He/Him

Sneaking all around the fediverse.

Also at breakfastmtm@fedia.social breakfastmtn@pixelfed.social

  • 52 Posts
  • 17 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 4th, 2023

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  • Sorry, no mea culpa.

    If you think being an unrepentant liar is good for your cred, fill your boots, I guess.

    It should be noted that despite no non-partisan fact checkers are listed on MBFC’s site as raising concerns about the The Cradle’s credibility, Van Zandt has arbitrarily placed it in the “Factual Reporting: Mixed” and “Credibility: Medium” categories. The concerns he posits about The Cradle’s 'lack of transparency, poor sourcing," and one-sidedness clearly apply to the weird right-wing guy who makes these opaque decisions about journalistic value.

    ‘I don’t understand how it works so it’s stupid!’

    1. The Cradle is a rag that’s been banned by Wikipedia for publishing conspiracy theories and for (gasp!) poor sourcing.
    2. If you had read their methodology, you’d know that MBFC wasn’t being arbitrary as lack of transparency and the impact are clearly defined:

    A source is considered to lack transparency if it fails to provide an ‘About’ page or a clear description of its mission. Transparency is further compromised if the ownership of the source is not openly disclosed, including the identification of the parent company and key individuals involved. Additionally, the absence of information about major donors, funding sources, or general revenue generation methods contributes to this lack of transparency. It is essential for the source to at least disclose the country, state, or city of operation and the name of the person responsible (such as the editor). While providing a physical address is not mandatory, meeting some of these transparency criteria is important. Inadequate transparency typically results in the source’s factual reporting rating being reduced by one or two levels, depending on the extent of the shortfall.

    Credibility Levels:

    • High Credibility: A score of 6 or above.
    • Medium Credibility: A score between 3-5 points. Sources lacking an ‘About’ page or ownership information are automatically rated as Medium Credibility.
    • Low Credibility: A score of 0-2 points. Sources rated as Questionable, Conspiracy, or Pseudoscience are automatically classified as Low Credibility.

    This is from the report:

    The Cradle lacks transparency as they do not disclose ownership. The domain is registered in the United States.

    Who could’ve seen that rating coming?

    Methodical is the opposite of arbitrary. The reason it seems arbitrary to you is that you don’t understand it. As a bare minimum to be critical of MBFC you should understand how it works, understand their methodology, and probably have read their Wikipedia page. Bonus points for seeing what high quality research says about them (spoiler alert: it says you’re wrong). You’re demanding that people take very seriously your misinterpretations and assumptions about something you don’t understand. How is that a reasonable request?


  • What an odd form for a mea culpa to take!

    You seemed to care passionately about IFCN fact-checkers doing the fact-checking. It turns out that MBFC agrees with you. Your (feigned) concern has been completely addressed in just the way you’d hoped. A person making that argument in good faith might say, “Oh! Maybe this is a better resource than I thought it was,” or maybe,“I should probably apologize to Rooki for harassing them about something I appear to have just made up.” Instead you just spin it into some other nebulous bullshit and move the goal posts. If you’re not careful, people might begin to suspect that you’re starting with the conclusion and working backwards.


  • This biased as shit publication is declared by MBFC as VEEEERY slightly center-right. They make almost no mention of the fact that they cherry pick aspects of the Israel war to highlight

    You keep repeating this lie.

    From their report on the Jerusalem Post:

    Overall, we rate The Jerusalem Post Right-Center biased based on editorial positions that favor the right-leaning government. We also rate them Mostly Factual for reporting rather than High due to two failed fact checks.

    Until 1989, the Jerusalem Post’s political leaning was left-leaning as it supported the ruling Labor Party. After Conrad Black acquired the paper, its political position changed to right-leaning, when Black began hiring conservative journalists and editors. Eli Azur is the current owner of Jerusalem Post. According to Ynetnews, and a Haaretz article, “Benjamin Netanyahu, the Editor in Chief,” in 2017, Azur gave testimony regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pressure. Current Editor Yaakov Katz was the former senior policy advisor to Naftali Bennett, the former Prime Minister and head of the far-right political party, “New Right.”

    In review, The Jerusalem Post covers Israeli and regional news with strongly emotionally loaded language with right-leaning bias with articles such as this “Country’s founding Labor party survives near extinction” and “Netanyahu slams settler leader for insulting Trump.” . . . During the 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict, the majority of stories favored the Israeli government, such as this Netanyahu to Hezbollah: If you attack, we’ll turn Beirut into Gaza. In general, the Jerusalem Post holds right-leaning editorial biases and is usually factual in reporting.

    They literally mention their bias over and over. Center-right is consistent with how they’re rated everywhere. Allsides rates them center with the note that the community thinks they lean right. Wikipedia rates them as centre-right/conservative. Your “VEEEERY slightly” bit is pure fabrication. They specifically note that they’re a highly biased source on the conflict in Gaza.