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Fluffaway

Get to the point of the story
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This website would aggregate a modified version of common news stories. The publisher would read various news stories and separate all possible bias by removing everything but verifiable facts. The bare bones facts would be published as new stories. Weasel phrases like "some claim" would also be eliminated, as some people can be found who claim anything at all. I've linked an arbitrary story from Google News. There's a lot of fluff and weasel in almost every news story. As an example for this story the verifiable facts are:

(Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson expected to be confirmed this week after bipartisan procedural vote Monday)-->Monday here will be a bipartisan procedural vote on whether to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.

(Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is expected to be confirmed as the first Black woman Supreme Court justice this week, after a bipartisan group of senators voted on Monday to advance her nomination.)-->Jackson would be the first black female Supreme Court justice.

(After the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-11, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a vote to break the deadlock and send her nomination to the floor. Every Democrat and three Republican senators -- Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- voted in support of Jackson.)-->kept as is.

You get the point. Just the actual facts from news stories would be included. Statements like this:

("Justice Jackson will bring to the Supreme Court, the highest level of skill, integrity, civility and grace," said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the Judiciary Committee chairman, in explaining his support for her on Monday. "This committee's action today is nothing less than making history. I'm honored to be part of it.")

would also be eliminated as they are intended to bias the viewer toward one or another opinion as to the matter at hand: Someone's opinion would not be included in an article. Aggregate opinions may be. For example a percentage of Judiciary Committee chairpersons could be listed as for or against the move.

Any statement made by anyone for any purpose would be very unlikely to make the cut. They would only be published as essays describing in some detail the background, the circumstances, whether the person in question prepared the words himself based on his history of doing so, whether there was time and funding to run the statement past focus groups, how well the statement matches the general gist of what the person has been saying, and so on. One exception: full official speeches could be included as given and without commentary and complete interviews would be published when there was a clock in the background to prove nothing was omitted from question or answer.
Voice, Apr 05 2022

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson expected to be confirmed this week after bipartisan procedural vote Monday https://www.cnn.com...tee-vote/index.html
[Voice, Apr 05 2022]

7 basic plots? https://en.wikipedi...e_Seven_Basic_Plots
To bury the lead [4and20, Apr 05 2022]

Wouldja lookit them talkin heads. https://theweek.com...ing-about-fake-news
Obviously... this is extremely dangerous to our democracy... [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 06 2022]


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Annotation:







       You son of a bitch, I'm in. [+]
21 Quest, Apr 05 2022
  

       //separate all possible bias//   

       Regrettably not possible. Sorry.   

       On the other hand, there'd be merit in a feature which auto- trashed everything that began "Some people are saying ..." or "A lot of people are asking ..."
pertinax, Apr 05 2022
  

       Experts have shown that fake news prevails even in the face of "facts" [Covid vaccines contain alien DNA] [global warming is a hoax] [wind turbines are the cause of cancer] etc
xenzag, Apr 05 2022
  

       + Good luck getting liars to tell the truth.
xandram, Apr 05 2022
  

       Shut up and take my vote. [+]
doctorremulac3, Apr 05 2022
  

       If it's true that there are 7 basic story plots, maybe it's just a matter of proper tagging, although, admittedly, a tag such as "tragedy" contains a form of editorializing.
4and20, Apr 05 2022
  

       //Snopes? Politifact?// The idea isn't a fact checking website: It wouldn't do extensive research to do the verification. Rather it would simply extract statements of fact and publish only those.
Voice, Apr 05 2022
  

       You know what I mean you pedant.
Voice, Apr 05 2022
  

       Fair enough, but I never said the proposed site would do no fact checking at all.
Voice, Apr 05 2022
  

       Not quite. I want a site that does a decent amount of fact checking but is not about fact checking, which doesn't publish fact checks or grades but statements of fact pulled from news sources on a 1:1 basis. And the fact checkers don't get credit but their sources do.
Voice, Apr 05 2022
  

       While not much more factual, it would at least not be blatantly attempting to mislead.
Voice, Apr 06 2022
  

       Do any of you still think that we are not living through a massively coordinated con job?   

       Still?
Really?
Fuck.
  

       Really?   

       [link]   

       Nice link, [2 fries], and a good argument for laws limiting concentrations of media ownership. However, the massive co- ordination in this case doesn't extend beyond a wealthy media owner telling his outlets what to say, which has been going on at least since William Randolph Hearst and Lord Beaverbrook.   

       And, fortunately, there are still independent outlets (such as The Week) to call bullshit on it.
pertinax, Apr 06 2022
  


 

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