9 ms·

Corporate media like NYT and WashPo etc that writes things like you must be crazy to not believe there are WMDs in Iraq are not serious news sites. Rich != seri

by xster 9y ago

Corporate media like NYT and WashPo etc that writes things like you must be crazy to not believe there are WMDs in Iraq are not serious news sites. Rich != serious. And hegemonic news smearing all sources of independent journalism and grassroot progressive political movements is just about the opposite of the point of this article.

jmcgough 9y ago
Like them or not, the NYT and WashPo do some of the best, factual investigative journalism in the world. Have they been wrong? Sure. But they have extremely high standards for publishing a story, so you can generally assume that they're accurate. They also are the ones who break a lot of the biggest, most impactful stories. I think a better criticism of them would be wash po turning a blind eye to Bezos and others that have influence of it.
- drdrey 9y ago
  And when they make factual errors, they publish errata
  - xster 9y ago
    Technically legal https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/930510825617543173 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/930510825617543173 is the name of the game. Smear than obscurely retract is the news of 2016.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - croon 9y ago
      Why are you linking twitter screenshots about something relating to buzzfeed?
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  They practice the worst type of disinformation. Correct most of the time but when it really counts they publish incorrect propaganda (eg wmds in Iraq).
  - briga 9y ago
    Care to name any large news publications that don't do this? I can't think of any.
    - kaendfinger 9y ago
      Breitbart has an interesting theory on this: Present your bias, and admit your publication has a world view, because even NPR has a world view. Nobody is unbiased, so stop trying to be unbiased, and present how you see it. Then, a real reader will go to multiple "view points" and gather their own opinion.
      - confounded 9y ago
        But this isn’t novel; anyone who’s read a few different newspapers in the same week (a “real reader”, in your words) can easily get a feel for differences in editorial ‘bias’/agenda between news organizations. The problem is that being a “real reader” has a time and attention cost, and it’s relatively boring compared to picking a circle of political reality stars, and gorging on “hot takes” and outrage.
        thanatropism 9y ago
        Reddit is a halfway decent way of doing this though.
      - xster 9y ago
        +1. I do wish NPR is fully publicly funded and gets some degree of medium term immunity from the current legislative and executive branch (media as a fourth branch of government / res publica?). Now it's just a mouth piece for rich donors but has 'public' in its name for marketing.
- xster 9y ago
  Maybe another way I'd frame the issue is that there are 2 orthogonal themes. 1, whether the structural incentives of the institution is altogether aligned with the interests of the common working people (http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-on-bernie-sanders-in-16-hours/ http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories...) or with the financial elites (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/cia-funded-washington-post-lets-tomahawk-missile-lobbyist-write-pro-war-editorials-without-47aab73a47c4 https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/cia-funded-washington-pos...), and 2, whether the publication follows scientific rigor to produce in-depth factual investigations (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-atlantic-commits-malpractice-selectively-edits-to-smear-wikileaks-65ecd7c2468f https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-atlantic-commits-malp...) It sounds like you're mainly addressing the second theme (i.e. they're less prone to just making things up). Though I'd argue they're not 'serious' institutions on both fronts. On the one hand, they're less likely to even attempt to enter into discussion about whether to think about starting to investigate the types of stories that are detrimental to the elite consensus (When's the last time WaPo wrote about the 99% or DAPL or TiSa or had an opinion about this last $700 billion pentagon budget?). The same way how political bribes work. We think politicians get bribed to vote a certain way. It's way way too late by that point. Politicians get bribed to stop items from entering into the agenda for select committees so it'll never reach any assemblies for votes. On the other hand, though large multi-month investigative journalism pieces correlate strongly with the wealth of the institutions that publish them, large scoped journalistic rigor isn't somehow exclusive to corporate media. Medium sized institutions like The Intercept (before they got influential and turned corporate) and fair.org produces many well researched articles corporate media will never get into. No one is saying corporate media don't employ disciplined honest journalists who produces quality work. In fact, I strongly believe everyone who goes to work for NYT and WaPo do so because they want to productively contribute and be a force of good for society. What I'm saying is those journalists don't get promoted or get fired like Phil Donahue while journalists who understand the game and self censor and don't get carried away with independent thought get airtime.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tallanvor 9y ago
- specialist 9y ago
  Maybe. I tried WashPost. Mostly to pay for my news. Hated it. Mostly because of the format. Wasted too much of my time. If they adopted a HN or RSS reader style, I’d try it again.
- SamPatt 9y ago
  >they have extremely high standards for publishing a story, so you can generally assume that they're accurate Dangerous assumption for any given story. Skepticism always warranted.
- timtas 9y ago
  WaPo and NYT can be counted on to amplify every rush to war and every expansion of the suveylance state. This is where the assumption of accuracy turn insidious.
hyperdunc 9y ago
I see two major problems with sites like NYT and WaPo: 1. There is important news they choose not to cover, especially for political reasons. (The news they do cover is usually of better quality than most.) 2. Their opinion pieces are frequently poorly thought out.

by xster 9y ago

jmcgough 9y ago

Like them or not, the NYT and WashPo do some of the best, factual investigative journalism in the world. Have they been wrong? Sure. But they have extremely high standards for publishing a story, so you can generally assume that they're accurate. They also are the ones who break a lot of the biggest, most impactful stories. I think a better criticism of them would be wash po turning a blind eye to Bezos and others that have influence of it.

drdrey 9y ago
And when they make factual errors, they publish errata
- xster 9y ago
  Technically legal https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/930510825617543173 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/930510825617543173 is the name of the game. Smear than obscurely retract is the news of 2016.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - croon 9y ago
    Why are you linking twitter screenshots about something relating to buzzfeed?
rorykoehler 9y ago
They practice the worst type of disinformation. Correct most of the time but when it really counts they publish incorrect propaganda (eg wmds in Iraq).
- briga 9y ago
  Care to name any large news publications that don't do this? I can't think of any.
  - kaendfinger 9y ago
    Breitbart has an interesting theory on this: Present your bias, and admit your publication has a world view, because even NPR has a world view. Nobody is unbiased, so stop trying to be unbiased, and present how you see it. Then, a real reader will go to multiple "view points" and gather their own opinion.
    - confounded 9y ago
      But this isn’t novel; anyone who’s read a few different newspapers in the same week (a “real reader”, in your words) can easily get a feel for differences in editorial ‘bias’/agenda between news organizations. The problem is that being a “real reader” has a time and attention cost, and it’s relatively boring compared to picking a circle of political reality stars, and gorging on “hot takes” and outrage.
      - thanatropism 9y ago
        Reddit is a halfway decent way of doing this though.
    - xster 9y ago
      +1. I do wish NPR is fully publicly funded and gets some degree of medium term immunity from the current legislative and executive branch (media as a fourth branch of government / res publica?). Now it's just a mouth piece for rich donors but has 'public' in its name for marketing.
xster 9y ago
Maybe another way I'd frame the issue is that there are 2 orthogonal themes. 1, whether the structural incentives of the institution is altogether aligned with the interests of the common working people (http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-on-bernie-sanders-in-16-hours/ http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories...) or with the financial elites (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/cia-funded-washington-post-lets-tomahawk-missile-lobbyist-write-pro-war-editorials-without-47aab73a47c4 https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/cia-funded-washington-pos...), and 2, whether the publication follows scientific rigor to produce in-depth factual investigations (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-atlantic-commits-malpractice-selectively-edits-to-smear-wikileaks-65ecd7c2468f https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-atlantic-commits-malp...) It sounds like you're mainly addressing the second theme (i.e. they're less prone to just making things up). Though I'd argue they're not 'serious' institutions on both fronts. On the one hand, they're less likely to even attempt to enter into discussion about whether to think about starting to investigate the types of stories that are detrimental to the elite consensus (When's the last time WaPo wrote about the 99% or DAPL or TiSa or had an opinion about this last $700 billion pentagon budget?). The same way how political bribes work. We think politicians get bribed to vote a certain way. It's way way too late by that point. Politicians get bribed to stop items from entering into the agenda for select committees so it'll never reach any assemblies for votes. On the other hand, though large multi-month investigative journalism pieces correlate strongly with the wealth of the institutions that publish them, large scoped journalistic rigor isn't somehow exclusive to corporate media. Medium sized institutions like The Intercept (before they got influential and turned corporate) and fair.org produces many well researched articles corporate media will never get into. No one is saying corporate media don't employ disciplined honest journalists who produces quality work. In fact, I strongly believe everyone who goes to work for NYT and WaPo do so because they want to productively contribute and be a force of good for society. What I'm saying is those journalists don't get promoted or get fired like Phil Donahue while journalists who understand the game and self censor and don't get carried away with independent thought get airtime.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tallanvor 9y ago
specialist 9y ago
Maybe. I tried WashPost. Mostly to pay for my news. Hated it. Mostly because of the format. Wasted too much of my time. If they adopted a HN or RSS reader style, I’d try it again.
SamPatt 9y ago
>they have extremely high standards for publishing a story, so you can generally assume that they're accurate Dangerous assumption for any given story. Skepticism always warranted.
timtas 9y ago
WaPo and NYT can be counted on to amplify every rush to war and every expansion of the suveylance state. This is where the assumption of accuracy turn insidious.

hyperdunc 9y ago

I see two major problems with sites like NYT and WaPo: 1. There is important news they choose not to cover, especially for political reasons. (The news they do cover is usually of better quality than most.) 2. Their opinion pieces are frequently poorly thought out.