Co-founder of Snopes plagiarized articles & used fake by-line

[pinball]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/snopes-cofounder-plagiarism-mikkelson
 

who’s gonna be the first person to claim she never trusted snopes?

🤥🤥🤥

[Slache]

That would be me, but I actually have evidence of it my post history. I believe they are quite often inaccurate.

[popmom]

That was a really interesting article. I actually never knew Snopes reported "news". 

[Melissa Louise]

I don't trust any outlet, at all. Left, right or centre, they all either lie to me or otherwise demonstrate their great big blind spots. Snopes has 'em. No more or less than other sources. Sometimes they are right with their facts, sometimes their facts fall right into the blind spot. 

Plagiarism is so lazy. I hate lazy writers. 

But, you know, who cares? It's nothing worse than all the other junk journalism out there. Maybe often better? 

You gotta sift through all of it. Even your most beloved sources. Especially them. As if there isn't plagiarism and b/s galore on the entire spectrum of journalism, right as well as left. 

 

[Slache]

10 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I don't trust any outlet, at all. Left, right or centre, they all either lie to me or otherwise demonstrate their great big blind spots.

Exactly. If you're looking for truth you're not going to find it in the news.

[Excelsior! Academy]

40 minutes ago, Slache said:

That would be me, but I actually have evidence of it my post history. I believe they are quite often inaccurate.

Same here.

[Moonhawk]

I will say that I trusted Snopes, but not unreservedly and not without checking other sources too. I would use them for really big claims like, "Did Yoko Ono sell the entire Beatles catalog to Sony?" type of things, where there are easily verifiable facts in records and documents. And then I'd check a few other fact-checking websites. I never typed "snopes.com" to check something, I'd type it to Google and see what came up and if they were there I'd probably click (along with other visited websites).

So yes I use/d them, but that doesn't mean I handed my brain to them when I landed on their site. 

Also I think Snopes is bigger than one person? I guess you can say if this guy formed the culture it could be completely all made of liar liar pants on fires, but I'm not sure that this means *everything* they've said is wrong, or that this means *everything* they've said is biased. But, that everything should be looked at critically. Like we should have been doing anyway.

[Jean in Newcastle]

21 minutes ago, Moonhawk said:

I will say that I trusted Snopes, but not unreservedly and not without checking other sources too. I would use them for really big claims like, "Did Yoko Ono sell the entire Beatles catalog to Sony?" type of things, where there are easily verifiable facts in records and documents. And then I'd check a few other fact-checking websites. I never typed "snopes.com" to check something, I'd type it to Google and see what came up and if they were there I'd probably click (along with other visited websites).

So yes I use/d them, but that doesn't mean I handed my brain to them when I landed on their site. 

Also I think Snopes is bigger than one person? I guess you can say if this guy formed the culture it could be completely all made of liar liar pants on fires, but I'm not sure that this means *everything* they've said is wrong, or that this means *everything* they've said is biased. But, that everything should be looked at critically. Like we should have been doing anyway.

Ditto. 

[KSera]

38 minutes ago, Moonhawk said:

Also I think Snopes is bigger than one person? I guess you can say if this guy formed the culture it could be completely all made of liar liar pants on fires, but I'm not sure that this means *everything* they've said is wrong, or that this means *everything* they've said is biased. But, that everything should be looked at critically. Like we should have been doing anyway.

Yes, I agree.  Their response to this was good, IMO. They’re taking it very seriously and both leadership and other writers are making clear the behavior was completely unacceptable. I got the idea this didn’t have much to do with their general fact check articles, but was mostly monetized “news” articles. I didn’t even know Snopes published regular news stories. I’ve never  read one there. I think it’s a problem for people to decide there is no trustworthy news. The alternative is for everyone to decide on their own facts, which far too many people really do think is a legitimate way to determine what is and isn’t true. 
 

I know there will be people who think this means they can say nothing published on snopes was ever true and their fact checks are all wrong. 

[MercyA]

Eh, I'll probably still use them for checking out crazy stories and for light reading. I'm not shocked or dismayed.

[KSera]

I like https://www.factcheck.org. They have the highest ratings of “least biased” and “highly factual” On https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/factcheck/ 

• Overall, Factcheck.org is a least biased credible fact-checker that is Very High for factual reporting due to impeccable sourcing of information. 
  
   
•  eta: I just looked up what Media Bias Fact Check is now rating Snopes. Here’s their summary paragraph:
• https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/snopes/
•  
• We rate Snopes Left-Center biased based on news story selection that slightly favors a liberal perspective. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to an investigation that indicates a co-founding editor engaged in plagiarism. The plagiarism was not related to Fact-Checks and they remain credible for fact-checking.

 

Their listing is actually pretty interesting to read in entirety. Among quotes 

“In 2012, FactCheck.org reviewed a sample of Snopes’ responses to political rumors regarding George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama and found them free from bias in all cases. Critics of the site have made the false claim that the website is funded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, which has been debunked many times as they are funded through advertising and donations, which they disclose.”

“According to research performed by Real Clear Politics in the article: Snopes and Editorializing Fact Checks, they determined that out of the six fact-checkers working with Facebook, “that Snopes is the least likely to fact-check matters of opinion.” This is important because opinion is something that cannot be fact-checked. The article went on to say, “We have found that since we started our project, Snopes has fact-checked opinions only 2 percent of the time. In other words, 98 percent of the time, it sticks to matters of verifiable fact. Such an achievement is even more remarkable given that during this period, they produced the second-most articles of the six fact-checking outfits.”

In 2021, Snopes’ fact-checks remain properly sourced and factual. We have also found a reasonable balance between fact checks on the right and left as a new Democratic administration makes statements subject to fact-checking.”

 

So, as it sounded to me in the Buzzfeed article, their fact checks are still reliable and not affected by the Buzzfeed investigation. 

sorry for the weird bullet formatting. I can’t get rid of it from mobile. 

Edited August 14, 2021 by KSera
More details.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Count me as another who didn’t know that they published articles. I have only used them to fact check urban legends and conspiracy theories. Mostly urban legends. Conspiracy theories I tend to check out elsewhere. 
 

eta:  I don’t get the “gotcha” vibe of the original post. 

Edited August 14, 2021 by Jean in Newcastle

[Frances]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

I think it’s a problem for people to decide there is no trustworthy news. The alternative is for everyone to decide on their own facts, which far too many people really do think is a legitimate way to determine what is and isn’t true. 
 

QFT. I honestly don’t know how we get out of this mess of misinformation, lies, conspiracy theories, and alternative facts being substituted for the truth and many people not just tolerating, but actively embracing leaders who blatantly lie about fundamentally important things. But I highly doubt it’s by continually saying that no media source can be trusted at all.
 

I also think it’s highly problematic to lump all news sources together, as though they are all equally bad and biased. Of course none are perfect and we need to be aware of biases, read critically (or watch or listen if that is your preference), and use a variety of sources. But to so casually dismiss all of them as untruthful is truly frightening for me to see. How does that possibly end well for our country, democracy, and the free press?

 

 

[Melissa Louise]

16 minutes ago, Frances said:

QFT. I honestly don’t know how we get out of this mess of misinformation, lies, conspiracy theories, and alternative facts being substituted for the truth and many people not just tolerating, but actively embracing leaders who blatantly lie about fundamentally important things. But I highly doubt it’s by continually saying that no media source can be trusted at all.
 

I also think it’s highly problematic to lump all news sources together, as though they are all equally bad and biased. Of course none are perfect and we need to be aware of biases, read critically (or watch or listen if that is your preference), and use a variety of sources. But to so casually dismiss all of them as untruthful is truly frightening for me to see. How does that possibly end well for our country, democracy, and the free press?

 

 

Journalism is dead on its feet, for a variety of reasons. 

I can still rank sources from least lies/errors to most, but tbh I don't think my trust in journalism will ever recover from watching my favourite source, The Guardian - read it since the 90's - undergo a form of financial and ideological capture on a variety of issues.

To the point where I find about half of it unreadable. It's literally just click bait. Worse than, because it's dressed up as journalism. 

 

 

 

[KSera]

22 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

To the point where I find about half of it unreadable. It's literally just click bait. Worse than, because it's dressed up as journalism. 

I think the Internet has been the main contributor to this. People stopped subscribing to newspapers, and instead expect to get their news for free online. In order to keep going, many news outlets have become dependent on advertising dollars earned through clicks. And it seems people click more on certain kinds of stories that are more “entertaining”. It’s a hard problem. I’ve made it a point to pay for a National and a local new subscription for the past couple years, when I never did before, to support journalism, but I know that’s not practical for everyone. It’s a good thing to do for those who can, though. On the other hand, I get as annoyed as the next person when I want to read an article on a pay walled site and I can’t. I can’t afford to subscribe everywhere, though.

[Melissa Louise]

11 minutes ago, KSera said:

I think the Internet has been the main contributor to this. People stopped subscribing to newspapers, and instead expect to get their news for free online. In order to keep going, many news outlets have become dependent on advertising dollars earned through clicks. And it seems people click more on certain kinds of stories that are more “entertaining”. It’s a hard problem. I’ve made it a point to pay for a National and a local new subscription for the past couple years, when I never did before, to support journalism, but I know that’s not practical for everyone. It’s a good thing to do for those who can, though. On the other hand, I get as annoyed as the next person when I want to read an article on a pay walled site and I can’t. I can’t afford to subscribe everywhere, though.

It's the collapse of the subscription + advertising model (though TG lost my subscription only very recently ), the rise of the click model,  and a shift in how journalists are trained (in the academy, not at the desk). Resulting shift in ethics. Not good. 

[TravelingChris]

6 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Count me as another who didn’t know that they published articles. I have only used them to fact check urban legends and conspiracy theories. Mostly urban legends. Conspiracy theories I tend to check out elsewhere. 
 

eta:  I don’t get the “gotcha” vibe of the original post. 

The man was one of two people who founded it.  And yes, I have only found it good for checking Urban Legends.  I don't go there for anything else since they get things wrong at times, specifically in the liberal direction, just by the way they choose which facts to confirm or even the fact that they are confirming or disconfirming a joke.

Probably OP was referring to their errors or liberal bias or their overreach in topics they choose to decide whether they are true or not,  

I don't think I have used Snopes for a very long time.  I don\'t remember exactly which sites pop up when I look for Urban Legends, and that kind of thing but I think I normally head to Wikipedia.

[Danae]

22 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

The man was one of two people who founded it.  And yes, I have only found it good for checking Urban Legends.  I don't go there for anything else since they get things wrong at times, specifically in the liberal direction, just by the way they choose which facts to confirm or even the fact that they are confirming or disconfirming a joke.

Probably OP was referring to their errors or liberal bias or their overreach in topics they choose to decide whether they are true or not,  

I don't think I have used Snopes for a very long time.  I don\'t remember exactly which sites pop up when I look for Urban Legends, and that kind of thing but I think I normally head to Wikipedia.

You would think that you don’t need to do this, but the number of people who read a satirical news article and take it seriously is depressing.  

[Jean in Newcastle]

23 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

The man was one of two people who founded it.  And yes, I have only found it good for checking Urban Legends.  I don't go there for anything else since they get things wrong at times, specifically in the liberal direction, just by the way they choose which facts to confirm or even the fact that they are confirming or disconfirming a joke.

Probably OP was referring to their errors or liberal bias or their overreach in topics they choose to decide whether they are true or not,  

I don't think I have used Snopes for a very long time.  I don\'t remember exactly which sites pop up when I look for Urban Legends, and that kind of thing but I think I normally head to Wikipedia.

I don’t see the bias, liberal or otherwise, in fact-checking whether there are alligators in the sewers. (Btw- just googling that brought up multiple articles plus a book title, not just a snopes article on it. ). It’s rare? never? that snopes is the only source of information on something. 
 

If I am going to fact-check a politician claim there are much better sources for that information. 

[catz]

Isn't this what we want to see news organizations do when there is corruption is to publicly oust people?  Are there really tons of people here sourcing Snopes all the time as a primary source?  I hope most people are using a variety of sources (preferably leaning to the center) to get their news and will call it out when any sources are misleading or corrupt.  

I had no ideas snopes had regular articles either.  One good thing about fact check articles and they almost always cross reference and link back to a variety of sources.  All sides is my preferred site like that now if I'm going to go to one.  Reuters has good fact check articles too.