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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

I wish newspapers were more concerned about being an objective system of record rather than trying to push social goals by helping rewrite history. They should post follow-ups for those wrongly convicted or after the fact caveats but completely memory holeing news stories strikes me as deeply disturbing

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I would like them to refrain from naming people until/unless they are actually convicted.

Heck, I would probably go a step further and update defamation laws to make publishing allegations (legal or otherwise) considered equivalent to making allegations. Far too many lives have been ruined by media “just reporting on allegations”

Or they should just report newsworthy public items in an unbiased way and let people decide

Deciding on the accuracy of claims is difficult. We have complicated and lengthy judicial processes that attempt this, and they still make frequent mistakes.

Saying it’s okay to defame people with an “allegedly” disclaimer and relying on the public to somehow do what even our courts cannot, is willfully ignorant.

Publishing an allegation should be legally equivalent to making an allegation.

Is it accurate that this person is being tried for a crime? Did the prosecutor state which crime they were convicted of? Then report on that.

That's not defamation. Stop trying to have newspapers make editorial judgements. Just report the facts.

I work in a local TV newsroom for my job and the idea that the public has about journalism has been deliberately warped. A great example of criticism of bias is that it's widely reported that Luigi Mangione's motive was unknown until they uncovered and verified the manifesto. "Clearly the corporate media is in the pockets of the insurance industry. You can't think of one reason someone would hate the CEO of United?" Of course reporters can relate to your experience with health insurance, they're workers too. However, if you think about it, it's more biased to try to relate to that group (even though almost all the viewers are in it) than it is to ignore your opinion and only say what's in the black and white.

99% of accusations of media bias in my experience are just someone whose experiences don't match those of that particular story.

Lol the conviction rate would drop, as they count on everyone knowing about it to pre mess with the jury.

number of views/shares when someone is accused on something: 876.5 billion

number or views/shares on the follow-up for wrong conviction: 17

Ideally we would live in a society that simply didn't give weight to arrests or accusations, only convictions. (Exceptions may be made for outstanding cases, such as a preponderance of evidence or accusers that appears only after the statute of limitations is up.)

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