5: Lesson Five- Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to Their Original Context
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Most stuff you see on the web is not original reporting or research. Instead, it is often commentary on the re-reporting of re-reporting on some original story or piece of research. And that's a problem.
Now, in some cases stories or findings get better as they pass through intermediaries. If I tell a reporter a piece of gossip I heard, and they go out and verify it by talking to eyewitnesses and experts, their report on my piece of gossip is probably more accurate than my gossip. If a scientist gets a result and another scientist with a talent for explaining things blogs it, maybe the second explanation is better than the first. Research also shows that as gossip gets passed around, sometimes important details that were missed become more prominent.
But in most cases, the more a story is passed around, the more it starts to become a bit warped. That's due to a bunch of reasons. Human nature is to exaggerate stories for effect. Desire of websites to get advertising dollars can result in them printing the most shocking version of something. And there are bad actors: people who will take a story that has some nuance to it and remove the details that provide that nuance, or invent details that didn't exist.
Very often by the time a story finds you on the web it has been altered so much that it presents a radically wrong version of an event or a piece of research. The person you are reading usually did no original reporting, made no phone calls to check facts, and often barely skimmed the original story before writing up their blog post, thinkpiece, hot take, or re-reported news item. And so they either get things wrong by mistake, or, in some cases, intentionally mislead.
Trace It to the Original
Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. Usually, the original reporting, research, or photo is available on the web. By going to the original reporting or research source (or finding a high quality secondary source that did the hard work of verification) you can get a story that is more complete, or a research finding that is more accurate. This two minute video shows you how going to the source can be as easy as clicking through a link:
Leveling, Sharpening, and Assimilation
Early studies of rumors suggested that as rumors traveled further from the source they were altered in predictable ways. They were"leveled" — as they traveled, details are stripped out. They are also "sharpened" — certain small details are added or emphasized to give the story more "punch". And both of these processes happened in the context of "assimilation" — the details that were omitted and the details that were added or emphasized are chosen because they either fit what the speaker thinks is the main theme of the story, or what the speaker thinks the listener will be most interested in.
Later research called into question the particular nature of these processes, but these three actions are a helpful way of thinking about the sorts of alterations people can make to claims, quotes, and media as they pass them along.
These processes are not necessarily bad. It means that as a story travels it often becomes more concise, more engaging, and more geared toward the interest of its audience. Think of a long-winded story full of details that someone has told you which you have then retold. Assuming you have a credible take on what the story is about, you'll probably forget the irrelevant details, and remember the most memorable ones. So when you retell it, you'll provide a shorter more engaging version customized to your audience. And that's good! One reason many people enjoy getting news from social media is it can be much more efficient than a longer news story, calling out the pieces that really matter to you in particular.
But the same way that these processes can provide value in the hands of careful storytellers, they can be damaging in the hands of those who are careless, are guided by strong bias, or are motivated to distort the truth for their own benefit.
Consider this tweet from our old friend John D'oh:
John is tweeting his takeaway from this article on sunscreen (or at least his takeaway from the article headline):
But the article doesn't say to ditch your sunscreen. And it doesn't even say that the FDA is warning people about the chemicals. The study merely concluded that given the levels of the chemicals in the bloodstream — from applying sunscreen four times a day — that additional regulation might be warranted:
They found that these 24 participants had higher than what is recommended of these chemicals in their blood. This amount is based on what the FDA’s says is how much of these active ingredient can be in someone’s bloodstream before it needs to be tested for safety concerns...
This article isn't from a reliable source, and is in fact pulling all its quotes from another article. It's reporting on reporting. If you click through to the link (supposedly to the research article) it links to a CNN story.
And in that story you notice the re-reporters left something out:
So, should you stop using sunscreen? Absolutely not, experts say.
"Studies need to be performed to evaluate this finding and determine whether there are true medical implications to absorption of certain ingredients," said Yale School of Medicine dermatologist Dr. David Leffell, a spokesman for the American Academy of Dermatology. He added that in the meantime, people should "continue to be aggressive about sun protection."
The original story actually says the opposite of what the tweeter proposed.
You could trace it back even further, but we can stop there. A story came out that mentioned the research, but made it clear that there is not any known danger yet, and that people should continue to use the sunscreen they are using in the meantime. That gets rewritten, with that detail omitted or downplayed (leveled). It then gets summarized by John D'oh — who "sharpens" the advice, and ends up stating the exact opposite of what the original story said.
When looking at information of this sort, figure out what the original reporting source was, and go take a look. Some publications can add value, particularly if reporters are experienced and knowledgeable in the field they are reporting in. But if it's clear the thing your looking at is just re-reporting of reporting, go up to the source and once at the source do your normal (I)nvestigate the Source moves.
Beware the Sourceless Story
Consider this post by John D'oh:
If you go to that story you'll find references to a "NASA study" — however, when you click on the link it's not to the study (which was apparently from 1968) but rather to a summary of the study in an information technology magazine from the 2005. The study itself appears to never have been published directly or reported on contemporaneously. You can keep digging, and what you'll eventually find is what citations that exist to the study are not to the 1968 study, but a 1992 book Land wrote with his wife which told the story of the study he had done over 20 years before. Importantly the study wasn't even a NASA study: it was a study he did privately using a test that he had developed for NASA. It's unclear what NASA's take was on the test, since, again, the only account we have of it is from 1992.
This is not to doubt Land's honesty. But the perceived authority of the study for many readers comes from the idea it was conducted by NASA and was substantial research at the time. When you attempt to trace the claim to the original context you find that the trail ends in 1992, it was not published at the time, and was not conducted by NASA. That changes how you might view the claim.