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> The New York Times is trying to have it both ways. No, you need to think of the NYT (and any reputable newspaper) as being two separate entities: the newsroo

> The New York Times is trying to have it both ways. No, you need to think of the NYT (and any reputable newspaper) as being two separate entities: the newsroom and the advertising department, with a firewall between them [1]. You really don't want the newsroom killing a story because it makes the practices of the advertising department look bad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Journalism Also, demands that the people who expose bad privacy practices have perfect privacy records themselves is to demand for privacy advocates to kill themselves a circular firing squad [2], so no one wins but the advertisers and privacy-invaders. Personally, I want these exposés carried by the publications with the greatest numbers of readers, and I'm not going to gripe too much about practices of those publications as long as the message gets out. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/Circular_firing_squad https://en.wikipedia.org/w/Circular_firing_squad

trophycase 8y ago
So another pathological company with a personality disorder?
- d4mi3n 8y ago
  Organizations are not people. Characterizing then as such can be very misleading and lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions about why they behave the way they do and what they are likely to do in the future.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    The legal concept of corporate personhood kind of says otherwise
    - GavinMcG 8y ago
      The legal concept of corporate personhood demonstrates the issue.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Corporate personhood looks like a legal fiction of convenience to me, making contracts, accounting, and responsibilities/obligations etc. easier. Corporations can’t be called up for jury duty or conscripted into military service, they can’t vote, and they don’t need to exist for 18 years before being allowed to take out a line of credit.
    - d4mi3n 8y ago
      The law can be whatever it is, but that has no bearing on the nature of an organization outside of incentivizing certain kinds of behavior. A business is an organization that needs to make money to survive. Such an organization will find ways to make money, or cease to exist. No amount of law will change the nature of this dynamic.
  - ithkuil 8y ago
    Yes! And the same applies to countries as well.
dictum 8y ago
You're right; however, people (NYT subscribers and the general public) have the right to press the advertising department regarding the information and viewpoint presented by the newsroom. If the advertising department is the entity responsible for the private-browsing situation, when a reader says "The New York Times" in this context, it should be read as "The New York Times' advertising department". Ideally, the public editor (which the NYT no longer has) would do so, prompted by readers.
closedgrave 8y ago
> being two separate entities They aren't really though, they both make money on my privacy with relatively little consent. If that's the bad thing, I'm not sure I care that one of two parties says "sorry, I know this is bad" while still doing it. This could actually make them the worse of the two parties. > [1]. You really don't want the newsroom killing a story because it makes the practices of the advertising department look bad. this feels like bait, no one is asking for the newsroom to kill the story, they are asking for the newsroom to kill the practices of the advertising department. > Also, demands that the people who expose bad privacy practices have perfect privacy records themselves Its not a demand that they have perfect privacy records. Its kinda just pointing out that these authors have control of who they publish for and that its quite hollow to warn people about a poisonous medium in a way that draws more people through that medium. This isn't to say they are bad people, just that they aren't great for pointing out bad practices they take part in 10 years after society has already baked them in. I do warn that my opinion is colored by a belief that news orgs are responsible for a large part the of the normalization of our lack of privacy and current relationship with marketing. Which I see as sort of proto you-gotta-beleive-me methods. [edit for formatting]
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  >> being two separate entities > They aren't really though, they both make money on my privacy with relatively little consent. They are and they aren't: they're two separate parts of one business. The advertising department makes money for the owners, while the newsroom writes the stories (and is hopefully insulated enough from the interests of the owners and ad department that it can be honest). > this feels like bait, no one is asking for the newsroom to kill the story, they are asking for the newsroom to kill the practices of the advertising department. The newsroom doesn't really have that authority. The firewall is there to protect the newsroom from the advertising department, because the ad department is naturally more powerful (due to newspapers being businesses and the ad department being the part that actually collects much of the revenue). > Its kinda just pointing out that these authors have control of who they publish for and that its quite hollow to warn people about a poisonous medium in a way that draws more people through that medium. The world is more complicated than that. It's more poisonous to distract from the warnings just to point out they weren't published in some low-reach niche publication whose privacy practices satisfy some random internet commenter. If you actually care about privacy, you should celebrate these articles because they might reach a wide-enough audience to actually cause real action to fix the problems.
basetop 8y ago
That's an idealized but incorrect version of the news industry. We know that news companies work with PR firms to publish ads as articles. The "suit" PR that is famous here. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html We also know that news companies sometimes kill or refuse to cover sensitive stories that might reflect poorly on their benefactors or their politics. We know that the news companies attack social media as being toxic while demanding preferential treatment on the platforms they say are evil. I don't think we should view anything industry or government with rose colored glasses. The forces of money and corruption are felt just as much in the news industry as it is in every other industry and government. But I agree with you that as long as the message gets out, it is a net benefit to society. It is better The NYTimes exposes privacy concerns even though they themselves violate their customers privacy. We don't live in an ideal world so we should hold everyone to an unattainable ideal standard.

trophycase 8y ago

So another pathological company with a personality disorder?

d4mi3n 8y ago
Organizations are not people. Characterizing then as such can be very misleading and lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions about why they behave the way they do and what they are likely to do in the future.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  The legal concept of corporate personhood kind of says otherwise
  - GavinMcG 8y ago
    The legal concept of corporate personhood demonstrates the issue.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Corporate personhood looks like a legal fiction of convenience to me, making contracts, accounting, and responsibilities/obligations etc. easier. Corporations can’t be called up for jury duty or conscripted into military service, they can’t vote, and they don’t need to exist for 18 years before being allowed to take out a line of credit.
  - d4mi3n 8y ago
    The law can be whatever it is, but that has no bearing on the nature of an organization outside of incentivizing certain kinds of behavior. A business is an organization that needs to make money to survive. Such an organization will find ways to make money, or cease to exist. No amount of law will change the nature of this dynamic.
- ithkuil 8y ago
  Yes! And the same applies to countries as well.

dictum 8y ago

You're right; however, people (NYT subscribers and the general public) have the right to press the advertising department regarding the information and viewpoint presented by the newsroom. If the advertising department is the entity responsible for the private-browsing situation, when a reader says "The New York Times" in this context, it should be read as "The New York Times' advertising department". Ideally, the public editor (which the NYT no longer has) would do so, prompted by readers.

closedgrave 8y ago

> being two separate entities They aren't really though, they both make money on my privacy with relatively little consent. If that's the bad thing, I'm not sure I care that one of two parties says "sorry, I know this is bad" while still doing it. This could actually make them the worse of the two parties. > [1]. You really don't want the newsroom killing a story because it makes the practices of the advertising department look bad. this feels like bait, no one is asking for the newsroom to kill the story, they are asking for the newsroom to kill the practices of the advertising department. > Also, demands that the people who expose bad privacy practices have perfect privacy records themselves Its not a demand that they have perfect privacy records. Its kinda just pointing out that these authors have control of who they publish for and that its quite hollow to warn people about a poisonous medium in a way that draws more people through that medium. This isn't to say they are bad people, just that they aren't great for pointing out bad practices they take part in 10 years after society has already baked them in. I do warn that my opinion is colored by a belief that news orgs are responsible for a large part the of the normalization of our lack of privacy and current relationship with marketing. Which I see as sort of proto you-gotta-beleive-me methods. [edit for formatting]

CharlesColeman 8y ago
>> being two separate entities > They aren't really though, they both make money on my privacy with relatively little consent. They are and they aren't: they're two separate parts of one business. The advertising department makes money for the owners, while the newsroom writes the stories (and is hopefully insulated enough from the interests of the owners and ad department that it can be honest). > this feels like bait, no one is asking for the newsroom to kill the story, they are asking for the newsroom to kill the practices of the advertising department. The newsroom doesn't really have that authority. The firewall is there to protect the newsroom from the advertising department, because the ad department is naturally more powerful (due to newspapers being businesses and the ad department being the part that actually collects much of the revenue). > Its kinda just pointing out that these authors have control of who they publish for and that its quite hollow to warn people about a poisonous medium in a way that draws more people through that medium. The world is more complicated than that. It's more poisonous to distract from the warnings just to point out they weren't published in some low-reach niche publication whose privacy practices satisfy some random internet commenter. If you actually care about privacy, you should celebrate these articles because they might reach a wide-enough audience to actually cause real action to fix the problems.

basetop 8y ago

That's an idealized but incorrect version of the news industry. We know that news companies work with PR firms to publish ads as articles. The "suit" PR that is famous here. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html We also know that news companies sometimes kill or refuse to cover sensitive stories that might reflect poorly on their benefactors or their politics. We know that the news companies attack social media as being toxic while demanding preferential treatment on the platforms they say are evil. I don't think we should view anything industry or government with rose colored glasses. The forces of money and corruption are felt just as much in the news industry as it is in every other industry and government. But I agree with you that as long as the message gets out, it is a net benefit to society. It is better The NYTimes exposes privacy concerns even though they themselves violate their customers privacy. We don't live in an ideal world so we should hold everyone to an unattainable ideal standard.