4 ms·

Yes, there should be a threshold. Otherwise the newspaper is gonna be full of articles which are not interesting at all to the general population.

onion2k 7y ago
There should be editorial judgement about whether or not something is worth publishing. That is not, and shouldn't be, a quantitative threshold.
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  An editorial judgement however absolutely should take quantities into account. What were discussing here is whether the editor's judgement was poor and not whether there is some magical, exact "this is newsworthy" criterion.
- degenerate 7y ago
  That editorial judgement is exactly why most articles with no actual content are published in the first place - "We need to beef up this headline so it reaches more people" Correct headline would have been "A handful of Fitbit users are..." but it wouldn't get clicks. The editors are to blame most of the time for doing a disservice to their readers.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    That's essentially what the article title ("some fitbit users") said before OP truncated it. Credit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21573658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21573658
  - yabadabadoes 7y ago
    So given that in most cases only the company has access to numbers and any multi-product company can choose not to reveal break down statistics.. I guess it's only positive pieces from now on? Google is free to release positive spin articles and try to provide numbers to fit that. I don't think they will hesitate to provide more stats than we otherwise would have seen unless it is so grim that they have no way to frame it.
- knzhou 7y ago
  There already is. In tech reporting, the criterion whether it can be fit into the pre-existing narrative of Big Tech being evil. There are similar numbers of people thanking Google for new features every day, but you won't hear about that.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > narrative of Big Tech being evil. Big Tech could stop that narrative by ceasing to do awful things.

onion2k 7y ago

There should be editorial judgement about whether or not something is worth publishing. That is not, and shouldn't be, a quantitative threshold.

diffeomorphism 7y ago
An editorial judgement however absolutely should take quantities into account. What were discussing here is whether the editor's judgement was poor and not whether there is some magical, exact "this is newsworthy" criterion.
degenerate 7y ago
That editorial judgement is exactly why most articles with no actual content are published in the first place - "We need to beef up this headline so it reaches more people" Correct headline would have been "A handful of Fitbit users are..." but it wouldn't get clicks. The editors are to blame most of the time for doing a disservice to their readers.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  That's essentially what the article title ("some fitbit users") said before OP truncated it. Credit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21573658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21573658
- yabadabadoes 7y ago
  So given that in most cases only the company has access to numbers and any multi-product company can choose not to reveal break down statistics.. I guess it's only positive pieces from now on? Google is free to release positive spin articles and try to provide numbers to fit that. I don't think they will hesitate to provide more stats than we otherwise would have seen unless it is so grim that they have no way to frame it.
knzhou 7y ago
There already is. In tech reporting, the criterion whether it can be fit into the pre-existing narrative of Big Tech being evil. There are similar numbers of people thanking Google for new features every day, but you won't hear about that.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > narrative of Big Tech being evil. Big Tech could stop that narrative by ceasing to do awful things.