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  • bias indicator

    From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Thu Jul 3 18:32:04 2025
    Law360 mandates reporters use AI "bias" detection on all stories

    The policy was announced after an executive accused the newsroom of
    bias in its Trump administration coverage.

    A new policy at Law360, the legal news service owned by LexisNexis,
    requires that every story pass through an AI-powered "bias" detection
    tool before publication.

    The Law360 Union, which represents over 200 editorial staffers across
    the 350-person newsroom, has denounced the mandate since it went into
    effect in mid-May. On June 17, unit chair Hailey Konnath sent a
    petition to management calling for the tool to be made "completely
    voluntary."

    "As journalists, we should be trusted to select our own tools of the
    trade to do our information-gathering, reporting and editing -- not
    pressured to use unproven technology against our will," reads the
    petition, which was signed by over 90% of the union.

    https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/law360-mandates-reporters-use-ai-bias-detection-on-all-stories/

    Is It Racist To 'Call A Spade A Spade'?

    What happens when a perfectly innocuous phrase takes on a more
    sinister meaning over time?

    Case in point, the expression "to call a spade a spade." For almost
    half a millennium, the phrase has served as a demand to "tell it like
    it is." It is only in the past century that the phrase began to
    acquire a negative, racial overtone.

    Historians trace the origins of the expression to the Greek phrase "to
    call a fig a fig and a trough a trough." Exactly who was the first
    author of "to call a trough a trough" is lost to history. Some
    attribute it to Aristophanes, while others attribute it to the
    playwright Menander. The Greek historian Plutarch (who died in A.D.
    120) used it in Moralia. The blogger Matt Colvin, who has a Ph.D. in
    Greek literature, recently pointed out that the original Greek
    expression was very likely vulgar in nature and that the "figs" and
    "troughs" in question were double entendres.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/19/224183763/is-it-racist-to-call-a-spade-a-spade

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  • From Mike Spencer@21:1/5 to JAB on Fri Jul 4 01:35:20 2025
    JAB <here@is.invalid> writes:

    Is It Racist To 'Call A Spade A Spade'?

    What happens when a perfectly innocuous phrase takes on a more
    sinister meaning over time?

    Case in point, the expression "to call a spade a spade." For almost
    half a millennium, the phrase has served as a demand to "tell it like
    it is." It is only in the past century that the phrase began to
    acquire a negative, racial overtone.
    [snip] https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/19/224183763/is-it-racist-to-call-a-spade-a-spade

    Interesting. I recall hearing "spade" used to refer to a person of
    visibly of African heritage in the 60s and it was not "opprobious".
    The professional people I knew typiclly had no occasion to mention
    that someone was black. Others had such occasions and used "spade" in
    that sense deviod AFATCT if any opprobrium.

    --
    Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere on Fri Jul 4 12:26:28 2025
    On 04 Jul 2025 01:35:20 -0300, Mike Spencer
    <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

    I recall hearing "spade" used to refer to

    "Abstract and concrete thinking represent two distinct approaches to
    processing information. Concrete thinking focuses on tangible,
    real-world details, while abstract thinking delves into concepts,
    ideas, and possibilities beyond the immediate physical experience"

    Thus, uneducated persons are embedded in concrete thinking, and
    educated ones tend to be more in abstract thinking.

    Using Google's Ngram Viewer,
    https://books.google.com/ngrams/
    a person might be able to decipher when "to call a spade a spade" got
    hijacked.

    Offhand, it would not surprise me if the negative connotation came
    about with Republican's southern strategy "targeting Southern white
    voters, particularly from the 1960s onward." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

    Perhaps by Rednecks-R- Us "pumping" up their egos, or via political
    actors feeding the suckers/losers nonsense.

    In short, color via deck of card's spades.

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