4 ms·

Is there any indication that he was “being paid to plug paper-news” or is this just your conspiracy theory? Because if it’s the latter, it’s a decidedly lame c

Is there any indication that he was “being paid to plug paper-news” or is this just your conspiracy theory? Because if it’s the latter, it’s a decidedly lame conspiracy. And considering the financial pressures, I’m not even sure if the New York Times could afford to bribe someone writing for the New York Times.

coolso 9y ago
How is it "lame"? It's common knowledge that media is a significant influencer of those who consume it (pretty much everyone), so it follows that writing an article suggesting that X may be superior to Y (because Y is bad) would influence many into thinking similarly if they hadn't been thinking that already, or further reinforce that feeling if they had. All it had to take was for anyone at the NY Times to bring up in a meeting "hey, we'd like to try to get our paper subs up a bit, someone write an article about unplugging from the net (something tons of people talk about but never actually do) about how newspapers are actually better". Worst case scenario it doesn't work out, it was a nice experiment and at least you brought in a lot of clicks and got to bring up fake news and Russian Twitter bots in another story, right? Media is always biased and always has an agenda one way or another, I'm not sure why in this case it would have to be any different.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  The NYT is a stickler for traditions. Chief among them is a clear separation of their business operations and the newsroom. I’m almost sure the best way to get one of their writers to do A is to have a manager walk through the newsroom and ask everybody not to do A. This situation is a bit different because it’s not a reporter but a columnist. Columnists don’t even work at a newspaper’s office- this one is in San Francisco, a continent away from New York. They also don’t attend meetings. There’s nothing to discuss about their job. They simply send in a text file once a week and get a paycheck back.
  - tomtimtall 9y ago
    > The NYT is a stickler for traditions You mean like fact checking? They didn’t even glance at the twitter account of the man writing about how he ditched twitter. NYT isn’t what it was anymore.
    - nasredin 9y ago
      The profiles of Neonazis, weekly complaining about college kids protesting hate speech, the "Cletus Safaris". Yeah NYT isn't what it was anymore. Have you heard about The Most Ignorant Man in America. NYT got it covered. They literally had to show up at the Whitehouse and sit on the couch and they would have won their awards.
tinymollusk 9y ago
I'm not suggesting it's true, but it does fit the narrative of his (and his employer's!) incentives. People usually act in line with their immediately obvious incentives. Not a smoking gun, but to me it's definitely an indication.
tomtimtall 9y ago
> I’m not even sure if the New York Times could afford to bribe someone writing for the New York Times. It’s not a bribe when you employer gives you a bonus to write specific content they demand. You could suspect that he was just under pressure from his management, however in that case I would doubt he would fold to the pressure as being able to write an article titled “I got fired from the New York Times for failing to ditch twitter and plugging their paper” would be a journalistic gold pot. And a great lawsuit.

coolso 9y ago

How is it "lame"? It's common knowledge that media is a significant influencer of those who consume it (pretty much everyone), so it follows that writing an article suggesting that X may be superior to Y (because Y is bad) would influence many into thinking similarly if they hadn't been thinking that already, or further reinforce that feeling if they had. All it had to take was for anyone at the NY Times to bring up in a meeting "hey, we'd like to try to get our paper subs up a bit, someone write an article about unplugging from the net (something tons of people talk about but never actually do) about how newspapers are actually better". Worst case scenario it doesn't work out, it was a nice experiment and at least you brought in a lot of clicks and got to bring up fake news and Russian Twitter bots in another story, right? Media is always biased and always has an agenda one way or another, I'm not sure why in this case it would have to be any different.

shaki-dora 9y ago
The NYT is a stickler for traditions. Chief among them is a clear separation of their business operations and the newsroom. I’m almost sure the best way to get one of their writers to do A is to have a manager walk through the newsroom and ask everybody not to do A. This situation is a bit different because it’s not a reporter but a columnist. Columnists don’t even work at a newspaper’s office- this one is in San Francisco, a continent away from New York. They also don’t attend meetings. There’s nothing to discuss about their job. They simply send in a text file once a week and get a paycheck back.
- tomtimtall 9y ago
  > The NYT is a stickler for traditions You mean like fact checking? They didn’t even glance at the twitter account of the man writing about how he ditched twitter. NYT isn’t what it was anymore.
  - nasredin 9y ago
    The profiles of Neonazis, weekly complaining about college kids protesting hate speech, the "Cletus Safaris". Yeah NYT isn't what it was anymore. Have you heard about The Most Ignorant Man in America. NYT got it covered. They literally had to show up at the Whitehouse and sit on the couch and they would have won their awards.

tinymollusk 9y ago

I'm not suggesting it's true, but it does fit the narrative of his (and his employer's!) incentives. People usually act in line with their immediately obvious incentives. Not a smoking gun, but to me it's definitely an indication.

tomtimtall 9y ago

> I’m not even sure if the New York Times could afford to bribe someone writing for the New York Times. It’s not a bribe when you employer gives you a bonus to write specific content they demand. You could suspect that he was just under pressure from his management, however in that case I would doubt he would fold to the pressure as being able to write an article titled “I got fired from the New York Times for failing to ditch twitter and plugging their paper” would be a journalistic gold pot. And a great lawsuit.