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This is stupid. The NY Times, as a business, wasn't a subject of the article. It's not a competition between a media company and a shipping company. It's a pie

by CPLX 7y ago

This is stupid. The NY Times, as a business, wasn't a subject of the article. It's not a competition between a media company and a shipping company. It's a piece of journalism. Either that journalism is accurate or it isn't. If it's wrong they should issue a correction, or review how it could be misleading or slanted and offer an alternate perspective. If it's correct they should stand by it. In no event does the writing of a journalist, edited by an editor, have anything to do with the NY Times company as a business institution. To claim otherwise is to buy into a frame that makes literally no sense here. I see why Fedex is doing it, it's apparently effective, even with the analytically sophisticated HN crowd. But this response is nonsense, it's almost a complete non-sequitur. If I were the writer or editor of the story I'd tell Fedex to get bent. And if I were the publisher I'd patiently explain, yet again, the concept of independent journalism.

panarky 7y ago
The FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. It seems very carefully worded, probably by a team of attorneys, to be technically true but grossly misleading. The tell is that FedEx calls the NYT article "factually incorrect" but never states exactly what assertions they dispute. It's as if they want the reader and the media to infer that FedEx actually did pay taxes on billions in profit, or that FedEx actually did increase their investments as the phony rationale for the tax cut promised. But since FedEx never actually says any of that, and instead just tries to infer it through clever wording, I'm going to trust NYT over this corporate snow job. When FedEx twists the argument to accuse the NYT of also not increasing their capital investments, the whole thing reeks of Facebook's disinfo campaign to "deny and deflect" fundamentally factual reporting.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  > The FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. This coincidentally also describes the NYTs piece which was also misleading, bordering on activism.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    In what way is it "misleading?" Seems like that's just repeating FedEx's unsubstantiated talking points.
  - blackrobot 7y ago
    What was misleading about the NYT piece?
  - akhosravian 7y ago
    Can you give some specific examples of things in the NYT piece that are misleading?
    - drak0n1c 7y ago
      The portrayal of capital investment being essentially zero is claimed to be misleading in the linked article.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        That is not a claim that was made. From the NYT article: > As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017. edit: Note: the parent commenter ninja-edited in the word "essentially" after I made this comment.
        drak0n1c 7y ago
        That framing is incredibly negative and obviously communicates it as "near zero" to the passing reader. Vague terminology of "less than projected" is the way they choose to frame it in the first sentence, and "spent even less in the next year" is the next sentence. NYT then chooses to completely omit the actual numerical figures of FedEx's investments, and instead highlights figures in the unrelated category of dividend payments (which were actually smaller than recent capital expenditures). I'd say that paragraph you quoted showcases the misleading writing very nicely.
- snambi 7y ago
  Hey NYTimes is also a corporation. IMHO, NYT cannot hide under journalism, and write fakenews all the time.
  - Analemma_ 7y ago
    You're about the twentieth person on this thread to insist that the NYT article is "fake news" but not provide any specific assertions about what is wrong.
- megiddo 7y ago
  Adjusting depreciation schedules are very typical tax strategies for businesses. Hell, I've done this for a one-man shop making less than $100k in a year. Depreciation strategies are an important part of cash-flow management for capital-intensive industries. Otherwise, it's almost impossible to start a factory or other large industrial firm. Cash flow is marginal compared to capital, but the tax rate is proportional to capital. You can easily be put in a situation where the tax burden exceeds the free cash of the business. I guess I'm not clear on what detail you think is missing. To me, their objections and actions are very clearly worded. I believe they pointed out that they regularly pay taxes, that the tax rate for that year was due to accelerating depreciation, and the NYT is engaged in the same accounting strategies. Accelerating depreciation has no net tax benefit over the full depreciation period. If the depreciation period is 10 years, but they accelerate in the first year, their net tax rate is the same over the 10 years as if they did not accelerate. They are simply moving their tax burden to the future. They also took other current expenses to charge their pension, but again, these are expenses that they cannot take in the future - they will pay additional tax on future incomes. The net is the same.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    Does it have no tax benefit assuming constant profits, or no tax benefit no matter what? Can you extract a net benefit by just accelerating some depreciation whenever you have a particularly profitable year?
  - aantix 7y ago
    Thank you for pointing out the details. It’s quite clear that some people’s model of taxes comes from doing Turbo Tax, year after year. Even Bernie Sanders does his own taxes. A man that wants to set the tax agenda on multinational corporations. Just because a company pays zero taxes doesn’t mean that there was any thing fraudulent going on. If there’s zero taxes there’s probably incentives, depreciating assets as you described, losses carried forward, the corporate tax cut, employee stock compensation.
Consultant32452 7y ago
The problem is it isn't journalism, it's activism. People say corporate media is biased, but I think that falls short. It's not simply biased, it has an agenda. "Company follows tax laws" is not news. Whatever any individual company pays in taxes is not news unless there's criminal fraud of some sort. So it's completely fair to call them out in this way.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  > The problem is it isn't journalism, it's activism. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Journalists have an ethical responsibility to be honest, but outside of that there's nothing to say that a journalist cannot have a set of beliefs that shape their worldview. In this case you aren't really accusing the NYT of being dishonest, you're saying that their honest opinion isn't ok because you have a different opinion (or that a journalist has to be void of any opinions at all). I'd just suggest you skip either that author's work or the NYT in general then, and find something more aligned to your own worldview. As to the accusation it is "activism?" I mean, yeah, I guess. Arguing that something, anything, is wrong is activism depending on your definitions but since we haven't established that activism is a bad thing or wrong, that's not really problematic in and of itself.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    The difference between the NYT having an opinion and me having an opinion is that only the NYT is protected against lawsuits for libel with a special standard of “actual malice” by the contorted reasoning that anyone they chose to publish an article on must therefore be a public figure. IANAL, but a good example of this is the coverage of the Covington High School students.
    - matt4077 7y ago
      The actual malice standard was first defined in a case involving media (the NYT, as it happens), but it applies to anyone, including you.
lstroud 7y ago
Sounds like they just want equal footing for responding to accusations. I hope it happens. It would be entertaining.
- crazygringo 7y ago
  FedEx is a $40 billion company -- eight times the size of the NYT. They already have equal footing, and are responding right now, which is why we're reading about it. Only with zero specifics of what they claim the NYT is inaccurate on. So... neither substantive nor particularly entertaining. :(
  - pcroh 7y ago
    How many people will read the NYT article compared to this blog post? They don't have equal footing.
    - not2b 7y ago
      But the blog post does not specify how the original article is factually incorrect. So why should anyone pay attention to it? If there are specific errors, let Fedex point them out and ask for specific corrections.
      - pcroh 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor
    - crazygringo 7y ago
      They can take out ads in national newspapers if they want. Major companies and other institutions run full-page ads with “A letter to...” whenever they need to. It’s not going to make a dent in their budget. Any notion that a $40B company somehow is unable to make itself heard is ludicrous. This isn’t a mom-and-pop operation. EDIT: to replies claiming it's not the same or is blackmail because it requires FedEx to spend money to respond... you do realize that it costs the NYT over $300 million/yr to produce, distribute and market their news product? (Yes, the NYT spends money on ads to get more people to read its stuff, too.) At a corporate level trying to reach millions of people, speech isn't free for anyone. Distribution costs money, for everyone. This isn't blackmail (sheesh), it's how public dialog between companies works period. And my original point stands: both sides are mega-companies that have plenty of money to promote whatever stories they want.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rdiddly 7y ago
Do we need to be present in person to exchange ideas? Start the "debate" any time you want, Freddie, just by including any facts or substance whatsoever in your statement! Clearly more of a tantrum. Totally reminds me of "Meet me after school for a fight!"
- kirsebaer 7y ago
  Yes, the FedEx statement was so childish.
nostrademons 7y ago
It's an interesting example of the recent shift in public discourse from being focused on truth to being focused on power. All speech has both subjective emotive content ("power") and objective factual content ("truth"), and the interplay between them is part of what makes speech effective. In times of hegemony, though, the "power" content of speech is downplayed. Power relations within society are taken for granted, and it's pointless to challenge them, because the best case is that your words will be discounted as crazy and the worst case is that that power will be exercised against you, potentially with life-ending consequences. Think about speaking out against a totalitarian government, or being a communist during the McCarthy era. In times of multipolarity, the "truth" aspect of speech is downplayed, and discourse is all about power. Think of nationalism in the 1870s, or yellow journalism in the early 1900s (right as British hegemony was collapsing into the multipolar world that led up to WW1). Papers would publish plenty of stories that simply weren't true, but the point wasn't truth: it was to boost their circulation numbers and amass more power and influence in a world that was rapidly collapsing into a system of warring powers. Trump, SJWs, white nationalists, MRAs, cryptocurrency advocates, anti-vaxxers, Russian cyber-trolls, and Democratic Socialists are all other instances of this phenomena: they are small splinter groups vying for mindshare because they see that the existing power structure is collapsing and will leave behind a vacuum, and they all distort the "truth" (which was always distorted before by power relations, but not to this extent) in a bid to gain more followers. Some corporations are catching on, and this FedEx statement is an example of this: note that they posted it as an open letter, on their own company blog, rather than as a press release. They don't care whether the NYTimes actually accepts their debate or not, they want to make the public statement to undermine the legitimacy of the NYTimes as a source of truth itself.
- tracer4201 7y ago
  This is a well written comment, and I saw that because I’m finding it difficult to disagree with what’s written here. This comment is also heavily downvoted, at least when I was replying. Im open to hearing an alternative argument instead of just folks downvoting. What do you think is inaccurate or misleading here?
- gwright 7y ago
philwelch 7y ago
The writing of a journalist employed by the NYT, edited by an editor employed by the NYT, for publication in a newspaper sold by the NYT for profit is every bit as much a commercial activity as FedEx delivering packages. In this case the NYT has a target market that is reflexively skeptical of businesses and commercial activity so it is useful for them to obscure what they are doing. The fact remains that the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit, no different from FedEx. Right now they are in the business of throwing stones at other businesses; it’s perfectly appropriate to respond to that by pointing out that the NYT lives in a glass house.
- networkimprov 7y ago
  >the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit, no different from FedEx That is incorrect, albeit precisely what FedEx (and many other subjects of investigative journalism) would like us to believe. When "all news is fake news" becomes widespread public perception, that public is doomed to authoritarian rule, most likely by leaders backed by the business elite.
  - wolco 7y ago
    I believe the charge was against mainstream media not all news.
  - zepto 7y ago
    How is incorrect that the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit?
    - hef19898 7y ago
      But that's a strawman argument. By artificially setting the bar that high for entities like the NYT to be allowed to publish stories like that you make it impossible to publish any journalistic piece at all. And that higj bar allows everybody else to just past everything underneath it. A slippery slope if you ask me.
      - 7y ago
corporate_shi11 7y ago
It's naive to think the NY Times as an entity is not ultimately responsible for all writing its journalists do. Management hires journalists whose agenda and ideals match their own. Management sets the editorial vision both explicitly and implicitly. This is how all media organizations work. It's completely legitimate to hold NY Times management accountable here.
avocado4 7y ago
> even with the analytically sophisticated HN crowd Do you have a source for this bold statement?
Spooky23 7y ago
People have learned from the current political environment that it is trivial to manipulate the public zeitgeist by howling like a demented monkey.
Dan_JiuJitsu 7y ago
The NYT is a business supported by employing authors to write articles and sell advertisements to people who want to read those articles. To claim that NYT as a business has nothing at all to do with it's product, that it payed to create, curate and publish is clearly nonsense.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  It's not clearly nonsense if you ever worked in journalism. That's like all those conspiracy theories about anti-virus companies putting out viruses to boost sales. /Worked in journalism.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cascom 7y ago
We all know that one can make statements that while factually correct, can be misleading, distorting, or unsound in some other way. (e.g. The statement "the divorce rate is highly correlated to the per capita consumption of margarine" is factually true [1] - but left on its own might leave people with the impression one has to do with the other) [1] http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations The same is true here - leaving out the context that FedEx has spent ~$50b on capex in the past 10 years and recognized $8.2b of income tax expense in the same 10 year period (which is not all US fedral, and might not have been the amount remitted over that period) changes the tone of the story. Additionally, really all that is happening is that tax collections go down a bunch in one year and up for the following six years, the only gain is on time value of money)
buboard 7y ago
It's not like they took them to court or threaten them. They called them on a public debate.
mceoin 7y ago
> Either that journalism is accurate or it isn't. If it's wrong they should issue a correction, or review how it could be misleading or slanted and offer an alternate perspective. If it's correct they should stand by it. Why should a response or dialogue have to be in print? And why should a company's defense be limited to asynchronous communication? Debate is an accepted and effective dispute resolution framework, especially in areas where truth or fairness may be nuanced and is far from black and white. (Tax policy is a perfect example that is both nebulous and politically charged.) As arbiters and outers of wrongdoing, journalists play a critical role in speaking truth to power and holding parties to account. This does not absolve them from publicly defending their positions, or being challenged on them, however. FedEx is well within their rights in responding in whatever manner they see fit, same as NYT can agree or reject the challenge. Debate certainly ups the ante for all involved and is an interesting escalation tactic in the current media landscape.

by CPLX 7y ago

panarky 7y ago

The FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. It seems very carefully worded, probably by a team of attorneys, to be technically true but grossly misleading. The tell is that FedEx calls the NYT article "factually incorrect" but never states exactly what assertions they dispute. It's as if they want the reader and the media to infer that FedEx actually did pay taxes on billions in profit, or that FedEx actually did increase their investments as the phony rationale for the tax cut promised. But since FedEx never actually says any of that, and instead just tries to infer it through clever wording, I'm going to trust NYT over this corporate snow job. When FedEx twists the argument to accuse the NYT of also not increasing their capital investments, the whole thing reeks of Facebook's disinfo campaign to "deny and deflect" fundamentally factual reporting.

partiallypro 7y ago
> The FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. This coincidentally also describes the NYTs piece which was also misleading, bordering on activism.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  In what way is it "misleading?" Seems like that's just repeating FedEx's unsubstantiated talking points.
- blackrobot 7y ago
  What was misleading about the NYT piece?
- akhosravian 7y ago
  Can you give some specific examples of things in the NYT piece that are misleading?
  - drak0n1c 7y ago
    The portrayal of capital investment being essentially zero is claimed to be misleading in the linked article.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      That is not a claim that was made. From the NYT article: > As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017. edit: Note: the parent commenter ninja-edited in the word "essentially" after I made this comment.
      - drak0n1c 7y ago
        That framing is incredibly negative and obviously communicates it as "near zero" to the passing reader. Vague terminology of "less than projected" is the way they choose to frame it in the first sentence, and "spent even less in the next year" is the next sentence. NYT then chooses to completely omit the actual numerical figures of FedEx's investments, and instead highlights figures in the unrelated category of dividend payments (which were actually smaller than recent capital expenditures). I'd say that paragraph you quoted showcases the misleading writing very nicely.
snambi 7y ago
Hey NYTimes is also a corporation. IMHO, NYT cannot hide under journalism, and write fakenews all the time.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  You're about the twentieth person on this thread to insist that the NYT article is "fake news" but not provide any specific assertions about what is wrong.
megiddo 7y ago
Adjusting depreciation schedules are very typical tax strategies for businesses. Hell, I've done this for a one-man shop making less than $100k in a year. Depreciation strategies are an important part of cash-flow management for capital-intensive industries. Otherwise, it's almost impossible to start a factory or other large industrial firm. Cash flow is marginal compared to capital, but the tax rate is proportional to capital. You can easily be put in a situation where the tax burden exceeds the free cash of the business. I guess I'm not clear on what detail you think is missing. To me, their objections and actions are very clearly worded. I believe they pointed out that they regularly pay taxes, that the tax rate for that year was due to accelerating depreciation, and the NYT is engaged in the same accounting strategies. Accelerating depreciation has no net tax benefit over the full depreciation period. If the depreciation period is 10 years, but they accelerate in the first year, their net tax rate is the same over the 10 years as if they did not accelerate. They are simply moving their tax burden to the future. They also took other current expenses to charge their pension, but again, these are expenses that they cannot take in the future - they will pay additional tax on future incomes. The net is the same.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Does it have no tax benefit assuming constant profits, or no tax benefit no matter what? Can you extract a net benefit by just accelerating some depreciation whenever you have a particularly profitable year?
- aantix 7y ago
  Thank you for pointing out the details. It’s quite clear that some people’s model of taxes comes from doing Turbo Tax, year after year. Even Bernie Sanders does his own taxes. A man that wants to set the tax agenda on multinational corporations. Just because a company pays zero taxes doesn’t mean that there was any thing fraudulent going on. If there’s zero taxes there’s probably incentives, depreciating assets as you described, losses carried forward, the corporate tax cut, employee stock compensation.

Consultant32452 7y ago

The problem is it isn't journalism, it's activism. People say corporate media is biased, but I think that falls short. It's not simply biased, it has an agenda. "Company follows tax laws" is not news. Whatever any individual company pays in taxes is not news unless there's criminal fraud of some sort. So it's completely fair to call them out in this way.

Someone1234 7y ago
> The problem is it isn't journalism, it's activism. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Journalists have an ethical responsibility to be honest, but outside of that there's nothing to say that a journalist cannot have a set of beliefs that shape their worldview. In this case you aren't really accusing the NYT of being dishonest, you're saying that their honest opinion isn't ok because you have a different opinion (or that a journalist has to be void of any opinions at all). I'd just suggest you skip either that author's work or the NYT in general then, and find something more aligned to your own worldview. As to the accusation it is "activism?" I mean, yeah, I guess. Arguing that something, anything, is wrong is activism depending on your definitions but since we haven't established that activism is a bad thing or wrong, that's not really problematic in and of itself.
- zaroth 7y ago
  The difference between the NYT having an opinion and me having an opinion is that only the NYT is protected against lawsuits for libel with a special standard of “actual malice” by the contorted reasoning that anyone they chose to publish an article on must therefore be a public figure. IANAL, but a good example of this is the coverage of the Covington High School students.
  - matt4077 7y ago
    The actual malice standard was first defined in a case involving media (the NYT, as it happens), but it applies to anyone, including you.

lstroud 7y ago

Sounds like they just want equal footing for responding to accusations. I hope it happens. It would be entertaining.

crazygringo 7y ago
FedEx is a $40 billion company -- eight times the size of the NYT. They already have equal footing, and are responding right now, which is why we're reading about it. Only with zero specifics of what they claim the NYT is inaccurate on. So... neither substantive nor particularly entertaining. :(
- pcroh 7y ago
  How many people will read the NYT article compared to this blog post? They don't have equal footing.
  - not2b 7y ago
    But the blog post does not specify how the original article is factually incorrect. So why should anyone pay attention to it? If there are specific errors, let Fedex point them out and ask for specific corrections.
    - pcroh 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor
  - crazygringo 7y ago
    They can take out ads in national newspapers if they want. Major companies and other institutions run full-page ads with “A letter to...” whenever they need to. It’s not going to make a dent in their budget. Any notion that a $40B company somehow is unable to make itself heard is ludicrous. This isn’t a mom-and-pop operation. EDIT: to replies claiming it's not the same or is blackmail because it requires FedEx to spend money to respond... you do realize that it costs the NYT over $300 million/yr to produce, distribute and market their news product? (Yes, the NYT spends money on ads to get more people to read its stuff, too.) At a corporate level trying to reach millions of people, speech isn't free for anyone. Distribution costs money, for everyone. This isn't blackmail (sheesh), it's how public dialog between companies works period. And my original point stands: both sides are mega-companies that have plenty of money to promote whatever stories they want.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rdiddly 7y ago

Do we need to be present in person to exchange ideas? Start the "debate" any time you want, Freddie, just by including any facts or substance whatsoever in your statement! Clearly more of a tantrum. Totally reminds me of "Meet me after school for a fight!"

kirsebaer 7y ago
Yes, the FedEx statement was so childish.

nostrademons 7y ago

It's an interesting example of the recent shift in public discourse from being focused on truth to being focused on power. All speech has both subjective emotive content ("power") and objective factual content ("truth"), and the interplay between them is part of what makes speech effective. In times of hegemony, though, the "power" content of speech is downplayed. Power relations within society are taken for granted, and it's pointless to challenge them, because the best case is that your words will be discounted as crazy and the worst case is that that power will be exercised against you, potentially with life-ending consequences. Think about speaking out against a totalitarian government, or being a communist during the McCarthy era. In times of multipolarity, the "truth" aspect of speech is downplayed, and discourse is all about power. Think of nationalism in the 1870s, or yellow journalism in the early 1900s (right as British hegemony was collapsing into the multipolar world that led up to WW1). Papers would publish plenty of stories that simply weren't true, but the point wasn't truth: it was to boost their circulation numbers and amass more power and influence in a world that was rapidly collapsing into a system of warring powers. Trump, SJWs, white nationalists, MRAs, cryptocurrency advocates, anti-vaxxers, Russian cyber-trolls, and Democratic Socialists are all other instances of this phenomena: they are small splinter groups vying for mindshare because they see that the existing power structure is collapsing and will leave behind a vacuum, and they all distort the "truth" (which was always distorted before by power relations, but not to this extent) in a bid to gain more followers. Some corporations are catching on, and this FedEx statement is an example of this: note that they posted it as an open letter, on their own company blog, rather than as a press release. They don't care whether the NYTimes actually accepts their debate or not, they want to make the public statement to undermine the legitimacy of the NYTimes as a source of truth itself.

tracer4201 7y ago
This is a well written comment, and I saw that because I’m finding it difficult to disagree with what’s written here. This comment is also heavily downvoted, at least when I was replying. Im open to hearing an alternative argument instead of just folks downvoting. What do you think is inaccurate or misleading here?
gwright 7y ago

philwelch 7y ago

The writing of a journalist employed by the NYT, edited by an editor employed by the NYT, for publication in a newspaper sold by the NYT for profit is every bit as much a commercial activity as FedEx delivering packages. In this case the NYT has a target market that is reflexively skeptical of businesses and commercial activity so it is useful for them to obscure what they are doing. The fact remains that the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit, no different from FedEx. Right now they are in the business of throwing stones at other businesses; it’s perfectly appropriate to respond to that by pointing out that the NYT lives in a glass house.

networkimprov 7y ago
>the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit, no different from FedEx That is incorrect, albeit precisely what FedEx (and many other subjects of investigative journalism) would like us to believe. When "all news is fake news" becomes widespread public perception, that public is doomed to authoritarian rule, most likely by leaders backed by the business elite.
- wolco 7y ago
  I believe the charge was against mainstream media not all news.
- zepto 7y ago
  How is incorrect that the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit?
  - hef19898 7y ago
    But that's a strawman argument. By artificially setting the bar that high for entities like the NYT to be allowed to publish stories like that you make it impossible to publish any journalistic piece at all. And that higj bar allows everybody else to just past everything underneath it. A slippery slope if you ask me.
    - 7y ago

corporate_shi11 7y ago

It's naive to think the NY Times as an entity is not ultimately responsible for all writing its journalists do. Management hires journalists whose agenda and ideals match their own. Management sets the editorial vision both explicitly and implicitly. This is how all media organizations work. It's completely legitimate to hold NY Times management accountable here.

avocado4 7y ago

> even with the analytically sophisticated HN crowd Do you have a source for this bold statement?

Spooky23 7y ago

People have learned from the current political environment that it is trivial to manipulate the public zeitgeist by howling like a demented monkey.

Dan_JiuJitsu 7y ago

The NYT is a business supported by employing authors to write articles and sell advertisements to people who want to read those articles. To claim that NYT as a business has nothing at all to do with it's product, that it payed to create, curate and publish is clearly nonsense.

reaperducer 7y ago
It's not clearly nonsense if you ever worked in journalism. That's like all those conspiracy theories about anti-virus companies putting out viruses to boost sales. /Worked in journalism.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

cascom 7y ago

We all know that one can make statements that while factually correct, can be misleading, distorting, or unsound in some other way. (e.g. The statement "the divorce rate is highly correlated to the per capita consumption of margarine" is factually true [1] - but left on its own might leave people with the impression one has to do with the other) [1] http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations The same is true here - leaving out the context that FedEx has spent ~$50b on capex in the past 10 years and recognized $8.2b of income tax expense in the same 10 year period (which is not all US fedral, and might not have been the amount remitted over that period) changes the tone of the story. Additionally, really all that is happening is that tax collections go down a bunch in one year and up for the following six years, the only gain is on time value of money)

buboard 7y ago

It's not like they took them to court or threaten them. They called them on a public debate.

mceoin 7y ago

> Either that journalism is accurate or it isn't. If it's wrong they should issue a correction, or review how it could be misleading or slanted and offer an alternate perspective. If it's correct they should stand by it. Why should a response or dialogue have to be in print? And why should a company's defense be limited to asynchronous communication? Debate is an accepted and effective dispute resolution framework, especially in areas where truth or fairness may be nuanced and is far from black and white. (Tax policy is a perfect example that is both nebulous and politically charged.) As arbiters and outers of wrongdoing, journalists play a critical role in speaking truth to power and holding parties to account. This does not absolve them from publicly defending their positions, or being challenged on them, however. FedEx is well within their rights in responding in whatever manner they see fit, same as NYT can agree or reject the challenge. Debate certainly ups the ante for all involved and is an interesting escalation tactic in the current media landscape.