4 ms·

Myself (a liberal, NYT reader for decades), was upset when I realized that the publication was pushing Clinton so hard without telling the other side of the sto

Myself (a liberal, NYT reader for decades), was upset when I realized that the publication was pushing Clinton so hard without telling the other side of the story. And then leaks confirmed that the press was, err, too friendly with the candidate (sharing articles before they were published, passing on debate questions, staging interviews...) Sigh.

jordanb 10y ago
Remember that the New York Times published fake news that helped the Government launch the War in Iraq, costing the country trillions of dollars and thousands of combat causalities, tens of thousands of more deaths Iraq, destabilizing the middle east, helping the rise of ISIS and the current wave of terror. This is something the New York Times did. They own it. http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/26/dick-cheney-the-new-york-times-and-the-myth-of-the-iraq-connection-to-9-11/ http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/26/dick-cheney-the-new-y...
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Please don't conflate poor journalism with fake news. Reporting what the government said with no deeper context is poor journalism. The government really did say there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The New York Times reported those statements, not faked evidence of the weapons. Fake news is just making shit up, like inventing a dead body and saying it was killed by Clinton.
  - potatosoup 10y ago
    There's a question of journalistic integrity. If you read NYT as I do you expect to be told "the whole story" and not be reading a glorified crafted PR statement. I think that's irresponsible and as good as fake
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      The institutional failure of much of mass media is a problem. Trading on access, parroting PR, things like that. But it's a different problem than the one where people literally completely make up click bait articles and present them as news. Not hastily written, fact light articles about real events, articles about things that simply never happened. We do ourselves a favor when we treat them as separate issues.
      - potatosoup 10y ago
        FWIW National Enquirer etc. existed for ages and no one seemed to mind. There's plenty of fake news to go around... What about "I am a NYT reader and I read it every day with the hopes to tell me who is a better candidate" and I read it, diligently, not knowing that the information is being fed from one candidate? Isn't that lousy?
        maxerickson 10y ago
        The people that sued them (many won!) cared. Celebrities winning a libel suit means you are doing a pretty shitty job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Enquirer#Notable_stories_and_lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Enquirer#Notable_stor... And like I said, it's totally fine to be concerned with the quality of the content of the NYT. Just don't mix it up with the quality problems at the National Enquirer, which are a different thing entirely.
        pessimizer 10y ago
        That's not a great characterization of your link. The Enquirer has a very good record for a publication so venerable and vicious, and rarely loses libel suits. People tend to confuse it mentally with the Weekly World News, which was awesome, proud to be fake news of no consequence, and shelved in checkout lines right next to the Enquirer.
      - jordanb 10y ago
        I think it's related because they discredit themselves by rebroadcasting government lies, then they say "But don't you pay attention to that PatriotTruth2016.com website, that's fake what we broadcast is real and when it happens to not be true, well it's a truthful rebroadcast of some information that just happened to be false. Also, being a faithful transmitter of the government line is not something to aspire to. Everything Pravda ever published was true insofar as it was the official line of the government of the USSR. If the NYT is the Pravda of the USA then I think we might just be better off with PatriotTruth2016.com.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    I don't think the line is that sharp. The NYT was peddling completely false stories and attributing them to anonymous administration officials. I'm not willing to say that's not fake news; their sources had/have complete deniability to the point that there's no way that we can say for sure that the stories weren't being directly inserted by the government especially being largely laundered through a single fake journalist[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      There's a difference between a reporter lying to the institution they work for and a couple guys in a garage making shit up for ad views. I'd very much like to see less anonymous sourcing and PR parroting and so on. It's my belief that conflating those activities with the folks making shit up entirely harms that goal.

jordanb 10y ago

Remember that the New York Times published fake news that helped the Government launch the War in Iraq, costing the country trillions of dollars and thousands of combat causalities, tens of thousands of more deaths Iraq, destabilizing the middle east, helping the rise of ISIS and the current wave of terror. This is something the New York Times did. They own it. http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/26/dick-cheney-the-new-york-times-and-the-myth-of-the-iraq-connection-to-9-11/ http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/26/dick-cheney-the-new-y...

maxerickson 10y ago
Please don't conflate poor journalism with fake news. Reporting what the government said with no deeper context is poor journalism. The government really did say there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The New York Times reported those statements, not faked evidence of the weapons. Fake news is just making shit up, like inventing a dead body and saying it was killed by Clinton.
- potatosoup 10y ago
  There's a question of journalistic integrity. If you read NYT as I do you expect to be told "the whole story" and not be reading a glorified crafted PR statement. I think that's irresponsible and as good as fake
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    The institutional failure of much of mass media is a problem. Trading on access, parroting PR, things like that. But it's a different problem than the one where people literally completely make up click bait articles and present them as news. Not hastily written, fact light articles about real events, articles about things that simply never happened. We do ourselves a favor when we treat them as separate issues.
    - potatosoup 10y ago
      FWIW National Enquirer etc. existed for ages and no one seemed to mind. There's plenty of fake news to go around... What about "I am a NYT reader and I read it every day with the hopes to tell me who is a better candidate" and I read it, diligently, not knowing that the information is being fed from one candidate? Isn't that lousy?
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        The people that sued them (many won!) cared. Celebrities winning a libel suit means you are doing a pretty shitty job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Enquirer#Notable_stories_and_lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Enquirer#Notable_stor... And like I said, it's totally fine to be concerned with the quality of the content of the NYT. Just don't mix it up with the quality problems at the National Enquirer, which are a different thing entirely.
        pessimizer 10y ago
        That's not a great characterization of your link. The Enquirer has a very good record for a publication so venerable and vicious, and rarely loses libel suits. People tend to confuse it mentally with the Weekly World News, which was awesome, proud to be fake news of no consequence, and shelved in checkout lines right next to the Enquirer.
    - jordanb 10y ago
      I think it's related because they discredit themselves by rebroadcasting government lies, then they say "But don't you pay attention to that PatriotTruth2016.com website, that's fake what we broadcast is real and when it happens to not be true, well it's a truthful rebroadcast of some information that just happened to be false. Also, being a faithful transmitter of the government line is not something to aspire to. Everything Pravda ever published was true insofar as it was the official line of the government of the USSR. If the NYT is the Pravda of the USA then I think we might just be better off with PatriotTruth2016.com.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  I don't think the line is that sharp. The NYT was peddling completely false stories and attributing them to anonymous administration officials. I'm not willing to say that's not fake news; their sources had/have complete deniability to the point that there's no way that we can say for sure that the stories weren't being directly inserted by the government especially being largely laundered through a single fake journalist[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    There's a difference between a reporter lying to the institution they work for and a couple guys in a garage making shit up for ad views. I'd very much like to see less anonymous sourcing and PR parroting and so on. It's my belief that conflating those activities with the folks making shit up entirely harms that goal.