[HN Gopher] NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech cov...
___________________________________________________________________
NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be
critical
Author : thmt
Score : 133 points
Date : 2022-11-04 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| mjfl wrote:
| Around the same time Sasha Baron Cohen started blasting Mark
| Zuckerberg, almost arbitrarily. I wonder what kind of war is
| going on in heaven.
| Adraghast wrote:
| > For the record, Vox has never told me that my coverage of
| something must be 'hard-hitting'
|
| Perhaps Vox might be worth something if they did, Kelsey.
| [deleted]
| greenthrow wrote:
| Matt Yglesias is not a reliable source for this kind of claim.
| Nor is this even believable if you actually have been reading the
| NYT instead of just listening to the imaginary bogeyman peddled
| by the far right.
|
| The NYT is a center right paper that is generally friendly and
| welcoming to big money (see greenwashing "advertorials" by Shell
| and many others), it is not the leftist rag that right wing hacks
| like Yglesias constantly paint it as.
| tablespoon wrote:
| The post title here is misleading. What's being described here by
| Yglesias isn't a directive to be "critical" (in the colloquial
| sense meaning "negative"), but more a directive to be _skeptical_
| and investigate:
|
| > Instead of covering the industry with a business press lens or
| a consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough
| investigative lens -- highly oppositional at all times and
| occasionally unfair.
|
| A lot of tech people would like tech coverage puffy, un-
| skeptical, and positive, but that's totally inappropriate for an
| industry as influential and frankly difficult to understand (for
| a layman) as tech. It sounds like now they coverage like they
| cover the government, which to me is totally appropriate.
| nr2x wrote:
| The NYT basically IS a tech company at this point. They have
| gripes with the competition.
| TillE wrote:
| All journalistic coverage of everything should be critical, or
| why does it exist?
| fullshark wrote:
| And yet it's clearly selectively critical, based on the
| editorial positions of the paper / readership. The end result
| of course is a biased portrait of reality.
| bhupy wrote:
| From the thread:
|
| > I think it is broadly good to be on the lookout for hard-
| hitting exposes and write them where you see them, and broadly
| bad for your ability to do journalism if you have decided the
| tenor of your story before reporting it out.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Advertising?
| WalterSear wrote:
| IMHO, you are using a different meaning of the word 'critical'
| than the tweeter.
| z7 wrote:
| I feel like journalism needs to be fundamentally re-invented in a
| way that accounts for a modern understanding of human psychology.
| We need to define new standards and processes that counteract
| against a natural inclination towards various biases, herd
| effects, conformity, double standards, partisanship etc.
| seydor wrote:
| Why wouldn't they? They are more powerful than tech in being
| arbiters of truth, and the fact that they convinced everyone,
| even tech workers, about it proves that they are higher in the
| pecking order
| filoleg wrote:
| > They are more powerful than tech in being arbiters of truth
|
| This is just the classic short-term thinking on their end. If
| that directive becomes widely known, their trustworthiness and
| status as the arbiter of truth in the public eye will not
| remain as such for much longer.
| seydor wrote:
| They will convince people that it is for their own good. It s
| not like the mainstream media have a real competitor in terms
| of narrative-building
| muaytimbo wrote:
| I mean the NYT is wrong about everything. Krugman said the
| Internet was never going to be a thing, post Covid the
| editorializing was inflation wasn't possibly a thing, the
| government should go bigger with stimulus and print more money.
| Their whole paper ages like milk, the only reason it persists is
| apparently Americans have no short term memory.
| [deleted]
| pvg wrote:
| Discussed yesterday:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33456708
| nikodunk wrote:
| Careful! "Critical" is paraphrased. The thread says "tough
| investigative lens"!
|
| "Instead of covering the industry with a business press lens or a
| consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough
| investigative lens -- highly oppositional at all times and
| occasionally unfair."
|
| Of course that will often lead to critical articles, but it is
| not precise to paraphrase the actual meaning here IMO.
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| If you see coverage of any countries not part of the western
| countries, you will see a similar pattern in NYT, BBC, etc. This
| just looks like a domestic equivalent with one industry in cross-
| hairs.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Hearsay on twitter
| kuharich wrote:
| Past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33459740
| [deleted]
| brucelidl wrote:
| I would like to see more proof for this than just one guy saying
| he heard it from others. It may very well be true, but it would
| be far more convincing, to me, if some one with actual direct
| knowledge commented publicly. Surely, if it was so widespread,
| and unambiguous, it would not be be difficult to get clear
| evidence of this directive from NYT leadership.
| glitcher wrote:
| Agreed. And you would think at least some of the journalists
| would leak evidence of this if they took the integrity of their
| profession seriously. Again, a lack of evidence isn't proof it
| didn't happen either.
| mountainb wrote:
| Journalism isn't a profession. Even nurses and some
| managerial employees are held to a higher standard of duty.
| You will have an easier time holding someone who is
| responsible for fixing ice cream machines to an objective
| standard of professionalism than you will a journalist.
|
| Some journalists have tried to conjure up "professional
| standards" that aren't binding, but the fact that they are
| not binding is why it's not a profession and why those
| "standards" are just suggestions. Unfortunately, the
| accumulated cruft of decades of wrongly decided cases grants
| this pseudo-profession many special rights and no formal
| duties to counterbalance those.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Asking for proof about something that happens on the down-low
| is a dubious defense. How much proof would you expect to see,
| unless there was a court case with witnesses and discovered
| documents and texts?
|
| > it would not be be difficult to get clear evidence of this
| directive from NYT leadership
|
| Yes, it would be difficult. Do you think the publisher or
| managing editor is going to admit to it?
|
| A reporter in a position to know is a great source. The news
| business runs on "a source close to... said" and "a high-placed
| source said..."
|
| If what the source said seems to contradict other evidence,
| that's a different matter.
| barney54 wrote:
| Can anyone find a NYT article that is pro-tech?
| afavour wrote:
| Even within what's said I'd be curious for the exact quote. NYT
| doesn't exist in a vacuum, if the exact quote had been "plenty
| of other outlets have fawning coverage, let's focus our efforts
| on casting a critical eye on the industry" that... doesn't
| really seem scandalous at all to me?
| [deleted]
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The obvious question, of course, being: what _other_ subjects
| have classified top-down "the coverage will look like this"
| directives.
| bhauer wrote:
| This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading the
| New York Times' technology journalism for the past several years.
|
| In fact, I'd argue that even before any such "directive" was
| made, the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly
| anti-tech, except in rare circumstances where praising a
| technology sector or tech company served the overarching
| political narrative of the moment (e.g., then-nascent social
| media was a good thing when Obama leveraged it to success; and a
| toxin when later less palatable politicians did the same).
|
| This is not limited to the New York Times. Even tech-oriented
| journalistic venues such as The Verge have a decidedly snarky and
| grim view of many technologies. And they are effective at
| steering discourse, even among notionally technology-savvy
| people. Consider, for example, how antagonistic coverage of
| autonomous transportation by major media outlets has yielded
| widespread pessimism and doubt. Presently, you have non-trivial
| numbers of otherwise intelligent technology-forward journalism
| consumers convinced that autonomy is an unsolvable problem.
| spfzero wrote:
| I agree with you in general about media bias, but with regard
| to autonomous vehicles you've picked the exact thing media
| _should_ have been skeptical about. It 's the critical, even
| skeptical view, that is appropriate.
|
| I don't think people got the impression that it is unsolvable,
| but hopefully people understand that it is difficult, and far
| from solved at the moment. That's not the feeling you'd get if
| you just blindly accepted tech companies' press releases.
|
| Of course, major media outlets like NYT telling reporters to
| bend stories away from the reporter's own experience, and slant
| them towards an editorial position, is disturbing at the very
| least.
| greenthrow wrote:
| I do read the NYT and I 100% disagree with your claim. In my
| view it is overly friendly to big corporations of all kinds.
| [deleted]
| dclusin wrote:
| I don't think autonomous driving is unsolvable. But every
| single company in that field has shamelessly lied about the
| time tables for the availability of the tech. And there's been
| zero accountability for it. Remember how 2020 was supposed to
| be the year we get fully autonomous vehicles?
|
| The only thing unfortunate about the coverage is that the media
| was entirely complicit and exercised no skepticism or pushback
| against these seemingly impossible time tables for deliveries
| of such a clearly complicated and as yet unsolved problem. They
| just blindly regurgitated the tech industry marketing pr around
| it. Has any single car company ever demonstrated a car that can
| drive while it's pouring rain out?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I disagree, I believe all press coverage should be critical.
| NYT and others have spent decades writing fluff pieces and
| thinly veiled press releases for tech companies, and they are
| some of the larger champions of techno-optimism in past
| decades.
|
| Critical doesn't mean bad, it means taking off the rose-colored
| and not taking "we're changing the world!" narratives at face
| value.
| trs8080 wrote:
| > the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly
| anti-tech
|
| As opposed to what? Publishing tech companies' press releases
| verbatim? Advertisements for apps?
|
| Journalism exists to speak truth to power - you say "anti-tech"
| but the reality is that tech companies have been trying to
| convince us for years that what they're doing is some exercise
| in advancing humanity, "disrupting" industries (read: breaking
| laws) and "connecting the world" (read: undermining democracy,
| manipulating psychological triggers for addiction). It's a good
| thing that journalists have at least managed to remain critical
| - I would prefer to shine a light on billionaire VCs and the
| companies they're funding rather than doting coverage.
| drewcoo wrote:
| A lot of big tech is an existential threat to traditional media.
| It's a wonder that the coverage is as balanced as it is.
| mola wrote:
| So? These companies became so big and powerful, they are
| basically our new governing bodies. They should be critically
| treated. Exactly like the political entities they are.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Tech Companies are the most valuable companies in the world right
| now.
|
| Their CEO's/founders are some of the richest most powerful people
| in the world right now.
|
| As a Technologist, I do find it unfair that there is a lack of
| "awe" in terms of the technological progress. But I think on a
| global societal scale, the non-technological impact of the
| largest corporations in the world and the richest people in the
| world is more meaningful than the impact of their technologies.
|
| Put another way, the impact that Uber/AirBbnb has on employment,
| housing prices, and the health of cities and communities is much
| bigger than the impact they have on my ability to get a
| convenient ride to a destination, or to rent lodging on my
| vacation.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| I wonder how many other top-down directives they might have. I'm
| sure there was one about only portraying mRNA vaccines in a
| positive light, for all age groups.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Not sure that this is entirely a bad thing. I would read any
| glowing article about a tech company suspiciously (was it a paid
| placement?)
|
| I wonder though if this was fallout from the media's fawning
| coverage of Holmes pre-Carreyeou, and Facebook's fall from grace
| with the Cambridge Analytica story.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I don't get why this seems like a big deal or a negative thing.
| Why wouldn't you want reporters to be critical? Isn't that like
| the whole point. That's even why we have freedom of press in the
| 1st amendment, so journalists can be critical.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Yes and no, it's important to have critical reporting, but
| imagine say that all reporting on medicine could only be
| critical, no articles about breakthroughs in cancer treatment
| or curing disease, all malpractice and ballooning costs. That
| wouldn't be wrong, but it'd be incomplete?
| mehlmao wrote:
| I'm sure if Facebook cured cancer that would get them
| favorable coverage. Right now their products decrease quality
| of life, not increase it.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| They're doing awesome things for VR hardware but all people
| can seem to see there is that it isn't making money.
| lscdlscd wrote:
| They're also defining, in the public's imagination, the
| primary use case of VR to be corporate meeting space.
| That's bad for VR and bad for society.
| parineum wrote:
| I wouldn't really argue about that now, personally, but I
| know a lot of people who are still on Facebook for whom
| have compelling reasons to stay and I think that was much
| more true in the past.
|
| That said, Meta isn't the only tech company. Twitter, for
| example, a place journalists love for the direct-to-
| consumer style reporting.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| No. "Critical" (in the defensible sense) reporting of
| breakthroughs would involve checking of the science behind
| the breakthrough, probing the ethics and finances, etc.
| Ideally this should _always_ be how tech journalism is
| conducted, otherwise it actually isn 't journalism at all,
| it's just PR or trade writing. With fast news cycles this may
| not be practical for every single column cm, but it must be
| the default.
|
| "Critical" in the pop sense (making a worthiness judgement)
| is not altogether avoidable, but it should be marginal in
| journalism. This is what Opinion is for.
|
| What Yglesias & Piper are saying, in effect, is that the NYT
| made a top-down directive that tech coverage should be
| negatively-slanted Opinion.
| glutamate wrote:
| Agree, I don't think people need to realise the amount of $$$
| for tech PR and there needs to be a counter to this.
| tqi wrote:
| Further in the thread:
|
| > from an editorial integrity perspective there's a big
| difference between 'it's good to write hard-hitting exposes'
| and 'it's good to have a top-down editorial directive about the
| tenor of coverage'.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Being critical when the facts warrant it is great. Deciding _in
| advance_ what the tone of coverage will be before you know any
| facts, and forbidding _ipso facto_ any positive coverage, is
| not the whole point. That 's an appalling abdication of
| journalistic ethics actually.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It can create negative incentives. Case in point is Bloomberg's
| mandate to "move markets" leading to publication of lies like
| the Supermicro incident.
| friedman23 wrote:
| How about journalists just report the truth?
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| I don't really get how people keep misunderstanding the point
| that it's not that journalists are being critical, it's that
| they're being selectively critical to propagate their own
| interests.
|
| The absurdity of the NYT crying over big tech for practices the
| NYT uses all the time ( dark patterns, user tracking,
| algorithmic curation, etc. ) should not go unnoticed.
| tayo42 wrote:
| For me, this is one of the complaints
|
| > Almost never curious about technology or in awe of progress
| and potential.
|
| Why does it need to be in awe? that seems like an extreme in
| an unproductive direction.
|
| > it's that they're being selectively critical to propagate
| their own interests.
|
| where in the thread is the support for this?
| [deleted]
| blululu wrote:
| It's not but a basic Google search should show some of the
| more clear examples of the NYT using aggressive spyware for
| ads, AB modifying stories in real time to drive engagement,
| and subscription policies that are virtually impossible to
| back out of for people outside of California.
| trs8080 wrote:
| > it's that they're being selectively critical to propagate
| their own interests
|
| Nobody ever claimed they were doing it "to propagate their
| own interests." The original tweets say this: "Instead of
| covering the industry with a business press lens or a
| consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough
| investigative lens -- highly oppositional at all times and
| occasionally unfair."
|
| Ok, define "unfair." Yeah, having all your problems pointed
| out is "unfair," but that's exactly what journalism is about?
| Speaking truth to power.
|
| There are plenty of outlets whose only coverage of tech is
| critical. This sounds like the NYT wasn't interested in
| articles fawning over tech, which happens all the time and
| are basically just advertisements.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| I think the tech page used to look more like the travel page
| today
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/section/travel
|
| If you take a look, its not doing investigations. Its just
| talking about cool places. Tech used to just be talking about
| cool gadgets.
|
| I believe them when they say it was "top down" but also it was
| self-evident that this would happen if tech companies went to a
| small part of the economy to the biggest in the world.
|
| You can talk about the rivalries between NYTimes and FB/Twitter
| - but ultimately it just seems like they decided to treat it
| like a serious matter which was predictable/good. If overnight
| the airline and hotel companies became the most powerful in the
| world, then I think the travel section would be more critical
| and it would have nothing to do with NYT trying to get revenge.
| [deleted]
| tensor wrote:
| That's not the whole point in my mind. What I'm looking for
| from journalists is a balanced, accurate, and objective
| reporting. That does involve being critical, but it _also_
| involves reporting on the positive aspects. A directive to cast
| an entire industry in a negative light regardless of the actual
| issues at play is NOT good journalism.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| There is no such things as objective reporting. Everyone
| recounting an event be it journalists or historians will
| inject some bias in its recollection.
|
| What you should want is journalists to be thorough in their
| fact checking and open about their editorial line and where
| their interest lies.
|
| What's annoying me here is that it's both top-down and
| covert.
| tensor wrote:
| I understand that's the current thinking in journalism, but
| I actually disagree with it. I think giving people free
| license to editorialize is harmful. Even given that it's
| true that it's impossible to be bias free, I think it's
| important to _try_ to be bias free. When you stop trying
| things get _even more biased_ which is exactly the problem
| with journalism today.
|
| It is highly biased and inflammatory and actually
| encourages people to be more tribal rather than try to come
| together and compromise despite their differences. I'm ok
| with not agreeing with the journalism industry here. I
| think they had it right 20 years ago.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Just because journalists are human and as such can't be
| completely objective, doesn't mean they shouldn't strive to
| be objective. This is what civilization is built on,
| constraining our base impulses and acting with logic and
| empathy.
| elpool2 wrote:
| It's the difference between a movie critic who carefully
| critiques movies honestly and one that decides to write a
| negative review before even seeing the movie. Both of them are
| being "critical", but in very different ways. I think the NYT
| probably wanted to be the former but drifted into becoming the
| latter.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| There's an ambiguity between 2 uses of the word 'critical'.
| Journalism should by default be 'critical' in the academic
| sense (questioning, probing, analytical). When reporting on
| powerful entities who throw resources into media management
| (governments & corporations), journalists should be
| particularly careful not to parrot PR.
|
| It's clear to me from the context that the Piper & Yglesias are
| not talking about this - they're saying there was top-down
| pressure on journalists to be critical in the popular sense of
| tone or judgement: ie. negative, carping. That's entirely
| different. The NYT claims to uphold the traditional news media
| distinction between reportage and opinion. Directives of the
| type Yglesias & Piper claim would clearly violate that
| distinction.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Does anyone know if this was done across leading journals? Did
| they collaborate on this top-down position with WSJ, WaPo, etc?
| undoware wrote:
| You do understand that critical thinking is literally the point
| of journalism, right?
|
| In 2022, I'd certainly give the same directive. Our industry can
| and should be held to account, just like any other seat of power.
| (Because that's what we are now, whether we like it or not.)
| undoware wrote:
| I take great pride in achieving a -2 point rating on a post
| because it means that I've spoken truth to the powers that read
| HN.
|
| I take even greater pride in talking about commenting of
| comments, _contra_ the guidelines, because a rule that you
| cannot discuss collective moderation decisions is like
| forbidding your subordinates from telling you that you have
| spinach in your teeth.
|
| The spinach abides.
| cbtacy wrote:
| Former NYT writer here.... NYT, as far as I know, has _always_
| had a "top-down" directive that coverage be critical. That's,
| you know, the job of journalism and all. Non-critical pieces are
| opinion, not reporting.
| loeg wrote:
| You're using critical in a different sense than the linked
| tweet. The claim being made is:
|
| > There was a top-down decision that tech could not be covered
| positively, even when there was a true, newsworthy and positive
| story.
| luckylion wrote:
| "And make sure to shit on tech, because everything else would
| be opinion, not reporting"?
| lscdlscd wrote:
| Pretty much every major tech company is either inherently or
| in practice worth shitting on.
| rutierut wrote:
| This is exactly that attitude. It's both awesome that I can
| facetime my dying grandma in HD _and_ Apple is deliberately
| non-conforming with it 's messages and charging port
| behavior. Tech isn't bad per se. Some things are super
| dangerous. Some things are literally awesome.
| kodyo wrote:
| Most of us normies had been operating under the impression that
| the job of journalists was to report facts about notable
| events.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Journalism is supposed to be critical, no? Otherwise it is just
| rehashed press releases.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Journalism is supposed to be critical, no? Otherwise it is
| just rehashed press releases.
|
| But the people who put out those press releases, like tech
| executives and investors, _want_ it just be rehashed press
| releases. They actually got their wish for a _looong_ time, and
| came to feel they were entitled to it.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Most journalism is just press releases. I am surprised people
| are just now figuring this out.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| I honestly can't even fathom having a job that requires me to be
| on Twitter all day. It sounds horrific.
| undoware wrote:
| It's wild that HN, forum that seems disproportionately in favor
| of unregulated speech should feel uncomfortable when a newspaper
| chooses a critical editorial stance.
|
| You agree that, _by your own lights_ , editorial stances of
| newspapers are none of your business, yes? Free speech, yes?
|
| Everyone says 'both sides' but that's not actually the case, is
| it? Shoe, meet other foot.
|
| [EDIT]: typos removed
| [deleted]
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I don't think anyone here is calling for the government to
| restrict the NYT's editorial tone. They're saying that this
| behaviour is unbecoming of a newspaper of the NYT's reputation,
| and that their trust in this institution has been damaged as a
| result.
| undoware wrote:
| No one needs to -- the Free Speech Debate is not really about
| the government, is it? Elon didn't buy Twitter to protect it
| from the fed. He bought it to protect it from what he calls a
| "woke mind-virus" -- aka, progressive politics.
|
| This article is trending because -- and I'm generalizing here
| -- HN skews center-right (what I like to call 'business-
| right'.) As a result, it has fallen prey to the false
| narrative of corrupt left-wing mainstream media unfairly
| maligning good honest billionaires.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| No one is calling for twitter to censor the New York Times
| either.
| undoware wrote:
| ...I can't tell if this is willful misinterpretation or
| not, but I certainly did not mean to imply anything at
| all about twitter censorship.
|
| _confused sounds_
|
| EDIT: above, read 'FOR EXAMPLE, ....' when I begin to
| talk about Twitter. HTH
| whateveracct wrote:
| A lot of HNers say Twitter and Google and FB and the like have
| gotten so powerful they are pseudo-governmental institutions.
|
| Don't those same people want the journalistic lens used for
| government to be investigative?
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Outrage sells papers. Or, er, digital subscriptions.
| thmt wrote:
| From former journalist Matt Yglesias on Twitter:
|
| _a few years ago the New York Times made a weird editorial
| decision with its tech coverage. Instead of covering the industry
| with a business press lens or a consumer lens they started
| covering it with a very tough investigative lens -- highly
| oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair. Almost never
| curious about technology or in awe of progress and potential.
| This was a very deliberate top-down decision. They decided tech
| was a major power center that needed scrutiny and needed to be
| taken down a peg, and this style of coverage became very
| widespread and prominent in the industry._
|
| From journalist Kelsey Piper on Twitter in response:
|
| _People might think Matt is overstating this but I literally
| heard it from NYT reporters at the time. There was a top-down
| decision that tech could not be covered positively, even when
| there was a true, newsworthy and positive story. I 'd never heard
| anything like it._
|
| It's shocking to me that the NYTimes would make such an editorial
| decision, and it's disappointing to hear this about one of the
| newspapers that I trust the most. Certainly there are many
| aspects of the tech sector that ought to be criticized and
| exposed to the public, but I don't think it's good for truth-
| seeking to take an editorial stance that tech should generally be
| covered negatively.
| [deleted]
| glogla wrote:
| > They decided tech was a major power center that needed
| scrutiny
|
| I mean, that is for sure true.
|
| The tech has been enormous force against freedom, democracy,
| human rights and science. If it wasn't for Facebook and
| Twitter, we wouldn't have had Brexit, Trump wouldn't have been
| elected, antivaxx wouldn't become mainstream stance and
| millions more people would have survived the pandemic, oh and
| women in US would still have access to abortions.
|
| Then there's Google and their mission to end privacy. Then
| there's Uber and Amazon and their mission to end labor rights.
| Then there's Airbnb and their mission to make cities
| unliveable. Then there's ... you get the point.
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| It is not shocking to me, and like I commented in a separate
| comment here you see it in NYT's coverage of international
| politics. That is harder for people from US to notice as they
| don't have the ground truth to tell apart the nuances.
| musicale wrote:
| > one of the newspapers that I trust the most
|
| One of the newspapers that I ... might possibly occasionally
| distrust a tiny bit less than some other inaccurate, biased and
| misrepresentation-laden newspapers and media sources.
|
| I frequently notice major errors and misrepresentations in the
| NYT and elsewhere, so I can only assume that it's a general
| property - even in stories where I lack the background
| information or expertise to identify them immediately.
| tensor wrote:
| Unfortunately the NYT editorial board has become quite
| political in a way that I don't think journalists should. I
| finally stopped reading them after their highly biased coverage
| and openly stated support of the Canadian alt-right occupation
| of our capital.
|
| They had statements in their articles such as "the majority of
| the funding for the protests came from Canada" when the actual
| number was 54% came from Canadian sources. Maybe from a strict
| mathematical definition that is still a "majority" but it's
| certainly not what anyone imagines when they hear the word.
| There were many other biases in the form of omissions or
| wording like this in their reporting too.
|
| Interestingly, a few years ago I did notice that the NYT and
| also other newspapers started attacking tech companies
| relentlessly. At the time it really seemed like there was a
| coordinated intentional effort. Interesting to see that at
| least in the case of the NYT that is true.
|
| In any case, I no longer trust the NYT as an accurate source
| that strives to be unbiased. They clearly have an agenda that
| is more to the right than I'm comfortable with.
| dekhn wrote:
| The NYT is the mouthpiece of the centrist establishment. If
| the NYT is too "right" for you then you probably want WashPo
| or HuffPo. And if those are still too right, you're an ultra-
| progressive and I don't knwo what they read.
| tensor wrote:
| I do like WashPo, though HuffPo is far too left. I
| generally prefer places that are as neutral as possible. As
| a Canadian I find CTV news to actually be very good,
| despite not being a very large news outlet. They are down
| the middle and avoid inflammatory headlines.
|
| edit: Interestingly I also like the Globe and Mail, and
| people debate whether that is slightly right or slightly
| left.
| pbourke wrote:
| > I finally stopped reading them after their highly biased
| coverage and openly stated support of the Canadian alt-right
| occupation of our capital.
|
| It certainly seems like you wouldn't have any bias when
| discussing this topic as well.
|
| > They had statements in their articles such as "the majority
| of the funding for the protests came from Canada" when the
| actual number was 54% came from Canadian sources. Maybe from
| a strict mathematical definition that is still a "majority"
| but it's certainly not what anyone imagines when they hear
| the word.
|
| What non-strict, non-mathematical definition of the word
| majority do you propose?
| tensor wrote:
| I'm not a journalist and my comments are not an attempt to
| be. On what word to use, I would use "54%" or maybe
| "roughly half." Either paint an accurate picture to the
| reader of the reality.
| chomp wrote:
| How about "Although a majority of funding came from
| Canadian sources, nearly half (46%) came from foreign
| donations."
|
| Seek the whole truth, don't settle for media narratives.
| atdrummond wrote:
| It's hilarious that your critique of them is that they are
| far right. They might be doing something right if they have
| somehow managed to piss off both the left and right.
| tensor wrote:
| I never said they are far right. I said that they are more
| right than I am comfortable with. I now consider them to
| have right-center bias, with some instances where they go a
| bit further. Also, it's a fallacy to think that pissing off
| both sides somehow mean they are doing something right. It
| can also just mean that they are not good at any particular
| thing.
| akozak wrote:
| That's an extremely bad way to decide what to believe.
| prepend wrote:
| Tech really killed the news business so maybe this is just them
| being bitter.
| 23skidoo wrote:
| What did anyone expect? Everyone's been getting smoke blown up
| their ass for years now by 'revolutionary' app makers that did
| very little except skate around regulations and make
| speculators money. The entire industry looks sleazy no matter
| which way you cut it. My only surprise is that the editors felt
| the need to say anything.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| yeah, I can't even really be upset about it.
|
| It's like the whitehouse, they SHOULD be skeptical.
| fearthetelomere wrote:
| I think it's a not-so-rude awakening to follow individuals
| rather than organizations. For example, Matt Levine could be
| the one you trust for finance, or Jason Schreier for news on
| video games.
|
| It's potentially easier to understand an individual's biases on
| a per-article basis than something like the NYT, especially if
| you follow them and their perspectives over time.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I've thought it was one of the most overt editorial decisions
| by most media companies. Vast numbers of people survived a
| pandemic due to big pharma's vaccines, big tech's business
| tools, Amazon's logistics, businesses built on cloud tech, and
| using cars instead of public transport. There has been nowhere
| near enough credit given to those life saving services, and it
| seems obvious why.
|
| Another fun story is this one, from 10 years ago:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/04/cnn-internatio...
| yasp wrote:
| So does that mean that this decision came from the Sulzbergers?
| If only our hall monitors could turn their gaze inward.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-04 23:00 UTC)