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I think it's worth addressing this head-on even though you're getting downvoted presumably for being off-topic. In terms of US-based journalism, the industry h
by dougmwne 8y ago
I think it's worth addressing this head-on even though you're getting downvoted presumably for being off-topic.
In terms of US-based journalism, the industry has been gutted by ours truly. My observation is that there's hardly any traditional newsmedia content worthy of the HN front page and that the NYT is one of the very last daily papers worth reading along with the WSJ and Washington Post. The NYT has real journalists given the budget to do long form and investigative reporting and cultural commentary. That they would be one of the few general news outlets consistently producing content relevant to SV and tech should be no surprise.
If you'll forgive me for reading between the lines, you dislike that the NYT's particular bias is being over represented on HN. But all media has always been biased and the only treatment is a diversity of sources. Unfortunately there's no longer much diversity when it comes to high-quality reporting, so even if HN's audience would want to upvote a different viewpoint, the papers that used to publish those viewpoints have long since turned to clickbait.
- return0 8y ago> The NYT has real journalists paid journalists. HN has a habit of elevating paid journalists to ultimate arbiters of truth
- whyaduck 8y agoWhat are unpaid journalists? Do they have editors and publishers to answer to? Do they have journalistic standards to uphold? Do they answer to anything other than advertising revenue? I don't understand what you're actually contrasting professional journalism with.
- return0 8y agoi don't think the opposite of 'real' is 'unpaid'
- whyaduck 8y agoYou described them as "paid". The opposite of _that_ would be unpaid. But the larger issue is that I don't really know what you're comparing professional journalism to. Is there actual volunteer journalism that attempts to enforce editorial standards and faces consequences when they fail?
- sokoloff 8y agoIt seems like you’re the one who introduced “paid” vs “unpaid”. GP only claimed “real”; you introduced the strawman to which you now object.
- return0 8y agoi did not mention unpaid
- nshepperd 8y agoThey're not constrasting paid journalists with unpaid journalists, they're pointing out that NYT's journalists being paid doesn't necessarily make them "real".
- whyaduck 8y agoReal vs. fake? Paid vs. unpaid? NYT vs. ??? I feel like I need a semiotics text to figure out what's actually being implied here.
- nshepperd 8y agoIt doesn't seem that complicated to me... Someone described the NYT's journalists as "real" journalists and return0 took issue with that, saying that they're (just) "paid" journalists. The suggestion is that whether what they do is "real journalism" or not (and whether, in return0's words, they should be considered "arbiters of truth") is determined by factors beyond simply having a budget.[1] Ie. Being paid for it is an insufficient condition for "real journalism", though it may or may not be a necessary one. [1]. And I suppose it is implied that the NYT doesn't (always?) meet those factors.
- whyaduck 8y agoThis reads like an explanation to a sample question on a standardized test. This isn't a formal debate and no one gets points for logically correct but empty observations. I still don't know what the specific alternative to "paid journalists" is. I don't need a random HN commenter to tell me that there are humans in newsrooms and sometimes they display bias, make mistakes, or even lie on purpose. But injecting comments like the original don't actually add anything to the conversation other than a generalized paranoia. If return0 has specific complaints, they should articulate them.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]