4 ms·

Thank you for posting. Reminds me of the NYT article that bashed Amazon and Bezos a while back. Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has

by bedhead 10y ago

Thank you for posting. Reminds me of the NYT article that bashed Amazon and Bezos a while back. Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has a preconceived bias against the subject.

fluxquanta 10y ago
>Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has a preconceived bias against the subject. Doesn't every journalist when reporting on any newsworthy item? Everybody has their biases, and they'll naturally come out in reporting. There is no "fair and balanced", it's just a matter of what extent these biases are hidden in the work. I think the onus is on us, the consumers of this media, to take every piece as only part of the whole truth, and make up our own minds about the subject.
- jontas 10y ago
  You are surely correct, however, I think there is a difference between a reporter recognizing their own biases (to the extent they are able) and striving to write objective, fair pieces that are properly sourced, fact checked, and give both sides a fair hearing. It is impossible to completely escape one's own unconscious biases but this particular example is a blog post written by someone in an obvious attempt to put forward a personal (or business) agenda.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    If you are a reporter who has identified a bad company, how are you supposed to investigate them publicly without writing articles about how 'bad' they are? Writing a string or articles about the same topic, shouldn't instantly mean you get extra scrutiny. That scrutiny should be on everyone, since sometimes the most biased are those who care the least to write and have done the least groundwork.
- quantum_state 10y ago
  The bias is an opportunity for robojournalism ..
  - nkozyra 10y ago
    Garbage in, garbage out. Robojournalism might be even more ripe for bias, but from its sources rather than the journalist itself. Theoretically part of a journalist's job is to get valuable sources from each side of an argument/story and present them equally. The journalist's footprint should be minimal. As we all know, that is increasingly less the case.
cloakandswagger 10y ago
To me, this is simply one of the risks that companies who trade entirely on sentiment have to deal with. I hope it's obvious to anyone that Tesla's (and to a lesser extent, Amazon's) massive valuation is not based on bedrock fundamentals but on perception and expectations. Baseless hit pieces that knock a few percentage points off your stock are part of the game at that point.
- wldcordeiro 10y ago
  It seems to me that sometimes it's not even about what the company is or does (like being a car company or supplier/whatever Amazon calls itself now) but just purely motivated by the market prices. Like the motivation is to affect the stock price, everything else is just tangential.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
hueving 10y ago
>Reminds me of the NYT article that bashed Amazon and Bezos a while back. This case seems a bit different. In the Amazon case there were lots of employees that agreed with the article hinting that it had a lot of truth to it.
GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
I'd like to point out that Amazon, as an employer, had a negative reputation in tech circles well before the NYT article. Read between the lines of Steve Yegge's accidentally published rant from 2011 about platforms and focus on how he describes Amazon. http://lazytechguys.com/featured/google-engineer-steve-yegges-uncut-rant-on-google-the-dread-pirate-bezos-and-more http://lazytechguys.com/featured/google-engineer-steve-yegge...

by bedhead 10y ago

fluxquanta 10y ago

>Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has a preconceived bias against the subject. Doesn't every journalist when reporting on any newsworthy item? Everybody has their biases, and they'll naturally come out in reporting. There is no "fair and balanced", it's just a matter of what extent these biases are hidden in the work. I think the onus is on us, the consumers of this media, to take every piece as only part of the whole truth, and make up our own minds about the subject.

jontas 10y ago
You are surely correct, however, I think there is a difference between a reporter recognizing their own biases (to the extent they are able) and striving to write objective, fair pieces that are properly sourced, fact checked, and give both sides a fair hearing. It is impossible to completely escape one's own unconscious biases but this particular example is a blog post written by someone in an obvious attempt to put forward a personal (or business) agenda.
- true_religion 10y ago
  If you are a reporter who has identified a bad company, how are you supposed to investigate them publicly without writing articles about how 'bad' they are? Writing a string or articles about the same topic, shouldn't instantly mean you get extra scrutiny. That scrutiny should be on everyone, since sometimes the most biased are those who care the least to write and have done the least groundwork.
quantum_state 10y ago
The bias is an opportunity for robojournalism ..
- nkozyra 10y ago
  Garbage in, garbage out. Robojournalism might be even more ripe for bias, but from its sources rather than the journalist itself. Theoretically part of a journalist's job is to get valuable sources from each side of an argument/story and present them equally. The journalist's footprint should be minimal. As we all know, that is increasingly less the case.

cloakandswagger 10y ago

To me, this is simply one of the risks that companies who trade entirely on sentiment have to deal with. I hope it's obvious to anyone that Tesla's (and to a lesser extent, Amazon's) massive valuation is not based on bedrock fundamentals but on perception and expectations. Baseless hit pieces that knock a few percentage points off your stock are part of the game at that point.

wldcordeiro 10y ago
It seems to me that sometimes it's not even about what the company is or does (like being a car company or supplier/whatever Amazon calls itself now) but just purely motivated by the market prices. Like the motivation is to affect the stock price, everything else is just tangential.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

hueving 10y ago

>Reminds me of the NYT article that bashed Amazon and Bezos a while back. This case seems a bit different. In the Amazon case there were lots of employees that agreed with the article hinting that it had a lot of truth to it.

GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago

I'd like to point out that Amazon, as an employer, had a negative reputation in tech circles well before the NYT article. Read between the lines of Steve Yegge's accidentally published rant from 2011 about platforms and focus on how he describes Amazon. http://lazytechguys.com/featured/google-engineer-steve-yegges-uncut-rant-on-google-the-dread-pirate-bezos-and-more http://lazytechguys.com/featured/google-engineer-steve-yegge...