Dan GillmorDec 30, 2022

The Santos/fraud situation is bad news for journalism on two grounds, but the Washington Post noticed only one of them.

The Post's coverage highlights Big Journalism's utter failure to do its job in a timely way even when a smaller news org had blown the whistle on some of Santos' lies weeks before the election.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/29/north-shore-leader-santos-scoop/

1/x

(Edited to remove errant apostrophe...)

A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal but no one paid attention

The North Shore Leader was onto his lies months before he was elected in New York.

The Washington Post
Show threadDan GillmorDec 30, 2022

That was bad enough. But there's another journalistic aspect to this situation that may be even worse.

The small news org that did cover the Santos deceit didn't have enough clout in its own community to make a difference.

There was a time in local journalism when coverage of (and scathing anti-Santos editorial about) the candidate's lies would have been enough to ensure his defeat.

2/x

Show threadDCrockerDec 30, 2022
@dangillmor Increasing clout can come in two, related way. One is active promotion from the source, by pushing articles to people and/or organizations that can extend the reach. There can also be a 'pull' approach, where Reach-extending intermediaries can search for items. Curation of articles has always been an essential quality control feature of better news organizations. What we have now is a need for independent curation and promotion.
Show threadDan GillmorDec 31, 2022
@dcrocker Yes, very true. A critical need is to amplify the things that are important, but the overwhelming preference in the journalistic world is to amplify clickbait. And journalists have always been reluctant to highlight what other news orgs do, for a variety of (mostly) ridiculous reasons.
Show threadDCrockerJan 6, 2023
@dangillmor I'm wondering about a consumer-side group to do this. That is, forming an organization that is driven by its subscribers to do the curation. (I know. Truly remarkable suggestion. Why has no one ever thought of this model before... sigh.)
Show threadGraham KJan 6, 2023
@dcrocker @dangillmor Arguably, this is how Twitter worked, and Mastodon now works, for me. There is a bunch of people I follow, and their choices determine what I see. I miss lots, but there’s very little clickbait.
Show threadDCrockerJan 7, 2023
@gklyne @dangillmor The curation and propagation process, with something like Mastodon, is individual and accidental. That can produce interesting serendipity, but pretty much also guarantees missing significant material. While there's no perfect solution, I think an additional and different mechanism could be quite useful.
Show threadDCrocker

@gklyne @dangillmor Considering incentives, I think a model to consider is a consumer-funded non-profit, with subscriber-based oversight.

It would need a detailed charter to establish philosophy and operational style, with a function of acquiring material/articles to propagate, by actively looking for it, and by being responsive to material that is submitted.

This makes it somewhat like an old-time clipping service, but with a more interesting publication philosophy.

Jan 7, 2023 at 4:50pmWhalebird