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Comment by sparkzilla | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting article. I believe the next major change in the news industry is the change from news articles -- which were designed for paper -- to structured news data, designed for interactivity.

My project, NewsBlocks [1], puts this idea into practice by aiming to convert all the world's news articles -- past and present -- into unbiased, verified data and storing it on a censor-resistant blockchain. Anyone will then be able to use the data - which will be the first global, permanent news archive -- to create new kinds of trusted news applications, such as unbiased news feeds, fake news checkers, voice and chat apps and more, creating a global marketplace for news. We just launched and would love to hear your feedback.

[1]https://newsblocks.io

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convert all the world's news articles -- past and present -- into unbiased, verified data

What is 'unbiased' news?

It's a list of things that actually happened, without interpretation of those events.

There are all kinds of problems with wanting 'unbiased' anything. As if values can be cleanly separated from facts in the world. (There's a lot of philosophy written on these subjects.. e.g. Hilary Putnam has a lot of interesting essays exploring these topics, collected in his books)

Ok, there are facts like "X is the president of the USA", I think uncontroversial. But most 'things that happened' don't fit in that category, 'news' especially. And the dividing line between which things and which don't is itself a matter of interpretation...

What appears on tv/print/internet news has to be selected from 'all the things that actually happened' according to some view of what's significant, which depends on someone's values, or impression of other peoples' values etc etc. What gets to be included already is interpretation, value-laden, not to mention how its described. A list of bare uncontroversial facts would be trivia - that's what trivia is.

Like in the writing of history, where the facts must be selected, interpreted etc, only a tiny fraction can be included in the writing. This element of personal values, sense of what is important, is what is called 'bias'. I don't believe it's possible or desirable to be rid of it.

An interesting experiment would be to separate the trivia from the interpretation. The world is so noisy, so crowded, it would be refreshing to be able to take a step back and look at the trivia.

It would be nice if there were good tools we could use sift through the data and paint our own picture.

We would need some tools to evaluate how controversial, or how established a fact is. Are there experts that have testified to something? Are there multiple eye witnesses with sworn statements to an event.

100% correct. The situation we have now is that the same news events are reported in 1000s of newspapers that add bias. For example, if Trump holds a rally in Alabama and says "Build The Wall" it is reported in The New York Times as 'Trump hates immigrants" and on Fox News as "Trump vows to protect America". NewsBlocks simply strips out those biases, converts the news event to data (Who: Trump. Where: Alabama. Quote: "Build The Wall") and then stores the data on the blockchain, where it can be retrieved by anyone who wants to build apps with the data.

So who selects which facts to include? Which sources are considered worthy of inclusion? I don't think there's an 'unbiased' ('free' of particular values) way of doing even that.

Using example about president said X aren't good examples, I don't think - most news isn't like this. Or you will just have things the president said?

When talking about things that happened, I suggest that, apart from disputes about what actually happened, choice of verb is a matter of interpretation. And the 'terrorist/freedom fighter' question. How you see the world, how you describe what happens in it, is a function of what you believe.

Gee, the political spectrum is NYT - Fox News?!.. (They're both on the right, like your two main political parties)

simply strips out those biases - these phrases are amazing for me to read. It sounds staggeringly naïve to me. But sure, go for it. So then it sounds like you think a bias-free TV news or newspaper should be possible? Well, wouldn't that be a good thing?

Anyway. I look forward to the results, good luck with that. It reminds me of when I started writing a program which could write poetry/jokes. I quickly realized it would have to know everything about the world.[0] But still, actually trying was very valuable, gave me some vivid lessons.

[0] e.g. see in Lakoff's Women, Fire and Dangerous Things the chapter about the dozens of different meanings of the word over and how they're related.

I don't think anybody is saying it will be easy. It's a big crazy idea that we would like to step toward.

What facts to include? Well why have a limit? Record everything anybody is willing to testify to. Include all sources.

Joe testifies that X happened. Jill testifies that y happened. One or the other might be mistaken or have a heavy bias, but if the data was available we make our own judgments.

Also, we could try and stop using heavy loaded terms like terrorist / freedom fighters for example. We could try and develop neutral language.

The problem right now is that the news strives to be entertaining. Just facts without colour is very boring.

Oh.. it will include conflicting testimony? Well, that's something more than 'just facts'. Although sure, it's a fact that someone made statement X. Hopefully. Often press releases, political announcements, are given precisely to hide the truth.. Yet a lot of current news takes these as fact.

Anyway. Yeah, I don't think 'neutral language' or 'just facts' is at all possible. Even if you think you've achieved it..it will seem 'biased' to other people.

I don't think anybody is saying it will be easy. It's a big crazy idea that we would like to step toward.

Hehe ok great, I love that. Good luck! I wish you the best.

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