5 ms·

Here is an HN comment from jawns on one of the WP articles that tries to explain this: "This reverse submarine -- a critique of Amazon published by Jeff Bezos'

Here is an HN comment from jawns on one of the WP articles that tries to explain this: "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." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14877216#14878179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14877216#14878179 Whether this is true or not actually does not matter as long as the conflict of interest is there.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
"Substance is illusory, only appearance is substantial." It took me a while to put to words what I find objectionable about your view -- it's intellectual laziness masquerading as critical opinion. Rather than grappling with a tough problem, it advocates abandoning the problem completely into some sort of post truth fluff, then dresses that up to pose as wisdom. There's no critical analysis of how bias manifests or the tradeoffs of that bias versus other biases that might be introduced by other sets of circumstances -- there's no meat to that line of thinking. It's intellectual high-fructose corn syrup.
- meric 9y ago
  Tangential to the topic at hand: The substance itself, if you look closely, is only yet another layer of appearance, slightly closer to the Truth - God.
MichaelBurge 9y ago
I feel like bias is the lazy man's argument: "As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information." So FAIR is a biased news source, and we should disregard any criticism they present about any media companies. See how easy this is? Didn't even have to think, which I suppose is the appeal. You've got bigger problems if you're forming opinions about Amazon based on the relative frequency of positive vs. negative headlines in the news(a metric which is literally the article's concern). Safeguarding the integrity of input sources is only a hugely important problem if you also outsource thinking and evaluating arguments to them.
jbooth 9y ago
So, if the WaPo doesn't criticize Bezos, it's because they're owned by him, but if they do, it's because of a 'reverse submarine'? Quite the box they're in there. Let me throw occam's razor out there -- unless Bezos and/or Amazon PR people leaned on the WaPo to write this story, then it's exactly what it looks like, a random writer with a critical thought piece about Amazon.
- mevile 9y ago
  It bugs me that without evidence sedevach and the commentator he linked to just present something speculative as a certainty. HN comments just jump right into full throttle conspiracy theories and receive hundreds of upvotes. It's not like at the edges of the discussion and downvoted. These uncritical comments are frequently floating at the top of what people are reading. If you've got evidence of Washington Post writers trampling their journalistic credentials and planting favorable stories for Bezos you should share that along with your accusations otherwise you should maybe hedge your claims a bit. Eh? Maybe go look up the authors for these pieces on twitter, they're often there, and just go ahead and accuse them right there where they can see it. Such a shameful thing to do in my opinion, and so far fetched.
  - jbooth 9y ago
    Well, there's an argument to be made that captains of industry shouldn't own newspapers, full stop. That argument can be made without evidence, and there's some credence to it.
    - curun1r 9y ago
      The problem with that argument is that newspapers basically aren't profitable anymore, so we have to choose between "news" outlets that skimp on all journalism costs and simply parrot stories from other sources, real news outlets owned by those captains of industry who are willing to run them at a loss for what amounts to vanity purposes, and bankrupt/soon-to-be-bankrupt new outlets with little-to-no future. When someone comes up with a profitable model that can support real, independent journalism, perhaps we can start making that argument. Personally, if I compare quality journalism with a blind spot for Bezos, neo-nazi/alt-right crackpot "news" sites and small-town Romanians making up fake news to go viral on Facebook, I'm inclined to think that what little bias WaPo has isn't really that big of a problem.
grimgrin 9y ago
Entirely off topic but your comment made me realize some people read acronyms as the letters and others will read the full wording. So I'd say "a HN comment". Ok back to the subject.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago

"Substance is illusory, only appearance is substantial." It took me a while to put to words what I find objectionable about your view -- it's intellectual laziness masquerading as critical opinion. Rather than grappling with a tough problem, it advocates abandoning the problem completely into some sort of post truth fluff, then dresses that up to pose as wisdom. There's no critical analysis of how bias manifests or the tradeoffs of that bias versus other biases that might be introduced by other sets of circumstances -- there's no meat to that line of thinking. It's intellectual high-fructose corn syrup.

meric 9y ago
Tangential to the topic at hand: The substance itself, if you look closely, is only yet another layer of appearance, slightly closer to the Truth - God.

MichaelBurge 9y ago

I feel like bias is the lazy man's argument: "As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information." So FAIR is a biased news source, and we should disregard any criticism they present about any media companies. See how easy this is? Didn't even have to think, which I suppose is the appeal. You've got bigger problems if you're forming opinions about Amazon based on the relative frequency of positive vs. negative headlines in the news(a metric which is literally the article's concern). Safeguarding the integrity of input sources is only a hugely important problem if you also outsource thinking and evaluating arguments to them.

jbooth 9y ago

So, if the WaPo doesn't criticize Bezos, it's because they're owned by him, but if they do, it's because of a 'reverse submarine'? Quite the box they're in there. Let me throw occam's razor out there -- unless Bezos and/or Amazon PR people leaned on the WaPo to write this story, then it's exactly what it looks like, a random writer with a critical thought piece about Amazon.

mevile 9y ago
It bugs me that without evidence sedevach and the commentator he linked to just present something speculative as a certainty. HN comments just jump right into full throttle conspiracy theories and receive hundreds of upvotes. It's not like at the edges of the discussion and downvoted. These uncritical comments are frequently floating at the top of what people are reading. If you've got evidence of Washington Post writers trampling their journalistic credentials and planting favorable stories for Bezos you should share that along with your accusations otherwise you should maybe hedge your claims a bit. Eh? Maybe go look up the authors for these pieces on twitter, they're often there, and just go ahead and accuse them right there where they can see it. Such a shameful thing to do in my opinion, and so far fetched.
- jbooth 9y ago
  Well, there's an argument to be made that captains of industry shouldn't own newspapers, full stop. That argument can be made without evidence, and there's some credence to it.
  - curun1r 9y ago
    The problem with that argument is that newspapers basically aren't profitable anymore, so we have to choose between "news" outlets that skimp on all journalism costs and simply parrot stories from other sources, real news outlets owned by those captains of industry who are willing to run them at a loss for what amounts to vanity purposes, and bankrupt/soon-to-be-bankrupt new outlets with little-to-no future. When someone comes up with a profitable model that can support real, independent journalism, perhaps we can start making that argument. Personally, if I compare quality journalism with a blind spot for Bezos, neo-nazi/alt-right crackpot "news" sites and small-town Romanians making up fake news to go viral on Facebook, I'm inclined to think that what little bias WaPo has isn't really that big of a problem.

grimgrin 9y ago

Entirely off topic but your comment made me realize some people read acronyms as the letters and others will read the full wording. So I'd say "a HN comment". Ok back to the subject.