11 ms·

A few complaints I share with the other people in this thread: - It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consiste

A few complaints I share with the other people in this thread: - It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consistently. As someone in tech I can clearly see what they get and what they don't. Extrapolating it - it's not at all clear they understand economics or foreign policy or policy impact or environmental concerns and how to address them ...etc. - Bias: every single one of them have bias. The burden is on me to spot bias and think objectively. Why do I have to pay do that? At least present news as it is? I'm not sure if even that would work - there could be bias in what gets chosen for reporting. - The user experience is pretty bad. That I have to use an adblock after paying for the already expensive subscription is ridiculous. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of pixels and tracking embedded in their site. - Big picture: By design, news focuses on the now and misses the big picture quite often and usually by a huge margin. E.g., the relentless focus on petty issues in last election (both major party candidates) and not enough attention at all on concrete policy measures. This extends to privacy issues (Facebook and the like) until it's too late. Wars/conflicts, foreign policy, long term economics. For all these reasons, I have got rid of my NYT & WaPo subscription to FT now and I can't be happier.

sosborn 8y ago
> At least present news as it is? This is exceptionally difficult. My favorite example is choosing which photo to run for a story. Let's say a photographer take photos of Trump at an event. He has a photo of Trump smiling, a photo of Trump frowning, a photo of Trump scowling and a photo of Trump laughing. Which one is correct? They are all technically correct because they happened, but they all convey different tones, some of which will be completely inappropriate in the context of the story it runs with.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Exactly. There was a very famous image of the UK miner's strike, at the battle of Orgreave, 1984. Another photographer captured the same scene that day. They give a very different impression. Both images compared: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/06/photographers-scrum-winning-image-picture https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/06/photogr...
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    I don’t get why people fall over themselves to point out the differences in these images. They both seems fairly neural to me. It’s just that one doesn’t give much context, it’s just a miner.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      One shows a miner and cop each grinning slightly. In the other, the same pair appear to be eyeballing each other. The second seems much more confrontational, to me anyway.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Another problem with that example, at least for me, is that it is not apparent who is looking at who. It's a two dimensional photo and the depth of field is enough that you can't really tell which cop the miner is looking at.
- rjf72 8y ago
  I think this is a common objection, but is it really so reasonable? Why show any image of ephemeral emotion at all? If you must include not strictly necessary multimedia, something that would be obvious would be a long range wide-angle picture of the entire venue. It's similar to when people try to claim that journalism without bias in writing is not possible. No, it's very possible. See articles of the New York Times from decades ago. This [1] is the first article on what would become "Watergate" from the NYTimes. The article does nothing but provide a detailed and objective recounting of all information available. There is no speculation, and I certainly can't tell anything about the author's biases, political leanings, etc. And keep in mind that this is a huge event - that is what would eventually lead to the impeachment of Richard Nixon. That tempered and impartial reporting, over decades, is what gave the New York Times the reputation that it's rapidly destroying today. Imagine if that article was written by the New New York Times of today. The problem of course is that that article is 'boring'. It's not going to drive a million clicks and be shared on social media sites getting those upvotes to get to the top which leads to even more clicks and even more money. Hacker News is definitely higher brow than most social media sites. Regardless, this [2] is a list of all submissions to this site from the New York Times. Go and see what gets upvoted and eventually makes its way to the front page (following are all 30+ point submissions from first page): - Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing (nytimes.com) - Opinion: A.I. Could Worsen Health Disparities (nytimes.com) - Locast, a Free App Streaming Network TV, Would Love to Get Sued (nytimes.com) - This is Your Brain Off Facebook - study offers glimpse of unplugging (nytimes.com) - Another Side of MeToo: Male Managers Fearful of Mentoring Women (nytimes.com) - Foxconn Is Reconsidering Plan for Manufacturing in Wisconsin (nytimes.com) And so on. It's frequently sensationalized and hyperbolic reporting that often even starts the ball rolling with a fake title. No, AI isn't going to worsen health disparities. No, no company wants to get sued. And no, male managers are not fearful of mentoring women. And it's only downhill from there. Even the articles that seem real, often quickly expose they're just click grabbers. For instance the "Foxconn is reconsidering plan" states. The lead paragraph states, "It was heralded a year and a half ago as the start of a Midwestern manufacturing renaissance: Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics behemoth, would build a $10 billion Wisconsin plant to make flat-screen televisions, creating 13,000 jobs. President Trump later called the project “the eighth wonder of the world.” Now that prospect looks less certain." Several paragraphs later you get, "Foxconn said that it remained committed to creating 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin and that it was “moving forward with plans to build an advanced manufacturing facility.”" In other words they are doing what they said they would do. This is not meaningful or good reporting. But it gets those clicks, and that's all that matters now a days. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/22/archives/4-being-hunted-in-inquiry-into-raid-on-democrats-4-hunted-in.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/22/archives/4-being-hunted-i... [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com
- dingaling 8y ago
  Use a montage of all four. That conveys the range of emotions of the event. The journalistic emphasis in selecting just one ( viewpoint, photo,lede ) is partly why the news is so broken.
- mulmen 8y ago
  Then only run a photo if it helps explain the facts, otherwise who needs it? If the photo supports the central truth of the piece then run it, otherwise you’re undermining yourself.
nonbel 8y ago
>"It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consistently." Doesn't the Washington post charge for articles with named sources? Almost every time I follow a link to them the source has been "someone familiar with the matter". However, one time I was surprised see there were actual names attached to the quotes, but they obscured most of the page and wanted me to pay a dollar to read it.
Novashi 8y ago
It's better following individual journalists via twitter or whatever instead of the organization itself for quality content for subjects you like to read about. Personally, I use the main site just to scan headlines and see if there's anything interesting. Everyone's biased, but I don't think I'm more of an objective thinker than a trained journalist who's taken classes to study it and write about it specifically. I don't believe many people can spot bias as well as they think they can just from a reporter's writing. And yeah, they aren't experts at everything they cover. It's not a scientific journal. They should use sources for that stuff and if they don't, you should move on. Remember they also don't write specifically for experts so details get left out.
- api 8y ago
  Maybe journalists should go out on their own via Patreon etc.?
  - yowlingcat 8y ago
    I'm a fan of this idea. I've seen many a brand diluted after key journos leave and are replaced essentially by clickbait artists. The problem then is that it's tacit admission that the idea of branding in journalism is prima facie useless, but that feels somewhat natural. A large corporate publication is a large corporation first and foremost -- if it can't effectively create a product, then maybe I don't want that product from that large corporation. But, where I get worried is what happens to the public commons when the labor of large scale journalism which is out of the reach of a single journalist (or even a small confederation) resources wise gets lost. Would it be replaced by individuals or small federations that are as effective? I mean, I don't think effective journalism will die anytime soon on the whole. But, I wonder if pockets will go extinct, and I'm nervous about what that means. I still don't think I've really seen it all that much yet.
  - warent 8y ago
    This is an interesting idea. I'd like to see more of this in the future. Large news orgs only existed before because of the necessity of combining resources. These days I bet you can do the same thing with only a couple of people or even solo given the advent of high technology.
my_first_acct 8y ago
> For all these reasons, I have got rid of my NYT & WaPo subscription to FT now and I can't be happier. I think you have a typo. Are you saying that you switched to FT (Financial Times), or that you got rid of the FT as well? Anyway, if you are a US-based reader, one way to avoid some of the bias and noise is to subscribe to a non-US paper. You don't have reporters and columnists trying to sway voters, because that's not who the audience is. Plus you might discover that interesting events do take place outside of the US. (And uninteresting events. Brexit seems like it should be interesting, but all the daily political ins and outs are, in my non-UK view, a bit tedious...)
- scottLobster 8y ago
  Sadly non-US sources incur the bias of however said source feels about the US. I've seen the BBC home page highlight more random shootings than the actual US mainstream media. And in my experience they'll keep them on the front page longer than CNN when reporting on the same one. It could just be the page I'm being presented via cookie-stored history or whatever, but that seems unlikely as I hardly ever click on said stories. Unfortunately it seems the only way to effectively reduce bias is to go straight to the primary source and judge for yourself, which is time-consuming.
  - Tomte 8y ago
    And what makes you so sure that the BBC's handling of those stories isn't the correct one? Your personal bias, of course. We see in this thread many people who condemn newspapers because they report differently than they themselves would, and then have the gall to call that "bias".
    - smsm42 8y ago
      The problem is not that they report differently, but that they fixate on a particular part of the whole picture, and emphasize it beyond all proportion, while neglecting other parts of the picture. It's like if you asked somebody to describe an elephant for you and they'd spend 99% of the time on its tail, describing it in a minute detail up to each hair on its end, and then spending only a couple of words on the rest of the animal - would you be able to adequately imagine what an elephant look like? You probably would think it's like some hairy snake or something :) That's the kind of coverage some biased news outlets provide.
ssnistfajen 8y ago
NYT's feature stories often seamlessly weave in certain choices of words that reflect the author's personal bias/ignorance. It's like enjoying a decent dessert then suddenly chewing on a piece of fingernail in it. Even WSJ doesn't really have this problem.
- RhysU 8y ago
  The WSJ pleasantly keeps its editorial content on the editorial pages. The NYT thinks all pages are editorial pages. Note this is different from choosing what to print. Both papers do that.
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    A very long time ago, I used to enjoy reading The Times (British newspaper) for exactly that reason. It was a very thin newspaper with 1 page of editorials and virtually no fluff sections (like leisure, travel,etc). Just news. I haven't seen the print paper in a very long time, but I go to their website and see the following headlines: Sunday Times journalist was murdered by Assad, Bitter split on assisted dying hits Royal College of Physicians, Snow Alert as Britain stuck in deep freeze, Killer driver law a farce - says Olympic star, Labour MPs branded cowards for 'selling votes' to help May's deal, Job interviewer 'was like abusive ex', Giving Statins to older people could save 8000 lives a year, Times Christmas appeal attracts record donations, Improve or face closure - Steiner schools warned, Woman reunited with train driver who stopped her killing herself. Where is the news? Virtually every headline is either exaggerated or clickbait or both. The article on the killing of the journalist is at least news worthy, but the headline is way over the top -- "US court determines Assad regime liable in journalist killing" would be much more neutral. There is a debate on assisted dying in the Royal College, but when has there not been? What's this about? It might snow in Britain. In February. Wow. "Killer driver law"... obviously a story, but obviously not unbiased... The rest of it is fodder for the tabloids. What the heck happened to the newspaper? The Times is one of the oldest and most respected newspapers in the world. And while it has always been biased (as they all are), it has an amazing reputation for journalism since the latter half of the 1700s! But people don't want news. They want shock and awe. It drives me crazy.
nailer 8y ago
> It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consistently. Example: Washington Post pushed the "Covington boys surround and intimidate native man" narrative that's been completely shattered by about 200 hours of video footage in the last week, and led to Twitter disabling the account that spread it, refutations (oddly enough from the NYT) and various apologies from those who came after the child on question.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  Example: The narrative in many news outlets that the Covington students were doing nothing wrong. Quote: "It’s not rape if you enjoy it." for example why that's not right.
  - nailer 8y ago
    Do you know what whataboutism is?
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      In many cases it's the same news organizations getting the story wrong both ways. It's a very interesting case study in bias. (and the power of PR firms) Also I don't see how it's whataboutism when I'm agreeing with the general thesis.
      - nailer 8y ago
        Cool. I thought you were saying that it's OK to lie about bad people but you're not. Totally support reporting on anything that happened (and yes a kid said this) Edit: it's not me modding you down, I think your second post was quite reasonable. I wish HN didn't downvote civil discussion like this.
- TarpitCarnivore 8y ago
  That story is a perfect example of perception of a situation and how people view it in many ways. While you say the narrative is wrong, many feel the narrative was right.
ashelmire 8y ago
> Bias: every single one of them have bias. The burden is on me to spot bias and think objectively. Why do I have to pay do that? At least present news as it is? This has always been and will always be the case. There is no possibility for objectivity; unless they compile every fact about the universe and present them all to you (quite a dull read), there’s inherently an editing process and selection of facts the writer thinks is important. You will, and should, always have to think for yourself. Even if news were presented in as dry a fashion as possible, you’d still have to think (or what’s the point?). And the facts will always be incomplete.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
rdschouw 8y ago
I moved from NYT to Economist for all of these reasons. NYT went berserk after the 2016 elections if you ask me. Now every article feels like an opinion piece.
- warp_factor 8y ago
  I agree with you but to be honest, 95% of the traditional medias decided to chose a camp after the 2016 elections. Since then It is extremely difficult to find a neutral news with clear facts. I distrust the NYT as much as I distrust Fox news.
  - chris_wot 8y ago
    Are you sure it is bias or justified criticism? From my POV, the "bias" always seems to me to be justifiable criticism of Trump. I mean, the man lies so frequently it's almost impossible to present "his side". I worry when I see these comments. They seem to make the same mistake that the BBC did when they presented equal time to climate change deniers as they did to climate change scientists.
    - glup 8y ago
      I think your latter point is one of the defining sociocultural challenges of our time. We have stressed openness and fairness in public discourse to the point of enabling actors who 1) seek to undermine that public discourse 2) hold positions that are really spurious in relation to the discussions we need to be having. E.g., the public should be arguing over how to respond to climate change ---especially the social and economic trade-offs that might be necessary--- rather than about its existence.
zakm 8y ago
That first point sounds a lot like you've conquered the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

sosborn 8y ago

> At least present news as it is? This is exceptionally difficult. My favorite example is choosing which photo to run for a story. Let's say a photographer take photos of Trump at an event. He has a photo of Trump smiling, a photo of Trump frowning, a photo of Trump scowling and a photo of Trump laughing. Which one is correct? They are all technically correct because they happened, but they all convey different tones, some of which will be completely inappropriate in the context of the story it runs with.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Exactly. There was a very famous image of the UK miner's strike, at the battle of Orgreave, 1984. Another photographer captured the same scene that day. They give a very different impression. Both images compared: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/06/photographers-scrum-winning-image-picture https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/06/photogr...
- Aeolun 8y ago
  I don’t get why people fall over themselves to point out the differences in these images. They both seems fairly neural to me. It’s just that one doesn’t give much context, it’s just a miner.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    One shows a miner and cop each grinning slightly. In the other, the same pair appear to be eyeballing each other. The second seems much more confrontational, to me anyway.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Another problem with that example, at least for me, is that it is not apparent who is looking at who. It's a two dimensional photo and the depth of field is enough that you can't really tell which cop the miner is looking at.
rjf72 8y ago
I think this is a common objection, but is it really so reasonable? Why show any image of ephemeral emotion at all? If you must include not strictly necessary multimedia, something that would be obvious would be a long range wide-angle picture of the entire venue. It's similar to when people try to claim that journalism without bias in writing is not possible. No, it's very possible. See articles of the New York Times from decades ago. This [1] is the first article on what would become "Watergate" from the NYTimes. The article does nothing but provide a detailed and objective recounting of all information available. There is no speculation, and I certainly can't tell anything about the author's biases, political leanings, etc. And keep in mind that this is a huge event - that is what would eventually lead to the impeachment of Richard Nixon. That tempered and impartial reporting, over decades, is what gave the New York Times the reputation that it's rapidly destroying today. Imagine if that article was written by the New New York Times of today. The problem of course is that that article is 'boring'. It's not going to drive a million clicks and be shared on social media sites getting those upvotes to get to the top which leads to even more clicks and even more money. Hacker News is definitely higher brow than most social media sites. Regardless, this [2] is a list of all submissions to this site from the New York Times. Go and see what gets upvoted and eventually makes its way to the front page (following are all 30+ point submissions from first page): - Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing (nytimes.com) - Opinion: A.I. Could Worsen Health Disparities (nytimes.com) - Locast, a Free App Streaming Network TV, Would Love to Get Sued (nytimes.com) - This is Your Brain Off Facebook - study offers glimpse of unplugging (nytimes.com) - Another Side of MeToo: Male Managers Fearful of Mentoring Women (nytimes.com) - Foxconn Is Reconsidering Plan for Manufacturing in Wisconsin (nytimes.com) And so on. It's frequently sensationalized and hyperbolic reporting that often even starts the ball rolling with a fake title. No, AI isn't going to worsen health disparities. No, no company wants to get sued. And no, male managers are not fearful of mentoring women. And it's only downhill from there. Even the articles that seem real, often quickly expose they're just click grabbers. For instance the "Foxconn is reconsidering plan" states. The lead paragraph states, "It was heralded a year and a half ago as the start of a Midwestern manufacturing renaissance: Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics behemoth, would build a $10 billion Wisconsin plant to make flat-screen televisions, creating 13,000 jobs. President Trump later called the project “the eighth wonder of the world.” Now that prospect looks less certain." Several paragraphs later you get, "Foxconn said that it remained committed to creating 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin and that it was “moving forward with plans to build an advanced manufacturing facility.”" In other words they are doing what they said they would do. This is not meaningful or good reporting. But it gets those clicks, and that's all that matters now a days. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/22/archives/4-being-hunted-in-inquiry-into-raid-on-democrats-4-hunted-in.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/22/archives/4-being-hunted-i... [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com
dingaling 8y ago
Use a montage of all four. That conveys the range of emotions of the event. The journalistic emphasis in selecting just one ( viewpoint, photo,lede ) is partly why the news is so broken.
mulmen 8y ago
Then only run a photo if it helps explain the facts, otherwise who needs it? If the photo supports the central truth of the piece then run it, otherwise you’re undermining yourself.

nonbel 8y ago

>"It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consistently." Doesn't the Washington post charge for articles with named sources? Almost every time I follow a link to them the source has been "someone familiar with the matter". However, one time I was surprised see there were actual names attached to the quotes, but they obscured most of the page and wanted me to pay a dollar to read it.

Novashi 8y ago

It's better following individual journalists via twitter or whatever instead of the organization itself for quality content for subjects you like to read about. Personally, I use the main site just to scan headlines and see if there's anything interesting. Everyone's biased, but I don't think I'm more of an objective thinker than a trained journalist who's taken classes to study it and write about it specifically. I don't believe many people can spot bias as well as they think they can just from a reporter's writing. And yeah, they aren't experts at everything they cover. It's not a scientific journal. They should use sources for that stuff and if they don't, you should move on. Remember they also don't write specifically for experts so details get left out.

api 8y ago
Maybe journalists should go out on their own via Patreon etc.?
- yowlingcat 8y ago
  I'm a fan of this idea. I've seen many a brand diluted after key journos leave and are replaced essentially by clickbait artists. The problem then is that it's tacit admission that the idea of branding in journalism is prima facie useless, but that feels somewhat natural. A large corporate publication is a large corporation first and foremost -- if it can't effectively create a product, then maybe I don't want that product from that large corporation. But, where I get worried is what happens to the public commons when the labor of large scale journalism which is out of the reach of a single journalist (or even a small confederation) resources wise gets lost. Would it be replaced by individuals or small federations that are as effective? I mean, I don't think effective journalism will die anytime soon on the whole. But, I wonder if pockets will go extinct, and I'm nervous about what that means. I still don't think I've really seen it all that much yet.
- warent 8y ago
  This is an interesting idea. I'd like to see more of this in the future. Large news orgs only existed before because of the necessity of combining resources. These days I bet you can do the same thing with only a couple of people or even solo given the advent of high technology.

my_first_acct 8y ago

> For all these reasons, I have got rid of my NYT & WaPo subscription to FT now and I can't be happier. I think you have a typo. Are you saying that you switched to FT (Financial Times), or that you got rid of the FT as well? Anyway, if you are a US-based reader, one way to avoid some of the bias and noise is to subscribe to a non-US paper. You don't have reporters and columnists trying to sway voters, because that's not who the audience is. Plus you might discover that interesting events do take place outside of the US. (And uninteresting events. Brexit seems like it should be interesting, but all the daily political ins and outs are, in my non-UK view, a bit tedious...)

scottLobster 8y ago
Sadly non-US sources incur the bias of however said source feels about the US. I've seen the BBC home page highlight more random shootings than the actual US mainstream media. And in my experience they'll keep them on the front page longer than CNN when reporting on the same one. It could just be the page I'm being presented via cookie-stored history or whatever, but that seems unlikely as I hardly ever click on said stories. Unfortunately it seems the only way to effectively reduce bias is to go straight to the primary source and judge for yourself, which is time-consuming.
- Tomte 8y ago
  And what makes you so sure that the BBC's handling of those stories isn't the correct one? Your personal bias, of course. We see in this thread many people who condemn newspapers because they report differently than they themselves would, and then have the gall to call that "bias".
  - smsm42 8y ago
    The problem is not that they report differently, but that they fixate on a particular part of the whole picture, and emphasize it beyond all proportion, while neglecting other parts of the picture. It's like if you asked somebody to describe an elephant for you and they'd spend 99% of the time on its tail, describing it in a minute detail up to each hair on its end, and then spending only a couple of words on the rest of the animal - would you be able to adequately imagine what an elephant look like? You probably would think it's like some hairy snake or something :) That's the kind of coverage some biased news outlets provide.

ssnistfajen 8y ago

NYT's feature stories often seamlessly weave in certain choices of words that reflect the author's personal bias/ignorance. It's like enjoying a decent dessert then suddenly chewing on a piece of fingernail in it. Even WSJ doesn't really have this problem.

RhysU 8y ago
The WSJ pleasantly keeps its editorial content on the editorial pages. The NYT thinks all pages are editorial pages. Note this is different from choosing what to print. Both papers do that.
- mikekchar 8y ago
  A very long time ago, I used to enjoy reading The Times (British newspaper) for exactly that reason. It was a very thin newspaper with 1 page of editorials and virtually no fluff sections (like leisure, travel,etc). Just news. I haven't seen the print paper in a very long time, but I go to their website and see the following headlines: Sunday Times journalist was murdered by Assad, Bitter split on assisted dying hits Royal College of Physicians, Snow Alert as Britain stuck in deep freeze, Killer driver law a farce - says Olympic star, Labour MPs branded cowards for 'selling votes' to help May's deal, Job interviewer 'was like abusive ex', Giving Statins to older people could save 8000 lives a year, Times Christmas appeal attracts record donations, Improve or face closure - Steiner schools warned, Woman reunited with train driver who stopped her killing herself. Where is the news? Virtually every headline is either exaggerated or clickbait or both. The article on the killing of the journalist is at least news worthy, but the headline is way over the top -- "US court determines Assad regime liable in journalist killing" would be much more neutral. There is a debate on assisted dying in the Royal College, but when has there not been? What's this about? It might snow in Britain. In February. Wow. "Killer driver law"... obviously a story, but obviously not unbiased... The rest of it is fodder for the tabloids. What the heck happened to the newspaper? The Times is one of the oldest and most respected newspapers in the world. And while it has always been biased (as they all are), it has an amazing reputation for journalism since the latter half of the 1700s! But people don't want news. They want shock and awe. It drives me crazy.

nailer 8y ago

> It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consistently. Example: Washington Post pushed the "Covington boys surround and intimidate native man" narrative that's been completely shattered by about 200 hours of video footage in the last week, and led to Twitter disabling the account that spread it, refutations (oddly enough from the NYT) and various apologies from those who came after the child on question.

Dylan16807 8y ago
Example: The narrative in many news outlets that the Covington students were doing nothing wrong. Quote: "It’s not rape if you enjoy it." for example why that's not right.
- nailer 8y ago
  Do you know what whataboutism is?
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    In many cases it's the same news organizations getting the story wrong both ways. It's a very interesting case study in bias. (and the power of PR firms) Also I don't see how it's whataboutism when I'm agreeing with the general thesis.
    - nailer 8y ago
      Cool. I thought you were saying that it's OK to lie about bad people but you're not. Totally support reporting on anything that happened (and yes a kid said this) Edit: it's not me modding you down, I think your second post was quite reasonable. I wish HN didn't downvote civil discussion like this.
TarpitCarnivore 8y ago
That story is a perfect example of perception of a situation and how people view it in many ways. While you say the narrative is wrong, many feel the narrative was right.

ashelmire 8y ago

> Bias: every single one of them have bias. The burden is on me to spot bias and think objectively. Why do I have to pay do that? At least present news as it is? This has always been and will always be the case. There is no possibility for objectivity; unless they compile every fact about the universe and present them all to you (quite a dull read), there’s inherently an editing process and selection of facts the writer thinks is important. You will, and should, always have to think for yourself. Even if news were presented in as dry a fashion as possible, you’d still have to think (or what’s the point?). And the facts will always be incomplete.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

rdschouw 8y ago

I moved from NYT to Economist for all of these reasons. NYT went berserk after the 2016 elections if you ask me. Now every article feels like an opinion piece.

warp_factor 8y ago
I agree with you but to be honest, 95% of the traditional medias decided to chose a camp after the 2016 elections. Since then It is extremely difficult to find a neutral news with clear facts. I distrust the NYT as much as I distrust Fox news.
- chris_wot 8y ago
  Are you sure it is bias or justified criticism? From my POV, the "bias" always seems to me to be justifiable criticism of Trump. I mean, the man lies so frequently it's almost impossible to present "his side". I worry when I see these comments. They seem to make the same mistake that the BBC did when they presented equal time to climate change deniers as they did to climate change scientists.
  - glup 8y ago
    I think your latter point is one of the defining sociocultural challenges of our time. We have stressed openness and fairness in public discourse to the point of enabling actors who 1) seek to undermine that public discourse 2) hold positions that are really spurious in relation to the discussions we need to be having. E.g., the public should be arguing over how to respond to climate change ---especially the social and economic trade-offs that might be necessary--- rather than about its existence.

zakm 8y ago

That first point sounds a lot like you've conquered the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect