (Score:1)
is the censor those who speak of inconvenient truths, and opposing view or alternative facts, so people can educate themselves before forming an opinion.
Google will basically do as Big Gov says and shape people's opinions, and continue to build the narrative that America is right and just, and everyone else is cheating, lying, and being dishonest.
This is really not an issue for me (Score:2)
I don't need Google's help (Score:5, Insightful)
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You joke, but from seeing what my friends post on Facebook, too many of them "ate the onion."
Just what we need... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google... (Score:2)
...further manoeuvres to position itself as the predominant gatekeeper and controller of news. If we let them do that too much, most of our news will be reduced to that which is profitable to Google, regardless of whether it serves the public good.
There, fixed that for you ;)
Finally! (Score:1)
No more lies! We'll see the mic booms on the "moon landing" footage, chemtrails will be exposed as whites-only obesity-promoting chemicals, and we'll learn the true extent of the HAARP array's mind control powers!
...Or did they mean fighting actually fake news? Pphht, doesn't seem like a very revenue-positive thing to do.
Robots (Score:1)
Put robots in charge on the news.
immigrant vs illegal (Score:2)
Correct heading (Score:1)
Google Launches a News Initiative To Help Publishers Make Money