So, you don’t think amateur investigative journalism should even try to adhere to the standards of professional investigative journalism? (That’s the crux of my argument—I’m obviously not saying that everybody needs to be a trained investigative journalist to publish these kinds of pieces on EA Forum)
So, you don’t think amateur investigative journalism should even try to adhere to the standards of professional investigative journalism?
That’s not what I said. I said “I think it’s fine to investigate something and write up your conclusions without having training as an investigative journalist” in response to the first thing you proposed as a way to evaluate the piece: “Does the author have any training, experience, or accountability as an investigative journalist, so they can avoid the most common pitfalls, in terms of journalist ethics, due diligence, appropriate degrees of skepticism about what sources say, etc?”
I don’t know what the standards of professional investigative journalism are, so I’m unable to say whether amateur investigative journalism should try to adhere to them.
[EDIT: I can say what I think about the standards you propose in replies to this comment]
Did they ‘run it by legal’, in terms of checking for potential libel issues?
If Ben wants to assume liability for libel lawsuits, I don’t see why he should be prevented from doing so. In the domain of professional investigative journalism, I can see why a company would have this standard, since the company may not want to be held liable for things an individual journalist rashly said, but that strikes me as inapplicable in this case.
(Incidentally, it seems like this is probably a standard of professional investigative journalism that I don’t think amateur investigative journalism should attempt to adhere to)
Does the author have any personal relationship to any of their key sources? Any personal or professional conflicts of interest? Any personal agenda? Was their payment of money to anonymous sources appropriate and ethical?
These seem like reasonable questions to ask. I whole-heartedly agree that such amateur journalists should only make payments that are appropriate and ethical—in fact, this strikes me as tautological.
Would this post meet the standards of investigative journalism that’s typically published in mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Economist?
I’m not exactly sure what this means, not being aware of what those standards are. It does strike me that IIUC those venues typically attempt to cover issues of national or international importance (or in the case of the NYT and WaPo, issues of importance to New York City or Washington, DC), and that’s probably the wrong bar for importance for whether someone should publish something on the EA forum or LessWrong.
Anyway, hope these responses satisfy your curiosity!
Definitely more plausible, but as a rule, “whenever you engage in some risky activity, you should do it to the standards of the top organizations who do it” doesn’t seem a priori plausible.
Were the anonymous sources credible? Did they have any personal or professional incentives to make false allegations? Are they mentally healthy, stable, and responsible?
I think the first two questions make sense as good criteria (altho criteria that are hard to judge externally). As for the last question, I think somebody could be depressed and routinely show up late to events while still being a good anonymous source, altho for some kinds of mental unhealth, instability, and irresponsibility, I see how they could be disqualifying.
Does the author have significant experience judging the relative merits of contradictory claims by different sources with different degrees of credibility and conflicts of interest?
I think most of us have been in situations where different people have told us different things about some topic, and those different people have had different degrees of credibility and conflict of interest? At any rate, I’m more interested in whether the piece is right than whether the author has had experience.
Does the piece offer a coherent narrative that’s clearly organized according to a timeline of events, interactions, claims, counter-claims, and outcomes?
I think organization is a virtue, but not a must for a piece to be accurate or worth reading.
Does the piece show ‘scope-sensitivity’ in accurately judging the relative badness of different actions by different people and organizations, in terms of which things are actually trivial, which may have been unethical but not illegal, and which would be prosecutable in a court of law?
Did the author have any appropriate oversight, in terms of an editor ensuring that they were fair and balanced, or a fact-checking team that reached out independently to verify empirical claims, quotes, and background context?
I think it’s fine to attempt to do these sorts of things yourself, as long as you don’t make serious errors, and as long as you correct errors that pop up along the way.
Does the piece conform to accepted journalist standards in terms of truth, balance, open-mindedness, context-sensitivity, newsworthiness, credibility of sources, and avoidance of libel? (Or is it a biased article that presupposed its negative conclusions, aka a ‘hit piece’, ‘takedown’, or ‘hatchet job’).
As a consumer of journalism, it strikes me that different venues have different such standards, so I’m not really sure what your first question is supposed to mean. Regarding your parenthetical, I think presupposing negative (or positive!) conclusions is to be avoided, and I endorse negatively judging pieces that do that.
Did the author give the key targets of their negative coverage sufficient time and opportunity to respond to their allegations, and were their responses fully incorporated into the resulting piece, such that the overall content and tone of the coverage was fair and balanced?
Given the prominence of the comments sections in the venues where this piece has been published, I’d say allowing the targets to comment satisfies the value expressed by this. At any rate, I do think it’s good to incorporate responses from the targets of the coverage (as was done here), and I think that the overall tone of the coverage should be fair. I don’t know what “balance” is supposed to convey beyond fairness: I think that responses from the targets would ideally be reported where relevant and accurate, but otherwise I don’t think that e.g. half the piece should have to be praising the targets.
So, you don’t think amateur investigative journalism should even try to adhere to the standards of professional investigative journalism? (That’s the crux of my argument—I’m obviously not saying that everybody needs to be a trained investigative journalist to publish these kinds of pieces on EA Forum)
That’s not what I said. I said “I think it’s fine to investigate something and write up your conclusions without having training as an investigative journalist” in response to the first thing you proposed as a way to evaluate the piece: “Does the author have any training, experience, or accountability as an investigative journalist, so they can avoid the most common pitfalls, in terms of journalist ethics, due diligence, appropriate degrees of skepticism about what sources say, etc?”
I don’t know what the standards of professional investigative journalism are, so I’m unable to say whether amateur investigative journalism should try to adhere to them.
[EDIT: I can say what I think about the standards you propose in replies to this comment]
If Ben wants to assume liability for libel lawsuits, I don’t see why he should be prevented from doing so. In the domain of professional investigative journalism, I can see why a company would have this standard, since the company may not want to be held liable for things an individual journalist rashly said, but that strikes me as inapplicable in this case.
(Incidentally, it seems like this is probably a standard of professional investigative journalism that I don’t think amateur investigative journalism should attempt to adhere to)
These seem like reasonable questions to ask. I whole-heartedly agree that such amateur journalists should only make payments that are appropriate and ethical—in fact, this strikes me as tautological.
I’m not exactly sure what this means, not being aware of what those standards are. It does strike me that IIUC those venues typically attempt to cover issues of national or international importance (or in the case of the NYT and WaPo, issues of importance to New York City or Washington, DC), and that’s probably the wrong bar for importance for whether someone should publish something on the EA forum or LessWrong.
Anyway, hope these responses satisfy your curiosity!
A version of this focusing on reliability of the investigation, quality of the evidence, etc is a much more plausible version though.
Definitely more plausible, but as a rule, “whenever you engage in some risky activity, you should do it to the standards of the top organizations who do it” doesn’t seem a priori plausible.
I think the first two questions make sense as good criteria (altho criteria that are hard to judge externally). As for the last question, I think somebody could be depressed and routinely show up late to events while still being a good anonymous source, altho for some kinds of mental unhealth, instability, and irresponsibility, I see how they could be disqualifying.
I think most of us have been in situations where different people have told us different things about some topic, and those different people have had different degrees of credibility and conflict of interest? At any rate, I’m more interested in whether the piece is right than whether the author has had experience.
I think organization is a virtue, but not a must for a piece to be accurate or worth reading.
This strikes me as a good standard.
I think it’s fine to attempt to do these sorts of things yourself, as long as you don’t make serious errors, and as long as you correct errors that pop up along the way.
As a consumer of journalism, it strikes me that different venues have different such standards, so I’m not really sure what your first question is supposed to mean. Regarding your parenthetical, I think presupposing negative (or positive!) conclusions is to be avoided, and I endorse negatively judging pieces that do that.
Given the prominence of the comments sections in the venues where this piece has been published, I’d say allowing the targets to comment satisfies the value expressed by this. At any rate, I do think it’s good to incorporate responses from the targets of the coverage (as was done here), and I think that the overall tone of the coverage should be fair. I don’t know what “balance” is supposed to convey beyond fairness: I think that responses from the targets would ideally be reported where relevant and accurate, but otherwise I don’t think that e.g. half the piece should have to be praising the targets.