5 ms·

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 stateme

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.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Your also is misplaced, I called it poor journalism, not something to aspire to. The point is that "fake news" hit the lexicon based on the completely made up bullshit and now people are confusing the issue by trying to broaden it out to include poor journalism. We have the words to talk about them separately, I'm not going to give up trying to get people to do that just yet.

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.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Your also is misplaced, I called it poor journalism, not something to aspire to. The point is that "fake news" hit the lexicon based on the completely made up bullshit and now people are confusing the issue by trying to broaden it out to include poor journalism. We have the words to talk about them separately, I'm not going to give up trying to get people to do that just yet.