NationStates Jolt Archive

So this is something I suspect will become very popular with NSG debaters, and rightly so.

Seattle-based SpinSpotter launched an online service at DemoFall on Tuesday that lets readers judge whether articles on the Internet are objective and accurate or not.
"People no longer trust the media," Todd Herman, founder and chief product officer of SpinSpotter, said during a presentation. About 66 percent of people consider the press "one-sided" while only 9 percent of journalists are concerned with the media's credibility, according to a Pew Research Center study.
A SpinSpotter toolbar, called Spinoculars, displays any edits that have been suggested on a news article or blog item on the Web. Readers can annotate headlines and text, comment on and rate other reader's spin ratings of the item and e-mail their work to others.

Full article (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10036998-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20)

Would you use it?

Nope.
I might not trust the press fully, but I tend to trust them a little more than anonymus people on the internet. Especially when it comes to questions of bias.

Would you use it?
No, because anyone who thinks human-made media can ever be objective is a moron.

Would you use it?Now I'll be the first to admit the press, in particular the American one (of the ones relevant to me) is pretty skewed. However, I'm a bit confused as to how letting the internet of all places evaluate said bias is going to be an improvement...

I don't know if the flurry of anonymous Internet denizens will truly make existing articles more objective, but I think there's some value to the idea of bringing these things out for discussion, as well as maybe make the journalists more careful about how they write it.

That's a good thing.

*looks at youtube/Su comments*

yes the media does have spin however not nearly as much as the meat spin that is the internet leaving this useless beyond a means of pushing whatever is the new fad in college students

No, I won't use it, because it'll be shite.

I don't know if the flurry of anonymous Internet denizens will truly make existing articles more objective, but I think there's some value to the idea of bringing these things out for discussion, as well as maybe make the journalists more careful about how they write it.

That's a good thing.
Isn't that what NSG is for?

So this is something I suspect will become very popular with NSG debaters, and rightly so.



Full article (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10036998-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20)

Would you use it?
Objectivity by majority rule... Kinda interesting. Not as reliable as a good editor and two sources, I would think -- but hey, what editor wants to correct a few trivial facts and what reporter really wants to do the work to get a confirmation.

Maybe this will catch on... It's true because we say so. (Most of us, anyway)

I can't really see it as a bad thing.

I can't really see it as a bad thing.
Well, consider Spore. It's getting the shit kicked out of it in Amazon reviews, not necessarily because it's a bad game, but because of the DRM that only allows you to install it three times ever. Most of those people probably haven't bought the game, either, for exactly those reasons, and aren't exactly qualified to rate the game. It's mainly going to be a matter of how many users can be mustered to falsify results, and China's been looking into that sort of thing in the past.

Don't something like 66% of Americans watch FoxNews and Think it's unbias?

Aren't these the same people who live in fear day in and day out of the possibly of those ebil Atheist Professors with their damned liberalism getting in power?

These aren't the sort of people I want playing around with my Internet. Allah knows people like Conservapedia will get a hold of this and attempt to edit out all the 'liberal bias' in the media.

No, this is bullshit.

Well, consider Spore. It's getting the shit kicked out of it in Amazon reviews, not necessarily because it's a bad game, but because of the DRM that only allows you to install it three times ever. Most of those people probably haven't bought the game, either, for exactly those reasons, and aren't exactly qualified to rate the game. It's mainly going to be a matter of how many users can be mustered to falsify results, and China's been looking into that sort of thing in the past.

Ummm not sure how that is relevent? As far as I can see, and judgeing by the examples given, this is just a way to strike out bias, or hyperboyle in this particular section of web press. As I say I can't see how that can be a bad thing.

Bwhahahah and I just tried to download it and install the thing, it only works on Firefox!

No. The media is biased by what sells news. People who would use this service are the people who watch news, thus the very people the bias is trying to attract. If anything it would skew things further afield of reality.

Definitely not.

A better version of this would be to have some agency respected as impartial to do the editing, rather than the masses, say the BBC. Would I use it then? Of course not - the bias you know, is the bias you can defend against.

So this is something I suspect will become very popular with NSG debaters, and rightly so.



Full article (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10036998-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20)

Would you use it?

Only 9% of journalists are concerned with the media's credibility? Wow, I must have met most of them already then, because 90% of the people I worked with at the paper were concerned about credibility. The only people who seemed unconcerned were the head editors.

ADDENDUM: Just giving the page a quick glance, I notice the headlines and subheads have been given the most attention. Anyone who bases the "truthfullness" or bias of an article on the headline is an idiot. Headlines are written by the people who design the page layouts, at least in newspapers, and the biggest objective in writing a headline is to fill the space slotted for it without having to blow up/shrink the font too much. Headlines are supposed to be eye-catching, brief and coherent. Spin may at times be entirely incidental.

So this is something I suspect will become very popular with NSG debaters, and rightly so.

Full article (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10036998-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20)

Would you use it?

Anyone who needs this to determine bias is already too ignorant to debate effectively.

You know what would be waaay more awesome Neo B? If you actually learned for yourself how to detect bias in sources by applying critical thinking. So you could actually learn how to present useful sources on point, instead of (for example) expecting us to accept blogs with no links to data or studies.

Where can I get the source code for this? I want to modify it to only remove right wing bias. This would not only allow me to win arguments easily but would also make Fox News unreadable :p

So this is something I suspect will become very popular with NSG debaters, and rightly so.



Full article (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10036998-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20)

Would you use it?

It's not bias as such I have problems with - it's the lack of credibility due to sloppy work, failure to check sources, inaccuracies, errors, hyperbole and sensationalism.

And that's also why I no longer trust Fox News, for example.