Sometimes a lie is just a lie. The ratings that fact-checking sites use are far from scientific — but they do force journalists to abide by a method that recognizes truth ought to be evaluated on a spectrum. A method should also apply to calling out "post-truth;" otherwise, our capacity to call out misleading political claims will be further hindered.
McCarthyism lives! A site with no credentials and no evidence has smeared over 200 sites as Russian stooges.
By Max Blumenthal, a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. His most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal. Via Alternet
This Spy Wanted To Pull A Snowden, Sort Of, But His Dyslexia Led To His Downfall
When an informer turned in a package from the spy, the FBI realized that his misspellings were the key – and there weren’t that many people this could be.
Democracy and Democracies in Crisis
The Western powers are weakening and the authoritarians are ascendent. The question is whether the West can summon the will and the unity to rise to the challenge.
Jane Jacobs -- patron saint of walkability, uber-theorist of contemporary urban living -- never adequately thought through the implications of gentrification
The radically simple reason Hillary Clinton didn’t run a different campaign: she thought she was winning Vox. Lordie. No professional sports team would evah make that mistake. Lambert: “No mention of the Ada debacle, which surfaced briefly in WaPo and then vanished from the narrative.”
DEVELOPERS in Sweden have created a website that can help you delete your online presence with just a few clicks. Available at Deseat.me, Wille Dahlbo and Linus Unnebäck designed the internet deletion site as a place for people to “clean up your internet presence”, reports The Telegraph
Jeff Sessions set to show his steel on white-collar crime FT. “Mr Sessions spent 20 years as a federal prosecutor in Alabama, where he tried cases involving federal land banks caught up in the 1980s savings and loan crisis. That experience helped cement his belief in the deterrent value of jail time for executives who broke the law.
The U.S. presidential election is over but that doesn't mean the newly energized fact-checking community should fade away. Writing for Poynter, Tamar Wilner points out that even though "politics is baked in" to the current form of fact-checking, the battle against misinformation should include topics like science, crime and even entertainment.
PAYBACK’S A… YOU KNOW: Twitter has been left red-faced after it briefly suspended its own CEO’s account
Buncombe. We'll use it
in a sentence (from an article on how to pitch stories to media
outlets): "Journalists are renowned for their sensitive buncombe sensors
and fact-checking is an integral part of their job." Look it up
Preoccupations – Quit Social Media. Your Career May Depend on It. – By Cal Newport – “Our increasing addiction to the constant stimulus of updates, likes and posts is damaging our ability to concentrate deeply and focus on work that matters” “The Data Visualisation Catalogue is an on-going project developed by Severino Ribecca. Developing knowledge of data Knowledge sharing is as important as breakfast as it is essential ingredient for the growth of in individual, team, group and prganisation ... Knowledge is power when it is shared only if and when it is spread among us ... Because culture that is sharing eats any strategy for breakfast ...MEdia Dragon loves sharing with the right people at the right time ...