[VikingCoder]

I perceive your comment as nothing more than an ad hominem attack, so I struggle to understand why others have apparently voted it up.

The main reasons I trust any sources of information is that I trust that they hold themselves to a standard of journalism - such as verifying their sources. Doing original primary research into subjects.

When a video shows up in my Facebook news feed, I'm now more suspicious of it than ever before. Especially if it's from some source that I do not believe holds themselves to any journalistic standard.

I'm not pretending authority is an easy problem - it's not. I trust my pediatrician to be my proxy into understanding the world of pediatric medicine, I trust her as an authority. My family trusts me to be a proxy into understanding the world of technology, they trust me as an authority. And I have learned over time that some journalistic sources are good at reporting - they have a good track record, given the perspective of time.

And it's not even "old" versus "new." I quickly trusted the perspective of fivethirtyeight.com. Even in the crucible of debate, I find snopes vastly more right than they are wrong.

Video evidence used to be entirely damning. We should all ask harder questions now, rather than just taking some random video on faith.

[creaghpatr]

We have front page stories in the NYT, WSJ et al that hinge entirely on 'unnamed sources' '[gov org] senior officials' and 'people familiar with the matter'.

Video should be easy because it's either real or it's not. For stories based on secret sources, we never get a chance to ask the source if they really said that.

[distances]

> We have front page stories in the NYT, WSJ et al that hinge entirely on 'unnamed sources' '[gov org] senior officials' and 'people familiar with the matter'.

That's about trusting the journalistic integrity the parent mentioned. I do trust journalists to know/keep track which sources are reliable, and report truthfully. Of course the source may have their own agenda on revealing things, but that's part of how the news landscape works.

[VikingCoder]

Good point - "selective revealing" is also something awful.

We've got lists of the logical fallacies. Other than going to journalism school, is there a good list we can refer to for "journalistic sins"?

[VikingCoder]

Yes, and the NYT, WSJ, and many others, have an excellent track record of only publishing stories that hinge on "unnamed sources" "senior officials" and "people familiar with the matter" when they should.

They are asking me to trust them that, if I knew who their sources were, that I would trust their sources. As journalists, they ask that I believe them that they have confirmed the matter through multiple independent means.

And they are judged entirely on their track record.

This is not science. We cannot see their original research, we cannot reproduce their results.

> Video should be easy because it's either real or it's not.

Did you watch the videos in this story? That's simply not true. It's actually never been completely true, but now video is less trustworthy than before because it's getting vastly easier to create convincing fake video.

We used to have to contend with dishonest people editing context out, or even hiring actors. Now we can see convincing but completely fake video produced quickly and cheaply by "somebody sitting on their bed weighing 400 pounds". [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfVce4rELAY

[creaghpatr]

>We used to have to contend with dishonest people editing context out

Any reporter relying on unnamed sources is selectively editing context out, whether complicity or not. It's the price you pay for access.

[VikingCoder]

I had a different meaning of the phrase in mind - I meant like in a video.

"Now, my opponents would like you to think I hate all guns, and want to get rid of them. But that's not true!"

With the kind of context editing I was referring to, that can easily become:

"I hate all guns, and want to get rid of them."

But yes, when we trust a journalist to cite unnamed sources, yes, of course, we lose much of the context. And if over time it turns out the news source has a bad habit of covering the news poorly, we should stop giving them attention.