> instead of saying users recently found a bug affecting 1 link to NPR
This is a good example of bias. It is not a fact that this was a bug. The fact is Twitter displayed the warning. Twitter has told NPR it was a false positive, but a journalist shouldn’t take an uncorroborated secondhand statement from the party being accused of potential wrongdoing as proof of anything.
Imagine for a second that this was done maliciously. Do you think Twitter would immediately admit that? Of course not, their statement would likely be identical to the one we got. Therefore the “fact based reporting” thing to do is present the facts, present Twitter’s response, and let the reader come to their own conclusions.
>It's a fact that a pattern of behavior was accused, but a pattern of behavior was not shown.
Yes, that is exactly what both the article and I said. The warning was applied to the link. Some people accused Twitter of doing that nefariously. Twitter denied it and claimed it was a mistake. Those are the facts of the situation.
The motivation for applying the warning or whether it was a mistake are not facts that can be confirmed by an independent journalist. They are speculation regardless of which side of the issue you come down on.
What are you talking about specifically? Can you point to a quote from the article that you think crosses a line journalistically? Because it seems like you’re equating reporting on the existence of accusations with actively making accusations and that type of thinking comes from either bias or a lack of media literacy.
This is a good example of bias. It is not a fact that this was a bug. The fact is Twitter displayed the warning. Twitter has told NPR it was a false positive, but a journalist shouldn’t take an uncorroborated secondhand statement from the party being accused of potential wrongdoing as proof of anything.
Imagine for a second that this was done maliciously. Do you think Twitter would immediately admit that? Of course not, their statement would likely be identical to the one we got. Therefore the “fact based reporting” thing to do is present the facts, present Twitter’s response, and let the reader come to their own conclusions.