2012/9/13 Ben Campbell <[email protected]>: > > It's a web site for linking news articles to their sources. You know, all > those "Scientists say Red Wine Causes/Cures Cancer!" type of article with no > link to the actual research. > You can also assign warning labels to news articles, so toxic/hazardous > material can be labelled as such. >
This is great! I wonder if it would be possible to extend it to other forms of sourcing? Recently (after the cabinet reshuffle) various campaigns have been circulating on social media, for example here: http://www.countingwomenin.org/index.php/take-action/make-david-cameron-keep-his-promise/ "David Cameron pledged that 1/3 of his Ministers would be women by the end of his first term as Prime Minister. Well 2015 is not far away and currently only five out of 23 members of the Cabinet and only 20 out of all 119 Government ministers are women. This means that decisions of national importance are being made without women round the table. We can and must do better than this." The "pledge" by David Cameron is much quoted in the news. The lawyer in me much prefers to say to someone "On such and such an occasion you said <<quote>>" , but I was unable (with 30 minutes effort) to find any actual occasion on which he said it. In searching I found a Guardian source which alleged it had been said in a party conference speech in 2008 - but a read through of a transcript of the speech found no such thing - and a contemporaneous Daily Mail source saying it had been said in 2009, but without any statement about where or when it had been said. None of this is very satisfactory. Its bad enough that the mass media regularly spin what is said by politicians to meet whatever news agenda they might have that day, but if we can't look at the actual words said in context it makes things worse. Since David Cameron hasn't (to my knowledge) issued a denial, it may be true that he did say what he is said to have said, but without a context I am reluctant to press someone to live up to a "pledge" I am not sure they ever made (hence the scare quotes). If a system like unsourced were being available in these circumstances the Daily Mail article could have a small warning message unless and until someone with better knowledge or search skills than I (and some people follow politics studiously) were able to supply an actual quote. That would be most useful. -- Francis Davey _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
