Skepticism in Journalism, Craig Wright Edition
This new Craig Wright debacle provides a good filter on which news sources to unfollow.
At first, his blog post seemed to provide a signed message by Satoshi Nakamoto, as technical proof for his identity. However, it was revealed within a few hours that the message was already public on the blockchain, and that no non-publicly available information was revealed by Dr. Wright in his blog post. Considering the large amount of doubt surrounding this announcement, the general attitude towards his claims today has turned into one of skepticism.
Going through various news sources, there were several headlines around the lines of “Satoshi unmasked at last” written by what I thought were reputable sources of information. This isn’t a good sign for accurate journalism.
Let’s take a look at which sources took his claims at face value, and which ones digged deeper and were approached the claims critically:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36168863
Craig Wright revealed as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto
Darn, BBC fell for it. The article basically assumes his claims are true, too- at least the first few paragraphs, which are the most important. There’s a single small paragraph of doubt in the middle, but that’s it.
http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/02/bitcoin-creator-craig-wright/
Craig Wright claims he is Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto
Endgadget actually fares pretty well, they hedged their bets for the title. They don’t question the source in the main body of the article, however.
http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21698060-craig-wright-reveals-himself-as-satoshi-nakamoto
Craig Wright reveals himself as Satoshi Nakamoto
Same title as BBC, but the Economist actually fares much better than the BBC in the article, which is very in-depth. They actually present all the questions and doubts. It’s not bad, actually. Notably, the subtitle is “Mr Wright could well be Mr Nakamoto, but nagging questions remain”.
http://www.skynews.com.au/tech/technews/2016/05/02/bitcoin-founder-reveals-identity.html
Bitcoin founder reveals identity
Nope, this source just assumed everything. About what you would expect for a random non-high-quality source.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/02/craig-wright-bitcoin-founder-satoshi-nakamoto-claim
Australian Craig Wright claims he is bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto
Good skepticism by The Guardian. The subtitle states “The 45-year-old IT and security consultant has reportedly provided evidence to the BBC supporting his claim that he is the inventor of the cryptocurrency”. Fair enough.
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-craig-wright
DR CRAIG WRIGHT OUTS HIMSELF AS BITCOIN CREATOR SATOSHI NAKAMOTO
Sadly, GQ appears to buy it. That being said, much of the article appears to be pretty hedged- they never outright claim anything themselves, but don’t really present doubt. Apparently, GQ was there for the interview with Dr. Craig (along with BBC and The Economist), so they’re a primary source too.
All in all, the results are what you would expect. A lot of sources take the news at face value, especially low quality ones. BBC makes a surprising blunder. The Economist and The Guardian appears to present the news very well, which is reassuring.
