[jjulius]

>Even if they do report for the BBC at other times, they aren’t reporting for the BBC in this tweet.

Right, hence the use of the phrase, "bbc reporters" and not, "the BBC". Given how common it is for reporters to tweet like this these days, that's a natural assumption one could - and should - be making when they read phrases like that. That was the very assumption that I made when I first read the comment.

>The BBC being mentioned here is misleading.

Not really, it's just saying, "Someone an outlet like the BBC trusts." Which is to say that while a claim hasn't been confirmed, it has a higher likelihood of being true relative to if you, myself, or any old Joe Schmoe had made the claim. That doesn't necessarily mean we should automatically assume it's true, but it also doesn't necessitate a complete write-off.

[zepto]

> "Someone an outlet like the BBC trusts."

The BBC clearly has not trusted these reports. Nor has any other journalistic outlet.

They are literally just the tweets of any old Joe Schmoe. It doesn’t matter who they work for, since the BBC is not taking any responsibility for the reports.

Journalism has fact checkers and editors for a reason.

[jjulius]

>The BBC clearly has not trusted these reports.

Nobody said they did. :)

>Nor has any other journalistic outlet.

False. Googling "us soldiers shot civilians airport kabul" brings up a number of articles about it, albeit not from Western outlets. I can provide links, if you'd like, but they show up in the first two pages of results.

Please note that this is not me endorsing the validity of those articles.

>They are literally just the tweets of any old Joe Schmoe. It doesn’t matter who they work for, since the BBC is not taking any responsibility for the reports.

We don't know why these claims haven't appeared in the BBC, or if they even bothered to look into them at all. That's also a pretty disingenuous take on the credentials and credibility of reporters. Again, I never said that what they claimed was true, just that it holds relatively more (even if it's just an ever-so-tiny-bit more) weight than if Joe Schmoe made a similar claim. Surely you'd agree that someone with actual knowledge and experience in a certain area is more trustworthy than someone with none at all? That's all I'm getting at.

Aren't grey areas fun? :)

>Journalism has fact checkers and editors for a reason.

Yep!

[zepto]

> I can provide links, if you'd like, but they show up in the first two pages of results.

Please share a link to one you trust.

> Surely you'd agree that someone with actual knowledge and experience in a certain area is more trustworthy than someone with none at all? That's all I'm getting at.

That’s obviously false. We have examples of people being untrustworthy at every level of expertise in every domain.

[jjulius]

>Please share a link to one you trust.

You're shifting goalposts now. All my comment was for was to correct your statement that "no other journalistic outlet" reported on this. True or not (and, again, I make no assertion either way in regards to those articles), it has been reported on in other outlets.

>That’s obviously false. We have examples of people being untrustworthy at every level of expertise in every domain.

And that's a fair point! That said, in regards to how quickly you're writing off those journalists, if that's your logic then everyone offering any kind of advice/input, giving a speech, training, whathaveyou, etc. related to the area in which they work should be ignored and/or assumed to be giving incorrect information to you if they're not doing so with the full endorsement of their employer or some higher authority.

But you and I both know that that's a rather poor way of looking at things, which is why I clearly stated, "that doesn't necessarily mean we should automatically assume it's true, but it also doesn't necessitate a complete write-off."

[zepto]

> You're shifting goalposts now. All my comment was for was to correct your statement that "no other journalistic outlet" reported on this. True or not (and, again, I make no assertion either way in regards to those articles), it has been reported on in other outlets.

Fair enough, however let’s note that you haven’t pointed to any journalism that you trust on this matter, so it doesn’t change the credibility implications.

> if that's your logic then everyone offering any kind of advice/input, giving a speech, training, whathaveyou, etc. related to the area in which they work should be ignored and/or assumed to be giving incorrect information to you if they're not doing so with the full endorsement of their employer or some higher authority.

No, this is also obviously not true.

There are plenty of other ways credibility is established in different fields which are independent of a particular authority.

Even without that, most of what people giving trainings or speeches on can be verified by the receiver independently.

We have none of that in this case.

[samvega_]

Your argument doesn't hold water here, since it assumes that the BBC regularly makes official reports on NATO war crimes in Afghanistan. This is something they do voluntarily very, very rarely, if ever - esp. not recent ones. The BBC would have acted the same way had the reports been true or not. It's not verified because they made no attempt to verify it. We have to rely on individual journalists, wikileaks and non-MSM for such reports for the most part.

[zepto]

My argument is that these are unverified tweets, and nothing more.

It holds water perfectly.

Your argument seems vaguely conspiratorial.

[samvega_]

No, you're also using the fact that they're unverified as an argument against their credibility. However, that only makes sense if the BBC did make attempts to verify it and would publicize it if true. The fact is that BBC and western MSM hardly if ever cover such news. There's nothing conspiratorial about my argument, it's a simple, practical application of Bayes' rule in probability.

In fact, it's your doubt that is conspiratorial thinking, because you think it's more likely that many different sources and media reporters conspire to form a false narrative about this.

[zepto]

> No, you're also using the fact that they're unverified as an argument against their credibility.

Yes, a series of unverified tweets are not very credible as news.

If you think tweets should be taken as credible without verification, that certainly isn’t unusual in the population, but I don’t recommend it.

> because you think it's more likely that many different sources and media reporters conspire to form a false narrative about this.

No - that’s your position. The false narrative is your claim that what you are calling ”Nato war crimes” are ignored for some reason by western media.

That’s clearly false. Today for example, New York Times posted an analysis of how the drone attack against isis-k probably just killed the wrong target, and the BBC picked the story up and reported it too.

Your argument rests solely on completely unverified tweets, and your conspiratorial claim that the media isn’t interested in the story.

It’s more likely that the story just isn’t substantiated.