4 ms·

Which would be perfectly fine, except that digital newspapers have a pesky habit of putting "Opinion" or "Editorial" in very tiny font on the piece's header, wi

by pcstl 8y ago

Which would be perfectly fine, except that digital newspapers have a pesky habit of putting "Opinion" or "Editorial" in very tiny font on the piece's header, with no other indication that the piece being read is, in fact, an opinion/editorial piece.

ForHackernews 8y ago
I would hope most literate readers could tell the difference. There's an obvious distinction between a pundit advancing a point of view and factual accounting of some event. That's not the say that the news section never betrays bias with the facts a reporter chooses to include, or by omitting contrary perspectives. But really, I hope readers do not need a giant header banner "THIS IS AN OP-ED" to recognize one.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  That's assuming the op-ed is not intentionally taking a journalistic style to mislead readers.
13415 8y ago
You can increase the font size in your browser if you're unable to read the indications for editorials and opinions. But it's also kind of odd that you consider there to be a problem in the first place, because it's also trivial to distinguish news articles from opinions and editorials just from their writing stile.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- faster 8y ago
  it's also trivial to distinguish news articles from opinions and editorials It turns out that's not true for most people any more. https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/native-advertising-in-fake-news-era/ https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/native-advertising-in-f...
  - 13415 8y ago
    It's trivial for New York Times articles. Your link is about advertisements disguised as news (which are illegal where I live).
Symbiote 8y ago
Choose a better paper! The Guardian labels comment articles with a big orange “ in the headline on the homepage, an orange "Opinion" on the article page, a pastel orange background in both places, the author's name under the heading in orange, and "commentisfree" in the URL.
- weberc2 8y ago
  But then the Guardian also publishes opinion pieces outside of their opinion section as well.
  - hardlianotion 8y ago
    I think this is increasingly a feature of British newspapers: a strong editorial slant in news selection and presentation.
- Hasknewbie 8y ago
  The Guardian is a pretty terrible choice for people who want less opinions mixed in with their news. Their front page with all opinion stuff removed would have a lot of blank space. Not only is your statement about proper labelling false (random recent example: [1]), but on top of that they seem to think that their own opinion entitle them to their own facts. A non-political example: they accused in passing the journalist Matt Taibbi of rape. When confronted with the debunked claim [2] the Guardian contributor's response was, essentially, "it wasn't news, it was opinion" (does that remind you of some cable news channel?). For context TG is not some 4-person blog with no fact-checker, they are a 1400 employees company, and yet somehow these "mistakes" happen. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jan/19/is-standup-comedy-doomed-future-of-funny-kevin-hart-louis-ck-nanette https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jan/19/is-standup-c... [2] https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/the-destruction-of-matt-taibbi.html https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/the-destructi...
Kadin 8y ago
I think part of the blame is also on aggregators like Google News; I've noticed that GN mixes opinion/editorial content in with real news articles, especially on the sidebar (e.g. "Spotlight" section). It also seems like the ratio of opinion content to actual news has been increasing lately. In the print version of the NYT, opinion pieces were generally only found on two pages, sometimes maybe overflowing a bit, but you'd never see them on the front page and they certainly weren't the bulk of the paper. Now it seems like the majority of "news" content from some outlets are actually opinion pieces.
- guelo 8y ago
  Yes! I've noticed GN has succumbed to the right-wing pressure and started showing me a lot more right-wing propaganda sites. So I get news and opinion mixed together like "CBS: Government shutdown continues." "Washington Examiner: Why Democrats want migrants to kill you"
- icebraining 8y ago
  > It also seems like the ratio of opinion content to actual news has been increasing lately. Well, sure. Now that everyone has access to 24h news for free, the facts become commodities and lose their value, and therefore the reference publications start giving more space to the product over which they have some market power: the analysis of news by picked columnists. If you just want an event log, you're better off skipping the uninterested middleman and just going to AP or Reuters or similar.
tzs 8y ago
NYT opinion pieces at the start say "Opinion" in a font that is larger than the article text font and larger than than the article subtitle font. The only thing I see offhand that is in a bigger font is the article title. It's not at all tiny. Once you start reading the article and scroll the above off, the fixed position thingy at the top of the of the page that has the hamburger menu, search box and says "The New York Times" centered changes to contain article specific controls, such as social media stuff, comments, bookmarking, the "The New York Times" string moves to the right, and the centered text becomes "OPINION | <title of article>", with "OPINION" in bolded all caps. This seems fine to me. I can't think of an occasion where I've ever failed to realize when I'm reading an opinion piece or editorial there.

by pcstl 8y ago

ForHackernews 8y ago

I would hope most literate readers could tell the difference. There's an obvious distinction between a pundit advancing a point of view and factual accounting of some event. That's not the say that the news section never betrays bias with the facts a reporter chooses to include, or by omitting contrary perspectives. But really, I hope readers do not need a giant header banner "THIS IS AN OP-ED" to recognize one.

barbecue_sauce 8y ago
That's assuming the op-ed is not intentionally taking a journalistic style to mislead readers.

13415 8y ago

You can increase the font size in your browser if you're unable to read the indications for editorials and opinions. But it's also kind of odd that you consider there to be a problem in the first place, because it's also trivial to distinguish news articles from opinions and editorials just from their writing stile.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
faster 8y ago
it's also trivial to distinguish news articles from opinions and editorials It turns out that's not true for most people any more. https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/native-advertising-in-fake-news-era/ https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/native-advertising-in-f...
- 13415 8y ago
  It's trivial for New York Times articles. Your link is about advertisements disguised as news (which are illegal where I live).

Symbiote 8y ago

Choose a better paper! The Guardian labels comment articles with a big orange “ in the headline on the homepage, an orange "Opinion" on the article page, a pastel orange background in both places, the author's name under the heading in orange, and "commentisfree" in the URL.

weberc2 8y ago
But then the Guardian also publishes opinion pieces outside of their opinion section as well.
- hardlianotion 8y ago
  I think this is increasingly a feature of British newspapers: a strong editorial slant in news selection and presentation.
Hasknewbie 8y ago
The Guardian is a pretty terrible choice for people who want less opinions mixed in with their news. Their front page with all opinion stuff removed would have a lot of blank space. Not only is your statement about proper labelling false (random recent example: [1]), but on top of that they seem to think that their own opinion entitle them to their own facts. A non-political example: they accused in passing the journalist Matt Taibbi of rape. When confronted with the debunked claim [2] the Guardian contributor's response was, essentially, "it wasn't news, it was opinion" (does that remind you of some cable news channel?). For context TG is not some 4-person blog with no fact-checker, they are a 1400 employees company, and yet somehow these "mistakes" happen. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jan/19/is-standup-comedy-doomed-future-of-funny-kevin-hart-louis-ck-nanette https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jan/19/is-standup-c... [2] https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/the-destruction-of-matt-taibbi.html https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/the-destructi...

Kadin 8y ago

I think part of the blame is also on aggregators like Google News; I've noticed that GN mixes opinion/editorial content in with real news articles, especially on the sidebar (e.g. "Spotlight" section). It also seems like the ratio of opinion content to actual news has been increasing lately. In the print version of the NYT, opinion pieces were generally only found on two pages, sometimes maybe overflowing a bit, but you'd never see them on the front page and they certainly weren't the bulk of the paper. Now it seems like the majority of "news" content from some outlets are actually opinion pieces.

guelo 8y ago
Yes! I've noticed GN has succumbed to the right-wing pressure and started showing me a lot more right-wing propaganda sites. So I get news and opinion mixed together like "CBS: Government shutdown continues." "Washington Examiner: Why Democrats want migrants to kill you"
icebraining 8y ago
> It also seems like the ratio of opinion content to actual news has been increasing lately. Well, sure. Now that everyone has access to 24h news for free, the facts become commodities and lose their value, and therefore the reference publications start giving more space to the product over which they have some market power: the analysis of news by picked columnists. If you just want an event log, you're better off skipping the uninterested middleman and just going to AP or Reuters or similar.

tzs 8y ago

NYT opinion pieces at the start say "Opinion" in a font that is larger than the article text font and larger than than the article subtitle font. The only thing I see offhand that is in a bigger font is the article title. It's not at all tiny. Once you start reading the article and scroll the above off, the fixed position thingy at the top of the of the page that has the hamburger menu, search box and says "The New York Times" centered changes to contain article specific controls, such as social media stuff, comments, bookmarking, the "The New York Times" string moves to the right, and the centered text becomes "OPINION | <title of article>", with "OPINION" in bolded all caps. This seems fine to me. I can't think of an occasion where I've ever failed to realize when I'm reading an opinion piece or editorial there.