zephyreks

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (7 children)

It's credibility and reliability, which I've already done and which you've acknowledged.

Just do the legwork to critique the source, it's not that hard. There's no need to cite bad sources just because they exist.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (9 children)

How would you support this claim? It's solid because it exists and people read it?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (11 children)

Professors of Practice tend to have experience in the industry they are professors in. Their reputation is hinged on their achievements, and they don't cite their degree as being instrumental to their credibility.

Edit: professors are also, y'know, subject to scrutiny and can't hide behind anonymity when they get things wrong.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (8 children)

"[MBFC's] subjective assessments leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in. Compared to Gentzkow and Shapiro, the five to 20 stories typically judged on these sites represent but a drop of mainstream news outlets’ production." - Columbia Journalism Review

"Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific." - PolitiFact journalists

MBFC is used when analyzing a large swathe of data because they have ratings for basically every news outlet. There, if a quarter or a third of the data is wrong, you can still generate enough signal to separate from noise.

It absolutely matters who is running a site because there's an inherent accountability for journalism. There's a reason you don't see NYT articles from "Anonymous Ostrich."

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (12 children)

Thing is, even if he is good at media criticism, there’s no stakes for him. Nobody knows who he is, what he looks like, he has nothing on the line, and his credibility in his primary occupation cannot be harmed if he is wrong.

Nevermind that he lacks the credentials nor any legitimate scientific expertise, and yet claims that his Bachelor’s in Physiology was sufficiently advanced to teach him everything he needs to know about the scientific process.

The dataset is seen in academia as being accurate enough to train machine learning models for or to make aggregate claims on. Machine learning models are not the bastions of truth, nor are their datasets.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Please avoid citing MBFC as a valid source. See my comment above.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (37 children)

Please avoid citing MBFC as a valid source.

Dave Van Zandt is a registered Non-Affiliated voter who values evidence-based reporting. Since High School (a long time ago), Dave has been interested in politics and noticed as a kid the same newspaper report in two different papers was very different in their tone. This curiosity led him to pursue a Communications Degree in college; however, like most 20-year olds he didn’t know what he wanted and changed to a Physiology major midstream. Dave has worked in the healthcare industry (Occupational Rehabilitation) since graduating from college but never lost the desire to learn more about bias and its impacts.

The combination of being fascinated by politics, a keen eye to spot bias before he even knew what it was called, and an education/career in science gave Dave the tools required for understanding Media Bias and its implications. This led to a 20-year journey where Dave would read anything and everything he could find on media bias and linguistics. He also employed the scientific method to develop a methodology to support his assessments.

If you’re going to discredit a source, please try to do the legwork of actually discrediting it. A guy with a Bachelors in Physiology and being “fascinated with politics since high school (a long time ago)” cannot be considered a reliable source, nevermind one who claims to follow the “scientific method” which he, presumably, learned while studying to become an occupational therapist or through his 20-year journey of reading political news.

If you have photos of this man, any record of interviews with him, records that support his credibility/the incorporation of his company, records of his job in occupational rehabilitation, details about his team, or anything else, please feel free to share them. Please do not confuse him with Dave E. Van Zandt (Princeton BA Sociology, Yale JD, London School of Economics PhD, ex-managing editor of the Yale Law Journal, ex-Dean of Northeastern’s School of Law, ex-President of The New School).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Read what the CPC actually claims. It's rather enlightening.

English language journalists opt for the more sensationalist take rather than the more accurate one.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (2 children)

If news gets traction and interaction from people around the world, who are you to say it isn't world news?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Separating conflicts into teams when there a children being killed in the tens of thousands seems... A little reductionist?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This is why citing Wikipedia leads you astray. For example, read more carefully into what the CPC actually claims. They do not claim to have achieved communism.

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