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There are some stories they do that are really good. But as with all stories - ProPublica or not - please understand there may be an implicit bias or agenda. O

There are some stories they do that are really good. But as with all stories - ProPublica or not - please understand there may be an implicit bias or agenda. On a different matter involving trial lawyers and an industry group, they reported a "scandal" where there was none. I am familiar with that issue (so I have my own biases!). It was my opinion that they were repeating the trial lawyer's argument and calling that an investigative journalism piece. Others may disagree with my assessment. I do not want to link to that story here. This is one reason why I choose not to financially support ProPublica. EDIT: I'm getting sick of the downvotes on Hacker News. This is not reddit where a downvote == disagree. Just don't upvote it. It's frustrating to take a few minutes to write a comment and then watch it get nuked because it's "controversial". But please feel free to downvote away because my off-topic rant.

mikeyouse 10y ago
Fair point, they won't be perfect for everyone and they may rightly or wrongly ding organizations that people hold in high esteem (e.g. when they displayed the rank incompetence of the Red Cross a few years ago). I'd argue that funding ProPublica and then funding an outfit who takes a contrary position on whatever issue is important to you is a better solution though. We need more journalism not less.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  That's a useful concept. Sort of like a free speech hedge, or like buying carbon offsets. Could be gamed, though -- start an extreme paper to pump donations to your centrist paper ;)
  - icebraining 10y ago
    If they're both high quality enough, then citing xkcd, "mission accomplished."
dv_dt 10y ago
Just because a side is associated with trial lawyers doesn't say anything about bias to me, one way or the other. Sometimes they get involved in issues which seems like it would increase undesirable litigation. (of course people have differing opinions of what is undesirable). But going further, sometimes laws are setup by congress which essentially 'outsources' enforcement to private parties. You can hold a good or bad opinion of the practice, or specific laws which are enacted, but in those areas, cases going to litigation can be the only way that the law is ever enforced.
conistonwater 10y ago
I downvoted you because you are repeating the tired old trope about implicit biases and agendas. It's as if once we think we've identified someone's agenda, we can tell whether they're telling the truth. But this is false: the proper way is to assess the quality of reporting first, and if it is low-quality, then we can ask questions about how shoddy work got through, and then the answer might be biases and agendas. If it's good reporting, then biases and agendas are irrelevant. But in any case objective quality always comes first.
- dpc59 10y ago
  You can have objective high quality reporting and still be pushing an agenda. It will show in what you choose to report and what issues you just don't talk about.
  - conistonwater 10y ago
    In that case, I'd say choosing what to report is itself part of reporting, and if the choices are poor, that's low-quality reporting. So I don't really see an issue.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Does "objective" here apply to the reporting or to the assessment that it's high quality?
  - mtgx 10y ago
    The alternative is neutrality, as in the old "we have to give 50-50 time to both sides". So 50% to climate change activists and 50% to climate change deniers, and so on. Is that really better than objective bias? I would think it's not. NYTimes also (publicly) gave up on neutrality in 2012, I believe. The real problem today is most media today (and I don't include ProPublica in this) isn't even objective anymore. They're just biased, and engage in biased activism, with little objectivity and facts in its way. Glenn Greenwald did an interview on this issue recently, which I think is worth watching for his perspective on this. Some may see Greenwald as "biased", but I think he's not only less biased than most "journalists" or pro-establishment figureheads on TV, but that more journalists should strive to be like him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTC-GvWRlQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTC-GvWRlQ8
nkw 10y ago
> I do not want to link to that story here. Why not? You say they did something wrong, but then do not cite to what it was other than saying it involved "trial lawyers and an industry group". Why not provide a link to go along with your opinion and let people read it and decide if they agree with you or not rather than insinuating impropriety?
- aluminussoma 10y ago
  I didn't want to skew the discussion even more off-topic. Plus, I know I didn't have the time today to respond to all the counter-arguments to the article.
jedberg 10y ago
FWIW, downvote == disagree is not how reddit is supposed to work either, and didn't used to. So good luck fighting that trend!
tobltobs 10y ago
I did downvote for "I do not want to link to that story here.". What is that, anecdotal evidence without evidence?
icebraining 10y ago
This is not reddit where a downvote == disagree Says who? Not the creator of this site, at least: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 (Note: I personally don't downvote when I disagree, but I don't think there's an official position by the site)
jackmott 10y ago
I didn't donwvote till you added the edit about downvotes
grzm 10y ago
"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
swehner 10y ago
Don't worry about the down-voters. They are just learning
alistproducer2 10y ago
Everyone has an agenda. Here's an idea; judge a piece or organization by the quality of the work. I'll read pieces from the National Review even though I don't share their bias. Why? Because they employ good journalists and check their work. Even without the cesspool of comments, I won't read Breitbart because the editorial quality is non-existant. Same goes for crapy left-wing blogs like RawStory.
Houshalter 10y ago
In once case they released a study of how algorithms used by police were supposedly biased against minorities. Their results were "almost statistically significant". In other words, they weren't statistically significant. But they went ahead and published it anyway, under an alarming clickbait headline. https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/propublica_is_lying.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/propublica_is_lying.... It makes me pretty upset, because that is the study/article that everyone references when discussing that issue.
LeanderK 10y ago
Can you explain what you mean with agenda? When i read the nytimes i expect a bit of an bias, i am totally ok with that. Every newspaper has an opinion. But i would not be ok with an agenda if you interpret that as selecting stories that mostly fit with your goal and bending stories to favour your goal. That's not journalism.

mikeyouse 10y ago

Fair point, they won't be perfect for everyone and they may rightly or wrongly ding organizations that people hold in high esteem (e.g. when they displayed the rank incompetence of the Red Cross a few years ago). I'd argue that funding ProPublica and then funding an outfit who takes a contrary position on whatever issue is important to you is a better solution though. We need more journalism not less.

nitrogen 10y ago
That's a useful concept. Sort of like a free speech hedge, or like buying carbon offsets. Could be gamed, though -- start an extreme paper to pump donations to your centrist paper ;)
- icebraining 10y ago
  If they're both high quality enough, then citing xkcd, "mission accomplished."

dv_dt 10y ago

Just because a side is associated with trial lawyers doesn't say anything about bias to me, one way or the other. Sometimes they get involved in issues which seems like it would increase undesirable litigation. (of course people have differing opinions of what is undesirable). But going further, sometimes laws are setup by congress which essentially 'outsources' enforcement to private parties. You can hold a good or bad opinion of the practice, or specific laws which are enacted, but in those areas, cases going to litigation can be the only way that the law is ever enforced.

conistonwater 10y ago

I downvoted you because you are repeating the tired old trope about implicit biases and agendas. It's as if once we think we've identified someone's agenda, we can tell whether they're telling the truth. But this is false: the proper way is to assess the quality of reporting first, and if it is low-quality, then we can ask questions about how shoddy work got through, and then the answer might be biases and agendas. If it's good reporting, then biases and agendas are irrelevant. But in any case objective quality always comes first.

dpc59 10y ago
You can have objective high quality reporting and still be pushing an agenda. It will show in what you choose to report and what issues you just don't talk about.
- conistonwater 10y ago
  In that case, I'd say choosing what to report is itself part of reporting, and if the choices are poor, that's low-quality reporting. So I don't really see an issue.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Does "objective" here apply to the reporting or to the assessment that it's high quality?
- mtgx 10y ago
  The alternative is neutrality, as in the old "we have to give 50-50 time to both sides". So 50% to climate change activists and 50% to climate change deniers, and so on. Is that really better than objective bias? I would think it's not. NYTimes also (publicly) gave up on neutrality in 2012, I believe. The real problem today is most media today (and I don't include ProPublica in this) isn't even objective anymore. They're just biased, and engage in biased activism, with little objectivity and facts in its way. Glenn Greenwald did an interview on this issue recently, which I think is worth watching for his perspective on this. Some may see Greenwald as "biased", but I think he's not only less biased than most "journalists" or pro-establishment figureheads on TV, but that more journalists should strive to be like him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTC-GvWRlQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTC-GvWRlQ8

nkw 10y ago

> I do not want to link to that story here. Why not? You say they did something wrong, but then do not cite to what it was other than saying it involved "trial lawyers and an industry group". Why not provide a link to go along with your opinion and let people read it and decide if they agree with you or not rather than insinuating impropriety?

aluminussoma 10y ago
I didn't want to skew the discussion even more off-topic. Plus, I know I didn't have the time today to respond to all the counter-arguments to the article.

jedberg 10y ago

FWIW, downvote == disagree is not how reddit is supposed to work either, and didn't used to. So good luck fighting that trend!

tobltobs 10y ago

I did downvote for "I do not want to link to that story here.". What is that, anecdotal evidence without evidence?

icebraining 10y ago

This is not reddit where a downvote == disagree Says who? Not the creator of this site, at least: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 (Note: I personally don't downvote when I disagree, but I don't think there's an official position by the site)

jackmott 10y ago

I didn't donwvote till you added the edit about downvotes

grzm 10y ago

"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

swehner 10y ago

Don't worry about the down-voters. They are just learning

alistproducer2 10y ago

Everyone has an agenda. Here's an idea; judge a piece or organization by the quality of the work. I'll read pieces from the National Review even though I don't share their bias. Why? Because they employ good journalists and check their work. Even without the cesspool of comments, I won't read Breitbart because the editorial quality is non-existant. Same goes for crapy left-wing blogs like RawStory.

Houshalter 10y ago

In once case they released a study of how algorithms used by police were supposedly biased against minorities. Their results were "almost statistically significant". In other words, they weren't statistically significant. But they went ahead and published it anyway, under an alarming clickbait headline. https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/propublica_is_lying.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/propublica_is_lying.... It makes me pretty upset, because that is the study/article that everyone references when discussing that issue.

LeanderK 10y ago

Can you explain what you mean with agenda? When i read the nytimes i expect a bit of an bias, i am totally ok with that. Every newspaper has an opinion. But i would not be ok with an agenda if you interpret that as selecting stories that mostly fit with your goal and bending stories to favour your goal. That's not journalism.