Journalism's failure to adopt linking to sources etc in the internet age is kind of infuriating. I get it, back in physical newspaper/magazine days, linking wasn't possible, and it takes a while for new norms to change and habits to form, but articles have been internet-first for well over a decade at this point. It should be completely unacceptable not to have linking to sources whenever relevant. I'm not sure I have ever found a news article that makes finding the original source or subject of the article easy. Certainly not on mainstream news outlets.
It’s infuriating because, when debating, we’re asked to cite our sources.
We’d like to cite sources but journalists don’t cite theirs.
Now consider this: When you know journalists are spreading a lie, you can show the article and the scientific study which says the opposite, because people always claim that it isn’t the study cited by the article.
Case in point: I remember this article from the BBC titled “It’s proven, women are smarter than men. [In a scientific study about multitasking, …]”
The scientific paper published the month before on the same subject had an abstract that finished with “…, therefore we cannot conclude that women are smarter than men.”
I was particularly angry because it participated to the 2017 wave, and it was about multitasking, and once again it said women are 5s faster on a 170s task (with 15s stddev), but the study didn’t underline the accuracy of the two tasks in parallel, which was worse for women than men.
Anybody who mocks me about competing with girls, should respond why the BBC need to publish a petty news article about women being smarter.
If they’re not providing essential links then it’s not journalism. They shouldn’t be given credit for a title they are not earning.
If you pet barks, do you still call it a cat? Of course not.
Links make it journalism. Not linking makes it reporting. They should not be considered synonymous.
The point is, people who should know better keep calling the likes of CNN journalism and those who don’t know any better keep believing they’re consuming content and forming understanding based on journalism.
