Wikinews talk:Avoid weasel words

Sources themselves using weasel words

I am reading the policy, w:weasel word, and wikt:weasel word. True, "weasel words" (i.e. misleads, vague words, and ambiguity) are to be avoid. However, what about sources themselves using weasel words? I haven't seen it addressed in this policy. --George Ho (talk) 20:29, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

That's part of using the sources. In processing sources for synthesis, we need to think carefully about them, recognizing their biases and, for that matter, when they are likely to be in error. Bias can range from sloppiness/vagueness by folks who mean to be objective, to outright lies by folks who may not even believe there is such a thing as truth. Recognizing when sources use weasel words is certain part of it. Part of our task is to filter out the bias, for which it's important to triangulate by sources with different perspectives. There are a variety of tools in our toolkit for dealing with what the sources offer; a lot of it comes down to reporting facts. The page I recall atm that touches on this, at least somewhat, is WN:Attribution (though I'm dissatisfied with it; better than not having the page at all, but I want to improve it and perhaps devise something altogether different; I have in mind some sort of essay on practical news neutrality). Collecting relevant bits of wisdom is quite a challenge; I hope eventually the semi-automation infrastructure I'm building can help, but that's long-range. Meanwhile it's largely a matter of experience. --Pi zero (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2017 (UTC)