Recently, the folks at the Harvard Berkman Center and the MIT Media Lab had a really good conference and hackathon addressing Truthiness in Digital Media. That’s in the Stephen Colbert sense, where people make up stuff which they want to be true. A lot of good progress was reported, particularly involving citizens and professionals working together to do serious factchecking. Continue reading →

Problematic aspects of the democratization of truth in digital media are directly related to the leveling of gatekeeping actors in political communication environments. At the University of Washington, collaborating with the Department of Communication and the Information School researchers, we have tracked the most important viral election videos in 2008 (278 million views) and the “known-universe” of blogs linking (13,000 links) to them. This meta-database has allowed us to examine many aspects of networked gatekeeping (see: www.retroV.org for latest findings). Continue reading →

One of the key arguments put forth by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in their seminal thesis “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” (1988) and Chomsky’s classic “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies,” (1989) was that media as for- profit entities will aid and advance the interests of the elites of a society who control these institutions. Continue reading →

If there’s any place where trustworthy information is scarce it’s in politics. Everyone knows how candidates change their own stories while distorting those of their opponents. In an election race, it’s standard operating procedure to view the facts as endlessly malleable. Continue reading →

Folks, as you may know, I’ve been doing a lot of work with good orgs who are doing factchecking work, and voter protection. As the nation gears up for the general election in November, and news outlets increasingly cover campaign stops and primary results, my craigconnects team asked the polling firm Lincoln Park Strategies to survey likely voters to find out the real deal about what they look for in a news outlet, the trustworthiness of news outlets, and their opinion about the effect of social media on news quality. Check out the infographic to see the survey results. Continue reading →

If the media is the immune system of democracy, as Craig Newmark likes to say, then the act of asking questions of the powerful might be thought of as the mitochondria, the energy source that powers the immune system. A good question is one that presents its recipient with a problem that must be resolved. It may raise uncomfortable facts, or highlight a contradiction, or merely demand that its subject explain him or herself on a topic they have avoided or would prefer to not address. Good questions insist on accountability, and good questioners insist on real answers, not obfuscations. Continue reading →

I’ve been a reporter and/or editor for a couple of decades now, mostly investigating government and industry. I am accustomed to getting spun – or lied to. It’s part of the job. Continue reading →