4 ms·

This is what HN readers and Paul Graham enthusiasts might call a reverse submarine or an insider submarine. A traditional submarine is when a PR firm supplies

by jawns 9y ago

This is what HN readers and Paul Graham enthusiasts might call a reverse submarine or an insider submarine. A traditional submarine is when a PR firm supplies journalists with stories that are true, but just happens to favor their clients. It tries to give biased information a patina of unbiased objectivity (to the extent that the newspaper is considered to be less biased than a press release). This reverse submarine -- a critique of Amazon published by Jeff Bezos' paper -- tries to give what appears to be a biased news source a patina of unbiased objectivity by running what appears to be a piece that's critical of the thing it's thought to be biased toward. Bezos can now say, "Hey, look at this Post piece that's critical of Amazon. Clearly, I'm not pulling the strings or censoring articles that make my company look bad." But bear in mind that we don't know what's under the surface. We know what articles critical of Amazon he has let through, but we don't know what articles critical of Amazon he hasn't let through.

Pyxl101 9y ago
This article is in the "Perspectives" section of WaPo, which means the "Opinion" section, in case you are not aware. > Discussion of news topics with a point of view, including narratives by individuals regarding their own experiences
- jawns 9y ago
  I think you might be missing the point. I'm not saying that the piece itself is unbiased. Opinion pieces are not supposed to be unbiased. I'm saying that the fact that the piece was run gives Bezos the ability to say that he does not exert editorial control over the paper, because if he did, he wouldn't have let such a piece run at all.
  - throwaway5752 9y ago
    In your logic, is their any way Bezos can demonstrated the editorial independence of the Washington Post?
    - mintplant 9y ago
      Even if the answer is "no", that doesn't mean we should fall back to assuming WaPo is fully editorially independent. Just as our (current) inability to prove P != NP doesn't mean we should assume P = NP.
    - adrianratnapala 9y ago
      There isn't and there doesn't need to be, because newspapers should be read as evidence rather than as authority. Like any publication, the WP is what it is. It has particular staff, history, reputaiton etc, all of which make it strong in some ways but weak in others, including bias. Bezos' ownership of the paper is yet one more layer on all that. There is, and never was, any alternative to reading stuff with your bullshit detector turned on.
- trendia 9y ago
  Opinion pieces are still subject to approval by the editor and reflect the broader narrative of the news organization. Simply compare the opinion pieces in the NYT (more left leaning) to those in the WSJ (more right leaning) -- there is a clear and obvious bias toward the overall publication's bias.
pessimizer 9y ago
The article is not critical of Amazon. It is highly complimentary of Amazon, and says that it is not monopolistic. This is more like when a scam university buys up all search engines searching for its name paired up with the word scam, and creates 100 single entry blogs called "Superfake University: Scam or Not?" that all explain at extreme length how it's definitely not a scam although although the outcomes are so good that it seems like one, and drop every synonym for scam or fraud you can find in the thesaurus, paired with the name of the fake university as many times as possible.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > The article is not critical of Amazon. It is highly complimentary of Amazon, and says that it is not monopolistic. You and I definitely didn't read the same article.
Kurtz79 9y ago
I think that when there is such a large conflict of interests, the best course of action would be ignoring opinion pieces on the parent company/owner altogether. If it's major news that you cannot avoid publishing, just report the basic facts with no commentary. Otherwise you cannot really read the piece without entering a similar spiral of thought: "Is it genuine ?" "If it's critical, is it to make the point that the paper really is independent ?" "If it's positive, how can I trust it, considering the source ?" etc...

by jawns 9y ago

Pyxl101 9y ago

This article is in the "Perspectives" section of WaPo, which means the "Opinion" section, in case you are not aware. > Discussion of news topics with a point of view, including narratives by individuals regarding their own experiences

jawns 9y ago
I think you might be missing the point. I'm not saying that the piece itself is unbiased. Opinion pieces are not supposed to be unbiased. I'm saying that the fact that the piece was run gives Bezos the ability to say that he does not exert editorial control over the paper, because if he did, he wouldn't have let such a piece run at all.
- throwaway5752 9y ago
  In your logic, is their any way Bezos can demonstrated the editorial independence of the Washington Post?
  - mintplant 9y ago
    Even if the answer is "no", that doesn't mean we should fall back to assuming WaPo is fully editorially independent. Just as our (current) inability to prove P != NP doesn't mean we should assume P = NP.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    There isn't and there doesn't need to be, because newspapers should be read as evidence rather than as authority. Like any publication, the WP is what it is. It has particular staff, history, reputaiton etc, all of which make it strong in some ways but weak in others, including bias. Bezos' ownership of the paper is yet one more layer on all that. There is, and never was, any alternative to reading stuff with your bullshit detector turned on.
trendia 9y ago
Opinion pieces are still subject to approval by the editor and reflect the broader narrative of the news organization. Simply compare the opinion pieces in the NYT (more left leaning) to those in the WSJ (more right leaning) -- there is a clear and obvious bias toward the overall publication's bias.

pessimizer 9y ago

The article is not critical of Amazon. It is highly complimentary of Amazon, and says that it is not monopolistic. This is more like when a scam university buys up all search engines searching for its name paired up with the word scam, and creates 100 single entry blogs called "Superfake University: Scam or Not?" that all explain at extreme length how it's definitely not a scam although although the outcomes are so good that it seems like one, and drop every synonym for scam or fraud you can find in the thesaurus, paired with the name of the fake university as many times as possible.

Dylan16807 9y ago
> The article is not critical of Amazon. It is highly complimentary of Amazon, and says that it is not monopolistic. You and I definitely didn't read the same article.

Kurtz79 9y ago

I think that when there is such a large conflict of interests, the best course of action would be ignoring opinion pieces on the parent company/owner altogether. If it's major news that you cannot avoid publishing, just report the basic facts with no commentary. Otherwise you cannot really read the piece without entering a similar spiral of thought: "Is it genuine ?" "If it's critical, is it to make the point that the paper really is independent ?" "If it's positive, how can I trust it, considering the source ?" etc...