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> Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this!

Well, if you're going to try to build a mechanism to hold the mainstream media accountable, you'll really need to create a standard on when a summarization is inaccurate.

If the media was reporting on, "a ban on travelers from majority Muslim countries by a president who has promised his supporters a ban on Muslims" would that still be misleading? And if opponents of the ban called it a "Muslim ban", would media outlets be allowed to report on that fact?

For the record, I've seen NYT and BBC call this a "travel ban", "Trump's ban" and in quotes designed to indicate attribution "'Muslim ban'". All of these seem reasonable and factual.

Your thoughts?

== EDIT ==

A headline that reads simply "muslim ban" shouldn't be considered fake news (in my opinion), so long as it provides a full explanation of the ban and who is affected.

It is an editorializing title, but there's a massive difference between editorializing and fabrication. I believe calling something "fake news" should be reserved for publications that create falsehoods out of whole cloth. (e.g. "warehouse full of votes cast by illegal immigrants found")

>"a ban on travelers from majority Muslim countries by a president who has promised his supporters a ban on Muslims" would that still be misleading?

That would be a very accurate summary. Not misleading in the slightest.

>" And if opponents of the ban called it a "Muslim ban", would media outlets be allowed to report on that fact?"

Absolutely, but it should not be presented as fact that "Donald Trump has enacted a Muslim Ban". "People have described this as a Muslim Ban" is a fair representation.

>For the record, I've seen NYT and BBC call this a "travel ban", "Trump's ban" and in quotes designed to indicate attribution "'Muslim ban'". All of these seem reasonable and factual

That is far more responsible. However if you google news search Muslim Ban on the day it was announced, this is Not what the majority of news sources were doing.

> However if you google news search Muslim Ban on the day it was announced, this is Not what the majority of news sources were doing.

Are you sure? Here's the google search you're talking about: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22muslim+ban%22&safe=off&bi...

The only "muslim ban" usages are opinion articles or quotes.

One minor nit. "A ban on travelers from certain majority Muslim countries..." would be accurate. As written, it implies every majority Muslim country is affected, which is not true.

Of course, the more clarifications you add, the less it reads like a headline...

Exactly -- and this is a distinction that journalistic integrity is supposed to clarify. According to Wikipedia there are at least 22 majority Muslim countries[1]. If this were a "Muslim Ban", then much more than 7 (one third) would be listed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world#Countries_with_th...

Just a few days ago WaPo and NYT had articles like "OMG OMG entire state department leadership just quit! OMG". An hour later, those had all disappeared or were replaced, because they were actually just let go (their customary resignations were accepted).

Trump will do a lot of damage to the US, but hysterical reporting with such a negative bias does not cast a good light on the US media, and is not the way to go.

"Fake News" is completely making things up facts like "Trump punched the Pope today" for the sake of clicks. Calling recent actions as a "Muslim ban" is an interpretation of real events, including quotes by Rudy Giuliani and Flynn's son calling it a "Muslim ban" themselves. I would not consider it fake news, just an order executed with enough plausible deniability that they can prey on people's newfound obsession with fake news and call legitimate interpretations as such.

Just to follow this up for people skimming:

A high-profile author of the policy is on camera --- video you can easily find for yourself --- saying that they were tasked with devising a Muslim ban, and that he is proud of the legal chicanery they employed to make it "legal".

This subthread, of course, an entirely off-topic divergence from the subject at hand.

I think "Trump's Travel Ban may be the first step to implementing Muslim ban" would be a fair headline for the topic. I agree with 'alva that news reports should make a clear distinction between what is, what was meant by that, and what some people say it might be.

Yes you are right that he had done so. And if he had signed into law a ban people coming to the country based on their religion, then the papers plastering "Trump enacts Muslim Ban" would be accurate. But that is not the case.

When was the last time you saw a law that was in plain English saying exactly what it did such as "No more Muslim immigrants"? The intention was clear, putting it in such obvious terms makes it obviously unconstitutional, so the language puts a few restrictions that accomplishes it as well they could.

Would you prefer if the headline was "Trump Wants Muslim Ban, Gets as Close as He Can"?

Without derailing too much here, can you point me to a non-op-ed story published by a mainstream news source that calls it a "Muslim ban"?

I think this is the only relevant point here. For example, the Washington Post has only referred to it as a "travel ban". The phrase "Muslim ban" appears in opinion headlines, or a couple times when it is directly stated to be a quote. The New York Times uses "travel ban" and "immigration ban". It is newsworthy than members of congress and many organizations have called it a "Muslim ban" but news organizations are not directly using that phrase.

The Washington Post emailed a story ("News Alert Fri., Jan. 27, 2017 7:39 p.m.") that described the travel constraints as an unqualified "... 90-day halt to all entry from seven Muslim-majority countries". That's a flat lie, and it was eventually changed on the website.

I was pretty disillusioned already, but the reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline has been such a pack of lies, the state actually had to throw up a page to explains some if it[1][2]. I remember the old saying that the person who cleans up after the elephants has a whole different view of the circus.

1) http://ndresponse.gov/dakota-access-pipeline/myth-vs-fact

2) #15 is so beyond dumb, "wild buffalo", really? Plus, it underscores the poor reporting in that ranchers have lost livestock in the area.

Nothing false about the example you cited. The architect of the ban, Rudy Giulani confirmed on air that the goal was to ban Muslims and his team's task was to create a legal mechanism for that to happen[1].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/29/tr...

It is totally false to say Trump has enacted a law to ban people from entering the US based on their religion. Totally false.

Is it true that Rudy Giulani has said this. It also true Trump has said in the past he wants a Muslim ban. It is also true that many people believe this action is a step in the direction of a Muslim Ban.

But this is not a Muslim Ban at this stage and presenting it as such is a lie and misleading.

I agree that alarms should be going of all over the place in the mainstream news about this action and would encourage all of the opinion pieces to stress this could be a step towards a full Muslim Ban. That is for the Opinion pieces however.

He's instituted a ban based on ethnic origin from countries that are majority-Muslim (for that reason), has in the past called for a Muslim ban, and the architect of the ban has said it's a Muslim ban.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and in a feat of amazing linguistic ability for a waterfowl looks you dead in the eye and says "I'M A DUCK!" what are we supposed to call it, a giraffe?

To engage with pedantry for a moment, the ban may be more precisely an ethnicity or nationality one, but that's just as wholly unjust. Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees. The essential malfeasance here is bigotry written into law, the particular shade of that bigotry is immaterial.

I think your analysis of the situation is likely correct and I condemn it.

I still believe the mainstream news should Clearly separate the cold hard facts from analysis and opinion.

It may not be 100%, precisely a Muslim ban, but that was its stated intent and this is about as close to that as they can get, it would seem.

There are no valid security reasons for it.

Determining truth is hard, and as you say the trouble is that everyone does propaganda. We are in a "fog of war" situation.

Maybe a better approach would be to focus on ways of securely authenticating, signing, and delivering primary sensory data like photos, video, audio, and transcripts and doing so without interpretation.

This would be very useful, giving how easy it is nowadays to forge things. It's still a huge risk if discovered - that's why I think it doesn't happen that often - but from the technical point, every other kid knows enough Photoshop to make a convincing fake these days.

Another two things to focus on:

- a better way to get an overview of a story and its evolution - something to collate news reports in order to easy see what's the current aggregate knowledge (trivial example: see how causalty rates tend to fluctuate for the first few hours/days of a disaster, and how the blame gets shifted around before appropriate investigations conclude)

- a better way to follow redactions and corrections - it's too easy to read an outraging story that later turns out to be completely false, but to never get the memo that the story was invalidated

If only the mainstream media would stick to following these principles enumerated here, rather than blatantly taking sides (even when it's unnecessary for them to do so):

https://www.popehat.com/2016/12/15/deserving-trust/

I don't want to get too into this, but are you saying that calling the immigration order "Muslim Ban" is a false truth? I am really curious on why you think this?

Yeah me either as it is off topic. But in response, it is not a ban on people of one religion entering the country. It is a ban on people from 7 terror prone countries entering.

For the passing news consumer, it would be very easy to be led to believe that Muslims are banned from entering the US.

A ban on 7 Muslim-majority countries with exceptions for minority religions.

In addition: "I’ll tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'" Giuliani said on Fox News.

"He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’"

source: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...

Does any of that change the hard facts that what was enacted is not a ban on people coming to the US based on their religion. Because that is the pure fact.

So we should just keep dismissing his obvious intentions because he hasn't fully executed on them at this precise moment? You can keep explaining away his actions based on technicalities all you want, but his intentions are clear to most people in the US and around the world.

We should absolutely not be dismissing his seeming intentions. There should be massive focus on this. But that does not excuse conflating opinion/analysis with fact.

Accurate reporting of the news is so tremendously important. Every single time that the mainstream media is called out for presenting opinion as fact, the public lose a tiny bit more faith in the veracity of the media.

The Trump administration media strategy is so crystal clear I do not know why there is any confusing about what is going on.

Every time a mainstream publication presents an analysis/opinion as fact, when it turns out Not to be true, Trump admin. calls them out on it and erodes trust further. This is their strategy. Keep the mainstream media falling into this trap and erode public confidence.

I think the ONLY way to counteract this very effective strategy is to clearly separate the two.

Report on the facts as they are. Also provide analysis and opinion that is clearly marked as such. This is so damn important, regardless of where you stand on the issue discussed.

  with exceptions for minority religions.

That appears to be totally false. Where do you get that?

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/01/29/protecting-nation-foreig...

"(b) Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality. Where necessary and appropriate, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend legislation to the President that would assist with such prioritization."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-musli...

Again disproves your claim about "A ban on 7 Muslim-majority countries with exceptions for minority religions".

The "ban" is religion-blind. In the future, as refugee claims processing resumes, minorities can be prioritized; it does not "ban" with religion-specific exclusions altogether... now, or then.

You're right, sorry - quoted the wrong passage. This is the one I meant to:

"(e) Notwithstanding the temporary suspension imposed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as they determine that the admission of such individuals as refugees is in the national interest — including when the person is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution"

Does the fact that Trump himself is calling it the "Muslim ban"change anything for you?