… and other cheap shots at kos and DK that have been bugging me lately.
As tends to happen with me, this diary was written because I got pissed about an assumption that was made in a comment. A whole set of assumptions, actually, evidently acceptable because the commenter, though a long term member, doesn’t much seem to like Daily Kos. And, as usual, that particular comment was only the icing on the cake of a long line of comments putting down the site, moderation, staff, and of course, kos.
While it’s accepted that insults to kos get a pass, my biggest problem with them is that nobody seems to want to bother to do them right. People don’t bother to find sources to back up what they’re saying, they don’t bother to get the facts straight, they only want to take a shot and get “attaboy”s from like minded users. Like going up and ringing the bell on old man Jenkins’ door at midnight and running away before he can come out and catch you.
I suppose this gives the perpetrators a certain amount of status among their peers. I’m not sure what it says about their peers, though.
In any case, back to Acme — I mean, NewsGuard.
And I do mean “Acme” as in “Remember the company that manufactured all the wonderful things on Looney Tunes?”
It doesn’t matter if your real name is Sean Hannity, anything written under that name will have more credibility in re: fake news than anything written by anyone with a pseudonym on Daily Kos
The label for dailykos.com contends that while the site avoids deceptive headlines and does not regularly publish false content, it is docked for issues such as blurring news and opinion. The detailed label also explains that the site publishes a great deal of content written by contributors who may be anonymous and may not publish corrections, which gets the site docked for gathering and presenting information irresponsibly. Apr 08, 2019 www.libraryjournal.com/… (My emphasis.)
The quote above was one of the few that I found that I consider to be relatively neutral. As usual, sites that have been favorably cited (including both the NYTimes and Fox News) tend to be all for this service; sites with unfavorable ratings tend to cast asparagus — in bushel baskets. Which is what I was tempted to do, but I much doubt it would convince anyone who isn’t already convinced.
So, for those who actually want to get a better idea just what’s going on here, and haven’t heard much about this story, here are some links.
There’s lots more, but these seemed to me like a reasonable sample to begin with.
The app is available for most browsers, and the company hasn’t folded yet, so their marketing people have been doing their jobs. The good news (heh!) is that it doesn’t filter out any sites, it only marks them as positive or negative by its standards.
In closing…
If you still end up thinking you must bring up this particular story as an insult to or argument against Daily Kos, please at least make sure you are posting under your real name to do it.
Or, stick to calling kos a sellout neoliberal elitist capitalist pawn of the Establishment. After all, since you’re not bothering to substantiate any of it, you might as well go big. ;)