Reporting can be emotional and true. Journalism and activism can’t be separated.
>Journalism and activism can’t be separated.
They should and they can. Either have a separate publication, or at the very least have a separate, clearly delineated "Opinion" section. Otherwise you run the risk of media trust becoming very low, and thus media losing its ability to guard the republic (or the democracy).
Consider a similar assertion - "journalism and advertising can't be separated" - it's obviously false. Granted, there is some undue influence from advertisers to be expected. However this is considered a negative that should be avoided. And indeed the good practice is to have a "firewall" between the advertising department, and the news desk, in any publication.
Practically it is impossible to separate the two. Even news reporting doesn’t usually come free of editorializing. There are places where you can go to get ‘just the facts ma’am’ but newspapers have never and will never be those places.
(1) And an author can identify words designed to elicit emotional response and work to minimize them in their writing if they want to focus on the facts vs. their interpretation of the facts.
(2) Listen friend, only an idiot doesn't understand words and phrases have emotional tone, and an author chooses whether they want to piss you off or stay out of your emotions when they choose their words.
... these two sentences have the same conceptual content.
If you show efforts in reporting neutrally, your readers will pick that up.
I agree that media companies, which are part of a large multi-billion industry, have their shortcomings. That makes trying to keep an open mind even more important for journalists. There is a reason why being independent is still a positive qualifier for journalists.
"In Illinois, the Guardian has found that state and federal governments have joined forces to demand that welfare recipients repay “overpayments” stretching back in some cases 30 years."
This isn't technology, it's politicians and bureaucrats deciding policies. There is no reason the technology can't write off aged debts like this.
The whole article stinks.
The underlying argument of critics of algorithms that make decisions, in government and in private companies, is that this technological apparatus becomes a justification in itself: if a mistake is made, blame the algorithm; if the algorithm says so, it must be right — we can't make exceptions.
Over time, people and institutions begin to shape their own actions so they don't fall afoul of the criteria that can be reverse-engineered out of a black box decision-making system.
Regarding "this isn't technology", this doesn't invalidate the criticisms: part of the argument is that, indeed, what gets called "technology" often shouldn't be simply described as technical tools and processes. They're often the opinions and goals of individuals (politicians, bureaucrats, and other wielders of power) transformed into code, data and other technical artifacts; sometimes this transformation merely hides the underlying sources of these opinions and goals.