Journalism | Chris Aldrich

I’m a fan of the concept of George Lakoff’s “Truth Sandwich” idea in journalism. I’m curious with his recent spate of great publicity for it if any major outlets have taken it directly to heart? Are there any examples of major newspapers or online publishers taking it closely to heart? Has George or anyone created a news feed or Twitter account of articles covering Trump (or topics like the Alt-right, Nazis, etc.) that highlights articles which pull off the idea? I’d love to support journalism which goes to greater lengths to think about their coverage and it’s longer term effects. Having an ongoing list of articles as examples would help to extend the idea as well.

It would be cool to have something like NewsGuards’ browser extension for highlighting truth sandwiches, but I’m not sure how something like this could be built to be automated.

The best example of a truth sandwich I’ve come across thus far actually went a few steps further than the truth sandwich and chose not to cover what was sure to be untruth from the start: MSNBC declines to allow Sarah Sanders to dictate its programming (Washington Post).

🎧 ‘The Daily’: The Anonymous Senior Administration Official | New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: The Anonymous Senior Administration Official from New York Times

The New York Times published an account by an unnamed member of the Trump administration about resistance figures operating inside the government. “I would know,” the official wrote. “I am one of them.” The story behind an unsigned Op-Ed that describes a secret effort within the Trump administration to protect the country from the president.

👓 How the media should respond to Trump’s lies | Vox

Read How the media should respond to Trump’s lies by Sean Illing (Vox)

A linguist explains how Trump uses lies to divert attention from the "big truths."

I like that he delves into the idea of enlightment reasoning here and why it doesn’t work. This section of this article is what makes it a bit different from some of the interviews and articles that Lakoff has been appearing in lately.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

I take your point, but I wonder if Trump is just kryptonite for a liberal democratic system built on a free press. ❧

The key words being “free press” with free meaning that we’re free to exert intelligent editorial control.

Editors in the early 1900’s used this sort of editorial control not to give fuel to racists and Nazis and reduce their influence.Cross reference: Face the Racist Nation from On the Media.

Apparently we need to exert the same editorial control with respect to Trump, who not incidentally is giving significant fuel to the racist fire as well.
November 20, 2018 at 10:11AM

A lot of Democrats believe in what is called Enlightenment reasoning, and that if you just tell people the facts, they’ll reach the right conclusion. That just isn’t true. ❧

November 20, 2018 at 10:12AM

📑 How The Wall Street Journal is preparing its journalists to detect deepfakes | Nieman Lab

Annotated How The Wall Street Journal is preparing its journalists to detect deepfakes (Nieman Lab)

As deepfakes make their way into social media, their spread will likely follow the same pattern as other fake news stories. In a MIT study investigating the diffusion of false content on Twitter published between 2006 and 2017, researchers found that “falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than truth in all categories of information.” False stories were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than the truth and reached 1,500 people six times more quickly than accurate articles. ❧

This sort of research should make it easier to find and stamp out from the social media side of things. We need regulations to actually make it happen however.