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No, but it may have come to them via a press release. Paul Graham on PR from 2005: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine

by theoh 10y ago

No, but it may have come to them via a press release. Paul Graham on PR from 2005: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html "PR is not dishonest. Not quite. In fact, the reason the best PR firms are so effective is precisely that they aren't dishonest. They give reporters genuinely valuable information. A good PR firm won't bug reporters just because the client tells them to; they've worked hard to build their credibility with reporters, and they don't want to destroy it by feeding them mere propaganda. If anyone is dishonest, it's the reporters. The main reason PR firms exist is that reporters are lazy. Or, to put it more nicely, overworked. Really they ought to be out there digging up stories for themselves. But it's so tempting to sit in their offices and let PR firms bring the stories to them. After all, they know good PR firms won't lie to them."

Hydraulix989 10y ago
It's not dishonesty; it's just biased, and I wasn't necessarily pointing the finger at Pearl either.
- theoh 10y ago
  I didn't mean to comment on the honesty or otherwise, those were just the paragraphs that contained the key info: PR firms feed valid facts to journalists. If a news outlet so much as carries an article about a given topic, they are exercising discretion and leaving themselves open to accusations of bias... Really it's NPoV that is the unachievable ideal.
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
    I see, you did seem to imply that I implied that NYT/Pearl (pg favors the former when it comes to possible "bad actors") were being dishonest. I think it's an important lesson to learn how to discern whether articles are "paid marketing" or "content marketing" (or biased in other ways). Not many people know how to do this kind of critical thinking -- look at the "fake news" debacle (if anything, there is a certain blind trust people place in authority figures like the NYT). The transparency (or lack thereof) of this particular article is an important observation to note.
tomdell 10y ago
This quote is nice, but Graham doesn't touch on dishonest PR - it does exist, and it is a problem. Look at Theranos.

by theoh 10y ago

Hydraulix989 10y ago

It's not dishonesty; it's just biased, and I wasn't necessarily pointing the finger at Pearl either.

theoh 10y ago
I didn't mean to comment on the honesty or otherwise, those were just the paragraphs that contained the key info: PR firms feed valid facts to journalists. If a news outlet so much as carries an article about a given topic, they are exercising discretion and leaving themselves open to accusations of bias... Really it's NPoV that is the unachievable ideal.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  I see, you did seem to imply that I implied that NYT/Pearl (pg favors the former when it comes to possible "bad actors") were being dishonest. I think it's an important lesson to learn how to discern whether articles are "paid marketing" or "content marketing" (or biased in other ways). Not many people know how to do this kind of critical thinking -- look at the "fake news" debacle (if anything, there is a certain blind trust people place in authority figures like the NYT). The transparency (or lack thereof) of this particular article is an important observation to note.

tomdell 10y ago

This quote is nice, but Graham doesn't touch on dishonest PR - it does exist, and it is a problem. Look at Theranos.