Have to admit, something like this could be useful as a simple way to improve journalism in general. Yeah, it wouldn't exactly 'detect fake news', but it would help by:
1. Encouraging journalists to actually link to a source at all. Because at the moment, a depressing number of them don't even bother sourcing anything. So you end up just having to 'trust' the organisation that the story has been checked out beforehand.
It's an especially big problem with web versions of printed newspaper articles, and is a general problem with print newspapers as a whole (since due to space limits, they don't publically source/cite anything).
2. Getting journalists to link to the original source. Because at the moment, you'll see news sites sourcing other news sites which then source other news like a lengthy game of Chinese Whispers or Telephone. It's how a lot of 'fake news' makes its way in the media food chain.
So yeah, something like this would be useful just to get publications to cite their sources better. Or to make them look for the real source rather than one of a million middlemen.
1. Encouraging journalists to actually link to a source at all. Because at the moment, a depressing number of them don't even bother sourcing anything. So you end up just having to 'trust' the organisation that the story has been checked out beforehand.
It's an especially big problem with web versions of printed newspaper articles, and is a general problem with print newspapers as a whole (since due to space limits, they don't publically source/cite anything).
2. Getting journalists to link to the original source. Because at the moment, you'll see news sites sourcing other news sites which then source other news like a lengthy game of Chinese Whispers or Telephone. It's how a lot of 'fake news' makes its way in the media food chain.
So yeah, something like this would be useful just to get publications to cite their sources better. Or to make them look for the real source rather than one of a million middlemen.