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Unfortunately when it comes to reputation, you're only as good as your worst offenses portray you. It's very hard to make the argument that "most of it is good, so there isn't a problem."

A scientific journal doesn't say "hey - we only occasionally let through a few articles without peer review; the majority of our content is peer reviewed, so we're ok."

Even the most "trustworthy" US-based news organizations have lost a lot of credibility in the past couple of weeks. And yes, there have even been a fair number of cases of deliberate and calculated lying - all without corrections or retractions.

Or, you know, keep trusting these companies (not knowing which stories are "mistakes" vs truth). I'm not going to stop anyone from trusting a source of information just because I don't trust it myself.

Still, the point of my original comment is more about how we deal with it in social media. I have no problem letting the market decide what to do with media organizations.



"X is considered a really good sports team, but they only won 48 of 49 games in the regular season so basically they're shit because they lost."

No, it doesn't work that way.

News organizations, like people, make mistakes. It's how they address those mistakes that matter.


Reputation doesn't work that way, I'm afraid.

If genuine mistakes are made, those responsible admit those mistakes and issue corrections. When that happens, one's reputation can remain mostly intact.


That's exactly why I'm saying it's not the mistakes that matter, but the corrections and the handling of them.


Yes, and the failure to admit and correct a large number of mistakes (or lies) is exactly why so many media organizations have lost credibility.




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