Is fact checker an actual job?

input_sh 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In serious news organizations, absolutely. Journalists write the stories, fact checkers make sure every claim is backed up by evidence before it gets published.

To describe their job poorly, they're there as a way of reducing odds of a lawsuit. At one of my previous jobs, there was a whole fact-checking team that wrote no stories themselves, but every story had to be run through them as a part of the publishing pipeline.

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kragen 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The people doing that job are not the ones being targeted here.

	▲	input_sh 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> It directs consular officers to "thoroughly explore" the work histories of applicants, both new and returning, by reviewing their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and appearances in media articles for activities including combatting misinformation, disinformation or false narratives, fact-checking, content moderation, compliance, and trust and safety. Not only are they targeted, but so are many more.

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nephihaha an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I see errors all the time in mainstream media. Sometimes these appear from some kind of info file that they raid every time they have to look up a subject, so the same information is quoted again and again (even if inaccurate). A lot of things in life are subjective and open to interpretation, especially when it comes to politics and culture.

	▲	input_sh an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Mainstream != serious. In fact it's quite the opposite, as serious news organizations cannot match the output of mainstream news. Even one story per month is a success for many. In serious news organizations, there's quite a few steps between a journalist writing a draft and that draft being published. Fact-checking is one of them, having a competent "boss" (called an editor) is another. Most news orgs have both a "serious" department and a "publish as much as possible" department, with far different requirements. In general, if you're publishing something along the lines of "X said Y", you don't need a rigorous process. If you're doing an investigation in which you're accusing someone of doing something illegal, then you need a far more rigorous process, otherwise you'd be sued out of existence pretty quickly. Of course, having a rigorous process doesn't mean you won't get sued at all, but there's a term for that: SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation). In those lawsuits, the goal is not to prove the story wrong, but to just waste news org's resources on defending their reporting in front of a judge instead of doing their job.

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lexicality 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, there are many situations where it would be illegal or detrimental to publish falsehoods, so people are implied to check facts.

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pjc50 an hour ago | parent [-]

Now it's turning into a situation where it's illegal or detrimental to publish the truth.

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nephihaha an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Big press outlets have been publishing fibs of one kind and a other since as long as I can remember. A certain Australian's newspapers have had problematic statements in them for decades.

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ben_w an hour ago | parent [-]

> problematic

This is so vague as to be meaningless.

Like, of course it's "problematic", that's why you're talking about it. Be more specific or it sounds like an applause light.

To show the outside view: I'm thinking of a recent (pointless) discussion I had, it's akin to when people who hate asylum seekers say most of those asylum seekers are "fighting age": of course most of them are, very few others are fit enough to make the trip.

(If I judge you right from a very short comment, you'd describe the phrase "fighting age" as itself "problematic"?)

	▲	nephihaha 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That isn't "vague", it's a way that I can express disdain without opening myself up to legal repercussions. A lot of dubious content appears in mainstream media, usually to push people in whichever direction that media desires. I catch YouTube doing it all the time, it's always trying to pull me in one direction or another (often ones I disagree with or am not interested in). American mainstream media focusses far too much on personality politics rather than substance. It rarely questions the political binary either, and offers only tokenistic representation to any positions outside it. There are many issues and debates which are simply not mentioned on it. On the migration issue, I have found that coverage tends to one extreme or the other — i.e. the open door or the closed door — when the probable solution is somewhere in between IMHO.

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bigiain an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Only the wrong sort of truth.

It"s a stepping stone on the way to make it illegal to refuse to publish the "right" sort of lies.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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