4 ms·

Your logical argument makes sense to me, but I think your summary is a little off in the details of mannykannot's argument. In particular, I don't think he requ

by nkurz 9y ago

Your logical argument makes sense to me, but I think your summary is a little off in the details of mannykannot's argument. In particular, I don't think he requires that Facebook PR had direct contact with the authors of the piece. I would suggest this timeline instead: 1. Perlroth et al publish a story in the NYT that arguably reflects poorly on Sandberg. 2. Facebook's PR firm contacts the NYT post-publication requesting that changes be made to the story. 3. Within a few hours the story is edited in a way that arguably is less negative toward Sandberg. Given just this information, is it fair to claim that 2 caused 3? You (with your "conspiracy theory" level of attention to detail and logic) say "no"; mannykannot says "yes". While logically you would seem to be right, let's see how strong we can make the argument that this series of events actually does show causation. How about this: 1) Facebook is willing to pay an expensive PR firm to reach out to the NYT with the goal of changing the coverage. At the least, I think we can say that Facebook (and probably their expensive PR firm) believe that such edit requests produce results. Do you think they are wasting their money? If so, why should we trust an idealistic academic on this rather than a self-interested profit-driven firm willing? 2) If the authors know that there is pushback from Facebook on the story, they will edit the story differently than if there was no pushback. The only question is how big the difference is. Maybe it only prevents them from adding further negativity, or maybe it makes them choose slightly more defensible word choices. They might eventually redirect their efforts in a different piece, but do you really believe that knowledge of pushback will have truly zero effect on their editorial choices? And we've established that it's a non-zero influence, aren't we (like Churchill) just haggling about the price? 3) In addition to having journalistic ideals, the NYT is also a business who needs to be concerned about their reputation as a trustworthy news source. Facebook is one of very few companies influential enough to make or break the NYT's reputation. Thus when Facebook reaches out to the business side of the NYT suggesting that greater consideration be given to their side of the story, it would be prudent for the NYT to do so, or at least to give Facebook the impression that they are doing so. While this doesn't directly explain any individual edit, it might explain a general trajectory whereby edits are generally made in a direction favorable to Facebook. Do you deny that these forces exist?

danso 9y ago
Appreciate the discussion. I think the first point of contention is that, speaking from experience (as a reporter), we have different assumptions about the influence of these PR firms. There's a wide latitude of contact that happens in which the PR firm provides info or clarification. Sometimes the PR firm is the only way to get a formal statement, and this is exactly what Nicole Perlroth asserts: https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888 https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888 > FB PR gave us a statement from Stamos after the first post in which he described the dynamic "as productive." We appended that to our story, while also laying out disagreements. I'm assuming this was the graf that was added: > Mr. Stamos joined Facebook from Yahoo in June 2015. He and other Facebook executives, such as Ms. Sandberg, disagreed early on over how proactive the social network should be in policing its own platform, said the people briefed on the matter. In his statement, Mr. Stamos said his relationship with Ms. Sandberg was “productive.” The other reporter, Sheera Frenkel, adds the specifics that Facebook PR "made no such request" about removing references to Sandberg: https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296 https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296 ----- So what's your rationale, given the complete absence of evidence, such as an inside source -- to distrust the NYT reporters out of hand? Why do you think the benefit of the doubt should be given to the reporter from Law&Crime, who is only making allegations? He's more knowledgeable and trustworthy than the actual reporters who investigated and published this story in the first place? Maybe it's not clear enough that the Stamos vs. Sandberg story was the result of reporter effort; Stamos's departure (nevermind the reasons and the controversies) was not an official announcement. So I admit my bias that it's hard to believe why we should suspect the NYT reporters of censoring their own story when it's entirely their fault that the story even exists?
- nkurz 9y ago
  So what's your rationale [...] to distrust the NYT reporters out of hand? As you can guess from my phrasing, I don't absolutely distrust them, and merely suggest that their statements should be assessed with an awareness of their self-interest. I presume that the authors believe that they did not make edits in response to threats from Facebook, although I'd expect them to say the same even if they did feel pressured. But in the same way that the "anthropic principle" is outside formal logic but sometimes produces interesting insights, I think it's worth considering what conclusions can be drawn from the fact that these authors remain gainfully employed by the New York Times. it's hard to believe why we should suspect the NYT reporters of censoring their own story when it's entirely their fault that the story even exists? I agree, but censoring is not absolute, not everyone within the paper has the same goals, and no individual has just a single goal. There are tensions pulling the journalists in multiple directions, and Facebook's PR firm is one of these tensions. Perhaps getting a story out with minor modifications satisfies enough of the goals of the parties involved. Would you concede that "zero impact" from corporate criticism is probably an unachievable ideal, and that Facebook's pushback here might have had at least a tiny influence in the way the story evolved (and will continue to evolve)? More generally, I'm dubious that a for-profit press can ever please all stakeholders. Are you familiar with this criticism of the NYT from a couple years ago: "An obituary of The New York Times" [https://medium.com/@johannes.wahlstrom/an-obituary-of-the-new-york-times-50f2cb0f8157 https://medium.com/@johannes.wahlstrom/an-obituary-of-the-ne...]. I thought it did a good job of pointing to some previous examples of the imperfect wall between business and journalistic goals.

by nkurz 9y ago

danso 9y ago

Appreciate the discussion. I think the first point of contention is that, speaking from experience (as a reporter), we have different assumptions about the influence of these PR firms. There's a wide latitude of contact that happens in which the PR firm provides info or clarification. Sometimes the PR firm is the only way to get a formal statement, and this is exactly what Nicole Perlroth asserts: https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888 https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888 > FB PR gave us a statement from Stamos after the first post in which he described the dynamic "as productive." We appended that to our story, while also laying out disagreements. I'm assuming this was the graf that was added: > Mr. Stamos joined Facebook from Yahoo in June 2015. He and other Facebook executives, such as Ms. Sandberg, disagreed early on over how proactive the social network should be in policing its own platform, said the people briefed on the matter. In his statement, Mr. Stamos said his relationship with Ms. Sandberg was “productive.” The other reporter, Sheera Frenkel, adds the specifics that Facebook PR "made no such request" about removing references to Sandberg: https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296 https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296 ----- So what's your rationale, given the complete absence of evidence, such as an inside source -- to distrust the NYT reporters out of hand? Why do you think the benefit of the doubt should be given to the reporter from Law&Crime, who is only making allegations? He's more knowledgeable and trustworthy than the actual reporters who investigated and published this story in the first place? Maybe it's not clear enough that the Stamos vs. Sandberg story was the result of reporter effort; Stamos's departure (nevermind the reasons and the controversies) was not an official announcement. So I admit my bias that it's hard to believe why we should suspect the NYT reporters of censoring their own story when it's entirely their fault that the story even exists?

nkurz 9y ago
So what's your rationale [...] to distrust the NYT reporters out of hand? As you can guess from my phrasing, I don't absolutely distrust them, and merely suggest that their statements should be assessed with an awareness of their self-interest. I presume that the authors believe that they did not make edits in response to threats from Facebook, although I'd expect them to say the same even if they did feel pressured. But in the same way that the "anthropic principle" is outside formal logic but sometimes produces interesting insights, I think it's worth considering what conclusions can be drawn from the fact that these authors remain gainfully employed by the New York Times. it's hard to believe why we should suspect the NYT reporters of censoring their own story when it's entirely their fault that the story even exists? I agree, but censoring is not absolute, not everyone within the paper has the same goals, and no individual has just a single goal. There are tensions pulling the journalists in multiple directions, and Facebook's PR firm is one of these tensions. Perhaps getting a story out with minor modifications satisfies enough of the goals of the parties involved. Would you concede that "zero impact" from corporate criticism is probably an unachievable ideal, and that Facebook's pushback here might have had at least a tiny influence in the way the story evolved (and will continue to evolve)? More generally, I'm dubious that a for-profit press can ever please all stakeholders. Are you familiar with this criticism of the NYT from a couple years ago: "An obituary of The New York Times" [https://medium.com/@johannes.wahlstrom/an-obituary-of-the-new-york-times-50f2cb0f8157 https://medium.com/@johannes.wahlstrom/an-obituary-of-the-ne...]. I thought it did a good job of pointing to some previous examples of the imperfect wall between business and journalistic goals.