Our most respected newspapers want their stories to be accurate because once the words are on paper, and the paper is in someone\u2019s hands, there\u2019s no changing them. The words are literally fixed in ink to the page, and mass produced into many copies that are pretty much impossible to recall. Reputations can rise and fall based on how well newspapers are able to report significant events. But of course physical paper isn\u2019t the whole story anymore.<\/p>\n
News on the web can be edited quickly as new facts arrive, and more is learned. Typos can be quickly corrected\u2013but content can also be modified for a multitude of purposes. Often these changes instantly render the previous version invisible. Many newspapers use their website as a place for their first drafts, which allows them to craft a story in near real time, while being the first to publish breaking news.<\/p>\n
News travels fast in social media as it is shared and reshared across all kinds of networks of relationships. What if that initial, perhaps flawed version goes viral, and it is the only version you ever read? It\u2019s not necessarily fake news, because there\u2019s no explicit intent to mislead or deceive, but it may not be the best, most accurate <\/a>news either. Wouldn\u2019t it be useful to be able to watch how news stories shift in time to better understand how the news is produced? Or as Jeanine Finn<\/a> memorably put it: how do we understand the news before truth gets its pants on<\/a>?<\/p>\n As part of MITH\u2019s participation in the Documenting the Now<\/a> project we\u2019ve been working on an experimental utility called diffengine<\/a> to help track how news is changing. It relies on an old and quietly ubiquitous standard called RSS<\/a>. RSS is a data format for syndicating content on the Web. In other words it\u2019s an automated way of sharing what\u2019s changing on your website, and for following what changes on someone else\u2019s. News organizations use it heavily. When you listen to a podcast you\u2019re using RSS. If you have a blog or write on Medium an RSS feed is quietly being generated for you whenever you write a new post.<\/p>\n So what diffengine does is really quite simple. First it subscribes to one or more RSS feeds, for example the Washington Post<\/a>, and then it watches to see if any articles change their content over time. If a change is noticed a representation of the change, or a diff<\/a>, is generated, the new version is archived at the Internet Archive<\/a>, and the diff is (optionally) tweeted.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve been experimenting with an initial version of diffengine by having it track the Washington Post, the Guardian and Breitbart News which you can see on the following Twitter accounts: wapo_diff<\/a>, guardian_diff<\/a> and breitbart_diff<\/a>. Nick Ruest<\/a> at York University and Ryan Baumann at Duke University have been setting up their own instances of diffengine to track what is now 25 media outlets, which you can see in this list<\/a>\u00a0 that Ryan is maintaining.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s an example of what a change looks like when it is tweeted:<\/p>\n Deportation force is \u2018not happening,\u2019 Paul Ryan tells undocumented family – The Washi\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/OQEpG1Inj3<\/a> -> https:\/\/t.co\/NsDNI5Dflt<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/t0Q6iuG2qX<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Editing the Wapo (@wapo_diff) January 13, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n