6 ms·

Kind of funny how the NYT publishes the original story to generate outrage, then after successfully doing so to an extent, cherry-picks examples of the outrage

by ve55 8y ago

Kind of funny how the NYT publishes the original story to generate outrage, then after successfully doing so to an extent, cherry-picks examples of the outrage in order to generate yet another article that is apparently worth publishing. Of course some Google employees are upset, there are 85,000 of them. You could have cherry-picked ones who weren't upset as well and written an article the opposite of this if desired. I'm not commenting on the claims themselves but it's just funny how the NYT is able to completely run their own show here.

lsiebert 8y ago
I think they published it because it was news. Many details in the news outrage me, but as long as they are based in fact, I consider that reporting of the news of the day, not an attempt to incite outrage. Also, "Callous Googlers Don't care about sex harassment payouts" doesn't seem like a particularly good potential news piece, if that's what you are suggesting they could have done. I mean, I was outraged by the Snowden revelations. Were those stories generating outrage, or just revealing an outrage that others had already perpetrated?
- paulgrant999 8y ago
  why is it news? Because they have google in front of their name? If they want "concrete" action; perhaps google should just lay off half of its US staff, quit importing H1-B workers, and simply move their operations overseas. more simply: if you wanted executive control; you'ld work at a co-op. Google, is not a co-op. If you were only too happy to work for sociopaths, to get the high salary/stock options - why are you suddenly so eager to bite the hand that feeds you? - Comparing this to Snowden, is not a valid comparison. Snowden was news (if nothing else because he provided detailed, proof of illegalities most intelligent people, knew was going on).
- ve55 8y ago
  >but as long as they are based in fact, I consider that reporting of the news of the day The issue is that they get to pick which facts are reported and which are not. They could publish 100 articles on all the good things Google is doing, or they could publish 100 articles on all the bad things google is doing, and they don't have to lie to do either of these things, but yet they would both give their readers very warped perspectives on reality. We see this a lot in politics, where we can have far-right and far-left websites that both technically report nothing but 'facts', but due to the extreme sampling biases used, present completely opposing views of reality. I'm not defending Google, I'm just pointing out who is running the show here, and the answer is the New York Times. They decide what happens next. Their next article could talk about all the positive discussion and improvements Google is making in this area, or it could talk about how many additional employees are upset and don't think things will get better.
  - lsiebert 8y ago
    The NYT also publishes good things about Google and it's products. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/personaltech/google-pixel-3-review.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/personaltech/g... Google is a major visible corporation that is used by the vast majority of US and probably world internet users. Calling big companies, politicians, and other public figures and groups with power to task on their mistakes is definitely something I expect of a journalist. The NYT has an editoral voice and makes choices in it's coverage. But Google could also have chosen to not give massive payouts to problematic people. Acting like the NYT, which is just covering the story, is the problem seems a little weird. Maybe you are the sort that believes that the news media is the enemy of the people.
  - kopo 8y ago
    That's what happens when they are conditioned to produce content that maximizes view/click counts. Who created that incentive? Google did.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
      Oh yeah there were no tabloids before Google, and all the news was completely unbiased too.
    - sattoshi 8y ago
      While this may be true, it falls flat once you consider that this has been done to many non-google organizations too.
      - kopo 8y ago
        You only get to understand what a massive role Google plays in the like/click/view generating ecosystem when you spend time in a modern digital publishing/advertising/marketing firm. It's like watching a huge cattle auction where peoples views/clicks etc are being traded 24*7.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    Valid point, and worth noting this also happened with the Iraq War. While there was deception, it seemed like a much larger public impact was caused by news momentum and nobody voicing a counterpoint. That a biased narrative can be constructed only out of reasonable facts is fairly well supported in recent history.
fzeroracer 8y ago
So by your definition, no stories about large companies should be published ever? I imagine if a company has a large amount of employees, you can always find a contrary opinion.
- ordinaryperson 8y ago
  The issue is with how the NYT framed it. The headline says, "Google Workers Fume..." which implies a plurality or majority when we have no idea what a collective of 85,000 think. A more accurate headline would be something like, "Alphabet CEO Confronted about Sexual Harassment Policy" instead of characterizing "Google Workers" as if they were one, single-minded Borg-like entity.
cyberluddite 8y ago
>original story to generate outrage While a consequence of the story may have been "outrage," it was Rubin's actions and how Google dealt with them that are at issue here. We can play "shoot the messenger" or assume bad faith on the NYT's part, but neither of those things undoes what has happened.
qubax 8y ago
> Kind of funny how the NYT publishes the original story to generate outrage The older I get, I realize that more often than not, these companies don't report the news, they create/generate/manufacture the news. Half the time, news is actually a manufactured product for consumption no different than a movie or a song and the other half, it's political advocacy. There isn't much news in the news industry. > then after successfully doing so to an extent, cherry-picks examples of the outrage in order to generate yet another article that is apparently worth publishing. And voila, they are bumped to the frontpage every single time. It's like watching a world class magician ply their trade.
- oh-kumudo 8y ago
  Exactly. This is opinion engineering. They take an event, look at it, find the angle that is most likely to solicit responses from their readers. With that narrative in mind, they would go on to produce the story, weaved it a way to appear like that their account is what actually happened.
- ve55 8y ago
  Well-said. Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying
skybrian 8y ago
I'm not sure the follow-up story is necessary, but one way to look at it is that they were successful at publishing news that some people care about. It's not always clear when "getting a reaction" is just trolling or what a quality newspaper should set out to do. It depends if you agree with the editors about what's newsworthy. But if leaks keep happening at this rate, I suspect TGIF isn't going to happen for much longer.
jefftk 8y ago
There is, in fact, a lot of internal outrage. I wouldn't call this cherry picking. (Source: I work there)
- ordinaryperson 8y ago
  Let's say you know the feelings of 100 coworkers on this issue. That's still 100/85000 employees, or 0.1%. Not exactly a representative sample size. Now, it's entirely possible 60% of the employees actually are outraged, but we have no way of knowing outside a survey. Hence the NYT is cherry-picking an opinion based on anecdotal data (that just so happens to positively reflect on their earlier coverage), when it's also entirely possible that 80% of Googlers don't really care. The headline and story imply the NYT has a firm handle on how the bulk of 85,000 people think, which is not the case.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    FWIW, if you have a sample size of 100 out of a population of 85000 and observe 60% of your coworkers care, there's a 95% confidence level that the true number of people who care will be within 50-70%. There's a 99% confidence that it'll be within 47.5-72.5%. https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm "80% of Googlers don't really care" would be an extreme outlier, statistically.
    - jefftk 8y ago
      Only if your sample is random, and my sample is mostly the Google Cambridge office.
alopecoid 8y ago
> Kind of funny how the NYT publishes the original story to generate outrage [...] It's not just this; I think there's a clear agenda here by releasing this on the day of Google's earnings announcement.
- LanceH 8y ago
  Reading the story, it certainly seems like they were aiming for outrage. They say there was an accusation and they could have just not paid him $90million. They don't go into any of the contractual obligations of why they owe him that money. Nor do they explain how a mere accusation is going derail that payment. If outrage and journalism were fighting over ownership of that article, outrage won.
  - cjbprime 8y ago
    I think they didn't go into contractual obligations to pay him $90M because no such obligation existed. It's something they decided to give him after it was decided that he should lose his job over the credible allegation of sexual assault.
    - monaghanboy 8y ago
      > It's something they decided to give him after it was decided that he should lose his job over the credible allegation of sexual assault. Is this true? This is propagating spin, which the authors of the article made quite liberal use of. I remember the article explicitly stating that they couldn't determine whether or not the decision to pay $90M was made with any relation whatsoever to the HR issue. Yet they and others seem to keep labeling it as a "payout" anyway. When you keep repeating a thing, eventually it becomes true in the hive mind, which is what's happening here. EDIT: From the article: > It is unclear if Mr. Page or the board knew of the investigation into the harassment complaint when Google approved the $150M grant for Mr. Rubin. Mr. Page, 45, did not respond to a request for a comment; Mr. Doerr and Mr. Shriram declined to comment. And he got $90M when he was effectively fired, $60M less than the initial grant; see https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html#commentsContainer&permid=29163750 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-... Like others in this thread, I'm starting to believe the NYT is just as bad as FoxNews when it comes to manufacturing opinion and sensation (esp. against Big Tech these days) instead of presenting objective journalism.

by ve55 8y ago

lsiebert 8y ago

I think they published it because it was news. Many details in the news outrage me, but as long as they are based in fact, I consider that reporting of the news of the day, not an attempt to incite outrage. Also, "Callous Googlers Don't care about sex harassment payouts" doesn't seem like a particularly good potential news piece, if that's what you are suggesting they could have done. I mean, I was outraged by the Snowden revelations. Were those stories generating outrage, or just revealing an outrage that others had already perpetrated?

paulgrant999 8y ago
why is it news? Because they have google in front of their name? If they want "concrete" action; perhaps google should just lay off half of its US staff, quit importing H1-B workers, and simply move their operations overseas. more simply: if you wanted executive control; you'ld work at a co-op. Google, is not a co-op. If you were only too happy to work for sociopaths, to get the high salary/stock options - why are you suddenly so eager to bite the hand that feeds you? - Comparing this to Snowden, is not a valid comparison. Snowden was news (if nothing else because he provided detailed, proof of illegalities most intelligent people, knew was going on).
ve55 8y ago
>but as long as they are based in fact, I consider that reporting of the news of the day The issue is that they get to pick which facts are reported and which are not. They could publish 100 articles on all the good things Google is doing, or they could publish 100 articles on all the bad things google is doing, and they don't have to lie to do either of these things, but yet they would both give their readers very warped perspectives on reality. We see this a lot in politics, where we can have far-right and far-left websites that both technically report nothing but 'facts', but due to the extreme sampling biases used, present completely opposing views of reality. I'm not defending Google, I'm just pointing out who is running the show here, and the answer is the New York Times. They decide what happens next. Their next article could talk about all the positive discussion and improvements Google is making in this area, or it could talk about how many additional employees are upset and don't think things will get better.
- lsiebert 8y ago
  The NYT also publishes good things about Google and it's products. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/personaltech/google-pixel-3-review.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/personaltech/g... Google is a major visible corporation that is used by the vast majority of US and probably world internet users. Calling big companies, politicians, and other public figures and groups with power to task on their mistakes is definitely something I expect of a journalist. The NYT has an editoral voice and makes choices in it's coverage. But Google could also have chosen to not give massive payouts to problematic people. Acting like the NYT, which is just covering the story, is the problem seems a little weird. Maybe you are the sort that believes that the news media is the enemy of the people.
- kopo 8y ago
  That's what happens when they are conditioned to produce content that maximizes view/click counts. Who created that incentive? Google did.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    Oh yeah there were no tabloids before Google, and all the news was completely unbiased too.
  - sattoshi 8y ago
    While this may be true, it falls flat once you consider that this has been done to many non-google organizations too.
    - kopo 8y ago
      You only get to understand what a massive role Google plays in the like/click/view generating ecosystem when you spend time in a modern digital publishing/advertising/marketing firm. It's like watching a huge cattle auction where peoples views/clicks etc are being traded 24*7.
- ethbro 8y ago
  Valid point, and worth noting this also happened with the Iraq War. While there was deception, it seemed like a much larger public impact was caused by news momentum and nobody voicing a counterpoint. That a biased narrative can be constructed only out of reasonable facts is fairly well supported in recent history.

fzeroracer 8y ago

So by your definition, no stories about large companies should be published ever? I imagine if a company has a large amount of employees, you can always find a contrary opinion.

ordinaryperson 8y ago
The issue is with how the NYT framed it. The headline says, "Google Workers Fume..." which implies a plurality or majority when we have no idea what a collective of 85,000 think. A more accurate headline would be something like, "Alphabet CEO Confronted about Sexual Harassment Policy" instead of characterizing "Google Workers" as if they were one, single-minded Borg-like entity.

cyberluddite 8y ago

>original story to generate outrage While a consequence of the story may have been "outrage," it was Rubin's actions and how Google dealt with them that are at issue here. We can play "shoot the messenger" or assume bad faith on the NYT's part, but neither of those things undoes what has happened.

qubax 8y ago

> Kind of funny how the NYT publishes the original story to generate outrage The older I get, I realize that more often than not, these companies don't report the news, they create/generate/manufacture the news. Half the time, news is actually a manufactured product for consumption no different than a movie or a song and the other half, it's political advocacy. There isn't much news in the news industry. > then after successfully doing so to an extent, cherry-picks examples of the outrage in order to generate yet another article that is apparently worth publishing. And voila, they are bumped to the frontpage every single time. It's like watching a world class magician ply their trade.

oh-kumudo 8y ago
Exactly. This is opinion engineering. They take an event, look at it, find the angle that is most likely to solicit responses from their readers. With that narrative in mind, they would go on to produce the story, weaved it a way to appear like that their account is what actually happened.
ve55 8y ago
Well-said. Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying

skybrian 8y ago

I'm not sure the follow-up story is necessary, but one way to look at it is that they were successful at publishing news that some people care about. It's not always clear when "getting a reaction" is just trolling or what a quality newspaper should set out to do. It depends if you agree with the editors about what's newsworthy. But if leaks keep happening at this rate, I suspect TGIF isn't going to happen for much longer.

jefftk 8y ago

There is, in fact, a lot of internal outrage. I wouldn't call this cherry picking. (Source: I work there)

ordinaryperson 8y ago
Let's say you know the feelings of 100 coworkers on this issue. That's still 100/85000 employees, or 0.1%. Not exactly a representative sample size. Now, it's entirely possible 60% of the employees actually are outraged, but we have no way of knowing outside a survey. Hence the NYT is cherry-picking an opinion based on anecdotal data (that just so happens to positively reflect on their earlier coverage), when it's also entirely possible that 80% of Googlers don't really care. The headline and story imply the NYT has a firm handle on how the bulk of 85,000 people think, which is not the case.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  FWIW, if you have a sample size of 100 out of a population of 85000 and observe 60% of your coworkers care, there's a 95% confidence level that the true number of people who care will be within 50-70%. There's a 99% confidence that it'll be within 47.5-72.5%. https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm "80% of Googlers don't really care" would be an extreme outlier, statistically.
  - jefftk 8y ago
    Only if your sample is random, and my sample is mostly the Google Cambridge office.

alopecoid 8y ago

> Kind of funny how the NYT publishes the original story to generate outrage [...] It's not just this; I think there's a clear agenda here by releasing this on the day of Google's earnings announcement.

LanceH 8y ago
Reading the story, it certainly seems like they were aiming for outrage. They say there was an accusation and they could have just not paid him $90million. They don't go into any of the contractual obligations of why they owe him that money. Nor do they explain how a mere accusation is going derail that payment. If outrage and journalism were fighting over ownership of that article, outrage won.
- cjbprime 8y ago
  I think they didn't go into contractual obligations to pay him $90M because no such obligation existed. It's something they decided to give him after it was decided that he should lose his job over the credible allegation of sexual assault.
  - monaghanboy 8y ago
    > It's something they decided to give him after it was decided that he should lose his job over the credible allegation of sexual assault. Is this true? This is propagating spin, which the authors of the article made quite liberal use of. I remember the article explicitly stating that they couldn't determine whether or not the decision to pay $90M was made with any relation whatsoever to the HR issue. Yet they and others seem to keep labeling it as a "payout" anyway. When you keep repeating a thing, eventually it becomes true in the hive mind, which is what's happening here. EDIT: From the article: > It is unclear if Mr. Page or the board knew of the investigation into the harassment complaint when Google approved the $150M grant for Mr. Rubin. Mr. Page, 45, did not respond to a request for a comment; Mr. Doerr and Mr. Shriram declined to comment. And he got $90M when he was effectively fired, $60M less than the initial grant; see https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html#commentsContainer&permid=29163750 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-... Like others in this thread, I'm starting to believe the NYT is just as bad as FoxNews when it comes to manufacturing opinion and sensation (esp. against Big Tech these days) instead of presenting objective journalism.